Mechanical and Hydraulic Metaphors 1

Response to aproposofwetsnow - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3YMhBOH9yQ

I would guess that whilst mechanical and hydraulic technology provides a source of metaphors (or more accurately enriches metaphors we already embody), electricity and the technology of the screen represents a break in this relationship. Our bodies, or more accurately our senses, operate at a scale in which mechanics and hydraulics are most immediately felt; lifting a cup or drinking a liquid are small experiments in embodied technology, and this embodiment gives these technologies a particular relevance in the structure of mind. Our minds, built from and integrated with the material of the sensorimotor system, might be said to be largely newtonian engines, constantly understanding the world through the building and modifying of pumps, flywheels, governers, and bridges, not only literally but also metaphorically, as when we use hydraulic or mechanical metaphors to talk of psychological states (repression, sublimation, pressure) or to imagine the working of the economy (leverage, liquidity). The development of technology which utilises the same physics as our senses probably allowed for the development of these metaphors through externalising existing embodied experience.

I'm not sure the same can be said of electricity however. Whilst it is undoubtedly true that our bodies function through the action of electochemical processes electricity does not appear within the horizon of the senses. We have no direct sensorimotor experience of electricity and only talk of it in metaphorical terms (flow, current, valve, etc); metaphors which are drawn from the mechanical and the hydraulic.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• aproposofwesnow
• Tom
• Darby
• metaphor
• mechanical
• hydraulic
• electrical
• electricity
• technology
• mind
• brain
• David
• Hubel
• cognition
• embodiment
• cognitive
• poetics
• consciousness

[DonQuixotedeKaw]

I really like these.

[conferencereport]

@DonQuixotedeKaw Thanks DK

[conferencereport]

@DonQuixotedeKaw Thanks DK

[conferencereport]

@raythetse I'm grateful for you comment though; in my video I was searching for the word like 'hydraulic' that meant the action of gasses and couldn't get it. Now it's in there, so many thanks.

[conferencereport]

@JonPaulDorn Electricity has been used metaphorically to stand in for concepts such as 'power' or 'liveness' or occasionally 'communication' but I don't think it's really the electricity that's being referred to, more its effects or uses.

[conferencereport]

@Yamikaiba123 They do, but I'm not convinced they are really talking about the electricity itself, more on those effects which do register on the senses, such as 'tingling', 'shock' etc.

[raythetse]

@conferencereport yeah, its not at all relevent to what the video is really about. Just a random thought that made it to the comment box. Although now that I think of it, it could also be gravity thats doing the work...

[conferencereport]

@raythetse I think you're right, although the same principle would apply.

[raythetse]

a straw is actually pneumatic i think. create a vacuum and the atmospheric air pressure affects motion in the liquid.

[Yamikaiba123]

People will often use electrical metaphors when referring to psychology and sociology.

[conferencereport]

@WiseMonkey888 Mr Google he say I.K. Brunel

[Nimzomyth68]

With enough leverage, could we tilt the whole world?