Austin told me the way he saw it, “Metaphor helps us see the pattern.” in Same pattern; different name. It is difficult for us to comprehend the sum total of isolated information without some kind of pattern to mold the relationships of that information into.
This is similar to Schema the way Justin Sung talks about it. Understanding the whole of a topic and loosely how the subtopics may relate to one another is more important to our understanding of the topic than the isolated pieces.
While a schema may be built from the ground up, metaphor transfers patterns laterally to fit new information. It can act as a funnel for the more complex information so we understand what is happening by analogous comparison.
🔦 Examples:
Referring to political “pendulum” swings carries a ridiculous amount of information for a complex topic into a simple visualization.
In Learning happens in layers, the sculptor metaphor carries a pattern of holistically scanning a topic rather than diving into fine detail as an alternative way to learn.
🚩Contra: The danger of relying on metaphor. Metaphor levies shared experiences to condense complex ideas. Understand that some experiences may differ, some metaphors don’t transfer as well as we assume.