Surfaces and Essences: Analogy as the Fuel and Fire of Thinking

Notes

• [[January 5th, 2026]]
  • Interesting concept about abstraction that I didn’t think about before. For some abstraction, the meaning and interpretation is completely contextual.
    • One example is for #Coffee. “Let’s grab coffee”
      • Coffee_sub_4:
        • Here, it could mean from coffee to any lightweight meal to get together. Not necesairliy coffee
      • Coffee_sub_3:
        • Coffee means from grabbing not just coffee, as well as tea, other drinks etc.
      • Coffee_sub_2
        • Means coffee but different variations such as mocha, milk coffee, chocolate coffee, chai latte,
      • Coffee_sub_1
        • Paris coffee where it only means one single thing: black coffee
          • like how they serve in Paris
    • Another example: “Mother”
      • Mother_sub_4: “Necessity is the mother of invention.”
        • Here, it is a completely abstract metaphorical source or origin. It implies causation and creation without any biological or human context.
      • Mother_sub_3: “She was like a mother to me.” / “The motherboard of a computer.”
        • Refers to the role of protection, central support, or nurturing, regardless of biological relationship.
        • Adoptive mothers or even objects that serve a central, hosting function.
      • Mother_sub_2: “She is a mother of three.”
        • social and legal status of having children, raising them, and the ongoing relationship
          • may or may not include the biological act of giving birth (e.g., in cases of IVF or adoption where the social role is the focus).
      • Mother_sub_1: The biological female parent.
        • the female who contributed the egg and/or gestated the offspring.
  • How do you differentiate if something is thought of as a category or analogy?
    • Category = Boring analogy (distance is zero)
    • Analogy = Stretched category (distance is far)
    • Eg: When you think of “cup”, do you think of analogy or category?
      • You can surely create a cluster of behavior pattern for cup and apply to various objects to meet that cluster?
      • Standard Mug (Category)
        • Ceramic, handle, round
        • Matches mental template perfectly
        • Brain says: “This is a cup.” (boring)
• [[January 7th, 2026]]
  • Interesting bits about analogy / patterns in murder/crime
    • Tylenol murder in Chicago in 1982
      • People dying after consuming tylenol
        • Turns out cyanide present on the capsule packaging
      • Assumptions
        • Assumption 1 (The Category Mistake): “Industrial Accident” / “Bad Batch.”
          • Police/Media thought: Poison got in at the factory.
          • Action: Recall everything nationwide.
          • Logic: Mass production = Mass defect.
        • The Anomaly:
          • Pills came from different factories (PA and TX).
        • The Shift in “New Category”:
          • Product Tampering
          • Someone bought them, tampered and added cyanide and put back on shelf
      • Copycat Pattern: A lady killed her husband with similar pattern by tampering with the capsule bought
        • Thought police would categorize it as random event like that of 1982
        • Police investigation revealed she bought two poisoned bottles herself
      • See this documentary Inside The Tylenol Murders #Video #Documentary
  • [[Important Questions]] Do analogies manipulate us?

My Thoughts

• This was an interesting read.
• Some questions that made me [[EN/Think real hard]] are:
  • How do you differentiate analogy vs categories?
  • How do analogies shape our [[Mental Model]]s about the reality.
    • This reminded me of [[Evergreen Note/We shape our tools and tools shape us.]]
• There were instances where it made it hard for me to follow the topics because of the way [[Douglas Hofstadter]] writes his books; similar to [[Book/I Am A Strange Loop]]