The Primary Analogy

14 years ago, Douglas R. Hofstadter asserted that analogy was the core of cognition.

As we read older books, transcriptions of oral traditions, and talk to people from cultures unlike our own, we see that core analogies were once centered in weather, plants, the senses (we “see”), and the movements of animals.

Much of our religious history traces back to a time when it seemed like there was a switch to the breath and the human body as the core analogy.

Among arguments about whether a brain is a computer, one thing is clear to me: the most lived-in analogy of life in the early 21st century in rich countries is not computer, but reality tv.