Abstract Analogies (Preface 5)

This part of the reading discusses what allows analogies to be detected. He suggests that 'the ability to perceive regular patterns and to formulate rules describing those patterns' is what allows analogies to be detected and it feels to me that he is right or very close to being right. He then goes on to talk about how humans look at certain things in terms of the 'role' it plays. He shows how humans have a tendency to 'feel' like things usually have only one role. He gives an example by asking the reader to think about what the word "hard" means and says that it probably feels like one idea to you. He then lists about fifteen different meanings that the word hard can take on. Even after we are shown that it does have a lot more then one meaning he suggests that we still might think of those things as one idea still. He then gives all the meanings of the german word hard which ultimatley shows how context and culture determines the boundary lines of concepts.

After thinking about the seemingly infinite things that must be considered to identify an analogy it seems like a much more complex cognitive process than I had previously thought. Making a program that can recognize analogies in two different conceptual things seems near impossible after reading how complex the process is behind such a thing.