Metaphors, as visual aides.

[dream_weaver]

The air was crisp and cold, nibbling at my cheeks as I stood out on the porch looking up at the overcast sky. It rose from the horizons like a huge grey tent canopy, with tufts of clouds underneath its great dome, like little trays of cotton candy being moving about the grandstand of trees that lined the perimeter of the arena I found myself in the center of.

[JASKN]

In high school, I decided to mock a teacher's assignment by concocting the most outlandish metaphors I could conceive. I really went all-out and tried to make it obviously ridiculous. I received an "A+", with added praise!

 

I've never been good at metaphors.

[softwareNerd]

A simile is a metaphor that adds a "duh!"

[dream_weaver]

The world appeared the same, as it had always appeared, yet the edges of the trees seemed to be more sharply cut against the white background of the snow, as if an exacto-knife had cut them out from a sheet of white paper leaving behind a silhouette that continually changes as the vantage point shifts through time and space..

[dream_weaver]

It occurred to me this morning, religion and statism are little more than unchecked belief systems. The concept of individual rights inserted into such belief systems slowly dissolves in the altruistic acid that diffuses throughout such belief systems, when left unchecked. Continuing with this chemical analogy, reason can provide a base capable of neutralizing that acid, properly understood.

 

While I have a rudimentary grasp of the principle of individual rights, it is others, with or without my help, that either build it up or tear it down.

[dream_weaver]

While listening to a June 2002 recording of "The Mark Scott Show", Mark had commented that Ayn Rand had wanted to reach a global audience, that John Galt and Dagny Taggert represented the northern hemisphere, while Francisco represented the southern hemisphere, whilst Ragnar pitted the old word against the new, representing the western hemisphere against the eastern.

 

This is not something that has been put forth generally. Where Mark had derived it from was not clear in his presentation. Fodder for thought. If nothing else, an intriguing way to put forth the main protagonists in such a perspective. In retrospect, I'd have to add Hank Reardon & Eddie Willers in with Dagny and John.

[jacassidy2]

For those of you who have studied the process of concept formation in Objectivist Epistemology, there is a real interesting epistemological curiosity in the human ability to understand metaphor or its more blatant cousin, simile.  In concept formation humans differentiate similar characteristics in different existents and use the abstracted characteristic as a base for the integration of characteristics to form a new organizational idea.

 

In literature, authors use a familiar set of characteristics from one area of experience, and use the common theme to elucidate the identity of a proposed idea.  These identity links are also common in the study of the sciences - like the similarity in the orbit of subatomic particles with orbits in cosmology.  These links in epistemology, literature, and science are all examples of the process of abstraction.  It's really quite amazing.

[jacassidy2]

And to Dream-weaver - you're right on point.  Because Ms. Rand had internalized the ideas she proposed (I compare this internalizing phenomena to my experience in teaching certain ideas - after a while the ideas are not something you choose to access in cognition - they become an integrated part of the way you view things and cognitive access become almost automatic). 

 

When this process becomes the nature of your cognition, you include thematic, narrative, and dramatic content that you only become aware of in the editing of your work - some of it was subconscious in the original creation. 

 

And so, there are many recognizable integrations in Atlas Shrugged that have yet to be discovered.  These likely occur in secondary characters like Eddie Willers, Paul Larkin, and Jim Taggart's last wife, ?was her name Cheryl? 

[dream_weaver]

The way you organize your thoughts can provide a rough skeletal outline, helping you to visualize them more clearly.

Edited September 24, 2015 by dream_weaver
added comma. corrected link.