Mechanical Metaphor
A cognitive and rhetorical framework that analogizes natural, social, or mental phenomena to the structure and operation of machines such as clocks, levers, and gears. It prevailed from the late Middle Ages through the early modern period and strongly influenced modern scientific description and models of the mind in artificial intelligence.
Timeline (last 90 days)
The way modern people use "machines", "gears" and "clockwork" to understand the world is not a product of the Industrial Revolution, but gradually took shape in the clock-making and maintenance practices of the late Middle Ages.
In the late Middle Ages, clocks served not only as timekeeping tools but also as an entire cognitive framework, with people using the workings of clocks to analogize cosmic order, social structure, and even the human body and soul.
In the history of science and cognitive linguistics, mechanical metaphor refers to using the structure and operation of machines (especially clocks, levers, gears, etc.) to analogize natural, social or mental phenomena.
Mechanical metaphor was extremely prevalent from the late Middle Ages to the early modern period, with representative figures including Boyle, who compared the universe to a "clock of God", and Descartes, who viewed the human body as an "automaton".
Mechanical metaphor presupposes that "the system is closed, decomposable and predictable", and thus may be misleading when facing emergent, self-organizing and nonlinear systems (such as neural networks).
All Facts (5)
The way modern people use "machines", "gears" and "clockwork" to understand the world is not a product of the Industrial Revolution, but gradually took shape in the clock-making and maintenance practices of the late Middle Ages.
50%UnverifiedIn the late Middle Ages, clocks served not only as timekeeping tools but also as an entire cognitive framework, with people using the workings of clocks to analogize cosmic order, social structure, and even the human body and soul.
50%UnverifiedIn the history of science and cognitive linguistics, mechanical metaphor refers to using the structure and operation of machines (especially clocks, levers, gears, etc.) to analogize natural, social or mental phenomena.
50%UnverifiedMechanical metaphor was extremely prevalent from the late Middle Ages to the early modern period, with representative figures including Boyle, who compared the universe to a "clock of God", and Descartes, who viewed the human body as an "automaton".
50%UnverifiedMechanical metaphor presupposes that "the system is closed, decomposable and predictable", and thus may be misleading when facing emergent, self-organizing and nonlinear systems (such as neural networks).
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