Axis Praxis

In the murky centuries before the dawn of the scientific age, alchemists used the phrase “As above, so below” to convey their belief that the neat order observed in the heavens could also be discerned amidst the chaos on earth. Thus the alchemists hoped to understand the one in terms of the other — the complex in terms of the simple. They viewed macrocosm and microcosm as reflections of each other. This remained an esoteric ideal rather than a formula for practical knowledge until Isaac Newton — himself a dabbler in alchemy — brought the stars and the earth closer together by showing that they could be understood using a unified language: mathematics.

Metaphor is the alchemy of thought: not “as above, so below”, but “as known, so unknown”. According to linguists George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, “The essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another.” It might not be an exaggeration to say that metaphorical thinking is the basis of our ability to extend the boundaries of human knowledge.  For those of you who only remember the word from middle school English class, I imagine this dramatic inflation of the importance of metaphor comes as a surprise. Isn’t metaphor just a linguistic flourish? “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day”? “Now is the winter of our discontent”? Surely this kind of frippery is only for poets and artists? For the cafe and the studio, rather than the workshop and the laboratory? Nothing could be further from the truth.