Ideas and Field Metaphors

Differences and similarities in idea fields in “The Engineer’s Art of Intellectual Production” and “Hybrid Ideas” - R-style

• Two people independently used “Field Metaphor” in the process of generating ideas.

• Notice the differences in similarities.

• No two metaphors were identical.

• (Nishio) Plow the field → sprout

• Find a seed and plant it → Roots and shoots grow from the seed

• When I saw the difference, my thought was, “Maybe I didn’t use the right metaphor for Hatake.”

• The symbol “seed” that was not in my symbolic space.

  • I feel intensely uncomfortable with this.
  • What is a “seed”?
  • When we have a “seed” in our hands, do we realize that it is a seed?
    • Can you know in advance that certain information will lead to future ideas?
    • unknown
    • It is impossible to “find the seed” because it is impossible to know that it is a seed.
      • The Paradox of Search
      • Maybe “discover” is not the right word.

• To clarify my metaphor again. - Without explicitly obtaining or planting seeds, - The soil should be tilled and softened by stirring it up, - Something grows out of it on its own. - You will know after you grow up if what grows is edible and beneficial.

  • I just realized that’s not a “field”.
  • What then?

• If the word “field” conjures up an image for readers of a place where crops of one kind are planted and grown in a tightly plotted area, that’s not quite the metaphor I have in mind.

  • Oh, yeah, “I buried some kitchen scraps in a planter and something sprouted, and when it grew up it was a carrot, why?” Why?” Like that (true story).

  • I saw a concept very similar to this recently, maybe on Sigotano.

  • Twitter

    • Scrapbox is a hotbed of ideas. It is a place where new ideas are born and where the decaying ones are reduced and waiting for the next oxidation. Once a piece of writing is deconstructed and sown, it may reappear as a new unit. Sometimes they are reborn as producers (catalysts) rather than members.

  • When I saw this, I was also impressed with the concept of “decay”.

    • breeding ground 、 A metaphor for humus

  • seed metaphor

  • Twitter

    • In my case, something that sparks something (something written in Umesao’s notebook of discoveries) is a “seed”.

    • So it’s like, we don’t know what kind of fruit it will produce at the seed stage.

  • If you’re filling in “something that may or may not be a seed, and even if it is, we don’t know what kind of seed it is,” then it’s not strange.

  • In my case, I might bury all the food scraps that don’t seem harmful to bury in the soil, let alone seedy.

• What, should this be corrected in the errata to “field → soil”?

  • We need to check the surrounding text, not just this one spot.
  • I’ll let it lie for a while for now and think about it.

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