But each metaphor also carries an ontological trap. Taken too literally, they reify mathematical scaffolding into physical substance. They install representation as reality.
The metaphor of strings recasts mathematical modes as physical threads. It reduces relational resonance to the trope of an object that vibrates, obscuring the fact that “vibration” here is not a movement of matter but a construal of symbolic potential.
The metaphor of dimensions transforms mathematical degrees of freedom into hidden rooms of the universe. It suggests that reality has secret compartments waiting to be discovered, when what is actually at stake is the dimensionality of the model — the structural resources required by a particular symbolic alignment.
The metaphor of the landscape projects the solution space of equations into a terrain of actual universes. It installs possibility as actuality, as though every mathematical consistency were a cosmos, waiting “out there” in a multiversal sprawl.
Together, these metaphors form a seductive triad. They offer material images — strings, spaces, terrains — to house what are, in fact, relational and symbolic constructs. They translate potential into substance, perspective into geography.
A relational ontology provides a different reading. Strings, dimensions, and landscapes are not things-in-themselves, nor hidden furniture of the cosmos. They are symbolic cuts, architectures of potential that help us construe what might be. Their power lies not in revealing the universe’s ultimate substance but in expanding our capacity for construal.
The lesson, then, is not to abolish metaphor but to discipline it. Metaphor must be kept reflexive, not absolutised. Otherwise, we risk mistaking the play of symbolic imagination for a final map of reality.
No comments:
Post a Comment