Figurative language label ... which we don't know how to use

MJ. Smith · 2025-03-12T08:35:38+00:00

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Logos is not going to win the ultimate search/write war against AI. Instead, it must position itself as the premier tool of integrative tools and comprehensive results. One simple integrative step would be to provide more assistance in using the tools. When Logos created the figurative language label I tended to ignore it as I have no background in cognitive linguistics. Today I asked Perplexity to apply the appropriate analysis to a specific example. What I got in return is something rather exciting (see below). Logos should provide such examples/worksheets for their datasets to help the users to see the possibilities and therefore, be motivated to learn to actually use the data. Or Logos could make the Perplexity analysis (or something similar) only a click away in the Context menu.

Analysis of "Time as Space" Metaphor in Titus 2:12 Using Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT)
Verse Context:
"Training us to renounce impiety and worldly passions, and in the present age to live lives that are self-controlled, upright, and godly." (Titus 2:12)
1. Conceptual Metaphor Identified:
TIME IS A SPACE WE INHABIT
Source Domain: Physical space (location, containment, bounded areas).
Target Domain: Time ("the present age").
2. Mapping Structure:
CMT posits that metaphors map features from concrete domains (space) to abstract domains (time). Here:
Source Domain Features:Containment: Spatial prepositions like "in" imply bounded areas.Location: A defined "place" where actions occur.
Target Domain Features:Temporal Period: The "present age" as a specific era.Moral Action: Ethical living is situated within this temporal "space."
The metaphor maps the physicality of a location ("in the present age") onto the abstraction of time, framing the current era as a moral arena where believers enact virtues.
3. Key Linguistic Evidence:
Preposition "In": The phrase "in the present age" uses spatial language to position ethical behavior within a temporal framework. This reflects the TIME AS CONTAINER sub-metaphor, where time is conceptualized as a bounded space where events unfold.
Contrast with Implied Future: The training to renounce worldly passions suggests movement through time (future-oriented progression), but the focus here is on the present as a spatial-moral locus.
4. Embodied Cognition:
Sensorimotor Basis: Human experience of inhabiting physical spaces (e.g., rooms, cities) is mapped onto temporal existence. Just as we act differently in a courtroom vs. a playground, the metaphor frames the "present age" as a moral environment requiring specific behaviors.
Purpose: Makes abstract time tangible, grounding ethical imperatives in a concrete "place" where actions have urgency and consequence.
5. Theological Implications:
The metaphor:
Locates Moral Responsibility: By situating virtue "in" the present age, the text emphasizes immediate action rather than abstract ideals.
Contrasts Temporal and Eternal: The "present age" (current space/time) is distinct from the future/eternal, urging believers to live differently now.
6. Broader Conceptual Framework:
This aligns with common biblical TIME-AS-SPACE metaphors:
TIME IS A PATH: "Walk in wisdom" (Colossians 4:5).
TIME IS A LANDSCAPE: "The days are evil" (Ephesians 5:16).
In Titus 2:12, the static containment metaphor ("in the present age") prioritizes current ethical inhabitation over temporal progression.
Conclusion:
The phrase "in the present age" employs the TIME IS SPACE metaphor to frame time as a moral-spatial container. This conceptual mapping:
Concretizes Time: Makes abstract temporal existence actionable.
Emphasizes Urgency: Positions ethical living as bound to the "here and now."
Reflects Embodied Cognition: Leverages universal human experiences of space to structure spiritual instruction.
By analyzing this metaphor through CMT, we see how language shapes theological imperatives, grounding transcendent calls to virtue in the physical logic of spatial experience.
Key Sources: Lakoff & Johnson (1980), Radden (2011), Evans (2024).
Citations:
https://brill.com/previewpdf/journals/fdl/34/1/article-p53.xml
https://scienceblogs.com/mixingmemory/2006/06/20/on-time-space-and-metaphor-1
https://theconversation.com/why-do-metaphors-of-space-help-us-understand-time-229359
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conceptual_metaphor
https://lartis.sk/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/KonnovaBabenko_Issue-2_2019.pdf
https://benjamins.com/catalog/clscc.3
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/267970574.pdf
https://www.redalyc.org/journal/799/79963266002/html/
https://revistas.urosario.edu.co/index.php/apl/article/view/6081/8309
Answer from Perplexity: pplx.ai/share

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Theophan Dort

Sometimes I find myself having had a BALL reading something, studying something, and the thought occurs to me that I don't know ANYBODY who would have thought that was fun! <laughing>

@MJ. Smith, I'm sorry, and mean no offense, but there is at least one other Logos user out there who did not find anything exciting about any of your Perplexity results. My goodness! It reminds me of when I was in my last semester as a Science major, seems like 100 years ago, concentrating on molecular genetics and biochemistry, and as a last-minute notion, decided to take "Music of the Baroque" with my otherwise all heavy-duty Science courses. It was great, I loved it, but it became very clear to me that Music Majors and Science Majors wind up powerfully shaped by their disciplines in ways that make their minds work VERY differently! It was fascinating. Nothing wrong with Music Majors or Science Majors — no "right" or "wrong," no "better than" or "less than," but really, really different! I don't know what your "formation" was, but it must have been really different than mine! :)

To me, I think of our normal, "Chronos" time as no more "abstract" than the dimensions of space; just one more dimension specifying location. I have a meeting in this __ place at that __ time. Time and place, just different but equally concrete coordinates specifying the location of the meeting. I think of Space-Time as a grid or matrix involving Time as one of the multiple dimensions, again no more abstract than the other dimensions. So this whole concept that some people apparently find fascinating and a really big deal of "mapping" something from a concrete domain to an abstract domain and think that's what's happening in that verse from Titus is probably just over my head, but it seems to this Neanderthal like projecting layers of philosophizing onto something where they didn't belong. I read the verse from Titus and was puzzled about where the metaphor was supposed to be that Perplexity was mapping via "Conceptual Metaphor Theory." I guess I'm really concrete, or maybe just not bright enough, because I don't see anything "abstract" about specifying when to do a thing (in this case, to "renounce" two things at a certain ___ time (the present age).

So to get to back to Logos at last, yes, I just turn OFF the figurative language filter because it's not useful to me and is very distracting, but NO, my goodness NO, at least one Logos user hopes Logos never offers me anything like this Perplexity result in order to "help" me figure out what to do with the figurative language stuff in Logos! I'm glad you're having an exciting time with Perplexity and Logos, and I hope you continue to do so in good health!

MJ. Smith

@Theophan Dort

My use of Perplexity is a step to (a) avoid charges of pushing a particular theological position (b) to show Logos users how to learn more for themselves and (c ) to save time. I start with an assumption that Logos invested in implementing features only when they believed some of their users needed or at least would use the feature. That is sufficient for me to become curious enough to try to track down the usefulness. And in the case of conceptual metaphor theory that is based of cognitive linguistics leads to another use I have for Perplexity - to apply theories that I know only enough to recognize gross misapplications of the theory.

To be precise, in Logos you cannot turn off CMT coding - it appears in two formats in the Contextual Menu. What you turn off, is your attention to it. I suspect that is the majority position of Logos users. I simply want that decision to be an informed decision. I figure if I paid for it, that is the minimum I owe myself.

As for my formation, I left high school intending to become a clinical pharmacologist; I discovered my true calling was model theory - which I've applied to economics, Buddhist studies, language, folklore, data modeling … I have rightly been charged with literally thinking in truth tables.

Theophan Dort

@MJ. Smith Wow! Thank you for another fascinating post! I had to look up Model Theory, and “truth tables,” which led me to Proof Theory, “Diophantine Geometry” and other things, and I have to say that after reading them I now understand exactly what I understood before reading them: nothing! <laughing> WAY over my head! But it was interesting! People sure are different, and their minds can be so different we have trouble understanding each other, sometimes.

It’s possible that you might enjoy reading Naming Infinity: A True Story of Religious Mysticism and Mathematical Creativity, if you haven't already, which is about how the arcane mental practices of a heretical group of “Name worshippers” in Russia allegedly helped them surmount difficulties in "Set Theory" that mathematicians in the West had found impenetrable. I found it fascinating, and wished I had the background in Mathematics to understand the issues.

A concept that pervades my own thinking about things is the dichotomy between verbal, rational intelligence and non-verbal, arational intelligence, what people once oversimplified as “Left Brain” vs. “Right Brain,” and that people often refer to as “Mind” vs. “Heart.” I was first exposed to the Cloud of Unknowing, by a 14th Century English anchorite, in a Neuroscience lecture of all things. The author wrote about two “powers” by which we come to know what we know. What he called the “Knowing Power,” which corresponds to verbal, rational intelligence, is wonderfully useful, a gift of God, but it is finite, and God is infinite, so it can help us know many things about God, but can never help us know God in His fullness. What he called the “Loving Power,” on the other hand, also a gift of God, which corresponds to non-verbal, arational intelligence, he said can help us actually know God in His fullness, and that this is “the everlastingly wonderful miracle of love.” I often think of holograms as a metaphor: Thinking of “missing the forest for the trees,” if you cut a normal photo of a forest in half, you have half a forest. If you keep cutting it smaller you may wind up with a tree. But if you cut a hologram of a forest in half, or smaller and smaller, you still have the whole forest, just with less and less resolution of detail. I often think that our verbal, rational intelligence is good at detail, but not the big (infinite) picture, but that our non-verbal, arational intelligence is poor at detail, but can see the wholeness.

I, too, was interested in Buddhism, once, but what I found life-changing was not its concepts, but its word-less meditation. And what I treasure most in the Orthodox Church is its spiritual practices, and its understanding of “holy mystery,” things that in my old friend Job’s words, are “too wonderful” for me to understand with verbal, rational intelligence. I do think theology and doctrine are important, that some beliefs about God are true and some are false, and that the difference matters immensely. But over the years, what has helped me not just believe in God, but to begin to be in relationship with God, to experience God as active in my life, to begin, anyway (I am no holy man!) to know God, has not been theology so much as prayer, self-denial, love, etc..

Please forgive my tedious long-windedness, but at long last the point: Do you perceive your inner process in what I gather is a rather mathematical form, to be as discrete, particular, verbal/rational as this non-mathematical person might suppose, or, perhaps a bit like the Name-worshipper mathematicians discussed in the book above in their apparently quite arcane forms of the Jesus Prayer, do you find that somehow higher mathematics crosses over into something less “verbal/rational,” more “mystical,” more non-verbal, arational?

And last, regarding, "in Logos you cannot turn off CMT coding - it appears in two formats in the Contextual Menu," I understand this whole concept so poorly that I don't know what you mean. I just selected a word in Logos and right-clicked, and looked through the left-hand column of the menu and it was probably staring me in the face but I didn't recognize it. Is there a simple way you can enlighten me about this?

Thanks!

MJ. Smith

Naming Infinity: A True Story of Religious Mysticism and Mathematical Creativity looks interesting - I'll get it for my birthday. My son suggests Is God a Mathematician? by Mario Livio

Theophan Dort

Ah… MANY thanks! First, I should have selected the phrase in question and looked at the Context menu, but second, I now see that I haven't noticed how very different that menu is in different, um, contexts (duh…). I thought that I only had one of the two you showed, but then I noticed the dropdown arrow, and saw many more. I need to pay much more attention to these menus! Thanks again!

I looked up Is God a Mathematician? and it does look good, but not quite enough for me to put it higher than so very many books already on my list. I don't know any way to predict which book you might find more interesting. My own interest in Naming Infinity was because of my own interest in the Jesus Prayer, Russian Orthodox mysticism, and Pavel Florensky, not so much because of the Mathematics, but I did find it fascinating, and as I said, I did wish I understood the mathematical issues better, even though the authors did their best to present them to a non-mathematician readership. I just thought that as an "East-leaning" Christian who has deep roots in higher Mathematics, it might be of interest. Up to you, obviously. Maybe you could buy one and your son could give you the other one? :)

MJ. Smith

Naming Infinity should arrive by my birthday :-)

Yes, the context menu is very different depending upon what you have selected in the text which controls the left side AND what you select on the left gives very different results in the right/action section. It is not uncommon for people to not notice the selection part - in the text or in the menu.

Theophan Dort

Many thanks again, and Happy Birthday, whenever it comes!

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