Metaphorically Speaking

The latest word from sub-atomic physicists is that everything in the universe is made up of tiny strings vibrating in 10 dimensions. 

Actually, that's not what they mean any more than Robert Burns meant his love was “like a red, red, rose” or George Orwell literally thought “advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket” – it's a metaphor.

Physicists create metaphors (they call them models) to describe or predict the behavior of things they can't see. String Theory is just physicists' latest attempt to explain why little bitty stuff seems to behave differently than big stuff. Apparently the math says that if everything is made of dancing strings, it's okay if some things appear to behave erratically and be in more than one place at the same time – how many of us have not observed that very phenomenon on a human scale in a disco?

For politicians, there's an unfortunate danger in using metaphors because it's easy for pundits to take cheap shots by simply pointing out that a metaphorical statement isn't literally true. (If they were literally true, they wouldn't be metaphors.) Political opponents had a field day with former Senator Ted Stevens's characterization of the Internet as “a series of tubes,” even though it was a pretty good way to explain how huge volumes of spam email can cause slowdowns. The techno-cognizati never refer to the Internet as "tubes". They call it a "pipe".

Scientists consider a metaphor valid as long as it predicts behavior, but a dud if anyone can cite properties or behaviors that aren't consistent with the model. The rose metaphor for Robert Burns' love doesn't really work very well. While one would expect it to turn brown and lose its petals in pretty short order, Burns contends that his love will still be going strong when the seas dry up. 

Accepting the wrong model can be, and often has been, disastrous. In the 1600's the Catholic Church's enforced acceptance of the earth-centric model of the universe caused Galileo, one of the greatest scientists in history, to spend the last 10 years of his life under house arrest, forbidden to publish any of his work. 

But the best metaphors can succinctly put things – scientific and social – into context, as Howard Cosell did when he observed: "Sports is the toy department of life." 

 

My father once stopped me cold with a metaphor when I was complaining that I couldn't catch up at my job because I was constantly having to put out (metaphorical) fires. "Perhaps the problem isn't that you are a firefighter," he said. "Perhaps the problem is that you are a pyromaniac.”

Taking a good metaphor a step further than usual can provide both humor and food for thought, as Isaac Asimov did when he observed, “Life is a journey, but don't worry, you'll find a parking spot at the end."

 

What happens when we push the String Theory metaphor a little further to see what it tells us about the nature of our creator? If the universe is made up of tiny, dancing strings, then it appears that God is a cosmic D.J., and scientists spend their lives trying to discover what's on his play list.

That works for me.