Three posts ago, I concluded by pointing out the usefulness of hypertext. It is a tool which enables us in certain directions. Afterward, in a more reflective mood, it occurred to me that hypertext is both analogical, and a facilitator of analogical thinking.
Analogy is similitude. It is comparison. Most often, we begin the enterprise of understanding by entertaining analogies. A peach is like an apple (in that they are both fruits and both round and both carry seeds inside themselves). A peach and an apple are not the same thing, of course, but one is like the other. And then we proceed by listing the more subtle ways in which the one differs from the other.
Hypertext is like analogy. It is a tool which facilitates the dissemination of knowledge and it does this by allowing us to link one thought to another. I post a page on one issue, apples for instance, then I provide links to related pages, including a link to peaches. Where I live, apples grow in abundance. In fact, I make this post using a computer named for an apple which was first bred here in southern Ontario. But not everyone with access to this page has ready access to the apples I enjoy. And so, to be sure my visitors know something about this fruit which is indigenous to my homeland, I offer comparisons to other fruits. A person who follows a link to a page about peaches may already know something about peaches and so, by making comparisons, may discover something about apples.The synthetic mind is particularly adept at drawing analogies. The synthetic mind sees relationships among disparate objects where none was apparent. “A” stands in a relation to “B” because their relationship resembles an established relationship between “C” and “D”, and while the relationship between “A” and “B” is not apparent, it becomes discernible as one compares it to this other relationship. Then, what once lay hidden emerges as obvious.
Another meaningful relationship (which I have mentioned in an earlier post) is the metaphor, a tool for demonstrating equivalence. I first encountered the difference between analogy and metaphor in a high school English class, but that context was boring and I learned nothing. The movies give much better examples. The Godfather makes good use of metaphor: “God is a pig.” Note that god is not like a pig; god is, in fact, a pig. Metaphor. Compare with Forrest Gump where “life is like a box of chocolates.” Note that life is not, in fact, a box of chocolates; it is merely like a box of chocolates. Analogy.
If analogy is religion, then metaphor is faith. Analogy is a tool that leads us to understanding; metaphor is a leap into equivalence—identity.
This becomes apparent when we consider the greatest of all religious pedagogical tools: the parable. The parable is analogical, like hypertext. A parable teaches us, but it is not our faith. We do not believe that god is a father, or that god is a good shepherd. God is like a father; god is like a good shepherd. The parable, like hypertext, is a tool; it acquires meaning only as it achieves its end, which is to draw us to identity. We move from the outside to the inside. We move from comparison to conversion, from transubstantiation to consubstantiation.
Our creed is all that follows after we have ceased our comparisons, when the crudeness of doctrine is silenced by a stolid identity, a redounding “I am.”