(This article includes a section that continues the series on problem definition.)
Analogies in creativity
Analogy, metaphor, and simile are powerful tools for both defining a problem and thinking up original ideas.
The terms are often used interchangeably, as all compare unrelated items. The difference is how closely the two unrelated objects or concepts are identified with each other.
Similes can be identified by the words like and as: “her cheeks are as red as ripe apples.” They present explicit comparisons of two unlike things.
Analogies focus on relationships, not superficial similarities: A is to B as C is to D. Remember those IQ tests where you had to complete sentences like “Fingers are to hands as toes are to …?” When you compare the heart with a pump, you are saying: “heart is to blood as pump is to water.” In other words, the heart moves blood round the body as a pump moves water round in pipes.
A metaphor, in turn, identifies one thing with another: “the heart pumps blood” indicates that the heart is a pump of some kind.
Metaphor is the most compelling of the three, but all are invaluable in problem solving.
Analogical thinking
Just to confuse things, the term “analogical thinking” refers to analogies, metaphors, and similes.
Analogical thinking is comparing two (usually unrelated) objects or elements with each other, to find similarities and differences. At least one of these elements is known (such as a pump), while the other can be known, less familiar, or unknown (the heart).
The goal of analogical thinking is to understand, explore, or explain the lesser-known element (called the target) by mapping the properties of the known element (the source) on it. The mapping implies that, if the two elements are similar in several respects, they might similar in others.
Let’s look at the heart and pump analogy again: to explain how the heart works, it can be compared with the more familiar pump. (Well, let’s assume we all know how a pump works). The relationship between heart and pump can be laid out as:
“the heart moves blood round the body the way a pump moves water through pipes.”
Simple enough, but are there more similarities that can be used to explain the action of a heart?
A pump works with pressure and uses one-way valves. If these qualities of the source can be mapped to the target, we have further information of how the heart works.
An atom can be described by comparing it with the solar system: electrons orbit the nucleus the way the planets orbit the sun.
Sound waves travel through air the way water waves do in shallow water.
Analogies can be used to “make the strange familiar.”**
Analogies and metaphors evoke more than the words on their own can. Comparing life with a rat race not only suggests speed and competitiveness, but evokes associations about rats (a low form of life, vermin to be exterminated, the dreariness of grey) and treadmills in a rat cage (suggesting something endless, relentless, repetitive, and meaningless).
Analogical thinking is handy to inventors. Alexander Graham Bell used the analogy of a human ear as inspiration when he invented the telephone: like the ear, the instrument had to transmit sound. (In fact, Bell used a real ear, from a dead person, in some of his experiments.)
Scientists map the similarities between Earth and newly discovered planets to speculate about life on other planets. The properties they are looking for, are those most likely to support life: temperature, the presence of liquid water, rockiness, orbit around a sun, distance from the sun, speed of rotation and orbit, and so on. They then go one step further: if there are all these similarities between Earth and the planet, and Earth supports life, perhaps so does the other planet?
Research suggests that the better you are at analogical thinking, the more creative you are.
But what do analogies have to do with creative problem solving?
Analogies in creative problem solving
Solved problems
Analogies can be used to solve problems in several ways. The simplest, but also the most conservative (that is, non-creative), is using previously solved problems as analogies for new problems. If a new problem has several similarities to an old problem, maybe the two problems have one further similarity: the solution.
With complex problems, however, you are less likely to find a good analogy among old problems to solve a new one. A way round this might be to deliberately construct a problem structurally similar to the one you are trying to solve, find solutions for the imaginary problem, then transfer those solutions to the current problem as possible solutions.
Analogies as ‘ticklers’
Part of the value of analogies and metaphors in creative problem solving lies in the unusual juxtapositions they create. These unexpected combinations stimulate the imagination, serving as ‘ticklers’ for new ideas.
If you compare customers with water in a leaky pipe, you can imagine your customers “leaking away,” and focus on ways to “plug the leak.”
Change perspective
Analogies “make the familiar strange” by comparing something familiar with an unrelated element. Losing customers is (unfortunately) familiar; comparing it with a leaky pipe makes you look at the problem differently. Shakespeare gives us a different perspective when he compares the world with a stage and life to a play.
Biases and assumptions
A good analogy presents a structural relationship between the source and the target (like the analogy between the heart and a pump). To find a suitable analogy, you need to identify the crux of the problem. When you do that, an additional advantage is that biases and assumptions are exposed.
Analogies in problem definition
By now you should know that the way you define a problem has an enormous influence on how you solve the problem. How, then, would you use analogies for problem definition?
Let’s go back to the example problem we used when discussing problem definition. Defining the ill-defined: Part 4(a) and Part 4(b) list possible definitions for the problem. To use analogies to find even more definitions, we need to pick an analogy structurally similar to the problem. Suppose we decide the essence of the problem is the way the arguments follow the same pattern, with each time the same result. We pick the analogy of a bee trying to fly through a closed window.
We can identify the similarities between the analogy and the problem as:
- failure
- frustration
- a barrier that can be felt, but not seen
- a sense of being trapped
- monotony, repetition
- both you and the bee can see where you want to go, but not how to get there
- someone might get stung
- escape lies elsewhere.
Possible definitions include:
What, in the interactions between my brother and me, is a barrier?
How can I communicate with my brother without making him feel trapped?
How can I remove the ‘sting’ from my conversations with my brother?
What pattern in my arguments with my brother needs to be broken?
How can we escape the trap of arguing, but not getting anywhere?
Let’s use another analogy to find definitions. Suppose you see the arguments with your brother as getting stuck in a game with seemingly no way forward.
How can I identify which move is making us argue like this?
What would be a good move to make when we’re arguing?
What strategy can I employ to resolve these arguments?
How can I make sure both players are on the same board?
Which rule did I break that is upsetting him so much?
Psychological distance
Finding analogies and looking at a problem through them creates a psychological distance between you and the problem. In creative problem solving, this distance is valuable in dealing with complexities and threats in your situation, and to let you stand back to gain a broader perspective.
Communication and persuasion
A brilliant idea is useless unless it can be implemented. This might require communication with a team, a client, or someone in authority. You may also need to ‘sell’ the idea to someone. Analogies, when used to explain or illustrate an idea, make these processes easier.
In marketing and advertising, analogies are used to persuade. A product could, for example, be compared with a car (sleek and fast), a cat (elegant, exclusive), chocolate (delicious, desirable), air (essential), a chameleon (adaptable), or a diamond (expensive, glamorous, durable).
Analogies in creativity
Expressive and generative
Metaphors and analogies are essential elements in creative art. They brilliantly convey images and feelings that would otherwise be difficult or impossible to express. They can also evoke a response in the reader. Consider, for example, the intensity of the emotion conveyed in “fear churns his stomach,” or the disgust evoked by “as appropriate as anchovies on a jam tart.”
Literature is chock full of analogies and metaphors. Shakespeare’s beloved is not only good looking, but more beautiful than a summer’s day. Groucho Marx’s disgust with the costs associated with health care is vividly conveyed by “A hospital bed is a parked taxi with the meter running.” Joanne Harris paints a picture with words when she writes, “The air smelled sharp as new-cut wood, slicing low and sly around the angles of buildings.” (Chocolat)
New information
Analogies and metaphors draw connections between elements that did not exist before, resulting in new understandings and new knowledge. This transfer of knowledge between a source and a target is a two-way process, however. We also learn more about the source by studying the target.
The brain is often compared with a computer, an analogy that has resulted in much new information about the brain. By studying the brain, however, we also learned more about computers.
On the other hand, as we worked with this analogy, the differences between a brain and a computer also became clear, leading to even more new knowledge and avenues for exploration.
Near and far analogies
Using an older problem to solve a new problem is an example of using near analogies. A near analogy is one where the source and target are closely related. To explain the working of the heart, for example, a teacher can refer to similarities between the human heart and the heart of a chimpanzee (if, of course, the working of a chimpanzee heart is already known). Scientists can often predict the behaviour of something new by referring to something known.
Near analogies are valuable when the new requires a mental leap that might be too difficult for people to make. E-books and e-readers, for example, are modelled on print books, including familiar abilities such as marking your place with a bookmark and ‘turning’ pages.
Research suggests, however, that the old can influence people so much they cannot be original, even when they are expressly told to create something unique. E-books and e-readers have possibilities that do not exist for printed books; it is necessary to move beyond the analogy of the printed book if these possibilities are to be explored.
When the source and the target are unrelated (far analogies), the unusual juxtaposition might be exactly what is needed to stimulate the mind. In creative problem solving, in particular, far analogies have the potential to jog the thinking beyond the conventional. Using the analogy of the trapped bee, you might arrive at solutions that you otherwise might not have thought of, such as using ‘honeyed’ words to approach your brother, or arranging a trip in a hot-air balloon where the two of you can communicate undisturbed and in an offbeat environment.
Unlike near analogies, far analogies can result in mental leaps and highly original ideas, but the danger is that these solutions might be too different, difficult, or impractical to apply. Near analogies, on the other hand, might result in practical suggestions, but not original ones.
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Related articles
Defining the ill-defined: Part 1
Defining the ill-defined: Part 2
Defining the ill-defined: Part 3
Defining the ill-defined: Part 4(a)
Defining the ill-defined: Part 4(b)
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** William Gordon, co-designer of the problem-solving method called Synectics, said that analogies make the strange familiar, and the familiar strange.
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