Written by my past self in 1970

Analogy

Ever since a human being first observed his environment and wished to communicate what he saw to others, man has made the use of the analogy. To describe something new, people compare it with something well-known rather than to explain it from first principles.

This form of speech is largely taken for granted, but why is the analogy possible? Why should the same basic principles apply to apparently unconnected topics? It seems to indicate that the whole structure of knowledge rests on a very few basic themes.

Consider the solar system. It’s well known that it consists of 9 planets, each in its own orbit around the central star, the Sun. Now consider the atom. Having said this, I can imagine the reaction. You’re probably thinking that he’s going to say that the atom is the same as the solar system.

That’s not true. There are a host of differences. Well, I’m not going to say that they’re the same, but I am going to compare them. I’m not disputing the many indubitable differences.— an atom has more than one electron per orbit, spinning in different directions. There are millions of stars in a galaxy, but except in the high polymers, there are comparatively few atoms in molecules.

But I am saying that there is an indubitable similarity.

Being human, we are very restricted in what we can observe. We can’t take a close look at an electron. And I mean a really close look. For all we know, the electron and other subatomic particles are themselves made up of atom-like structures with inconceivably small particles or wave motions orbiting an inconceivably small nucleus. Then, in the other direction, what does the universe look like collectively?

A lump of starch or protein-like substance? There certainly isn’t any obvious reason why this should not be so.

If this is true, then it follows that this trend won’t stop there, but will carry on getting bigger and smaller until at infinity the circle is complete.

Here then is an example of one of the basic themes which repeat themselves indefinitely.

It is very probable, therefore, that there are other similar things which haven’t yet been discovered. It’s well known, for example, that if two wires carrying an electric current are placed close to each other, they exert a force. If the currents are in the same direction, they attract. If in opposite direction, they repel. Surely this isn’t merely a manifestation of “birds of a feather flock together.” People whose interests flow in the same direction are more likely to become friends than people with totally different interests.

Moreover, the attraction between two pieces of wire diminishes rapidly as they are moved away from each other. If two people with the same interests are brought close together, as in a classroom or club, they usually become friends. But if they lived at either end of a fairly long street, the chances are that they wouldn’t.

The same ideas being present in apparently unconnected facets of nature suggests the existence of an underlying theme causing both.

These themes are therefore the explanation of the existence of the analogy, of which it is the result. Some people suggest the existence of biorhythms. These are mental cycles by which one’s mood, boldness, endurance, and intelligence increase and decrease at regular intervals. As these cycles start from birth,— they have arrived at a different point in each person, and also they can be modified by circumstances and the people around them. Thus, an individual’s mood is largely a resultant of his and his associates’ cycles.

Since the combinations of people’s cycles are infinitely variable, this could account for the complete unpredictability of life.

But regular rhythms are all around us: the seasons, the phases of the moon, day and night. But these rhythms themselves stem from the passage of the Earth around the Sun and that of the Moon around the Earth.

If mental rhythms are controlled, or somehow affected, by the natural rhythms, then the basic theme of orbiting particles described earlier may be responsible for things so apparently unconnected as a person’s mood, or, taken to the ultimate, fate itself. If, as it seems, that the whole of life is controlled by a few basic trends, It is yet another pointer to the simplicity of earthly life as compared with the complexity of the universe.