introduction to psychology; chapter 5.2 - cognitive aspect

according to piaget theory, our process of learning is mainly divided into four stages. during the second stage --the pre-operational stage-- one of the accomplishments the children have to achieve is the ability to establish a symbols-real world relation. this is when these children dissociate the real meaning from an object and impose their own meaning on it. for example, calling a pen "a horse"; which does not resemble a pen at all. but that is all what they see, that is their perspective.

and then, i thought, isn't that what we have been doing everyday? we dissociate the real meaning of something, we reconstruct it with the assistance of our own perspectives and opinions. we see what we want to see. we hear what we want to hear. we remould things around us, we want to see ourselves, our thoughts, our opinions reflected on what is surrounding us. we would like to see a piece of us everywhere.

and also

metaphors. "dissociating the real meaning and impose our own meaning on it". symbols-real world relation is what metaphors are all about. we never really learn, we are stuck with this objective from the second stage of learning because we are so fond of metaphors. because our teachers are encouraging us to make full use of them. because only when christopher in the curious incident of the dog in the night-time warns us about the danger of using metaphors via his hatred towards metaphors do we realise what metaphors are actually all about. they are, unlike similes, pure lies. they exhibit our tendency to detach the real meaning of something and attach our own meaning to it.

what makes metaphors inferior to symbols-real world relation --i think-- is the mass, self-imposed justification. when children establish symbols-real world relations, how they view a pen differ from one another. some calls it a horse. some calls it a flower. another calls it a stick. in contrast, the grown-ups agree that one uniform symbols-real world relation should be assigned to one thing. "they had a skeleton in the cupboard." we agree to call dirty dishonourable secrets "skeletons". we don't associate them with carcasses or dead plants or dead gods but skeletons, brittle bones without the body. but in what way are they similar? how did we actually come about with such phrase? who dissociated the real meaning of "skeletons" and associated "embarrassing secrets" to "skeletons"? and why do we agree to make use of it? why do we justify ourselves, when we can clearly see the absence of similarity between the two?

And when I try and make a picture of the phrase in my head it just confuses me because imagining an apple in someone’s eye doesn’t have anything to do with liking someone a lot and it makes you forget what the person was talking about.

also

love. because "love begins with a metaphor."

love is when we rip apart the real meaning of one entity --the real core-- throw it away and impose our opinions thoughts judgments on it

because love is two, not one

it is when two dissolve into another two, never one, because two lovers are always similar but different.