I want to talk more about the way thought is
experienced and I will return to the question of
illustration and metaphor. First a question:
Jack, I am not sure what you meant when you said
that for you, some elements of thought are of the
muscular-type. Did you mean something like
embodied thought? I understand and sympathize
with you comments reagrding the visual component,
however, and I'd like to throw some stuff out into
the air about that.

In a philosophy class I was in about six years
ago, the professor did an informal survey of our
class to find out who of us could think only in
words and those who could think in images as well
as words. About a third of the class claimed to
be able to think only with words. My professor
claimed that he could not call to mind pictures
that he had seen: in fact, he was hard pressed to
represent faces to himself. He wryly commented
that Derrida must be of this group! Now, I am
wary of such "groups", but anyway, there appear to
be studies which support the claim that some
people just do not think using images.

I was quite surprised by all of this. I assumed
at the time that everyone thought using images: a
self-centred assumption for sure. But now I am
less convinced of my own ability to think using
images. I seem to rely so much on words these
days. And yet, while dreaming, pictures convey to
me deep insights about myself. A simple pictorial
symbol often conveys what might otherwise take
months of self-analysis.

Do you think the ability to think in images can be
exercized in much the same way that, with
practice, our writing improves? The answer may
not obviuosly be "yes" to those of us outside of
the visual art worlds. As you point out Jack, our
constructed hierarchies of thought, and their
implicit valuations cause us to ignore, suppress,
minimize visual thought.

Besides making us more human - creative; sensitive
to beauty, wonder, feeling and thought; open to
new ideas - the embryogenesis of breath, through
its intermelding of images and words enables us to
make fresh new connections. It is the kind of
work that might help those of us (whomever this
"us" might be) with the loss of imaging in
ourselves. It is a relief to me, forever inside a
text as I am.

Crossing disciplinary boundaries opens new
connections, but it is not only about discovering
new things. It is also about justification of
ideas: Jack's work provides justification for
believing that embryonic lungs develop in a
certain way. Scientists do this also: many have
very creative and emotive relations to their work
and data (Barbara McClintock is a good example but
there are many unknown scientists hanging about
who would do just as well). Perhaps some
scientists who work in this way do not feel at
liberty to reveal their methods given the current
restictions on what is appropriate for scientists
to think about. It seems not to matter what our
occupations are: people who are drawn to art, the
art in life, the beauty in science, the science in
beauty are sprinkled everywhere. Yet it is not in
our culture to openly reveal and develop these
interdisciplinary connections. And so, Jack's
work gives us much to reflect upon, and examine.

Now: about metaphor. I think all illustrations
are metaphors. This is not to say that this is
all that illustration is; just that one of the
things it is is metaphor. Illustrations, intended
metaphorically or not, tend to become so in the
mind of the viewer. This is what I meant when I
asked if the relation between illustration and
identity was one of identity. I should have just
come out and said that! So Jack, your
interpretation of "=" was correct, although I did
not mean logical identity which could never hold
between metaphor and illustration, but only
between metaphor and metaphor etc.

The definition of metaphor I am using here,
however, is so broad that it risks becoming
contentless. I think of metaphor as a way in
which we conceptualize. Rather than being a thing
on a page, metaphor is a process of sorts. It is
not necessarily based on similarity, or even on
difference. The best ones bring together two
conceptual schemes not formerly in contact: and
wordlessly, new understanding and/or new
associations are made. The metaphor is not in the
words used to convey it. It is in the open-ended
and indefinite concepts that arise from it.
Thoughts radiate out (the metaphor a stone dropped
from a height) and are the waves breaking on the
arctic lake. They are breathing: air rushes in as
further associations are made, and as it is pushed
out we refocus on the words or picture itself
trying to determine its meaning in the absence of
all the connections. We cannot and so we take
another breath.

Perhaps "metaphor" is the best term that has been
found for this thinking experience. Stolen from
literature and linguistics, it means here
something quite beyond its technical definition.
I say this so as not to offend anyone who is
working on metaphor proper.

I hope I have clarified the place from which I
asked these questions. I look forward to reading
more responses to this site.