Beyond the Hammer

So we are going to deal with the extended concept of a hammer. If you wish, and I often do, you may make an actual physical map. Draw a circle, put a picture of a claw hammer, or write the words in the circle. Put it in the center of a large paper. I’ve been known to place tiny little toys, like for doll houses, on the floor or 4’ by 8’ sheets of plywood resting on saw horses. This is so I can move my concepts around as needed.

A claw hammer is rather simple in concept. You have a handle that you hold, that you use to swing it with. On one end you have a head that does work. In this case the primary use is to pound in nails.

Opposite the face of the hammer is the claw. This is used to erase the mistakes you might make when hammering a nail in. You can take it back out.

We have just paralleled a hammer and a pencil.

In this area the concept is the same. One end does the work and has the potential of making a mistake. The other has the ability to remove, or erase, the mistake.

Place a pencil somewhere on your map, far away from the claw hammer.

A claw hammer normally hits a nail.

A sledge-hammer normally smashes things, such as rocks or concrete. A sledge-hammer is much closer to a claw hammer than a pencil.

An axe cleaves the wood apart. A hammer uses nails to cleave wood together. Yet the principle is the same. A hammer can be as small as a claw hammer or smaller. An axe can be as small as a hatchet. A hammer can be as big as a sledge-hammer, which is about the same size as an axe.

If a hammer hits a nail how different is a stick with a curved end that hits a hockey puck? Or a golf club that hits a golf ball?

Once a hammer is paralleled with a pencil how much easier is it to parallel it with a cue stick that hits billiard balls?

So now lets follow the concept of use. An air hammer, an electric hammer, and a hammer that shoots out nails like a bullet, using powder, all serve the same purpose and are all called hammers.

Following this path along its concept line it brings us to guns as hammers. In fact we can say the bullets “hammered” into the wall.

A concept line with a gun as the source will almost automatically go to rockets.

Let us see where this brings us in our thinking:

We will use the scenario of  a heavenly body approaching dangerously close to the Earth.

If it is small enough and we have rockets large enough with enough explosive payload then smashing it like a bug with a fly swatter (Are you now able to “illogically” meld the concepts of a shotgun, a claw hammer, and a fly swatter into one?).

If it is not small enough and we do not have large enough hammer to hit it with then perhaps we can “nudge” the object with a payload that will move it away from the Earth, perhaps into the sun. In other words I am talking about using a rocket as a cue stick to pocket a comet into our big fiery light bulb in the sky.

Suppose it is so large we can do none of those. Then perhaps we can do a bit of trick shooting. Say knocking a smaller astroid out of its path, sending it around the sun in a close orbit that triples its speed and shoots this high-powered missile into the offending rock — knocking it off its path and away from us.

Mapologically™ we are playing a cosmic game of pool. Because people who think using Mapological™ Methodology see an obvious continuum between a pool stick, a hammer, a gun, and a rocket. Thinking of the various bodies in space, asteroids for instance, as billiard balls is no great stretch. If you have a good glimmer of Einstien’s theories, thinking of the sun as a “pocket” to shoot for is no stretch.

However, as has been pointed out to me, often rudely, that, logically and grammatically, what has happened is that metaphors and analogies have been used to draw parallels between things that have no real connections with each other. Logically and grammatically playing billiards, sending a rocket into space, firing a pistol, and using a hammer, are all separate, disparate, distinctly different. Then it is often pointed out that you have to be careful when drawing conclusions based on analogies because “They only apply so far”.

Yet to a Map Thinker ™ metaphors and analogies are only different in degree, not in kind. They are easier to arrive at, and apply, because they are not fundamentally different.

Also to a Map Thinker™ it does not matter how similar any two instances are in appearance they are always different to some, possibly infinitesimal degree, and one should still be careful what conclusions you draw.

Finally to a Map Thinker™ drawing conclusions is not of primary importance or concern. What is of primary importance and concern is the extraction of pertinent questions.

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