metaphor

Metaphor/Story	Examples
100th Monkey Effect: The observation that a certain behaviour among monkeys isolated on an island began to spread to monkeys on other isolated islands - extended as a metaphor for the idea that the more something happens the more likely it is to repeated elsewhere.	(Rupert Sheldrake - Morphogenic Resonance)
Attractors: Patterns which complex systems are metaphorically said to be 'attracted' to form. These are in themselves a metaphor for 'purposeful behaviour' within chaotic and apparently purposeless systems.	Some attractors resemble beautiful natural forms such as a fern frond. Are there attractors throughout Nature and the Cosmos guiding evolution and creativity?
Butterfly Effect: An idea from Chaos Theory that microscopic changes can cause macroscopic effects as a metaphor for the large impact of small changes at critical moments.	An event or one individual's action could make a big difference.
Co-creation: Participative creation harmoniously integrated with 'other' - people, nature, cosmos...	A co-creative person uniquely expresses spirit in a loving and creative way for self and 'other'. www.cocreation.org
Cosmogenesis: The modern scientific understanding of the 15 billion year evolution of the cosmos as a meaning-filled narrative with moral, aesthetic and existential significance for humanity.	(Brian Swimme, Thomas Berry)
Dance: The non-linear interplay of sub-systems within a system - often creative and playful.
Fractals: Fractal geometry as a metaphor for situations where the same patterns are observed from microscopic to macroscopic levels.
Global Brain: Seeing humans linked through telecommunications (the Internet) as a developing planetary nervous system in an embryonic 'global brain'. A metaphor for the next step in the evolution of humanity.	(Peter Russell)
Holistic: Taking into account whole systems (wholistic) with emergent properties, together with the notion that systems are inter-connected, inter-related and often inclusive of one another.
Holographic: The holographic model as a metaphor for systems where every part contains information about the whole.
Mother Teresa: A metaphor for selfless service to others.
Near Death Experience: Accounts of blissfulness, entering a tunnel, seeing a light... that suggest survival of consciousness after death.
Paradigm Shift: Thomas Kuhn's notion of paradigm shifts in science as a metaphor for change which is usually overdue, often resisted by those with the established view, and which relies on the acceptance of a different set of (essentially unproven) fundamental assumptions.	Shift from mechanistic reductionistic linear thinking to organic holistic non-linear thinking.
Perennial Philosophies: Common threads running through most world religions expressed in general terms rather than in a particular cultural form.
Six Degrees of Separation: The idea that a chain of six people who each know at least one of the others is all that separates any two people anywhere on Earth. A metaphor for the unity of the human race and the impact any one individual can have on others who may be "half a world away".
Stardust: The fact that most of the atoms in a human body were formed in stars as a metaphor for human beings as an intimate part of the cosmos and its evolutionary epic.
Superconscious:
Synchronicity: A meaningful link between apparently unrelated events.	(Carl Jung)
Transcendence: An emergent, and often novel, perspective or unity above, but inclusive of, dualistic notions or apparently separate parts.	In self-transcendence an entity achieves greater wholeness and complexity inclusive of its earlier identity.
Uncertainty Principle: Uncertainty at the sub-atomic level as a metaphor for uncertainty at the macroscopic level.	It is not possible to predict the future by knowing the present completely.