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RE: The Survival Instinct - Does it Exist?
Taking any metaphorics literally is asking for trouble, and yet people do it constantly. (Economists especially.)
I'm wading through Heidegger's Question Concerning Technology, but it's slow going.
Yeah the problem with metaphors, is you think they're harmless, but then you realize it's the reason people couldn't get around an issue, or were switching back and forth between using the metaphor literally and using it metaphorically, and sowing confusion when they thought they were being clear. Many examples both in science and philosophy of people doing that.
I think in sciences that have a big theoretical component, like biology, just-so stories and what not, there should be classes on what's a literal and what's not!
Only books of Heidegger's I read if I recall are Introduction to Metaphysics and Being and Time. He gets all the ancient Greek translations wrong! Like he's not even translating the same text, that's how wrong I mean. They're highly idiosyncratic translations to say the least. The editors should provide a conventional translation in footnotes, because all that's lost on foreign readers.
Wish you luck with the book!
Thanks, I'll need it!
And yeah, I've known plenty of people who just get trapped by metaphors in exactly that way, so I've heavily cut back on their use when describing scientific concepts.