(Trying “copy quote…”. Not sure if it brings the link with it; bringing the comment back to this thread.)
It’d be nice to get back to the topic.
While @Sam26 might think the mentioned metaphors interchangeable, I’m thinking that they do differ; hence this thread. Going back to the OP,
- Hinges remain fixed
- River beds change, albeit slowly
- Bedrock involves the summary dismissal of doubt as the spade is turned
- Scaffolding remains in place while we give our constructs form, and then is removed, so that the construct stands on its own
- Axis are not held fast, but are that around which other things turn.
We might consider a hinge as smaller than a river bed or bedrock; roughly, a hinge might apply within an individual game (think of “A bishop moves diagonally”) while a river bed would hold firm across many games but might be varied in others (perhaps F=ma) and bedrock holds firm for all games (perhaps think of “energy is neither created nor destroyed”).
Scaffolding and Axis differ somewhat form these others. The scaffold is the ladder that we climb and then discard; once we see the structure it serves no further purpose.
Axis need not be firm in the way of a river bed or bedrock, but more a family resemblance, an indefinable centre understood from the samples in its orbit.
Yes, the thread should probably have been called “A taxonomy of certainties”.