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RE: coglanglab. I find your response interesting and useful. I think that a metaphor could be viewed as a special or particular kind of restatement. I find it personally intriguing you offered this judgment; though perhaps applied to my "explanation".

Restating a problem may very well clarify the issues, and, if not lead to a "solution", may represent "another step in that direction". In fact, restating the problem is probably the "most important" step in the process of arriving at a solution to questions and problems presented at a certain level of sophistication.

Certainly, in many mathematical problems, the solution represents a logical and systematic restatement of the initial problem. Methods for solving similar mathematical problems can be derived and deduced from the sequence of "elements" that constitute the solution. I'm sure this process is applicable to non-mathematical problems.

My purpose was not to simply restate the questions about metaphors, as important as that is. In point of fact, much of what I wrote is not stated or implied in your article.

If, as seems apparent, "Drawing abstract connections between largely unrelated objects to produce and understanding metaphorical language", requires creative synthesis, the "solution" to the problem of metaphors lies therein, and should constitute the primary area of investigation.

The capacity to make creative connections, at a given levels of sophistication is not necessarily amenable to inspection. Then again, given the requisite grounding, certain individuals can often explain how they made the required connections to produce meaningful metaphors. Some metaphors are easy to produce or evaluate, therefore the level of sophistication of the metaphors, and individuals, ask to form or evaluate them, must be figured in research designed to explain them. I see no argument here.

It is not clear to me; the rational for the suggestion that a computer program can be created to solve complex metaphors. That possibility would imply a mathematical or programmatically like understanding of metaphors, adequate to write a program capable of characterizing metaphors. I am not aware of such understanding, or theories that justify this possibility, or approach. It would be the same, in my opinion, as creating a program to reproduce creative synthesis.

The "how you know what connections to make", is not objectively discernible, with respect to certain complex metaphors. In fact, at certain levels of complexity, the abstract connections are not, so much "made", but the result, or product of unconsciousness thought associations. How does one describe, in detail, a creative process? The question as to "how you know what connections to make", ignores the unconscious element necessary to form certain metaphors, and their abstract connections.