Frame
State the breakdown, fix the cut and transfer dimension, and formulate the provisional logic.
Framework 05 · Research Orientation
Metaphoric Modeling
Transfer only what holds.
A discipline for learning from exemplary domains: places where a useful logic is realized clearly enough to be studied, abstracted, tested, and reimplemented without importing the source wholesale.
Governing questionWhere is the needed logic already working?
The canonical method
Begin with a breakdown—not a favorite metaphor.
Exploratory metaphor can open perception. Modeling begins only when a bounded contribution must survive transfer into a declared target.
Search
Compare candidate domains, inhibit the obvious answer, and let rejection sharpen the problem.
Abstract and Select
Name the contribution, isolate invariants, declare exclusions, and select only what the target needs.
Admit
Require relevance, dimensional clarity, logic correspondence, selective transfer, compatibility, and credible expected gain.
Reimplement
Translate the admitted contribution into target-native roles, forms, procedures, institutions, or technologies.
Test
Evaluate observed practical gain, scope, and kill conditions; revise, narrow, replace, or retire as necessary.
↻Provisionality governs the cycle: rejection and testing may return the inquiry to framing, search, abstraction, or admission.
The exemplary domain
Somewhere, the needed logic may already work.
An exemplary domain is not an ideal domain and does not earn imitation in full. It becomes useful because one contribution is visible there at a declared cut and dimension.
The decisive question is subtractive: after the source name, imagery, materials, customs, and prestige are removed, can the necessary relations, conditions, exclusions, and expected practical consequence still be stated?
Eight dimensions of transfer
Disassemble the bundled claim.
Words such as “marketplace,” “organism,” or “fleet” can compress several different claims. The dimensions separate what must actually be transferred.
OrderConstructionCompositionMechanismTopologyDynamicsEffectsImplementation
The Fleet lineage
A generative metaphor became a disciplined model.
The maritime domain helped make a decisive architectural possibility visible: a ship can remain a complete operational unit while contributing to a fleet; a fleet can integrate without collapsing its ships; and a command ship can carry bounded integrative responsibility and representation.
Metaphoric Modeling later makes explicit what that discovery requires: the Ship, Fleet, and Command Ship cuts contribute different logics, and only the logic that survives admission should be reimplemented.
Follow the Fleet into Unit Oriented Architecture →Admission rule
Similarity may open the search. Only a bounded contribution that survives all admission tests earns model status.