Many of the root metaphors that form the frameworks with which we understand and enact relation are miscomposed in such a way as to generate problems that do not exist, while at the same time promoting solutions that do not solve them. In this way, they remain entrenched in human ideation and culture across the generations.

An example (from Schon) is the conduit metaphor… that verbal communication is, approximately, the sending, reception, and unpacking of words… this metaphor actually generates modes of communication… and problems in communication… that would not otherwise exist, and then pretends that rather than being generated they were discovered and categorized.

The promise of this awareness — the problem of frame conflict — is that we can begin to recognize and correct these metaphors, in such a way so as to transform the domination and handicaps they long imposed into the developmental opportunities and results which were the original promise of the frameworks thus transformed.

One can imagine the forms of prodigy that must result from the general and ongoing correction of the root metaphors that underlie the frameworks with which we understand and enact our thought, relation, and understanding. These would result from cultural shifts relating to the common practice of attentional disciplines that protect, nourish, and further this process.