Quite convincing, thanks. I'll want to think about it more, but perhaps it would be a good idea to toss the word out the window for its active connotations.

ISTM, though, that there is a knack for for cross-domain generalization (and cross-domain mangling) of insights, that people have this knack in varying degrees, that this knack is an important component of what we call "intelligence", in the sense that if we could figure out what this knack consists of we'd have solved a good chunk of AI. Isn't this a major reason why Hofstadter, for instance, has focused so sharply on analogy-making, fluid analogies, and so on?

(This is perhaps a clue to one thing that has been puzzling me, given Eliezer's interest in AI, namely the predominance of topics such as decision theory on this blog, and the near total absence of discussion around topics such as creativity or analogy-making.)