Final answer:
Analogies are helpful in making complex concepts easier to understand by relating them to familiar situations, thereby allowing for quicker comprehension and solution-finding.
Step-by-step explanation:
True or false: analogies are helpful because one can easily connect the superficial properties of a problem and come to a quick solution. This statement is generally true. Analogies are indeed useful tools that allow us to understand complex ideas by relating them to more familiar situations. By highlighting similar properties in a comparison, analogies can simplify the thought process required to grasp the nature of a more abstract or complicated concept. In essence, they enable a quicker understanding by providing a means of connecting what we already comprehend with new information. For example, comparing the characteristics of an electric field to the gravitational field near the Earth's surface can aid in the comprehension of the electric field because we have an innate understanding of gravity. Similarly, experts in a field will often use their intuition, developed through experience and the application of analogical thinking, to identify possible solutions or errors in their initial problem-solving approach. Lastly, complex philosophical texts often use structured analogical arguments to convey their points more clearly, as seen in historical Indian philosophy and Buddhist texts.