People in power get to construct reality

[coberst]

People in power get to construct reality

 

President Carter declared that the energy crisis is the “moral equivalent of war” in 1977. This declaration immediately imposed a network of entailments (to impose, involve, or imply as a necessary accompaniment or result). These entailments were such things as “enemy”, “threat to national security”, requiring “setting targets”, “reorganizing priorities”, organizing “strategies”, accepting “sacrifice”, “obeying the Commander in Chief”, etc.

 

New metaphors, like old tried and true metaphors, can have the power to define reality; thus the conclusion that power can determine reality.

 

Metaphors create reality through a network of entailments that are coherent and commanding. Metaphors high light some things and push others under the rug. Our acceptance of a metaphor forces us to focus attention only on the aspects of our experience that it illuminates thereby by causing us to view its entailments as being true.

 

Concerns of truth do arise regarding new metaphors but of most importance are our perceptions and inferences following the metaphor and the actions sanctioned by it.

 

“In all aspects of life…we define our reality in terms of metaphors and then proceed to act on the basis of the metaphor. We draw inference, set goals, make commitments, and execute plans, all on the basis of how we in part structure our experience, consciously and unconsciously, by means of metaphor.”

 

Can you give examples of how metaphors have directed action in your life?

 

Quotes from “Metaphors We Live By” by Lakoff and Johnson

[Buffy]

People in power get to construct reality

 

President Carter declared that the energy crisis is the “moral equivalent of war” in 1977.

No, they get to try.

 

This declaration was one of several points that historians point to where Carter "Jumped the Shark."

 

If you want people to take these arguments seriously, it would be helpful to use examples that weren't so, uh, unconvincing....

 

We should live our lives as though Christ were coming this afternoon, :esmoking:

Buffy

[LaurieAG]

People in power get to construct reality

...

Concerns of truth do arise regarding new metaphors but of most importance are our perceptions and inferences following the metaphor and the actions sanctioned by it.

 

Hi Coberst,

 

Aren't you talking about a new paradigm? (A set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality for the community that shares them, especially in an intellectual discipline.)

 

Any realistic modern meta paradigm would have to recognise that modern day religious elites have more in common with the elites of other religions than they do with their own non elites and subsuquently all of the various religious non elites have much more in common with their fellow non elites than they do with their own elites.

 

The same paradigm appears to be developing in certain elements of politics as well, with the real elites accuse popular non elites as being elitist.

[coberst]

Hi Coberst,

 

Aren't you talking about a new paradigm? (A set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality for the community that shares them, especially in an intellectual discipline.)

 

 

 

It appears to me that CS has two paradigms, symbol manipulation (AI), and conceptual metaphor. When I speak of CS here I am speaking of the conceptual metaphor paradigm, a new paradigm.

 

Cognitive science has radically attacked the traditional Western philosophical position that there is a dichotomy between perception and conception. This traditional view that perception is strictly a faculty of body and conception (the formation and use of concepts) is purely mental and wholly separate from and independent of our ability to perceive and move.

 

Cognitive science has introduced revolutionary theories that, if true, will change dramatically the views of Western philosophy. Advocates of the traditional view will, of course, “say that conceptual structure must have a neural realization in the brain, which just happens to reside in a body. But they deny that anything about the body is essential for characterizing what concepts are.”

 

The cognitive science claim is that ”the very properties of concepts are created as a result of the way the brain and body are structured and the way they function in interpersonal relations and in the physical world.”

 

The embodied-mind hypothesis therefore radically undercuts the perception/conception distinction. In an embodied mind, it is conceivable that the same neural system engaged in perception (or in bodily movements) plays a central role in conception. Indeed, in recent neural modeling research, models of perceptual mechanisms and motor schemas can actually do conception work in language learning and in reasoning.

 

A standard technique for checking out new ideas is to create computer models of the idea and subject that model to simulated conditions to determine if the model behaves as does the reality. Such modeling techniques are used constantly in projecting behavior of meteorological parameters.

 

Neural computer models have shown that the types of operations required to perceive and move in space require the very same type of capability associated with reasoning. That is, neural models capable of doing all of the things that a body must be able to do when perceiving and moving can also perform the same kinds of actions associated with reasoning, i.e. inferring, categorizing, and conceiving.

 

Our understanding of biology indicates that the body has a marvelous ability to do as any handyman does, i.e. make do with what is at hand. The body would, it seems logical to assume, take these abilities that exist in all creatures that move and survive in space and with such fundamental capabilities reshape it through evolution to become what we now know as our ability to reason. The first budding of the reasoning ability exists in all creatures that function as perceiving, moving, surviving, creatures.

 

Cognitive science has, it seems to me, connected our ability to reason with our bodies in such away as to make sense out of connecting reason with our biological evolution in ways that Western philosophy has not done, as far as I know.

 

It seems to me that Western philosophical tradition as always tried to separate mind from body and in so doing has never been able to show how mind, as was conceived by this tradition, could be part of Darwin’s theory of natural selection. Cognitive science now provides us with a comprehensible model for grounding all that we are both bodily and mentally into a unified whole that makes sense without all of the attempts to make mind as some kind of transcendent, mystical, reality unassociated with biology.

 

Quotes from “Philosophy in the Flesh”

[LaurieAG]

Cognitive science has radically attacked the traditional Western philosophical position that there is a dichotomy between perception and conception.

 

Hi Coberst,

 

A couple of years ago the Dalai Lama stated (loosely) that understanding the difference between perception and reality is the first step along the road to good mental health.

 

BTW wordnet gave an interesting definition of Dichotomy.

 

being twofold; a classification into two opposed parts or subclasses; "the dichotomy between eastern and western culture"

[coberst]

So, what exactly is your point, Coberst? What is it do you want to discuss? So far, you seem to be rambling about things without making any sense. And as for your comments on philosophy, it has already made a huge impact on our philosophical ideas ever since its inception and study, so it's kind of a moot point.

 

 

If we wonder off the beaten path we can discover what we have not ‘seen’ before. If we only study that which enhances our present state then we will never know what we don’t know.

 

Hobbies are ways in which many individuals express their individuality. Those matters that excite an individual interest and curiosity are those very things that allow the individual him or her to self-understanding and also for others to understand them. Interests define individuality and help to provide meaning to life. We all look for some ideology, philosophy or religion to provide meaning to life.

 

When examining psychosis the psychiatrist advises either the establishment of an interpersonal evolvement or for finding interests and perhaps new patterns of thought.

 

None of us have discovered our full potentialities or have fully explored in depth those we have discovered. Self-development and self-expression are relatively new ideas in human history. The arts are one means for this self-expression. The artist may find drawing or constructing sculptures as a means for self-discovery. The self-learner may find essay writing of equal importance. Consciousness of individuality was first become a possibility in the middle Ages. The Renaissance and further the Reformation enhanced the development of individual identification.

 

The word “individual” moved from the indivisible and collective to the divisible and distinctive. In this we see the development of an understanding of self-consciousness thus illustrating the dramatic change taking place in our developing understanding of the self as a distinct subject not just a cipher in a community. This was part of the Renaissance.

 

I recommend that each of us develop the hobby of an intellectual life. We could add to our regular routine the development of an invigorating intellectual life wherein we sought disinterested knowledge; knowledge that is not for the purpose of some immediate need but something that stirs our curiosity, which we seek to understand for the simple reason that we feel a need to understand a particular domain of knowledge.

[Buffy]

So, what exactly is your point, Coberst?

I recommend that each of us develop the hobby of an intellectual life.

Just to help you along E-P, coberst's point here really has nothing to do with the proposition, which was designed specifically to engage your interest.

 

As usual, coberst--who is a *very* smart guy--does have a good point in the title of this thread, the subtlety contained within it that is key is that he's saying we *let* people in power construct reality for us.

 

Shame on us.

 

As I pointed out in my earlier post, his example was off the mark, but that's fairly irrelevant: he's really trying to get you to think critically, which is a really good thing, and I too strongly encourage it too!

 

You could say I'm pretentious, you could say I'm the nazz, :phones:

Buffy

[Moontanman]

isn't what is being talked about here simply the Golden Rule? Who ever has the Gold makes the Rules!:phones:

[coberst]

isn't what is being talked about here simply the Golden Rule? Who ever has the Gold makes the Rules!:phones:

 

 

People never approach the world as if it were sui generis (constituting a class alone)—we perceive and discriminate new data in terms of our existing models—“Once the principal features of a given phenomenon suggests a particular stock structure, that structure shapes our expectations and responses.” Gerald p Lopez

 

When we categorize something such as what is under discussion here as "simply the Golden Rule" we deprive our self of the ability to learn something new. It appears that young people think that to be negative is to be cool. Being cool is cool as long as it does not interfere with our ability to learn.

[Moontanman]

People never approach the world as if it were sui generis (constituting a class alone)—we perceive and discriminate new data in terms of our existing models—“Once the principal features of a given phenomenon suggests a particular stock structure, that structure shapes our expectations and responses.” Gerald p Lopez

 

When we categorize something such as what is under discussion here as "simply the Golden Rule" we deprive our self of the ability to learn something new. It appears that young people think that to be negative is to be cool. Being cool is cool as long as it does not interfere with our ability to learn.

 

Are you suggesting that I am a young person? Bless you my son! You are the most generous, intelligent, beautiful person i have ever met.:(