Affection is Warmth--Bad is Stinky--Category is Container

[coberst]

Affection is Warmth—Bad is Stinky—Category is Container

 

Metaphors can kill and metaphors can heal. Metaphor can be a neural structure that provides a conscious means for comprehending an unknown and metaphor can be a neural structure that is unconsciously mapped (to be located) from one mental space onto another mental space. There is empirical evidence to justify the hypothesis that the brain will, in many circumstances, copy the neural structure from one mental space onto another mental space.

 

Linguistic metaphors are learning aids. We constantly communicate our meaning by using linguistic metaphors; we use something already known to communicate the meaning of something unknown. Many metaphors, labeled as primary metaphors by cognitive science, are widespread throughout many languages. These widespread metaphors are not innate; they are learned. “There appear to be at least several hundred such widespread, and perhaps universal, metaphors.”

 

Primary metaphors have this widespread characteristic because they are products of our common biology. Primary metaphors are embodied; they result from human experience, they “are part of the cognitive unconscious.”

 

Metaphor is a standard means we have of understanding an unknown by association with a known. When we analyze the metaphor ‘bad is stinky’ we will find that we are making a subjective judgment wherein the olfactory sensation becomes the source of the judgment. ‘This movie stinks’ is a subjective judgment and it is made in this manner because a sensorimotor experience is the structure for making this judgment.

 

CS is claiming that the neural structure of sensorimotor experience is mapped onto the mental space for another experience that is not sensorimotor but subjective and that this neural mapping becomes part of the subjective concept. The sensorimotor experience serves the role of an axiom for the subjective experience.

 

Physical experiences of all kinds lead to conceptual metaphors from which perhaps hundreds of ‘primary metaphors’, which are neural structures resulting from sensorimotor experiences, are created. These primary metaphors provide the ‘seed bed’ for the judgments and subjective experiences in life. “Conceptual metaphor is pervasive in both thought and language. It is hard to think of a common subjective experience that is not conventionally conceptualized in terms of metaphor.”

 

The neural network created by the sensorimotor function when an infant is embraced becomes a segment of the neural network when that infant creates the subjective experience of affection. Thus—affection is warmth.

 

An infant is born and when embraced for the first time by its mother the infant experiences the sensation of warmth. In succeeding experiences the warmth is felt along with other sensations.

 

Empirical data verifies that there often happens a conflation of this sensation experience together with the development of a subjective (abstract) concept we can call affection. With each similar experience the infant fortifies both the sensation experience and the affection experience and a little later this conflation aspect ends and the child has these two concepts in different mental spaces.

 

This conflation leads us to readily recognize the metaphor ‘affection is warmth’.

 

Cognitive science hypothesizes that conceptual metaphors resulting from conflation emerges in two stages: during the conflation stage two distinct but coactive domains are established that remain separate for only a short while at which time they lose their coactive characteristic and become differentiated into metaphorical source and target.

 

I find that this ‘conceptual metaphor’ paradigm is a great means for comprehending the human condition. But, like me, you will have to study the matter for a long time before you will be able to make a judgment as to its value. This book “Philosophy in the Flesh” by Lakoff and Johnson, from which I derived these ideas and quotes, is filled with ideas that are new to the reader and thus studying it will require a good bit of perseverance.

 

Have you ever, before reading this post, thought that the brain unconsciously copies the neural structure from one mental space onto another mental space? Those who find this idea compelling will discover, in this new cognitive science paradigm, a completely new way of thinking about philosophy and human nature.

 

This new cognitive science paradigm is the best thing to happen to philosophy since Thales! How about them apples?

[Kriminal99]

Now, in specific response to your post.

 

The use of plowing fields as inspiration for the design of a television I think shows from a different angle the use mapping from one mental space to another. Here, because the physical constraints on electrons hitting a television screen are the same as a plow on a field with respect to being able to paint a larger picturer using such a method, one might think that the brain simply copies some physical correlate of the idea of using something in a zig zag pattern to make a bigger picture.

 

I think the eventual loss of the "coactive characteristic" of the "source and target" physical correlate of each compared situation in a metaphor relates to the eventual feeling out of the details in each case that would allow one to somewhat differentiate each case which one previously compared metaphorically.

 

For instance, obviously one would not sweep across a television screen at the same speed a plow is used on a field. Here is one such detail that might cause the loss of a "coactive characteristic".

 

Universal metaphors

 

I completely agree with the concept of universal metaphors... However I do not understand the claim that some metaphors are a part of our common biology.

 

I do believe they are learned... learned by everyone because they are obvious in nature and the first step to not only intelligent life but perhaps also animal life...

 

For example, I use a metaphor taken from "a new belief set"... The metaphor of basic geometric shapes, and visual memory of rotation functions performed on them. (where rotation function is the compression and warping of shapes in various ways presumed to be correlated with the 3 dimensional object in the real world being rotated)

 

Every object one sees can be broken down into the same two dimensional geometric shapes, and all instances of these geometric shapes behave in similar manners when rotated. I for one have theorized that this is the manner in which one develops spatial reasoning and the ability to identify objects from different angles. If this is true, one would expect to find a physical correlate of such a metaphor not only in all intelligent beings, but in all creatures capable of spatial reasoning using something similar to eyes as well. It wouldn't need to be biologically programmed, rather it could just be the first thing anything with eyes learns in their enviornment.

 

Affection is warmth

 

I find this particuarly exciting as it seems to show physical proof of the ideas presented in "A new belief set". Although I typically value careful deductive reasoning based on common experience (which is how I came to the same conclusion in different words as what is indicated in your post) above collection of physical evidence from the brain (which is easily misinterpreted without said careful reasoning), it is still interesting to read that physical evidence supports it.

 

The physical connection of a new experience with warmth is analogous to what I called favorable sense experiences in "A new belief set". There I identified the creation of relations between current experiences and past experiences that were already "favourable" as the cause of emotion rather than simply experiencing the same favourable experience (such as a cute girl smiling) continuously or over and over again (which would cause two people to walk up and smile at each other and be forever stuck in an infinite motivational loop)

 

I brought up things such as the possible connection between our facination with music with beats, and the heartbeat, as well as that quantity of things being percieved in concert with the beat that could be connected to is related to the strength of emotion. (someone dancing to the sounds which go well with the beat etc)

 

First person perspective over physical

 

I can't help but throw in the obligatory, "I think a first person experience based version of this belief set would be better justified and more understandable to the average person than a physical evidence based version"

 

Some people believe that the physical "causes" (a concept I think is itself flawed) people's behavior, while I tend to disagree.

 

For example, contrary to what one might see in a Paxil commercial, I think that anxiety is not caused by a lack of receptiveness in certain nerves but rather the anxiety causes or is realized by a lack of receptiveness of those nerves. That is, ones past experiences by which one interprets current situations determines how receptive to the chemical one's nerves will be... Taking paxil might prevent the anxiety from being physically realized, but not by making the person like other people but rather by impeding brain functions that might be needed for other things!

[Kriminal99]

The following is a post I made in response to Cedars in another thread regarding the same topic.

 

@ Cedars - Metaphors

 

A Metaphor being a tool of communication... Well if the two situations compared in the metaphor are alike in every way to necessitate the same result then the metaphor is logically sound. But the next question is why use a metaphor instead of just establishing the soundness of the original premise when you have to do that anyways to justify the metaphor.

 

If it is your intent not only to not justify the metaphor, but rely on the opponent's inability to determine signifigant differences between the two situations compared in the metaphor then your intent is to decieve....

 

Metaphor as a motivator

 

I suppose though one might still might use a justified metaphor not so much to convince someone of the validity of your claims as much as to motivate them to consider your claims by putting it in terms of something they were interested in. However to not be skeptical of this opens the floodgates for people to use metaphors for dishonest purposes, and also even if no deception is intended both parties might miss a signifigant difference between the ideas compared in the metaphor and then a poor understanding of the topic has been communicated.

 

And if there are no signifigant differences one might still question the quality of understanding a metaphor relays... Consider the following:

 

An example

 

It is said by some that the person who invented television was a farmer who got the idea from thinking about plowing methods. Did this farmer try to make tvs out of ideas from observing a million natural phenomenon failing everytime because of the physics involved behind televisions causing differences from natural phenomenon until finally stumbling upon one that worked? Or being a physicist, did he know that the plowing method would work when the idea came to him while plowing the fields?

 

If the latter is the case, and the physicist said that a tv works like a plow across the screen in a zig zag fashion, has he really communicated much understanding of how a television works without the other knowledge that he knew connected the two situations?

 

My answer is not to outright reject the metaphor, but always be extremely skeptical of the strength of the connection and the level of understanding it conveys.

 

Does the end justify the means in this case?

 

You and Turtle's argument seems to be that the end justifies the means, IE having people believe the truth having used a logical fallacy is better than having them remain ignorant.

 

I might have a hard time disagreeing with this but for one or two minor details...

 

A) There is no objective truth. Rather truth is determined by examining all the evidence you can find and holding beliefs which are not contrary to that evidence.

 

:) Each person has a right to decide for themselves what to believe, as a function of them deciding how to best use their limited resources to benefit themselves being the model which maximizes happiness.

 

These combined give all kinds of counterarguments to the claim that the ends justifies the means.

 

If it is allowed that you can decieve people to help them find truth (even if there was objective truth) then what's to stop you from decieving people so you can benefit at their expense? They won't know the difference, since they have been decieved. Making it impossible to detect an immoral action encourages it and makes it more likely to occur.

 

If you decieve people to get them to agree with what you believe to be true, then how do you know they might not have disagreed with your beliefs had they access to all information and ultimately shown it not to be true?

 

Why would you have the right to decide for other people what is true? In the above example not only have you impeded your own ability to discover truth, but you have also impeded other people's ability to discover truth. According to free market morality, they should be responsible for their own truth finding for better or worse (because it makes them more efficient when they are)

 

Alternative

 

It is possible that some people argue from your point of view with the belief that it is the only way to impact others whatsoever. Perhaps my dissenting opinion is motivated by having access to alternatives that others may not have.

 

Perhaps through my study of philosophy and my learning style which allows me to build understanding of things beyond what others have communicated to me through any medium and use any belief set as a medium of communication, I have become able to make arguments which need not use as many dishonest tactics and fallacies and still impact others signifigantly whereas many others cannot do this.

 

However if this is the case, I believe the right thing to do would be identify the dishonest tactics as logical fallacies for what they are and then more people with such logical debate skills would arise in response. You set the rules to what they should be and then people get better at playing within the rules. (:Clown: Please feel free to assualt the connection with this metaphor)

[coberst]

Kriminal99 says --"However I do not understand the claim that some metaphors are a part of our common biology."

 

Cognitive science as described in this book “Philosophy in the Flesh” claims empirical evidence to support the conclusions that:

 

The mind is inherently embodied.

Thought is mostly unconscious.

Abstract concepts are largely metaphorical.

 

These basic findings lead to the conclusion that many metaphors are universal to all humans as a result of the fact that humans share a common biology. Since our bodies are the same we will then share many unconscious and conscious cognitive activities thus similiar cognitive actions.

 

Consider the category hierarchies: {furniture--chair—rocker} and {vehicle--car—sedan}. The middle categories--chair and car--have been discovered to be “basic”—they have a cognitive priority. “Basic-level categories are distinguished from subordinate categories by aspects of our bodies, brains, and minds: mental images, gestalt perception, motor programs, and knowledge structure.”

 

The basic level is characterized by at least four conditions: 1) It is the highest level at which a single mental image can represent the entire category (you can’t get a mental image of vehicle or furniture). 2) It is the highest level at which category members have a similarly perceived overall shape. 3) It is the highest level at which a person uses similar motor actions for interacting with category members. 4) It is the level at which most of our knowledge is organized.

 

The division between basic and non-basic level is body-based. It is based upon gestalt (overall part-whole structure) perception, motor programs, and mental images. The basic-level is that level at which people more optimally interact with their environment.

 

The basic-level does not merely apply to objects. “There are basic-level actions, actions for which we have conventional mental images and motor programs, like swimming, walking, and grasping. We also have basic-level concepts, like families, clubs, and baseball teams, as well as basic-level social actions, like arguing. And there are basic-level emotions, like happiness, anger, and sadness.”

 

“Our categories arise from the fact that we are neural beings, from the nature of our bodily capacities, from our experience interacting in the world, and from our evolved capacity for basic-level categorization—a level at which we optimally interact with the world. Evolution has not required us to be as accurate above and below the basic level as at the basic level, and so we are not.”

 

We have a gut feeling about some things because our sense of correctness comes from our bodies. When Newton provided us with his theory of physics we could “feel” the correctness of much of it because he was using such concepts as acceleration, momentum, distance and velocity all of which we knew because we could intuit them, we could “feel in our gut” these concepts. Such was not the case when the physicist attacked the problem of quantum physics. Who has a gut feeling for the inner workings of the atom?

 

Our “gut feeling” constantly informs us as to the ‘correctness’ of some phenomenon. This gut feeling is an attitude; it is one of many types of attitudes. What can we say about this gut feeling?

 

“Philosophy in The Flesh” says a great deal about this gut feeling. Conceptual metaphor, the underlying theory of cognitive science contained in this book, explains how our knowledge is ‘grounded’ in a manner in which we optimally interact with the world.

 

Throughout our life we constantly make judgments about such abstract matters as difference, importance, difficulty, and morality, and we have subjective experiences such as affection, desire, love, intimacy and achievement. Cognitive science claims that the manner in which we conceptualize and reason about these matters are determined, to one extinct or another, by sensorimotor domains of experience. CS claims that, in many cases, early experiences of normal mundane manipulations of objects become the prototypes from which these later concrete and abstract judgments are made.

 

“When we conceptualize understanding an idea (subjective experience) in terms of grasping an object (sensorimotor experience) and failing to understand an idea as having it go right by us or over our heads” we are using a sensorimotor experience as the metaphor for the subjective experience. The metaphor ‘understand is grasp’ results from our conflating a sensorimotor happening with a later subjective experience.

 

Metaphor is a standard means we have of understanding an unknown by association with a known. When we analyze the metaphor ‘bad is stinky’ we will find: we are making a subjective judgment wherein the olfactory sensation becomes the source of the judgment. ‘This movie stinks’ is a subjective judgment and it is made in this manner because a sensorimotor experience is the structure for making this judgment.

 

Why is the premise “A straight line is the shortest distance between two points” self-evident. It is because this is one of the first things an infant learns and it is verified and reinforced constantly throughout life by our sensorimotor experiences. The metaphor ‘more is up’ is not so pervasive in our experience but its rationale is similar.

 

If we recognize metaphor as a means to associate something new with something old, something known with something unknown, we can begin to understand what CS is proposing in this revolutionary theory. CS is presenting a theory based upon empirical evidence gathered by the combined effort of linguists, philosophers, and neural physicists that metaphor is a very necessary element of our ability to reason as we do.

 

We normally think of metaphor as a tool of language whereby one can enlighten another by making an association of an unknown with a known. CS is making a much more radical use of metaphor.

 

CS is claiming that the neural structure of sensorimotor experience is mapped onto the mental space for another experience that is not sensorimotor but subjective and that this neural mapping, which is unconscious and automatic, serves as part of the “DNA” of the subjective experience. The sensorimotor experience serves the role of an axiom for the subjective experience.

[Kriminal99]

Lol... I didn't know "cognitive science" was capable of claiming anything... Not being a consious entity usually tends to impede such actions...

 

The mind is inherently embodied.

Thought is mostly unconscious.

Abstract concepts are largely metaphorical.

 

All of these make sense to me.

 

With regard to common biology, you had said before that the primary metaphors were not innate they were learned. This makes perfect sense to me, if what you are saying is that for example any living thing that has eyes will learn to use geometric shapes to predict how things will look when rotated after being alive for a short time. But I was not certain that such was the claim? Perhaps instead you were saying that we were designed to make such metaphors after time regardless of what we were exposed to externally? Simple qualification is all that is required here.

 

One must be careful not to mistake someone's potential misinterpretation of physical evidence as some kind of "scientific fact". It is a just a theory no different then any philisophical theory.

 

In this case it would be very useful to seperate what evidence was obtained (preferrably presented in as an objective manner as possible) from the theory. This way someone can compare the theory to alternative meanings of discovered information.

[InfiniteNow]

CS is claiming that...

To improve the accuracy of your point, Coberst, I suggest modifying the above comment to: "Some practitioners of cognitive science seem to be claiming that..."

 

This allows 1) room for your own biases, and 2) you to avoid painting all with the same brush (they are, after all, each individuals... with individual differences and outlooks).

 

 

Cheers. :hyper:

[HydrogenBond]

Metaphors appear to be connected to the right hemisphere of the brain or the spatial side (3-D) of the brain. For example, the right side of the brain can see the commonness of color, like yellow, even with yellows that have never been named or seen before. The left hemisphere is only as good as its memory. Metaphors do pretty much the same in that a spatial concept or memory in the right side of the brain can be extrapolated to a wide range of rational or 2-D situations, i.e. the movie stinks, something is rotten in Denmark, etc., When you teach with metaphors one is attempting to get both sides of the brain involved in the analysis, instead of just the left side as occurs that only using very specific language which is limited by language and memory.

 

The right side of the brain has natural 3-D memory storage capability. The pegs or structures appear very conservative and is connected to the evolutionary storage of collective human propensity. A good analogy to 3-d memory is a ball. The left side is more rational which is 2-D or a plane of cause and affect. During sleep the 2-D planes that we observe and learn are forward integrated into the 3-D balls. Metaphor sort of cause the 3-D ball to kick out a 2-D plane, so it is rationally conscious. This allows rational relationships to appear from metaphorical foundations.

[coberst]

To improve the accuracy of your point, Coberst, I suggest modifying the above comment to: "Some practitioners of cognitive science seem to be claiming that..."

 

This allows 1) room for your own biases, and 2) you to avoid painting all with the same brush (they are, after all, each individuals... with individual differences and outlooks).

 

 

Cheers. :singer:

 

 

Your point is correct. It appears to me that CS has two paradigms, symbol manipulation (AI) and conceptual metaphor.

[coberst]

Kriminal99

 

 

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.

 

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”

[Kriminal99]

I agree, what is strange to me though is that one can see that the root of reason is in perception with several logical arguments and yet it has never been a signifigant viewpoint in our philosophy.

 

I have held this viewpoint for quite some time now without having done much research on brain science and so I know these arguments are capable of being motivated by personal experience, so I find it strange that few have made such attempts in the past (or maybe they have and I just don't know about it)

 

Seen in common experience as well

 

In any case I am glad that this viewpoint can be motivated by both science and first person experience because that means it is more capable of having an impact on the average person.

 

Here are some examples of simple arguments that suggest that reason and perception are related and might have sent someone down the same path of reason. (also in the "A new belief set" thread I attempt to establish this through more complicated arguments)

 

If you take any word and look it up in the dictionary, and then look up the words in the definition, and then the words in those definitions you will eventually come to words that can only be defined by sense experiences.

 

Since people must percieve in order to learn, it can be said that learned ideas are functions of things we have percieved.

 

In the "A new belief set" thread I attempted to establish a model by which people learn ideas through perception, as well as a model for human motivation. The purpose of this was to create a foundation for philisophical arguments regarding morality and other issues as well as to create something that one day anyone could pick up and gain a much better understanding of their surroundings.

 

What you are calling metaphor is not what people use in debates

 

By the way, one must be careful to differentiate the type of "metaphor" that is used in the development of a human mind from the "metaphors" that people use in debate. The former is just a means of inpsiration on ways to deal with new situations, and the metaphor solidifies (perhaps analgous to losing coactiveness) only after experience with the new situation differentiates it from the previous situation. A debate metaphor is used to try and force someone to come to certain decision now based on limited information.

[coberst]

Kriminal99

 

The ‘conceptual metaphor’ is something new in the world of learning. To my knowledge it has only in the last three decades been introduced by cognitive science and I suspect most people have no knowledge, yet, of its meaning.

 

Our normal meaning of metaphor is as a linguistic tool for communicating meaning. The conceptual metaphor is something entirely different. It is an unconscious activity of the embodied mind. We have experiences from which primary concepts are created. These primary concepts, which are neural structures, will, in various circumstances, be mapped into another mental space to become part of the structure of another concept. Thus they are called primary metaphors by this cognitive science which follows the conceptual metaphor paradigm.

[Kriminal99]

I am sure plenty of people have realized that one situation can inspire you to a potential approach or understanding of a new situation for a very long time. The only thing that has been lacking is a philosophy that explores in detail this phenomenon. One does not need access to experimental data from cognitive science (which again I emphasize is not a consious entity capable of introducing things) in order to develop such an understanding because the same thing can be deduced using common experience.