2009 - Analogy as Core - Hofstadter (talk) - FW.VISION

X:: [[Concept Expansion]] tags:: #source/speech dates:: 2020-06-06 URL:: [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8m7lFQ3njk) # 2009 🗣 Analogy as Core - Hofstadter ##### Overview - **What**: In this Presidential Lecture, cognitive scientist [[Douglas R. Hofstadter]] examines the role and contributions of analogy in cognition, using a variety of analogies to illustrate his points. - **Why**: This is important to me because of it is about how to talk about, and define, thinking—especially figurative language and concepts. ###### Notables - Concept Expansion, Chunking, Analogies as reminding events ## Notes - **Analogy-making** - the perception of common• essence between 2 things•• - •in one's current frame of mind - ••thing »» mental thing - **Reminding events** - A lot of analogies are *reminding events*. There is no purpose (sure they serve "evolution"), but they just happen. These events happen so quickly and fleetingly, often leaving no long-term effect. They appear and go away. ### Concepts expand - a shadow from the sun...then a snow shadow...then a rain shadow...a familial shadow...in the shadow of a big event...gulf stream (England casts a shadow)  see [[Concept Expansion]] - By seeing new instances of the word "shadow", we're expanding our sense of what the word "shadow" means. - > *Repeated analogies expand concepts* #source/quote/250 ### Chunking - There is no fundamental difference between a single memory trace and a category/concept. - The special magic of the human mind is *limitless [[Chunking]]*...where primordial concepts in some interrelationship becomes part of a larger unit. We build our concepts this way and eventually the primordial concepts miraculously disappear. ^ffe150 - *There is no fundamental difference between primordial tangible concepts• and highly-chunked abstract concepts••* - •e.g., hand, chair, book, office - ••e.g., hub, soap opera, sleazeball, wilderness protection legislation, scientific break-even for laser fusion ### The continuum of concepts - *Labeled concepts* - Primordial words, simple words, compound words, phrases, proverbs - *Unlabeled concepts* - fleeting remindings, me-too's, political analogies, personal-situation mappings, scientific leaps - a lot of our concepts are completely unlabeled, old experiences can be triggered by some new event in the future; i.e., Doug's subscript disillusionment as a child connecting to his daughter's disillusionment as a child. - *Primordial concepts* (not always nouns or even visible or sensory things) - Mama, good, hand, hurt, red, loud, Where?, Please! Why?, in, out, here - Please! For example, there are certain circumstances where that word (that mental concept) is evoked - *Simple concepts* - chair, "A", family, mess, probably, proab-lee!, come on!, I mean,...; Well,...;Hi!, kind of, but, Anyway,.., No kidding! - *Compound words*: armchair, backlog, nice and easy, happy-go-lucky, notwithstanding, commuter railway, weekend, and/or, to and fro, slippery slope - *Phrases*: Speak of the devil!, Fancy that!, Well, excuuuuuse me! - *Proverbs*: "Seen one, seen 'em all"; Fight fire with fire - Joe Becker - 1975 - The mental lexicon »» the phrasal lexicon  - Proverbs etc are situation-labels. Example: Sour grapes ### Individual words are the locus of a fight - > *Every "effortless" category assignment is actually a seething subterranean battle of analogies* #source/quote When the battle is a landslide, there's no evidence. When the battle is close, there is evidence galore. - *Individual words are the locus of a fight.* - any time a word is chosen, there is a subterranean fight taking place for primacy - sometimes there is a clear winner "dog" - sometimes it's close like "vilagent" which blends "vigilant" and "diligent" - I should "count my lucky stars" -- count my blessings vs thank my lucky stars - "insmide my mind" -- in my mind vs inside my mind - "i'm worried that my editor is going to hit the stack" - hit the ceiling vs blow his stack vs hit the sack (he was tired) - we'll "pull no stops unturned to get him" -- pull out all the stops vs leave no stone unturned - > "Thought is seeking the highest level of abstraction, putting one's finger on the *essence* of a situation. And then bouncing back and forth between the actual situation, and the essence that one found in one's memory" #source/quote ### Cognition-core hypothesis - How [[Albert Einstein]]'s Light-Quantum Hypothesis came out of a connection between two bell-shaped curves - Conclusion: If the following list are all made of analogies, might not ALL OF COGNITION also be made of analogies? This is Hofstadter's **Cognition-core hypothesis**. - strokes of genius, personal insights, dinner-table conversations, me-too comments, random reminders, instantaneous categorizations, blends of all sorts --- - Back Matter - watched:: 2020-06-06 ---