But they did that … [read full article]
Posts tagged with 'cognition'
It’s not that it’s unbelievable. Being believable is what makes for effective government communications of this nature.
It’s not that it’s … [read full article]
It’s not that it’s unbelievable. Being believable is what makes for effective government communications of this nature. Magic words like “bunker bombs” and “stealth bombers” invoke a sense of strength and security and definitiveness. See Edward Bernays’ techniques for how it’s done but it gets in our heads since we want to believe, we do. But all we have to work with is holes, strong marketing words and a promise of “the government is being honest with you”, which sometimes is all we have to go by. But or now, because I’m hearing conflicting reports from ham radio operators operating from Iran (illegally – you can find them on X) – giving word-of-mouth reports that conflict with “America-Is-The-Best” messaging, I am going to keep an open mind for now.
It’s not that it’s … [read full article]
He came up with the concept of “imagined community” with a nation as a good example:
see, this is why
… [read full article]I’m glad you finally found it! You really blew my mind with that because I’d never heard of it ’til you talked about it. But I had three apple trees, a ‘mini plum’ tree and a pear tree in my NJ backyard plus we had a tomato garden – oh grew grapes once. Suburban backyard but we made it work — and so eating things off trees was normal for me.
I’m glad you finally … [read full article]
Hi James, Is the soul a liquid poured into a container? That is, what is a functional metaphor that drives how you perceive the concept of a soul? Is a concept of an illusion of multiple souls akin to a liquid with several odors that are different depending on which set of chemicals is arising out of the liquid but that there is some hidden “altogether” odor that is simply just a little out of reach of the nose? (I bring up the metaphor because ‘spirits’ / ‘odors’ / ‘ghosts’ are all connected concepts through time, as is the “brain in vat”, although I think soul as “liquid in a container” functions better here) If those metaphors resonate somewhat, what then might be metaphors that could function with pluralistic sel(f)ves)?
Hi James,
Is the … [read full article]
What a marvelous set of concepts! I’ve long been attracted to the family of embodied cognition, and also to notions of various pluralisms but this is a new one to me and I greatly appreciate your sharing of it.
What a marvelous set … [read full article]
Once Upon a time, I had an idea for an invention. 25 years ago, webcams just became inexpensive. I thought, wouldn’t it be great to have a few thin screens behind the steering wheel and cameras on the front and back of the vehicle along with radar to gauge distances to any object on the front, back and sides? I looked through the US patent website and I could find nothing like it. I worked on it a little for a few months in my off time, not knowing what I’m doing and I didn’t invest any money thankfully. Six months later, I was ready to jump in and take seriously my first patent idea and invest money and time into it. So, I took one last look to see if I could find anything like the device I wanted to patent. I found it. Five months beforehand. One month after I had my bright idea there was a patent filed by a person in a corporation in California for a car camera system EXACTLY like I envisioned! I could find nothing different about it. (I’ve looked since and yes it was the basis of lots of future patents going by citations from all the big companies) I was heartbroken. How was it possible that someone else came up with EXACTLY the same idea at EXACTLY the same time as me? It felt stolen. I felt cheated. It took a few weeks of soul searching and having a private pity party before it dawned on me: It WAS STILL my original idea. It was ALSO his original idea. It was probably the original idea of 1,000 other people too. I can feel proud of it. He was simply faster/better at getting it patented.. Ibn Tufayl’s protagonist resonates strongly with me in many ways but particularly in this one: He reasoned, without a language we know, truths about nature and the cosmos by following reasonable connections between things. The results of his reasoning matched with the neighbor who had language and arrived there from being taught through schools and I don’t find that concept to be the least bit strange. While I don’t believe there is a “Language organ”, nevertheless the CAPACITY of language learning and the capacity of reasoning and the capacity of all of these things we get for free by simply being human beings. How different cultures fill that up may differ and I see it perfectly possible to achieve much of the results outlaid in the text. That said, we are also the products of culture from birth onwards and if his socialization was from the animals, I don’t believe that would limit his human cognitive capacity at all but it would mean his internal language would be based upon whatever language was around him that he could extract meaning from. But just as you can build a house with bricks or wood, involving totally different construction techniques, you can construct a rational being out of any sufficiently descriptive language. There’s still a culture. It may be made up of animals and plants and the seasons instead of pop stars but it deserves a round of applause just the same.
Once Upon a time, … [read full article]