Philosophy in the flesh
the embodied mind and its challenge to Western thought
by George Lakoff · first published 1999
70% recommend30% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Argues that thought is grounded in bodily experience and built on conceptual metaphors, with a chapter on how we conceive of time. Suits readers curious about cognition, language, and what embodiment means for AI.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
What are human beings like? How is knowledge possible? What is truth? Where do moral values come from? Questions like these have stood at the center of Western philosophy for centuries. In addressing them, philosophers have made certain fundamental assumptions-that we can know our own minds by introspection, that most of our thinking about the world is literal, and that reason is disembodied and universal-that are now called into question by well-established results of cognitive science. It has been shown empirically that: Most thought is unconscious. We have no direct conscious access to the
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…or less. Consciousness is based on our bodily interaction with the world. Thought uses experiential metaphors from basic physical interactions with the world such as light/dark, up/down, etc. Read "Philosophy in the Flesh" by George Lakoff. AI will never come from digital machines.
on “Transcendent Man Wows At Tribeca Film Festival Premier” ↗…to the mix are: Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse Dhammapada Tipitaka (http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/index.html) Perennial Philosophy by Aldous Huxley Discipline and Punish by Michel Foucault Philosophy in the Flesh by George Lakoff
on “Ask HN: Good books?” ↗…before interpreting what we see the input should be largely similar, creating similarity in otherwise subjective experiences. But it's obvious that this similarity in perception is limited. I suggest "Philosophy in the Flesh", by Lakoff and Johnson, if you want a nice empirically grounded discussion related to this - they apply empirical insights from the cognitive sciences to philosophy and in the process give you a good…
on “Late Bloomers: Why do we equate genius with precocity? (2008)” ↗…and Mark Johnson's research on conceptual metaphor[0] seems to be intricately tied to this, somehow. I recently read two books by them: Metaphors We Live By (see Peter Norvig's description here[1]), and Philosophy In The Flesh[2] and found the ideas in them on how humans use metaphors to make sese of things very interesting and intuitive. It actually left me wondering when and how AI would use these insights. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conceptual_metaphor…
on “Machine learning is teaching us the secret to teaching” ↗This cognitive science/cognitive linguistics books were a hinge point for me: George Lakoff: - Philosophy In The Flesh http://amzn.to/2xFTKU7 - The Political Mind http://amzn.to/2vU9rF1 Gilles Fauconnier, Mark Turner: - The Way We Think http://amzn.to/2xFv4ep Benjamin K. Bergen: - Louder Than Words http://amzn.to/2wwsMhv
on “Ask HN: What books have made the biggest impact on your mental models?” ↗Lakoff and Johnson followed up with Philosophy in the Flesh, applying their conceptual metaphor analysis to philosophies and philosophers. One of the most enlightening philosophy books I've read - and I read mostly philosophy for many years - it felt like having…
on “Ask HN: Which book can attract anyone towards your field of study?” ↗I took a class from George at Berkeley. We used Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought as the text. Absolutely fascinating stuff. The article (http://edge.org/3rd_culture/boroditsky09/boroditsky09_index....) is well worth reading.…
on “How Does Our Language Shape The Way We Think?” ↗"History of Sexuality: Volume I" -Michel Foucault "Discipline and Punish" -Michel Foucault "Philosophy in the Flesh" -George Lakoff "Metaphors We Live By" -George Lakoff "Civilization and its Discontents" -Sigmund Freud These books allowed me to look at reality in a completely different manner.
on “Ask HN: Best Philosophical Books?” ↗For those interested in understanding why we conceive of time the way we do, I recommend Philosophy in the Flesh, by Lakoff and Johnson. Chapter 10 deals with Time. http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/l/lakoff-philosophy.html
on “Where Did Time Come From, and Why Does It Seem to Flow?” ↗…George Lakoff & Rafael Nunez: Where Mathematics Come From: How The Embodied Mind Brings Mathematics Into Being http://www.amazon.com/Where-Mathematics-Come-Embodied-Brings... George Lakoff & Mark Johnson: Philosophy in the Flesh http://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Flesh-Embodied-Challenge-We... Mark Johnson: The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason http://www.amazon.com/Body-Mind-Bodily-Meaning-Imagination/d...…
on “The brain is not a computer” ↗Metaphors We Live By - Lakoff/Johnson Philosophy in the Flesh - L/J Rationalism in Politics - Oakeshott Erving Goffman – Presentation of Self in Everyday Life Walter Lippmann – Public Opinion Art as Experience - John Dewey Plutarch's Lives G.K. Chesterton…
on “Ask HN: Books on specific topics that have applied to many areas of your life?” ↗Don't you think the concept of "motion" presupposes time? For that matter, every verb in existence presupposes time. A fascinating book on this topic is "Philosophy in the Flesh" by George Lakoff: https://amzn.to/2vCkS9s
on “The illusion of time” ↗…Tannen, You Just Don't Understand - how males and females talk different languages. Lakoff & Johnson, Metaphors We Live By - how our language and thoughts are built from a fabric of conceptual metaphors. Philosophy In The Flesh is about the conceptual metaphors that philosophy is built from. Jonathan Glover, Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century - WWI, WWII and other wars, nazism, communism etc Plutarch's Lives…
on “Ask HN: What are your favorite non-fiction books of all time?” ↗The books that have shed the most light on this for me are I'd say Jonathan Haidt, The Happiness Hypothesis the chapter on Self in Lakoff/Johnson's Philosophy in the Flesh and The Gospel of Ramana Maharshi. for 3 totally different angles on what is 'self', true self, real self, etc. They're all amazing books too.
on “Ask HN: How Do I Know My True Self?” ↗If you are interested in this direction of research: There is a big body of work regarding human cognitive processes and the role of metaphor. I would suggest "Philosophy in the flesh" by Lakoff and Johnson. A hefty work, but that was one of the publications that fundamentally changed my perspective on the human mind. The concept of embodied reasoning was eye-opening for me. As I…
on “John Carmack: I’m going to work on artificial general intelligence” ↗