George Lakoff: How Brains Think: The Embodiment Hypothesis

[@bengun6768]

I like the way he thinks, as a scientist and a human being . Calm, smart, curious, playful in the best sense of the word. Thank you for sharing.

[@youngmilee2885]

Rer

[@kellyryanobrien1]

This is the most validating experience I’ve had since I started the embodiment process (it was not consciously chosen it just started). I have learned I am experiencing the same energies as others but without the mythology or symbolism or religious imagery and instead the immediate release or activation of the part of the body that is the foundation of these stories we use to navigate reality. It’s embodiment. Absolutely. Also synchronistically my love is linguistics and geometry. Only since this process began, as the same is true as above

[@michaldabrowski1529]

It is one of the best hypotheses I’ve ever heard of. Why isn’t it popular and widely applied in therapy and education?

[@justinkerwhen1208]

the discussion towards this is rising. there are a lot of interdisciplinary attempts joining these elemnts with therapy and learning kzbin.info/www/bejne/qpi9n62Zn9OYbLM

[@nickrobbins7704]

Due to lack of profitability/ usefulness my guess

[@LM-lv6fv]

Such a Brilliant mind🙏🏼✨👍🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 Nothing like understanding yourself….to be kind to yourself, to find the humor in yourself, to forgive yourself, to love yourself for all you really Are✨ We have so much to be thankful for through this Life we have been blessed with, and having this brain in our heads is first on the logical list😉

[@fahadtube1406]

Lakoff is the best

[@nightoftheworld]

Lacan is too-if you like embodied cognition you’d likely appreciate Lacanian theory

[@hessamadeencharles5101]

Has this ever happened to anyone? Your unconscious mind alerts you conscious about a mistake you made a couple of days earlier? When the mistake was made, everything thing was happening perfectly normal..

[@emils-j.3586]

42:23 There is a piece missing: "Exploding under pressure" requires some stopping of the available exits for the pressure, otherwise it'd be a gradual 'letting off of steam' - in other words, it requires that the anger be 'held in', as will happen when you 'bottle up your anger', or hold the expression of your emotions back, as if 'stored in a container'.

[@wilbertwils7758]

So much fun to interpret things like that. It requires much phantasy.

[@necksugar]

I am impressed by the strategy. Insulted by the Operation and Injured by the Activity of "IN-OVATE-ism"

[@adrienv9075]

@ 18:25 my brain exploded. Metaphorically speaking of course.

[@Jesse_Alex]

Oh coz i actually thought it had actually exploded until you said it was just a metaphor.

[@keisi1574]

@@Jesse_Alex Notice he neglected to mention his stool exploded in his pants...not metaphorically.

[@spokanelaw]

This is a crucial concept for lawyers or anyone else who wishes to persuade other humans.

[@lesamponsah8970]

Absolutely 100% correct!

[@earaearaearaearaearaeara]

This video is amazing. Are there subtitles in spanish, or any translation of this? It would be very helpfull for my dissertation

[@yn.7006]

These video resources can be more impressive than the books,it we can recommend to most of our students ,nazaralian,yaghoub.

[@santana-moll]

I'm most interested in finding applications for teaching in elementary school. Any hints on where to look would be appreciated. One comment I have is that when he begins to explain the most crucial aspect, the neural computational toolkit, he rushes through it, leaving me with many questions. If anyone can clarify the part about activation inhibition, modulation, and modulation of the gates using less scientific language, I would appreciate it. And let me say that I am sad to hear that he is no longer with us, but it's nice to see that he is still inspiring people.

[@kellyryanobrien1]

The awareness of the body and its emotions as vehicles to love energy is how I see the basis of this all. We need to know what we are operating within before everything. 🎉

[@kellyryanobrien1]

This is also what learning how our energy bodies exist and how we are not the body. So any study of this area will help. Look up heart math institute!

[@maxmax9050]

This is blowing my mind.

[@modvs1]

@10:30 The paper mentioned is (I think): Casasanto, D. & Lupyan, G. (2015). All Concepts are Ad Hoc Concepts. In The Conceptual Mind: New Directions in the Study of Concepts. E. Margolis & S. Laurence (Eds.) pp. 543-566. Cambridge: MIT Press. Good paper though!

[@sivaforutube]

modvs1 what is your point?

[@mrshah2043]

thanks for posting this : )

[@vijidiane]

I am guessing modvs1 was just trying to be helpful

[@jigyanshushrivastava6153]

I have one question . Why animals do not speak as us if the have neural connection for language?

[@bellezavudd]

@@jigyanshushrivastava6153 He doesnt say they have connections for speech. He said they have the same connections for the ability to think.

[@handokohandoko5960]

Great speech

[@ayeone3870]

Starting to question the validity of everything else I've learned from him

[@lianemarie9280]

Lots of interesting tidbits synthesized here. However, in this particular video Lakoff appears to assume 'lingualism, i.e., the belief that what we think is equivalent to what we express in words. My own experience, and that expressed by many creative people (most notably Einstein), is that a lot of thinking can go on before you *find* a way in words of expressing what you want to convey. Musicians do not think in words. Poets, or people who have spiritual experiences, often complain that the words they find do not do justice to the experience. Thus, contrary to what Lakoff implies here, a metaphor does not function not as a verbal equivalent of the thought so much as a shoddy attempt to, through words, 'point the way' to the thought itself. The metaphor was concocted for the purpose of communication as opposed to reflecting the thought process of the one who concocted it. I think part of the issue may be that there are individual differences in how people think; perhaps some people really DO think closer to the level of words themselves. I've wondered if right-handers tend to think closer to words than left-handers.

[@honeychurchgipsy6]

@Liane Marie - I think you might have misunderstood Lakoff's ideas. You could try watching more on embodied cognition - there's plenty on YT - a good start might be Mark Johnson's talk from 2016. The basic idea is that metaphors are NOT verbal but embodied - a part of how we have evolved and how we interact with the environment. We don't think with a brain in our head - we think with our bodies and brains.

[@notmyrealpseudonym6702]

You have essentially argued the opposite of what Lakoff proposes. You can get his previous research on metaphors via scholar.google that are worth the read if you have the time

[@jsmdnq]

I think though you are confusing words with words. Meaning language that we use to communicate with each other is only a small portion of language... but a large portion of our language. Musicians do think in words and sentences. Notes are letters, melodies are phrases, dynamics are dynamics, etc. Music is a language but it is not a "common" language. If everyone was also a musician our common everyday language use would probably be more musical. "spiritual experiences" do not have encodings because they are interpersonal(there is no need for a language, in some sense). Language is about describing things to each other. It is about communication. Metaphor's are a commonality because they actually embody external common things. How else can we communicate? All language is metaphorical and is based on externalization of the world. We actually think in terms of electrical neural activity based on external stimulus. As humans we are able to instigate neural activity based on other neural activity and in some sense can "control" what we think. Animals are more "reactive" to the stimulus around them. Machines only react to the stimulus around them(except when they malfunction). Language, which you seem to be thinking of it as natural languages, is just a small portion of what language really is. Language is simply a structure that allows one to encode information(for communication, preservation, and survival/utility). We don't think in terms of natural languages even if we think we do(although we probably do more to a degree than ever before). Sure many times you might be "hearing words in your head" but in reality you are just repeating your thoughts in words(the thoughts come first). Everything, in some sense, is metaphor. That is, everything is about "relationships"(how things are connected). All the letters in this text are nonsense unless one knows the relationships between the letters(and which is "arbitrary"). Language, in the sense of mathematics, is just a set of symbols and a way to combine those symbols. Different combinations then are associated, for humans, external(metaphorical) meaning. A car is not the word car, it is an idea/concept/category that is associated to an external thing which we have learned to represent in our minds through experience. Ultimately it's all about encoding information. If you think about what Lakoff really is saying you will realize it is actually very obvious. Ask yourself how else we, as humans, could possibly communicate without "embodiment". Either we are born with some preordained knowledge of communication/language or it must come from the external universe(including our own body which is external to our minds). Of course maybe it is some of both but clearly the vast majority of the later. Everything, as far as "humans" are concerned, is externalization/experience. This is what makes us so different because we have so very different experiences and so many. Even so we still have a lot of commonality.

[@bakhshizade]

Leave Lee alone. He is dead.

[@drhyshek]

All musicians? No.

[@vammanenmies]

He's metamorphosing into a Japanese old man. But in all seriousness, magnificent stuff.

[@movewithjoy]

Brilliant topic and speaker❤thank you

[@margrietoregan828]

4:49 The idea is this. Imagine that you had a complete brain map of all of the connections in the brain that 4:58 were not connected to the body. They’re just connected to each other. 5:06 Could you have meaningful thought? No. There will be nothing to think about. 5:13 Think about that. There will be nothing to think about. You can only have meaningful thought through connections to the body. 5:21 That is absolutely necessary. There’s no chance that it could just be connections among themselves. 5:28 The next thing to realize of course is that when you see brain maps and they show you 5:34 all of these networks connected to each other that of course is a computer model because 5:40 nothing in the brain touches like that. There are synapses and everything is going across the synapse. 5:47 There are occasional cases of touching on the side. There are a few cases like that but they’re rare. 5:55 The real cases are you’re going across a synapse. So all the pictures where things are, quote, connected are not connected.

[@jsmdnq]

A lot of this seems quite obvious. What else is the human brain suppose to do? It encodes the world around us. We have to use metaphors and analogies because what else can we use? Communication requires a common basis of understanding and hence why externalization is necessary. A language is useless for communication with others if only one person can "speak"(understand) it. Language is about describing *things*. One of the major issues with society is the vast differences we have in our experiences(but also the vast commonality). Communication is very error prone precisely because we must "embody" our descriptions in things and everyone has different experiences of those things(literally different neural development). I don't see any it can be any other way. We are not born with etiquette, culture, politician understanding, social knowledge, science, etc. Even so there is no real absolute language except the language of the universe which is simply information/experience/knowledge. Mathematics is about as close an absolute language we have and it is very inefficient for social communication where precision is not generally desired and language is mostly based in emotional response.

[@aldoborromei]

General Semantics explains your explanation through a Theory of Semantic Reaction and a corresponding “Higher Orders of Abstracting”.

[@Adapt_Counselling353]

so Prof. Lakoff would have us believe that the neural correlates accompanying a thought, (which a human subject participating in an experiment reports as a summery of what s/he has or is experiencing at or after the application of a stimulus - using their own words or a pre-selected collection of descriptors ) - are in fact that subject's thought ! - At the same time he would have us ignore and forget that he had previously pointed out that the various types of scanning machines we use to image the brain are only producing readouts of the blood flow or oxygenation etc., which accompany certain psychical ( subjective ) events under the machine. He speaks so fast that when it came to his stream on moral concepts he doesn't hear himself say " if I do something that harms you you can settle the debt by..." ...rather than - I can settle the debt by .... & so shows that he is conflating self and other in his mind, seemingly unable to distinguish the bad actor inflicting the injury, from the injured biological unit, being acted upon and which of them needs to act in order to "balance the books" in the back and forth of our modern trans-actional World! I found this error from a master communicator and sweet talker fascinating. Once he blurs the logic of causation saying for example "are there - experiences in your brain (rather than events we have been able to record and the subject has been able to report using meaningful words) which GO ALONG WITH, (i.e. are correlates) of well being and ill being ( in your BRAIN )". The fact is that it is not your brain which feels it, it is you yourself, the 'me' you feel yourself to be, who feels and reports well-being. When your endogenous biological system - your whole body & its complex system of co-dependent organs and its fluid and energy flows, stray from their homeostatic set points in relation with the exogenous system it finds itself interdependent upon, - (for example for a phenotypic imbalance between Dopamine & norepinephrine in the PAG or ETRAS region), it is you yourself, the 'me' you feel yourself to be, who feels it - not your brain. Keep in mind that a Chemist can balance the 'ph' of water but that doesn't mean the fluid feels "well-being" for being neither overly acid or alkaline. Or have I missed something? If not then - I found this lecture to be a masterly demonstration of the dangers of a flawless application of "A Logic "- and a Juggernaut didactic style, coupled with a heroic sense of certitude that one has all the answers. It was as if the Prof was convinced that what he has shared with us of his hard and conscientious work over the decades were THE truth and the final word about being a living subject experiencing the singular reality of being a biological entity on this Planet, not just the current state of understanding about the neural network and Consolidations that accompany Animal-Human Experience.

[@kellyryanobrien1]

And I found the opposite. Isn’t it a beautiful world!

[@ayeone3870]

A couple of things you might notice that he didn't mention... 1. "The tyrannical father" archetype has two sides and tyranny is ABSOLUTELY not what Republicans push for... The tyrannical father or king or (insert authority figure) is that which crushes you to dust under his boot heel. NOT that which allows you to "languish in freedom." 🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️ So bad... Which leads me to the second... 2. He didn't mention that the excessively compassionate types (that he referred to as progressives), as characterized by, for example, the caregiver archetype, tend to view those toward which their (theoretical) compassions are aimed, as being helpless and victimized. Therefore... To maximize the effect or the "good" (as they see it).. the compassionate action, is used as a justification for (at least) 2 other things... 1) Impose structure upon others (often whether they like it or not). 2) To brutalize the "enemy" (often including any of the "victims" who get caught in the way and others who are not the enemy, but have been viewed as such, regardless. That's literally the opposite of what he said... There's no way that you can have any perspective of archetypical representation/manifestations, such that you can describe one and not know that each has a shadow, a good and a bad. Which means that, while being completely wrong, he was being intentionally manipulative.

[@simoncrase5360]

There's an interesting resonance between the ideas around 9:30 and Plato's Meno (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meno%27s_slave). While I don't agree with Socrates' explanation (reincarnation), he also agrees that it has to be there to be recruited.

[@Achrononmaster]

This is all well and good, and fascinating. And legit insofar as the computational _behavioural_ cognitive models go. But contra to @6:00, brains do not "have thoughts". Even when bodily connected. They are physical lumps of cells. Only a *_mind_* can "have a thought" (mental qualia) and no one has any clue what a mind is in essence, it is beyond known science. To go beyond behaviourial models you need to understand the mind, and that's not easy. In all this talk there is only correlates of consciousness, no mention whatsoever of conscious essence (whatever that means, and I cannot know what it means because no science does know, and might not ever know.)

[@charlesbrightman4237]

We perceive what we define a "concept" to be, that we then give that concept at least one name, and possibly at least one meaning to. If we can only perceive what we can perceive, then what if what we call a concept has more to it then we can even perceive? Literally beyond our human knowledge, understanding and wisdom?

[@mirahedl5260]

Good thinking. This concept is having strong evidence and sound backing theory. If you want to stretch your open mind even more, here is good starter: /watch?v=oYp5XuGYqqY , then Multimodal User Interface theory that goes more to technical details and if you want you mind blown, go for Hoffman&Prakash Objects of consciousness. Bye

[@charlesbrightman4237]

Mira HÉDL That video feed didn't print right on my end. But, will try to find the various info mentioned. Thanks.

[@charlesbrightman4237]

Mira HÉDL I just checked out some of the references: Yes, I really like some of the TED talks also. I have also come to some current conclusions: a. I don't fully trust "God"; b. I don't fully trust even myself the more I find out how the brain really functions; c. I trust others way less than I trust "God" or myself. I have also recently taken in info regarding "brain to brain" interfacing between animals to other animals, humans to animals, and humans to other humans. It really is quite interesting and is where the future is heading I currently believe.

[@billthompson7072]

I feel this is essential for understanding being apart from the last part on the political argument on complex mataphors linked to mappings and words ignoring Meinong. MEINONG.

[@honeychurchgipsy6]

@Bill Thompson - are you referring to the idea that we can think about imaginary/non existent objects? If so, Lakoff talks about this in other lectures.

[@billthompson7072]

@@honeychurchgipsy6 no, I was attempting a reference to Meinong, a student of Brentano, who turned from philosophy to psychology in search of soul, mind, etc, etc. Meinong noticed the unicorn was both a species specific realia as a word that indicated the issue of ambiguity turning to both ideology and utopia, linking to what eventually developed as intellect and materiality as paradoxical and insoluble problems of ****physics, the answer being to allow consciousness to be embodied, so yay Lakoff, but it is also in flux and plastic, thus all meaning is not only temporary but shared tribally as shared meanings using realia, but, and this is the point, individuals can change tribes developmentally although the change may be difficult it is possible given contexts are also fluid especially when tribes mix heterogeneously as they do online and in cosmopolitan areas, apologies for lack of brevity here

[@billthompson7072]

And thanks honeychurchgipsy6

[@billthompson7072]

so the synaptic galaxy is wireless, and then as it matures it can gradually provide optimal flow and appear to be hard wired, but synapses and neurons can still be recruited.

[@honeychurchgipsy6]

@@billthompson7072 - thanks - I think I get what you're saying. I might have to read some Meinong!!

[@knallbert3036]

Does anyone know what paper exactly he means at around 00:50 ?

[@GetUnlabeled]

If 6 months of gestation shows neural connections to the body, it goes to show, there's sensory , or felt sensations, like pain......

[@thomasjostaufderstroth684]

This statement after @23:45 - Russ De Valoi, physiology of colorvision, dependent on: wavelengths in the world, color cones in your eyes and connections to neural circuitry in the brain that creates colors - color cones dependant on x-chromosomes, 2 versions of "these" for men, 16 for women - women have a bigger color vocabulary... anybody that could link to a resource?

[@NarcissistFreealmost]

Good stuff, thank you!

[@howardvenze9956]

George Lakoff's mind uses the metaphor, the mind is a container. This gives George the idea he is contained in his body. We are embodied only because our mind thinks in terms of being a container.

[@AaronMartinProfessional]

Howard Venze man this is an interesting point of view. I‘m sure Sam Harris would be happy to jump in on your point.

[@honeychurchgipsy6]

I think you've missed a whole chunk of the research that's been done on embodied cognition. Current cognitive neuroscience confirms these ideas - sorry - we do not have separate minds that think - the brain and the body interact with our environment constantly to create our perceptions of reality. You missed the reason why our minds think about containers - try watching/learning a bit more about the subject and it will become clear.

[@emils-j.3586]

​@@honeychurchgipsy6He actually made both a valid and an interesting point - if you listen to George Lakoff, he frames everything in terms of objects - constructs. The mind, the body, metaphor, circuits, and so on. He's describing the mind using the mind, and therefore must do so in the mind's language. That means you can optimize the model for highest possible consistency and simplicity, and you might get a wonderfully congruent narrative - but whether the narrative describes with any accuracy what's actually going on, there is no way to tell. Basically, it's Münchausens trilemma, or Kant's das ding an sich. Also, incidentally, the single largest blind spot of human researchers: Not realizing they're human researchers, and that all their findings are limited to the perceptual capacity and mode of representation of the human system, and, as such, have absolutely nothing to do with 'truth'.

[@honeychurchgipsy6]

@@emils-j.3586 - so how do YOU get around this problem? Answer is - you don't.

[@lesliecunliffe4450]

Brains don't think. It's persons who think. It is wrong to attribute psychological verbs to brains, just as it is wrong to attribute psychological verbs to legs that kick balls.

[@Deletedeceased]

"Isn't that cool" Very

[@charlesbrightman4237]

We don't even know what "consciousness" even is yet, but the more I study it appears that it is attached to our physical brain. With no physical brain, we cannot have "consciousness" it appears. In fact, sad to say, some even lose their consciousness even with a working brain. But now, if there isn't at least one consciousness that is truly eternally consciously existent in actual factual reality, then all things and everybody cease to matter one day, of which then did anything or anybody ultimately and eternally matter in the first place? Life itself would just be an illusion from the human perspective as far as eternity is concerned. If at least one such entity exists, but it's not me, then all of my life is still just an illusion to me from my human perspective as far as eternity is concerned. Whether I was in blissful heaven or in a burning lake of fire in hell even for eternity, what would it matter if I weren't consciously aware of it?

[@anhumblemessengerofthelawo3858]

It is impossible to not know what consciousness is, because you are nothing but conscious. Plato said there is no learning that occurs -- only remembering. Read Meno. I say, you ARE the mind of the Cosmos, we all are, yet split off from this Total Self (infinite intelligence) in an "impossibly small" space ... wherein the Rays of creation have finally given out, no longer in contact with the Source from which it sprang. Out of this, you exist, as body and mind, intertwined. Once something gets far from its Source, it turns on itself. This is domain of empirical science. There is a difference between proof and truth, you see. A veil has been drawn over the conscious and subconscious mind. Once you pierce this veil (Saturn!!!!), you get into contact with that Original Source, and this leads to constant joy. This can be done without any esoteric awareness whatsoever. All IS One, yet who remembers? True thinking .... is about the similarities and differences between things.

[@charlesbrightman4237]

***** 1. If there isn't at least one actual factual truly eternally consciously existent entity that truly exists throughout all of future eternity, then nothing at all ultimately matters as one day there won't be a conscious entity left to care. 2. If such an entity exists, but it's not me, then everything in existence is ultimately meaningless to me as one day I won't consciously exist. 3. If such an eternally consciously existent entity truly exists, one of the very things they could never ever do would be to personally experience a total cessation of conscious existence. And yet, that just happens to be the one very thing that we as humans, as well as many other species, cannot apparently escape. Coincidence? Maybe. Or maybe "God" experiences conscious death through conscious entities that come into conscious existence and then cease to consciously exist. Yes, we are conscious and we are one. But only so that "God" can experience conscious death through us. (Assuming of course that "God" actually factually exists, is in fact eternally consciously existent, and cares about it all throughout "God's" eternal existence). I can't prove beyond doubt that "God" exists, but I also can't prove beyond doubt that "God" does not exist. And I certainly can't prove whether "God" is truly eternal or not. But some things seem certain, we will all die one day from something. Then what in actual reality for the rest of future eternity? It appears nothing at all for us, we will be dead.

[@SamPickup8]

can anyone tell me the name of the first researcher from caltech that is mentioned?

[@MrHeroOG]

www.bbe.caltech.edu/content/shinsuke-shin-shimojo

[@EmA-mu5ki]

Is there a transcript of this video available that I can print off? I have a hard time reading on a screen. Thanks!

[@KellyGerling]

If you look at the video on a computer, there are three dots on the lower right. Clicking on them prompts two variations of a machine translation - either of which can be selected, copied and pasted into a document.

[@ElvisComedy]

Start 20:47 "They make up logics." ..the fuck? Lakoff makin' shit up! Nonsense.

[@moiquiregardevideo]

When I was living in Quebec, I felt insulted if an intellectual person would use English word, insisting that no equivalent exist in French. I feel the same here, unable to translate the German Gelstalt. In this video, it seems that an English word that beg to be used it "Context". Try listen to that part of the video around 1h05 and see if using an English word enrich the subject.

[@ayeone3870]

The last ten or fifteen minutes of this 🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️ Talk about "stay in your lane"

[@charlesbrightman4237]

Thought: Energy gets input to the brain and goes to area "a". A name for this energy is put into area "b". A meaning attached to this name is put in area "c". Additional names and meanings may be put in areas "d', "e", "f", etc. But, how it all does it and interconnects is a complete mystery to me. There is a starting condition, a change of something, and an ending condition. Without some sort of change, (even of perceived "time"), would we even have a perception of reality?

[@oplopk]

take neural networks course, it will blow your mind

[@BeerAlejandro]

The problem is assigning equal value to a person's work in their area of expertise and their personal opinions, which in this case regarding the spanish civil war are wrong, misleading and dangerous

[@lic.marcelogallo]

Guys this is why people do Yoga, Sports, etc.

[@doaaal-dihaymawee3777]

nice video ☺

[@modvs1]

Is our capacity for mental imagery (top down emulation/simulation, reuse redeployment) a basis for primary metaphor? I've often wondered that it could very well be. It would explain homuncularity and talk of 'representation' taking place in sub-personal processes. Philosophy of mind (and certain cognitive sciences) are riddled with it.

[@gekiryudojo]

“If your mind is not connected to your body, you cannot think about anything” You cannot process information or take action. It's also very difficult to feel emotions when your mind is not connected to your body.

[@rosalindmartin4469]

Bell Jar ... Prior connex? Why do headless chickens go on ...not long usually but still. Gosh. Do we hafta insist that we TRULY KNOW how stuff works? Ok. We're human. We need authority. We require funding. Ok

[@moiquiregardevideo]

This guy is like Noam Chomski on steroid. Noam insisted that language is already present in the brain, before we learn to speak. George Lakoff dig in the details, with mention on languages which lack some basic items. He cites a large numbers of serious research. We are not talking about crackpots, those stupidities we often stumble on youtube. (I know, youtube is not supposed to be a reference for scholars, but I am too lazy to walk to Stanford University ; which I literally could while living in Mountain View)

[@julianherrero9056]

My comment is secondary to the theme of this magnificent conference. At minute 19:16 Lakoff says that, in the Spanish Civil War, the "good guys" were the communists. It is time to abandon these ideological clichés. As George Orwell himself (whom Lakoff cites) very well counts, the "good Spanish communists" were completely Stalinist and in that Spanish Civil War they murdered hundreds of civilians only for not being openly "red" or for being suspicious of not being so. And all this without any kind of courts of law.

[@theblondelions9894]

Some times inteligent individuals as Lakoff, spend their time and intelectual dissertations to enhance the status of simple and current things by giving doctoral explanations to what could be explained in quite much shorter and more simplified way. It is the same than preparing elaborate meals by using very simple ingredients. The nature of the basic ingredients does not change as much as you try. I feel sorry for those who were deeply impressed by Lakoff explanations.

[@honeychurchgipsy6]

everything can be explained in levels of complexity: take gravity, or evolution as examples: depending upon who is being addressed a scientist will alter the way they approach a subject (to a small child - things fall down - to an undergraduate student - the explanation will include equations etc.). Here Lakoff attempts a mid level explanation of embodied cognition: the aim is to be easily understandable by non-linguists and non-cognitive/neural scientists, whilst also being fairly detailed and interesting. I think he achieves this balance pretty well: do not equate this talk with Lakoff's life work.

[@leonsantamaria9845]

I don't know if you really good, l listen 👂... and... cognitive analysis you linguistic sintaxis and l guess you ok... but if I listen 👂... professor Noam Chomsky...is in other level... Merge...NP....VP....SW ...and so on....

[@DragonSlave49]

It's sad that the primary press this guy gets is for his weakest and most controversial hypothesis: that liberals and conservatives fundamentally think differently and that this indicates a bimodal distribution of brain wiring. Virtually every other hypothesis he presents is more interesting and better supported by his research.

[@honeychurchgipsy6]

@DragonSlave49 - actually he doesn't actually say that we are completely different/bimodal: he explains that we all have both models in our brains: it's simply that conservatives have the authoritarian family model uppermost and vice versa. If we only had one it wouldn't be possible for any of us to change our thinking on politics - and we do all the time. I think his main point is that the right are better at messaging because they understand how to appeal emotionally to their voters, whereas the left seem to think that simply outlining policies will ensure that everyone will vote for policies that will benefit them. The right have used language to get the poorest voters to vote against their own interests for decades using language/metaphors. In contrast the left keep banging on about defunding the police (wondering why the majority of voters have a visceral fear reaction to such an idea). They try to explain that it doesn't actually mean 'stop giving money to the police/funding law and order, it means alter the way the police are funded, providing money for social projects etc. etc. Too late - no one is listening - they are now convinced that the left want to allow criminals to rampage around without any resistance.

[@sleeprunning]

I really like Lakoff but he makes the classic mistake of human exceptionalism and hyper focus on cultural beliefs - like the importance of language. Everything he says must first be proven in rodent models, duh...

[@COEXISTential]

It seems you didn't notice the bit where he pointed out that the different cultures and languages have shared conceptual primitives (because we share the same world), which therefore precedes culture, and relates to a common biological substrate. ...and I'm sure he'll be right on the rodent models, as soon as you find a linguistically adept rodent ;)

[@sleeprunning]

I don't think semantics or philosophy is of much value anymore, given we can now study how the physiology of the brain causes behavior, duh

[@honeychurchgipsy6]

@@sleeprunning - I'm beginning to think you didn't actually watch this video - did you??

[@misaelrivera2347]

@@sleeprunning what

[@sleeprunning]

Ugh, what a shame - this is all called "hand waving" in bench science - is there any other kind?

[@johnbrown9439]

As a computer programmer in text analysis, I also think the field lacks testable models. However, reading Cognitive Psychology shows that semantic priming is well-proven. In one example, a video shows a man holding something up in his hand, running after a woman on the street. One group is given just the sound-track "He's got a shoe" but the other group uses the cues to a threat situation in the video to interpret "He's going to shoot". If we were not tolerant of glottal stops, the ambiguity would not arise (and we would be intolerant of many dialects). But the other point is that we use the visual cues to assign a "threat situation" to the actions, and that causes semantic priming in favour of "going to shoot". Also, Lakoff has already been employed by the Democratic Party. Don't you think he will also be picking up contracts from the CIA? They influenced both the Muc and Trec competitions to satisfy their needs. Lakoff says little about the bench-mark science, I suspect, since the CIA require confidentiality. All this work is very important to interrogation techniques. Wouldn't you keep quiet about all that?

[@ayeone3870]

This guy has no idea about politics or psychology or he's a liar

[@utukufunziku9543]

Lakoff is the best