The word ‘meaning’ has only recently become meaningful for me.
In school I would ask Sister (I was raised as a Catholic and was taught by nuns) “what does this word mean and she would give me the dictionary definition of the word. Until a few years ago the word ‘meaning’ had only one meaning and that was the dictionary definition.
What has changed in my world is that I have begun studying cognitive science, which has led me down many different intellectual paths in search for answers to many questions that has arisen as a result of my studies.
SGCS (Second Generation Cognitive Science) as described in “Philosophy in the Flesh by Lakoff and Johnson, details a new paradigm for cognitive science. This new paradigm for cognitive science might be called the embodied mind.
This new paradigm constructs a world view based upon the empirical evidence that there is no duality of mind/body but that we are in fact an embodied mind.
The foundation of SGCS cognitive science rests on the concept of meaning. The concept of understanding rests on meaning, and the concepts of truth, created reality, knowledge, objectivity, and subjectivity follows as a result of our understanding.
I did a Google search for quotes about meaning and I will share a few of these with you.
http://thinkexist.com/quotations/meaning/
If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is a part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us.
Hermann Hess
There is not one big cosmic meaning for all, there is only the meaning we each give to our life, an individual meaning, an individual plot, like an individual novel, a book for each person.
Anais Nin quotes (French born American Author of novels and short stories, 1903-1977)
“The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it.
Carl Gustav Jung quotes (Swiss psychiatrist, Psychologist and Founder of the Analytic Psychology, 1875-1961)
“Meanings are not determined by situations, but we determine ourselves by the meanings we give to situations.
Alfred Adler quotes (Austrian psychiatrist whose influential system of individual psychology introduced the term)
Old friends pass away, new friends appear. It is just like the days. An old day passes, a new day arrives. The important thing is to make it meaningful: a meaningful friend - or a meaningful day.
Dalai Lama quotes
“The essence of intelligence is skill in extracting meaning from everyday experience.
“Meaning is not what you start with, but what you end up with
Peter Elbow quotes
“Our obligation is to give meaning to life and in doing so to overcome the passive, indifferent life
Elie Wiesel quotes (Romanian born American Writer. Nobel Prize for Peace in 1986. b.1928)
“What we see depends mainly on what we look for.
“What we see depends upon what is meaningful to us.
John Lubbock
Meaning is what touches us in a fundamental way
coberst
“If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is a part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us.
Hermann Hesse
“Love is just a word until someone comes along and gives it meaning.
Chuck Palahniuk quotes (American freelance Journalist, Satirist and Novelist. b.1961)
“If I could tell you what it meant, there would be no point in dancing it
Isadora Duncan quotes (American Dancer, best known as one of the founders of modern dance. 1877-1927)
“I miss the meaning of my own part in the play of life because I know not the parts that others play
Rabindranath Tagore quotes (Indian Poet, Playwright and Essayist, Won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913, 1861-1941)
“Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather he must recognize that it [is] he who is asked.
Viktor Frankl quotes (Austrian psychiatrist and psychotherapist. 1905-1997)
The word ‘meaning’ has only recently become meaningful for me.
The word ‘meaning’ has only recently become meaningful for me.
I don't see anything in your entire thread that includes a definition for 'meaning' that is in any way relevantly different from the standard existing definitions for the word.
This new paradigm constructs a world view based upon the empirical evidence that there is no duality of mind/body but that we are in fact an embodied mind. So...what you're saying is "I've decided that dualism is no good, and instead I support monism." Fair enough, plenty of people have over the centuries. What I'm not seeing is how this is some sort of paradigm shift, let alone a new one. Monistic thought is pre-Socratic, it isn't like this is something people are just starting to talk about.
Maybe you could give us some vague sort of idea about what kind of monism you're a supporter of? "The embodied mind" as a concept doesn't carry with it any actual content as a concept beyond one using the already established "Yup, it's monastic not dualistic" even though, I mean really, a term like 'embodied mind' means 'a mind which has been put into a body' which uh...suggests a mind/body divide, which is still dualism not monism.
What -is- the one substance which makes up the embodied mind to you? What consequences does your monastic belief have with regards to things like people in comas? Brain death? The durational existance of the mind after biological death? Does this cause you to change your views about an afterlife?
Does this belief in any way cause you to rethink your metaphysical or existentialist ideas? Or have you just decided to switch from 2% milk to skim because you heard it was better for you?
This new paradigm constructs a world view based upon the empirical evidence that there is no duality of mind/body but that we are in fact an embodied mind. So...what you're saying is "I've decided that dualism is no good, and instead I support monism." Fair enough, plenty of people have over the centuries. What I'm not seeing is how this is some sort of paradigm shift, let alone a new one. Monistic thought is pre-Socratic, it isn't like this is something people are just starting to talk about.
Maybe you could give us some vague sort of idea about what kind of monism you're a supporter of? "The embodied mind" as a concept doesn't carry with it any actual content as a concept beyond one using the already established "Yup, it's monastic not dualistic" even though, I mean really, a term like 'embodied mind' means 'a mind which has been put into a body' which uh...suggests a mind/body divide, which is still dualism not monism.
What -is- the one substance which makes up the embodied mind to you? What consequences does your monastic belief have with regards to things like people in comas? Brain death? The durational existance of the mind after biological death? Does this cause you to change your views about an afterlife?
Does this belief in any way cause you to rethink your metaphysical or existentialist ideas? Or have you just decided to switch from 2% milk to skim because you heard it was better for you?
The word ‘meaning’ has only recently become meaningful for me.
Cognitive science, as delineated in “Philosophy in the Flesh by Lakoff and Johnson, presents a new paradigm for cognitive science. This new paradigm might be called the “conceptual metaphor paradigm. The theory is that experiences form into concepts and some of these concepts are called “primary metaphors. These ‘primary metaphors’ are often unconsciously mapped from the originating mental space onto another mental space that is a subjective concept, i.e. abstract concept.
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.
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!
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.
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!
The word ‘meaning’ has only recently become meaningful for me.
So in other words:
"Blah blah, nonsense plus completely ignoring every single point you raised and question you asked"
Gotcha.
"Blah blah, nonsense plus completely ignoring every single point you raised and question you asked"
Gotcha.
The word ‘meaning’ has only recently become meaningful for me.
Devonin;963401 wrote: So in other words:
"Blah blah, nonsense plus completely ignoring every single point you raised and question you asked"
Gotcha.
:yh_rotfl:yh_rotfl:yh_rotfl
Coffee now splattered ALL over the keyboard! But well worth it! :wah:
"Blah blah, nonsense plus completely ignoring every single point you raised and question you asked"
Gotcha.
:yh_rotfl:yh_rotfl:yh_rotfl
Coffee now splattered ALL over the keyboard! But well worth it! :wah: