Hacking Metaphors, Frames and Other Ideas
What's been happening? It has been a little over two years since I posted on this blog last. I have been doing a lot of writing elsewhere on similar topics - mostly Large Language Models and other AI things - it just never added up to a blog post here. My writing exiles Here are…
TL;DR Hunting for sense and cardboard gazelles: The limits of a narrative Getting the sense back in a field of grass: The potential of the ruminative node Mind red in tooth and claw: Bringing narratives and ruminatives together into a single ecosystem TL;DR In this post, I dissect two key modes of sense-making: narrative and…
What is #AcWriMo November is the month of writing. There’s NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) for writing fiction but also AcWriMo (Academic Writing Month) for producing academic writing. The idea behind NaNoWriMo is to make a commitment and finish a piece of writing. This makes more sense for fiction because everyone has that novel inside…
Summary This post has two independent parts: I ask what would some of the basic criteria for sentience be and how to check for them in a way that would give us a chance to satisfy our need to know. I explore some of the dilemmas a fully machine-based sentient entity would have to face…
How to read this This will take about 18 minutes to read (at 230 words/min ) but the text is structured to make it easy to jump around and find the key points faster. I tend to go into more detail than most people find necessary. Two reasons to read : Explore a different perspective…
How hard is it to translate metaphor? Metaphor seems like it should be very difficult to translate. But I’d like to argue that what is difficult about translating it is not the metaphor part but rather how it is used. This makes it no different from any other aspect of language. But because it is…
Background - From comment to blog post I just finished reading Andrew Wilson's series of blog posts on the foundation of 'ecological psychology' This post started as a comment but it was too long for the comment field (and at 1800 words, that's not a surprise), so I'm posting it here. It is a bit…
Note: This post originally appeared on Medium in 2016. This a very lightly revised version with new formatting for ease of readability . It preceded the post on historical revisionism and anthropology of family but it tackles and elaborates on some of the same themes. Outline of the argument History is often accused of not…
I became a feminist because a woman once told me not to be an idiot and I decided that it was good advice. That was in 1998. But I was all ready to be a feminist long before that, so it really just took a small push to get me over the hump. I was…
The problem with writing advice The problem with the likes of Steven Pinker and Helen Sword is that they like their own writing way too much. But I don't. Like their writing, that is. [1] I want to get some information from them and I want to get examples and counterexamples for the points they…
On rereading Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, I was struck by this passage in his foreword to the second edition: I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history, true or feigned, with its varied applicability…
Publication note An earlier version of this was published in the Oxford Magazine No 422. This post expands certain sections based on questions and feedback I received following the first publication of the piece. It is also available on Medium . The state of digital dislocation The current state of digital dislocation is forcing us…
Brooks on the alternatives to nuclear family Tyler Cowen called the extended essay by David Brooks called ‘The nuclear family was a mistake’ a “so far the best essay of the year with many fine and subtle points”. And he’s not wrong. Brooks who has frequently been caught embellishing data to make a point does…
Some time ago, Thomas Basbøll followed up his excellent post on how to write a paragraph with a much more daring endeavour on how to write a sentence . And while the post is a pleasure to read, I think it did not quite overcome the challenge the author stated at the start: “it is…
TL;DR This is an exploration of the difference between wisdom and practical wisdom (phronesis) triggered by this quote from a talk by Ed Catmull : “Once one can articulate an important idea into a concise statement, then one can use this statement, and not have to have the fear of changing behavior.” The main lesson…
What is this about How badly we’re getting history While the world of history and anthropology of the last 30-40 years has completely redrawn the picture of our past, the common perception of the overall shape of history and the development of humanity is still firmly rooted in the view that took hold in the…
TLDR; Reports that AI beat humans on certain benchmarks or very specialised tasks don’t mean that AI is actually better at those tasks than any individual human. They certainly don’t mean that AI is approaching the task with any of the same understanding of the world people do. People actually perform 100% on the tasks…
Note: This is a slightly edited version of a post that first appeared on Medium . It elaborates and exemplifies examples I gave in the more recent posts on metaphor and explanation and understanding . One of the less fortunate consequences of the popularity of the conceptual metaphor paradigm (which is also the one I…
Recently, I've been exploring the notion of explanation and understanding . I was (partly implicitly) relying on the notion of 'mental representations' as built through deliberate practice. My plan was to write next about how I think we can reconceptualize deliberate practice in such a way that it draws on a richer conception of 'mental…
This book will perhaps only be understood by those who have themselves already thought the thoughts which are expressed in it—or similar thoughts. It is therefore not a text-book. Its object would be attained if there were one person who read it with understanding and to whom it afforded pleasure. (opening sentence of the preface…
TL;DR This post outlines 5 levels or types of understanding to help us better to think about the role of metaphor in explanation : Associative understanding: Place a concept in context without any understanding. Dictionary understanding: Repeat definitions, give examples, and make basic connections. Inferential understanding: Make useful inferences based on knowledge about - but…
TL;DR There are at least 3 uses of metaphor in the educational process: 1. Invitation to enter; 2. An instrument to grasp knowledge with; 3. Catalyst to transform understanding. Many educators assume that 1 is enough but it rarely leads to any useful understanding. Explanation is a salient part of the educational process to such…
Background This is a lightly edited version of a comment posted on Martin Haspelmath's blog post " Against traditional grammar – and for normal science in linguistics ". In it he offers a critique of the current linguistic scene as being unclear as to its goals and in need of better definitions. He proposes 'normal…
Butterfly effect and Schrödinger's cat are 2 very common ways of signalling one's belonging to the class of the scientifically literate. But they are almost always told wrong. They were both constructed as illustrations of paradoxes or counterintuitive findings in science. Their retelling always misses the crucial 'as if'. This is an example of metaphor…
I'm not sure how 'burning' these issues are as such but if they're not, I'd propose that they deserve to have some kindling or other accelerant thrown on them. 1. What is the interaction between automatic metaphor processing and deliberate metaphor application? Metaphors have always been an attractive subjects of study. But they have seen…
Everybody is agog at what AI systems can do. Nobody thought even 10 years ago that machines could be trained to recognise images or transcribe natural speech as well as they do now. And because of this leap forward everybody has started worrying about AI taking over the world because it will soon be able…
Innovation is the ‘in’ thing. Innovate or die is the buzz up and down the hive mind. Everybody is feeling like they must innovate all of the things all of the time. But is the incessant innovation the right mode of approaching this? We constantly spin up stories of the intrepid innovator and the change…
TL;DR Why is this important? Many people believe that mental representations are the next goal for ML and a prerequisite for AGI. Does machine learning produce mental representations equivalent to human ones in kind (if not in quality or quantity)? Definitely not, and there is no clear pathway from current approaches to a place where…
In some circles (rhetoric and analytics philosophy come to mind), much is made of the difference between metaphor and simile. (Rhetoricians pay attention to it because they like taxonomies of communicative devices and analytic philosophers spend time on it because of their commitment to a truth-theoretical account of meaning and naive assumptions about compositionality). It…
Note: These are rough notes for a metaphor reading group, not a continuous narrative. Any comments, corrections or elaborations are welcome. Why should you read WFDT? Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal About the Mind is still a significantly underappreciated and (despite its high citation count) not-enough-read book that has a lot to…
Frege’s trauma I found the following quote from Frege on the Language goes on holiday blog and it struck as the perfect starting point for this essay which has been written for a while now: “Frege (“Logic in Mathematics”): Definitions proper must be distinguished from elucidations [Erläuterungen]. In the first stages of any discipline we…
People often talk about music as if it were language. Leonard Bernstein even recorded a series of lectures applying Chomsky’s theory of generative grammar to music . Chomsky himself answered a question on this in a not very satisfying manner. Some people can get very exercised over this. But it seems to me that a…
Background Sometimes a rather obscure and complex analogy just clicks into place in one's mind and allows a slightly altered way of thinking that just makes so much sense it hurts. Like putting glasses on in the morning and the world suddenly snapping into shape. This happened to me this morning when reading the Notes…
Over on the excellent 'Genealogy of Religion' , Cris Campbell waved a friendly red rag in front of my eyes to make me incensed over exaggerated claims (some) anthropologists make about metaphors. I had expressed some doubts in previous comments but felt that perhaps this particular one deserves its own post. The book Cris refers…
A few days ago, I tweeted a link to an article in TES : What Miss really means < It's always worthwhile re-examining ingrained inequalities http://t.co/GKhjc4VgUP #edchat #ukedchat #feminism — Dominik Lukes (@techczech) May 17, 2014 Today, I got the following response back: @techczech 'really means' talks about origins. It doesn't mean that to me…
The role of metaphor in science debate (Background) Recently, the LSE podcast an interesting panel on the subject of "Metaphors and Science" . It featured three speakers talking about the interface between metaphor and various 'scientific' disciplines (economics, physics and surgery). Unlike many such occasions, all speakers were actually very knowledgeable and thoughtful on the…
While people keep banging on about Chomsky as being the be all and end all of linguistics (I'm looking at you philosophers of language), there have been many linguists who have had a much more substantial impact on how we actually think about language in a way that matters. In my post on why Chomsky…
Drafty This was written in some haste and needs further refinement. Maybe one day that will come. For now, it will be left as it stands. Background This post outlines what I think are the key learnings from the output of the research of the field of linguistics that should be reflected in the general…
Metonymy in the wild Things were not going well for Mitt Romney in early autumn of last year. And then he responded to a query about gender equality with this sentence: "I had the chance to pull together a cabinet, and all the applicants seemed to be men… I went to a number of women's…
I have been asked (as every year) to nominate three books of the year for Lidové Noviny (a Czech paper I contribute to occasionally). This is always a tough choice for me and some years I don't even bother responding. This is because I don't tend to read books 'of the moment' and range widely…
" when history is at its most obliging, the history-writer needs be at his most wary." ( China by John Keay ) I came across this nugget of wisdom when I was re-reading the Introduction to John Keay's history of China. And it struck me that in some way this quote could be a part…
The great blog Genealogy of Religion posted this video with a somewhat approving commentary: The video started off with panache and promised some entertainment, however, I found myself increasingly annoyed as the video continued. The problem is that this is an exchange of cliches that pretends to be a fight of truth against ignorance. Sure…
For some reason, many accomplished people, when they are done accomplishing what they've set out to accomplish, turn their minds to questions like: What is primary, thought or language. What is primary, culture or language. What is primary, thought or culture. I'd like to offer a small metaphor hack for solving or rather dissolving these…
I was reminded by this blog post on LousyLinguist that many people still see metaphor as an unproblematic homogeneous concept leading to much circular thinking about them. I wrote about that quite a few years ago in: Lukeš, D., 2005. Towards a classification of metaphor use in text: Issues in conceptual discourse analysis of a…
I am a gaming semi-literate! I was listening to the discussion of the latest BioShock game on the latest TWiT podcast when I realized that I am in fact game illiterate. I am hearing these stories and descriptions of experiences but I know I can't access them directly without a major investment in knowledge and…
I just found out that both abstracts I submitted to the Cognitive Futures of the Humanities Conference were accepted. I was really only expecting one to get through but I'm looking forward to talking about the ideas in both. The first first talk has foundations in a paper I wrote almost 5 years ago now…
Update Part of this post was incorporated into an article I wrote with Brian Kelly and Alistair McNaught that appeared in the December issue of Ariadne . As part of that work and feedback from Alistair and Brian, I expanded the final section from a simple list of bullets into a more detailed research programme…
[caption id="" align="alignright" width="240"] Professor Abhijit Banerjee (Photo credit: kalyan3)[/caption] "We have to use cliches," said professor Abhijit Banerjee at the start of his LSE lecture on Poor Economics . "The world is just too complicated." He continued. "Which is why it is all the more important, we choose the right cliches." [I'm paraphrasing here.]…
[caption id="" align="alignright" width="300"] Teacher in primary school in northern Laos (Photo credit: Wikipedia)[/caption] Most of us are all too happy to repeat clichés about education to motivate ourselves and others to engage in this liminal ritual of mass socialization. One such phrase is "knowledge is power". It is used to refer not just to…
George Lakoff is known for saying that "metaphors can kill" and he's not wrong. But in that, metaphors are no different from any other language. The simple amoral imperative "Kill!" will do the job just as nicely. Nor are metaphors any better or worse at obfuscating than any other type of language. But they are…