---
up:
  - "[[Concept Expansion]]"
author:
  - "[[Douglas R. Hofstadter]]"
year: 2009
encountered: 
tags:
  - source/speech
type: "[[Speech]]"
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8m7lFQ3njk
---

##### Overview
- **What**: In this Presidential Lecture, cognitive scientist [[Douglas R. Hofstadter]] examines the role and contributions of analogy in cognition, using a variety of analogies to illustrate his points. 
- **Why**: This is important to me because of it is about how to talk about, and define, thinking—especially figurative language and concepts. 

###### Notables
- Concept Expansion, Chunking, Analogies as reminding events

## Notes
- **Analogy-making** - the perception of common• essence between 2 things••
	- •in one's current frame of mind
	- ••thing »» mental thing
- **Reminding events** - A lot of analogies are *reminding events*. There is no purpose (sure they serve "evolution"), but they just happen. These events happen so quickly and fleetingly, often leaving no long-term effect. They appear and go away.

### Concepts expand
- a shadow from the sun...then a snow shadow...then a rain shadow...a familial shadow...in the shadow of a big event...gulf stream (England casts a shadow) <!--add to Concepts as--> see [[Concept Expansion]]
- By seeing new instances of the word "shadow", we're expanding our sense of what the word "shadow" means.
- > *Repeated analogies expand concepts* #source/quote/250

### Chunking
- There is no fundamental difference between a single memory trace and a category/concept.
- The special magic of the human mind is *limitless [[Chunking]]*...where primordial concepts in some interrelationship becomes part of a larger unit. We build our concepts this way and eventually the primordial concepts miraculously disappear. ^ffe150
- *There is no fundamental difference between primordial tangible concepts• and highly-chunked abstract concepts••*
	- •e.g., hand, chair, book, office
	- ••e.g., hub, soap opera, sleazeball, wilderness protection legislation, scientific break-even for laser fusion

### The continuum of concepts
- *Labeled concepts*
	- Primordial words, simple words, compound words, phrases, proverbs
- *Unlabeled concepts*
	- fleeting remindings, me-too's, political analogies, personal-situation mappings, scientific leaps
	- a lot of our concepts are completely unlabeled, old experiences can be triggered by some new event in the future; i.e., Doug's subscript disillusionment as a child connecting to his daughter's disillusionment as a child.
- *Primordial concepts* (not always nouns or even visible or sensory things)
		- Mama, good, hand, hurt, red, loud, Where?, Please! Why?, in, out, here 
		- Please! For example, there are certain circumstances where that word (that mental concept) is evoked
- *Simple concepts*
		- chair, "A", family, mess, probably, proab-lee!, come on!, I mean,...; Well,...;Hi!, kind of, but, Anyway,.., No kidding!
- *Compound words*: armchair, backlog, nice and easy, happy-go-lucky, notwithstanding, commuter railway, weekend, and/or, to and fro, slippery slope
- *Phrases*: Speak of the devil!, Fancy that!, Well, excuuuuuse me!
- *Proverbs*: "Seen one, seen 'em all"; Fight fire with fire

- Joe Becker - 1975
	- The mental lexicon  »» the phrasal lexicon <!--look into this-->
	- Proverbs etc are situation-labels. Example: Sour grapes

### Individual words are the locus of a fight
- > *Every "effortless" category assignment is actually a seething subterranean battle of analogies* #source/quote When the battle is a landslide, there's no evidence. When the battle is close, there is evidence galore.
	- *Individual words are the locus of a fight.* 
	- any time a word is chosen, there is a subterranean fight taking place for primacy
	- sometimes there is a clear winner "dog"
	- sometimes it's close like "vilagent" which blends "vigilant" and "diligent"
	- I should "count my lucky stars" -- count my blessings vs thank my lucky stars
	- "insmide my mind" -- in my mind vs inside my mind
	- "i'm worried that my editor is going to hit the stack"
		- hit the ceiling vs blow his stack vs hit the sack (he was tired)
	- we'll "pull no stops unturned to get him" -- pull out all the stops vs leave no stone unturned
- > "Thought is seeking the highest level of abstraction, putting one's finger on the *essence* of a situation. And then bouncing back and forth between the actual situation, and the essence that one found in one's memory" #source/quote

### Cognition-core hypothesis
- How [[Albert Einstein]]'s Light-Quantum Hypothesis came out of a connection between two bell-shaped curves
- Conclusion: If the following list are all made of analogies, might not ALL OF COGNITION also be made of analogies? This is Hofstadter's **Cognition-core hypothesis**.
	- strokes of genius, personal insights, dinner-table conversations, me-too comments, random reminders, instantaneous categorizations, blends of all sorts

---

- Back Matter
	- watched:: 2020-06-06

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