
Metaphors We Believe By - jger15
https://aaronzlewis.com/blog/2019/07/25/metaphors-we-believe-by/
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DonaldPShimoda
As the author mentions at the bottom of the article, the title is a reference
to the book "Metaphors We Live By" [0], which essentially lays out the idea
that a very significant portion of modern language is really just metaphors,
even when we don't realize it. Super interesting book, for anybody interested
in those kinds of things!

[0] [https://www.amazon.com/Metaphors-We-Live-George-
Lakoff/dp/02...](https://www.amazon.com/Metaphors-We-Live-George-
Lakoff/dp/0226468011/)

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nabla9
Douglas Hofstader's work in cognitive science is based on the same premise.
Humans high level thinking fundamentally base on analogies.

His book "Fluid Concepts & Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the
Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought" (1995) is the culmination of his thinking.

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neilv
Regarding the fish comic in the article: it's how David Foster Wallace starts
a 2005 college commencement speech: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CrOL-
ydFMI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CrOL-ydFMI)

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claudiawerner
That was an amazing listen. Most people have so many beliefs they don't
question at all - me included (and I add this not just to seem like I haven't
missed the point of what Wallace was saying), and the metaphor of the atheist
and the religious guy arguing exemplifies that very well, specifically in
these beliefs we deem non-religious, from our political ideologies (even
centrists have very strong, usually classically liberal ideology - when was
the last time you heard someone discuss not merely certain rights but the
whole idea of rights, not just a political candidate but the whole idea of the
democratic establishment, not just rich and poor but the nature of capital and
value itself etc.?) to our metaphysical assumptions that ground popular (and
expert) conceptions of science.

Most people simply have no idea that there are alternatives (ask a random
person if they're a materialist in the metaphysical sense, which they likely
are, and you'll either get a confused look or a "yes" once you explain it; you
won't here a critique of idealism; similarly, ask if they support
representative democracy and a "healthy economy" and you won't be met with a
critique of capital or the illusion of the economic[0]; ask if they are a
moral realist or anti-realist and they probably wouldn't be able back up
either opinion, if I had a penny for the number of times someone threw out a
"morality is relative" as if a settled fact in philosophy when discussing an
issue I'd be rich) and as Wallace mentioned, we build prisons so strong we
don't even realize they are prisons.

[0] I've borrowed this term from Patrick Murray's essays on the value-form in
his contribution to critiques of marginalist economics.

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alexpetralia
Absolutely captivating read. Great big-picture thinking (the biggest).

