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Learning about the brain

coberst said:
Books are the source of knowledge.

When schooling is over one needs to use the library to acquire the knowledge and understanding required to solve the problems that are constantly encountered in life.
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WRONG.

Books are not THE source of knowledge; they are a means of conveying knowledge. There are many sources of knowledge; some of the best are observation, reason, communication, experimentation, and comparison.

When schooling is over one needs to use all resources available to acquire the knowledge and understanding required to solve the problems that are constantly encountered in life. The library, used alone and in an inefficient manner, can be detrimental to the acquisition of wisdom.

And your 'Philosophy in the Flesh' book, used as a singular source of knowledge, is an example of this detriment.
 
I have for some time been interested in trying to understand what ‘understand’ means. I have reached the conclusion that ‘curiosity then caring’ is the first steps toward understanding. Without curiosity we care for nothing. Once curiosity is in place then caring becomes necessary for understanding.

I suspect our first experience with ‘understanding’ may be our first friendship. I think that this first friendship may be an example of what Carl Sagan meant by “Understanding is a kind of ecstasy”.

I also suspect that the boy who falls in love with automobiles and learns everything he can about repairing the junk car he bought has discovered ‘understanding’.

I suspect many people go their complete life and never have an intellectual experience that culminates in the “ecstasy of understanding”. How can this be true? I think that our educational system is designed primarily for filling heads with knowledge and hasn’t time to waste on ‘understanding’.

Understanding must come in the adult years if it is to ever come to many of us. I think that it is very important for an adult to find something intellectual that will excite his or her curiosity and concern sufficiently so as to motivate the effort necessary to understand.

Understanding does not come easily but it can be “a kind of ecstasy”.

Comprehension is a hierarchy, resembling a pyramid, with awareness at the base followed by consciousness, succeeded by knowing, with understanding at the pinnacle.

Awareness--faces in a crowd.

Consciousness—smile, a handshake, and curiosity.

Knowledge—long talks sharing desires and ambitions.

Understanding—a best friend bringing constant April.

We might appropriately compare understanding and knowledge with love and the quickie. Understanding requires an intellectual investment just as does love.

I am speaking of understanding when I speak of having something on your mind.
 
zaayrdragon said:
Are you capable of coming up with your own thoughts, or do you just parrot the same, inadequate, apparently misguided book by L & J?
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The problem is not with the Lakoff and Johnson book.

The problem is that the book doesn't say what coberst thinks he's reading.

He's not only writing book reports, but he's writing book reports that the teacher would give bad grades to, because it's obvious that he hasn't understood the book he claims to have read.

Next stop, he will claim to have read Moby Dick and successfully recognized it as a book about a fishing trip.
 
drkitten said:
The problem is not with the Lakoff and Johnson book.

The problem is that the book doesn't say what coberst thinks he's reading.

He's not only writing book reports, but he's writing book reports that the teacher would give bad grades to, because it's obvious that he hasn't understood the book he claims to have read.

Next stop, he will claim to have read Moby Dick and successfully recognized it as a book about a fishing trip.
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Eh, you are too hard on Coberst. The artificial intelligence algorithm is amazing. It's probably the best, most believable bot I've interacted with yet.
 
coberst said:
Categorization, the first level of abstraction from “Reality” is our first level of conceptualization and thus of knowing. Seeing is a process that includes categorization, we see something as an interaction between the seer and what is seen. “Seeing typically involves categorization.”

Our categories are what we consider to be real in the world: tree, rock, animal…Our concepts are what we use to structure our reasoning about these categories. Concepts are neural structures that are the fundamental means by which we reason about categories.

Human categories, the stuff of experience, are reasoned about in many different ways. These differing ways of reasoning, these different conceptualizations, are called prototypes and represent the second level of conceptualization

Typical-case prototype conceptualization modes are “used in drawing inferences about category members in the absence of any special contextual information. Ideal-case prototypes allow us to evaluate category members relative to some conceptual standard…Social stereotypes are used to make snap judgments…Salient exemplars (well-known examples) are used for making probability judgments…Reasoning with prototypes is, indeed, so common that it is inconceivable that we could function for long without them.”

When we conceptualize categories in this fashion we often envision them using spatial metaphors. Spatial relation metaphors form the heart of our ability to perceive, conceive, and to move about in space. We unconsciously form spatial relation contexts for entities: ‘in’, ‘on’, ‘about’, ‘across from’ some other entity are common relationships that make it possible for us to function in our normal manner.

When we perceive a black cat and do not wish to cross its path our imagination conceives container shapes such that we do not penetrate the container space occupied by the cat at some time in its journey. We function in space and the container schema is a normal means we have for reasoning about action in space. Such imaginings are not conscious but most of our perception and conception is an automatic unconscious force for functioning in the world.

Our manner of using language to explain experience provides us with an insight into our cognitive structuring process. Perceptual cues are mapped onto cognitive spaces wherein a representation of the experience is structured onto our spatial-relation contour. There is no direct connection between perception and language.

The claim of cognitive science is “that the very properties of concepts are created as a result of the way the brain and the body are structured and the way they function in interpersonal relations and in the physical world.”

Quotes from "Philsophy in The Flesh" Lakoff and Johnson
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Sorry, I will stop talking to you, as your ability to understand what I am saying seems to be rather limited. those are assertive argumants comparable to fundamental christianity. "It is true because I say it is true" is not an intelligent or coherent argument. Quoting a philospohical teatise that is full of flawed logic and foolish notions is like quoting the bible to prove god.

Sorry, you seem to have interesting ideas and a rabid belief without any scepticism of your beliefs.
 
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