Jan
10th
Tue
10th
“Metaphor is a fundamental mechanism of mind, one that allows us to use what we know about our physical and social experience to provide understanding of countless other subjects. Because such metaphors structure our most basic understandings of our experience, they are “metaphors we live by”—metaphors that can shape our perceptions and actions without our ever noticing them. (…)
We are neural beings, (…) our brains take their input from the rest of our bodies. What our bodies are like and how they function in the world thus structures the very concepts we can use to think. We cannot think just anything – only what our embodied brains permit. (…)
The mind is inherently embodied. Thought is mostly unconscious. Abstract concepts are largely metaphorical.”
We are neural beings, (…) our brains take their input from the rest of our bodies. What our bodies are like and how they function in the world thus structures the very concepts we can use to think. We cannot think just anything – only what our embodied brains permit. (…)
The mind is inherently embodied. Thought is mostly unconscious. Abstract concepts are largely metaphorical.”
— George Lakoff, American cognitive linguist and professor of linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, cited in Daniel Lende, Brainy Trees, Metaphorical Forests: On Neuroscience, Embodiment, and Architecture, Neuroanthropology, Jan 10, 2012. See also: ☞ George Lakoff on metaphors, explanatory journalism and the ‘Real Rationality’
