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What unites all of humanity?
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coberst
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What unites all of humanity?

What unites all of humanity?

Our cognitive structure unites all of humanity.

What is our cognitive structure?

SGCS (Second Generation Cognitive Science) has developed empirical evidence to support a revolutionary new comprehension of human cognition. These three major findings of a second generation of cognitive science are:

The mind is inherently embodied.
Thought is moistly unconscious.
Abstract concepts are largely metaphorical.

Taken together, in a gestalt understanding of human cognition, “these three findings from the science of the mind are inconsistent with central parts of Western philosophy”.

Our comprehension of cognition is of fundamental importance to our comprehension of our self and of the world that we inhabit. Our most basic beliefs are tied directly to our comprehension of human reason. “Reason has been taken for over two millennia as the defining characteristic of human beings. Reason includes not only our capacity for logical inference, but also our ability to conduct inquiry, to solve problems, to evaluate, to criticize, to deliberate about how we should act, and to reach an understanding of ourselves.”

The mind is inherently embodied

We have in our Western philosophy a traditional theory of faculty psychology wherein our reasoning is a faculty completely separate from the body. “Reason is seen as independent of perception and bodily movement.” It is this capacity of autonomous reason that makes us different in kind from all other animals. I suspect that many fundamental aspects of philosophy and psychology are focused upon declaring, whenever possible, the separateness of our species from all other animals.

This tradition of an autonomous reason began long before evolutionary theory and has held strongly since then without consideration, it seems to me, of the theories of Darwin and of biological science. Cognitive science has in the last three decades developed considerable empirical evidence supporting Darwin and not supporting the traditional theories of philosophy and psychology regarding the autonomy of reason. Cognitive science has focused a great deal of empirical science toward discovering the nature of the embodied mind.

“These findings of cognitive science are profoundly disquieting [for traditional thinking] in two respects. First, they tell us that human reason is a form of animal reason, a reason inextricably tied to our bodies and the peculiarities of our brains. Second, these results tell us that our bodies, brains, and interactions with our environment provide the mostly unconscious basis for our everyday metaphysics, that is, our sense of what is real...That is to say that the sensorimotor system in the human body can perform the functions required to conceptualize and, infer from those conceptions, in a manner required by human cognition. The logical assumption is that these self same sensorimotor neural networks are the networks the body uses to conceptualize during cognition.”

Thought is mostly unconscious

In the 1970s a new body of empirical research began to introduce findings that questioned the traditional Anglo-American cognitive paradigm of AI (Artificial Intelligence), i.e. symbol manipulation.

This research indicates that the neurological structures associated with sensorimotor activity are mapped directly to the higher cortical brain structures to form the foundation for subjective conceptualization in the human brain. In other words, our abstract ideas are constructed with copies of sensorimotor neurological structures as a foundation. “It is the rules of thumb among cognitive scientists that unconscious thought is 95 percent of all thought—and that may be a serious underestimate.”

Abstract concepts are largely metaphorical

Human reason is an extension of animal reason. The sensorimotor system in the human body can perform the functions required to conceptualize and to infer, i.e. the system controlling bodily movements and perception are theorized to be the same that is used for reasoning and that much of what we thing comes from the unconscious. That which comes from the unconscious has been conceptualized based upon our bodily interaction with the world. We have an embodied mind and the failure to recognize that fact is the primary difference

We constantly make subjective judgments regarding abstract things, such as morality, difficulty, importance; we also have subjective experiences such as affection, desire, and achievement.

The manner in which we reason, and visualize about these matters comes from other domains of experience. “These other domains are mostly sensorimotor domains…as when we conceptualize understanding an idea (subjective experience) in terms of grasping an object (sensorimotor experience)…The cognitive mechanism for such conceptualizations is conceptual metaphor, which allows us to use the physical logic of grasping to reason about understanding.”

Metaphor is pervasive throughout thought and language. Primary metaphors might properly be considered to be the fundamental building blocks for our thinking and our communication through language.

“The integrated theory –the four parts together—has an overwhelming implication: We acquire a large system of primary metaphors automatically and unconsciously simply by functioning in the most ordinary of ways in the everyday world from our earliest days…we all naturally think using hundreds of primary metaphors.”

In summation, we have many hundreds of primary metaphors, which together provide a rich inferential structure, imagery, and qualitative feel. These primary metaphors permit our sensorimotor experiences to be used to create subjective experiences. Thus abstract ideas are created that are grounded in everyday experiences.

In modern society new human science theories take generations to seep into the social consciousness. However, new natural science theories are quickly accepted or rejected; when accepted they can immediately impact the world in which we live.

Darwin informs us that the species that is unable to adapt adequately to the changing environment will quickly becomes toast.

Can our civilization, with such a disparity of innovative conditioning, long survive?


Quotes from Philosophy in the Flesh by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson

Old Post Jul 26th, 2009 11:50 AM
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Mindship
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quote: (post)
Originally posted by coberst
SGCS (Second Generation Cognitive Science) has developed empirical evidence to support a revolutionary new comprehension of human cognition. These three major findings of a second generation of cognitive science are:

The mind is inherently embodied.
Mind and body are two sides of the same coin: this has been known to mystical schools of thought for millennia. The attempt to separate them has been largely a product of Western thought over the last few centuries.

quote: (post)
Thought is mostly unconscious.
Also ancient knowledge, repackaged most famously by Freud for easier consumption by the Western mind.

quote: (post)
Abstract concepts are largely metaphorical.
That the human mind subsumes the animal mind and builds upon it has also been known for quite a while.

SGCS seems more confirmatory than revolutionary in that it is finding empirical support for what was already known via direct examination of the psyche through meditation, dream analysis, etc. In other words, what was previously dismissed by Western thinking is now being given a 'second look' because empirical science is more sensitive and thorough than it used to be.


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Old Post Jul 26th, 2009 02:36 PM
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Incanus
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You are wrong. War unites us and divides us. For without war, there can be no peace, so unity dosnt exist. War has been the thing that is focused on more and more as society develops, from cavemen beating each other with sticks and rocks, to people showing up as red dots on a radar before they die. If you take war out of our world, what will be left? People with nothing. We humans have perfected the ability to kill each other, but not the ability to help each other. Hope that makes sense. =-)


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Old Post Jul 29th, 2009 03:30 AM
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quote: (post)
Originally posted by Incanus
If you take war out of our world, what will be left?


Peace?
The ability to apply one's intellect to the betterment of humanity?
Many people's vision of a utopia?


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Old Post Jul 29th, 2009 03:36 AM
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Incanus
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But if you read it, and if you think about it, there can be no peace without war, as without war, there is no conflict, and without conflict peace cannot exist.


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Old Post Jul 31st, 2009 01:24 AM
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Symmetric Chaos
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quote: (post)
Originally posted by Incanus
But if you read it, and if you think about it, there can be no peace without war, as without war, there is no conflict, and without conflict peace cannot exist.


Peace is the absence of conflict. By definition conflict is what destroys peace. If you totally eliminate all war and conflict everywhere you get peace by definition.


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Old Post Jul 31st, 2009 01:27 AM
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Digi
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Yeah, they aren't opposites. The opposite of war would be...kissing? I dunno. Kissing would probably still exist without war. I seem to have confounded my own logic.

miffed


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Old Post Jul 31st, 2009 02:01 AM
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quote: (post)
Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Peace?
The ability to apply one's intellect to the betterment of humanity?
Many people's vision of a utopia?
I honestly can't imagine a worse hell for our species to arrive at.


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Old Post Jul 31st, 2009 02:51 AM
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Quark_666
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Re: What unites all of humanity?

quote: (post)
Originally posted by coberst
SGCS (Second Generation Cognitive Science) has developed empirical evidence to support a revolutionary new comprehension of human cognition.
What empirical evidence?

Old Post Jul 31st, 2009 04:22 AM
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tsilamini
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Re: Re: What unites all of humanity?

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Originally posted by Quark_666
What empirical evidence?


ignoring "SGCS" and depending on what new comprehension you are talking about, research by:

Libet
Gazanniga
Ramichandran
Milgram
Asch

etc


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Old Post Jul 31st, 2009 04:33 AM
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AsbestosFlaygon
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Old Post Aug 8th, 2009 09:20 PM
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