Surfaces and Essences

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Surfaces and Essences Page 99

by Douglas Hofstadter

gravity/electrostatics analogy, 489–491

  gravity/fictitious force analogy, 491–492

  “Gray Rectangle on Gray Background”, 296

  Greece’s hand re Falkland Islands forced by analogy, 332

  Greek letters, irrelevance of, in understanding mathematical ideas, 392–394

  Grieg, Edvard, face of, 182–184, 520–522

  grocery stores, navigated by analogy, 23, 156

  “gros”, broken into two concepts in English, 80

  groups (mathematical), 446–447, 448–449; division of one by another, 448–449

  “growing smaller”, 196, 249, 413

  growth of a category from sequence of instances, 182–184, 336, 520, 522

  guilty and innocent as categories, 512, 514, 528–529

  Gutman, Kellie, 47–49; parallel poems by, 160, 380–381

  Gutman, Richard, 47–49, 159–161, 166, 380–381

  Gyro Gearloose, 197

  —H—

  h, see Planck’s constant

  “hacker”, old-fashioned and new definitions of, 397

  halo of concepts surrounding each concept, 49–50, 62, 64, 150–151, 328, 335; constantly moving outwards, 62

  hamburger: different ideas of, in American and French cultures, 122; gender of, 427; replaced by soft-drink bottle in caricature analogy, 326; used in Paul Newman’s caricature analogy, 318

  hammer: as category (not) involving relationships among parts, 517–518; making everything look like a nail, 301

  Hampton, James, 56

  hand/foot analogy, 15, 50, 323–324

  “happiest thought of my life” (Einstein), 494

  Haussdorff, Felix, 444

  “He who will steal an egg will steal an ox”, 106–109; upbeat interpretation of, 109

  heart: as category involving relationships, 517; as member of category pump, 518

  heart/finger analogy, 464–465

  heart/pump analogy, 515, 518–519

  heat-capacity anomaly explained by Einstein’s sound-quantum hypothesis, 461

  Heisenberg, Werner, 453

  “here”, as mediating mundane yet subtle analogies, 23, 142

  Hertz, Heinrich, 460, 461

  Herz, Hartmut, 464–465

  hesitations in speech as audible traces of silently seething subterranean competition, 263, 269, 281

  heureux versus heureuse, 9

  hierarchy of concepts, blurriness of, 52–54

  high-level perception, 452

  Hilbert spaces, 444

  historical precedents in wartime decisions, 17, 331–337

  history repeating itself, 313; see also political analogies Hitchcock, Alfred, 59

  “hither and skither”, 260, 383

  Hitler, Adolf: annexing Sudetenland, 332, 334; as baby, 427; caricature analogy involving, 319; contaminating the name “Adolf”, 514; as hackneyed source for political analogies, 17; pluralized, 335; of snuggling, the, 222

  Hoagland, Tony, 132

  Hobbes, Thomas, 38; ranting against metaphors, 21–22

  Hoffmann, Banesh, 473, 474, 477, 480, 481, 482, 495, 500–501

  Hofsander, Dounuel, finishing up book in French and English on the unity of analogy-making and categorization, 529–530

  Hofsander, Katyanna, as Katy/Anna fusion, 23, 32, 529–530

  Hofstadter, Carol: coming up with caricature analogy, 318; driving across U.S. with family, 160; gawking at random hole, 163; lemon-sized brain tumor of, 312–313; signing with maiden name, 148–149, 174–175

  Hofstadter, Danny, 283: eating water, 40; playing with ants and leaves at edge of Grand Canyon, 159–167, 171–174

  Hofstadter, Douglas: choosing among greetings in Italian, 45–46; coming up with caricature analogies, 317–318; conflating glass of water with dollar bill, 280; as disillusionee and disillusioner, 171; encoding a significant event in real time, 174; as error collector, 259; falling momentarily for categories = boxes, 436; as father disappointing daughter re button, 169–170; gawking at random hole, 163; given hope by an analogy, 313; lecturing on analogies in physics, 452–453; reminded of an experience forty years later, 169–170; study and office of, 47–49; taking coffee break, 185, 317; two blue cars of, 283; watching son at Grand Canyon, 30, 159–161; as youngster enchanted by number patterns, 169–170

  Hofstadter, Monica, 283: enchanted by noises from Dustbuster, 169–170, 174

  Hofstadter, Oliver, as neighborhood star, 218

  Hofstadter, Robert: as father disappointing son re subscripts, 169–170, 174; study and office of, 47–48

  holes in the way a language fills conceptual space, see lacunæ

  Holyoak, Keith, 330, 436

  horizontal versus vertical category extensions, 463–468

  Homo sapiens sapiens versus computers, 24–25

  homosexual marriage, impact on concept of marriage, 53

  hub concept: as broadened from wheel center to central airport, 76, 84; internal structure of, 51–54; picture of, 51

  human minds versus computers, 24–25

  humor, in Copycat domain, 358, 360, 366

  hump, evolution of the concept in a child’s mind, 198–200

  Hunting Mister Heartbreak (Raban), 284

  Hurricane Helene/lady-with-suitcase analogy, 284–286

  Hussein/Hitler analogy, 135

  hybrid phrases, see lexical blends

  hyphenated, spaced, and welded compound words, 88

  —I—

  i (square root of –1), 445; generalized, 448

  “I am like you” analogy, pervasiveness of, 156

  Icelandic reminding episode, 181–182

  idea choice, constrained by conversation, 26

  ideal gas: defined, 457; energy spectrum of, 457, 458

  ideal gas/black body analogy: found by Wilhelm Wien, 458; refound by Einstein, 457–459, 463

  ideal gas/Brownian motion analogy, 458

  ideal gas/pool table explanatory analogy, 135, 457–458

  identity: confusion of two people’s, 224–225; intrinsic and permanent, 190, 435

  idiomatic phrases in American English, list of, 95

  idioms: in language A with no counterpart in language B, 119–121; meaning not deducible from constituent words, 96–98

  iggfruders versus snuoiqers, 11

  ignoring the surface level of word problems, difficulty of, 427–428

  illusion: that category labels are mechanically retrieved, 450, 513–514; that category labels are objective, 522–526; that category labels are precise, 59–61; that category labels are unique, 58, 190, 192, 465–466; that category membership is black-and-white, 14; that concepts provided by one’s native language are monolithic, 82–83; that one’s native-language categories cut nature at the joints, 14

  image-based search process, 172

  imaginary numbers, gradual acceptance of, 442–443

  “I’m going to pay for my beer” me-too analogy, 143–144

  immaterial objects, interacting with, 252–253

  impasse: caused by overhasty categorization, 258; escape from, 248–252, 255–256, 292–292; pinpointing the source of, as crucial in creativity, 256

  impoverishment: of overly abstracted concepts, 107–108, 166, 204; possible utility of, 250

  “in”: broken into two concepts by the French language, 78, 80; used zeugmatically, 6, 7–8

  incoherent analogies in Copycat and in real life, 357–358; see also dizziness

  index fnger/fourth finger analogy, 464

  Indianapolis hospital/Verona hospital analogy, 312

  indignation, as frequent cause of caricature analogies, 317, 321

  individuals, categories centered on, 221–227

  Indonesian language, concept of sibling in, 77

  induced structure, 345

  induction: as extrapolation via analogy from the past, 307–310; parameters affecting credibility of, 308

  inferences: effects of typicality on, 390–391; fallacious, due to frame-blending, 361; flowing from naïve
analogies, 386; mediated by categorization, 20–21, 225, 278

  infinite-dimensional spaces, 444

  inner world of expectations as defining certain categories, 68

  insight: incoherently mixed with literal-mindedness, 358; quartet of, found successively and exploited together, 357; thanks to caricature analogies, 326–330

  in-situations, subtlety of, 7–8

  instant pinpointing of timeless essences, 173–174

  intelligence: and analogy-making, 126; as a function of the number of concepts one has, 128; list of various definitions of, 125; nature of, 124–126; as the pinpointing of essence, 125–126, 128–131; possibly rising steadily over time, 130; tests, as the prime venue of analogy-making, 16

  intelligent ignoring and forgetfulness, 426–427

  intension versus extension of a category, 55, 244

  intensity of emotion as a function of strength of analogical mapping onto another person, 155

  interfaces, profiting from naïve analogies, 400

  interjections as categories, 46

  interplanetary bumblebee, see buzzing interplanetary bumblebee

  intuition, alleged irrationality of, 392, 501

  “invite”/”accept” caricature analogy, 319, 380

  IQ scores and IQ tests, see intelligence

  irony, as key in encoding of Danny at the Grand Canyon, 161

  irresistible analogies, 104, 155, 157, 297, 305–313

  irresistible force meeting immovable object category, 326

  Isis, 38

  isomorphic word problems perceived differently, 429–434

  Italian language: compound words in, 89; greetings in, 45–46; names of pasta types in, 243–244; zeugmas in, 8, 11

  italics as a convention for concepts, 34, 110

  —J—

  Jan, allegory of, 476, 481, 485

  jargon, made mostly of everyday words, 394–400

  javelin caricature of coffee-stirring sticks, 317, 321–322

  Jeanine/Ruth analogical conflation, 225

  Jeff, pluralization of, 223

  Jewish mother category, 93–94

  jiggles, ripples, rumbles, tumbles, 475

  Joane (who said “Come on!”), 39, 41, 42

  job decision: as frame-blend example, 367; reached via analogy, 331

  Johnson, Mark, 63

  Jourdain, Monsieur, 186

  juggling, novices’ lack of skill in, 340

  Jupiter, 15; moons of, spotted by Galileo, 43–45

  —K—

  Kałuża, Henryk, 76

  Kant, Immanuel, 21

  “Karnak Caps” (Kellie Gutman), 160, 380–381

  Karnak, Temple of, see Dick at Karnak

  Katy, as spokesperson for the centrality of categorization, 503–529; mapping herself and fiancé onto couple being married, 514; poofing into thin air, 529; see also Anna, Katyanna

  Katyanna, see Hofsander, Katyanna

  Kepler, Johannes, 471, 500; of etymology, the, 222

  keys, concrete versus abstract, 255, 295

  Keysar, Boaz, 228

  Kheops, tiny statue of, as giant attraction, 162

  Khong, Yuen Foong, 332–337

  killing two birds with one pronominal stone, 148

  kinetic energy: formula for, 470–471; lost by flashlight, 470–471

  “Kleenex” versus “kleenex”, 217–218, 232

  knee/elbow analogy, 463–465

  Knie, Knut von, 463–465

  knife, falling, as highly abstract concept, 28–29

  “knight” “jumping” on top of “castle”, 366

  knots, N-dimensional and prime, 449

  known: chimera of freeing oneself from the, 313–315; as constraint biasing perception, 314; our intimate, ceaseless dependence on 313–315

  Korean translators, compared to European translators, 306–307

  Koufax, Sandy, 325–326, 383

  Krishnamurti, Jiddu, 313

  —L—

  labels, linguistic, and categories, 14, 33–34, 39–43, 45–49, 61–65, 66–68, 70–84, 85–89, 93–104, 106–124, 126–127, 132–133

  laboratory in space: pulled by rocket, 491–492, 495–496; released by angel, 493–494

  lacunæ in a given language, 12, 81–83, 119–122, 132–133

  La Fontaine, Jean de, 112, 113; naïve analogy by, 388

  Lagrange, Joseph Louis de, 445–446, 453

  Lakoff, George, 63

  language, as an imprecise category, 61

  language lacking words for vivid feelings, 133; see also lacunæ

  languages spoken, blurriness of number of, 61

  Laplace, Pierre Simon de, 453, 480

  latent analogies due to semantic halos, 271, 273, 274

  legalese, uselessness of, in communication, 144, 149, 329–330, 354

  Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm von, 443

  “lemon”, opacity to a French speaker, 232

  length contraction, 468, 497

  Lenni (who said “Gotta nurse the truck!”), 39, 42, 43, 45; compared with Galileo, 45

  Leonardo da Vinci, 351; of ice cream, the, 222

  letting the cat out of the bag as a category, 96–97

  Lewis, Gilbert, coining of the word “photon” by, 462

  lexical blends, 259–270; list of, 260; multiple sources of, 263–266; phrases contributing to, 263–270; rampancy of, 261; in a single word, 266–267

  life, as perceived through a Pac-Man filter, 303–305

  life/voyage analogy, 511

  light: bending in gravitational field of the sun, 496; as corpuscles, 459, 461–462; Doppler effect for, 469–471; as electromagnetic waves, 212–213, 455, 459, 461; following curved pathway in lab, 496; generalized to all energy, 473, 474; mass of, 472, 483; as massless, 472

  light quantum: Einstein’s analogical pathway to, 455–459; named “photon” by G. Lewis, 459, 462; scorned by Einstein’s peers, 460–463; today’s physicists not knowing the story of, 462

  light waves/sound waves analogy, 211–213, 361, 470; see also sound particles/light particles analogy

  Liljenquist, Katie, 289

  Lin Baofen, 12

  Lincoln, Abraham, 368–372

  linguistic borrowing changing meanings, 122

  Linhares, Alex, playing soccer with a bowling ball, 31, 318

  Linnæus, Carl, 60

  lion/speaker analogy, 71

  liquid assets versus frozen assets, 476–477

  liquid energy/strange mass analogy, 480

  lists: of abstract circular structures in daily life, 355; of abstract ideas based on physiological senses, 287; of abstract uses of “mother”, 37, 38; of absurdly nitpicky concepts, 83; of acronyms, 90–91; of action errors, 279; of activated categories in search of instances, 299; of activities for one’s child, 31; of activities prohibited in public places, 138; of ad-hoc categories, 138; of adjective pairs to label the two types of mass, 485; of affordances of objects, 345; of agitation-like categories, 74; of ambiguous objects poised between two categories, 191–192; of analogies involved in creating general relativity, 499; of analogies underlying great physics discoveries, 453; of analogues to falling knife, 28–29; of “and” usages, 71; of anti-proverbs glorifying the superficial, 338; of approaches to translating “Four score and seven years ago”, 370–372; of attributes of fictional “Sue”, 37; of Bengali-poetry properties, 343; of big things that started small, 108–109; of biplans, 269; of bodies having surfaces, 344; of books, strange types of, 83; of canine analogies that impress, 180; of canine concepts, 179; of canonized cultural landmarks, 222; of canonized individuals, 222; of careful analogy-crafters, 382; of caricature analogies, 318–320; of catchy new concepts, 129; of categories Ann belongs to, 59, 191; of categories ex-Concorde on pedestal belongs to, 192; of categories mathematics might be assigned to, 510; of categories Mr. Martin’s purchase belongs to, 189–190; of categorizations having opaque mechanisms, 511; of category distinctions never taught in schools, 126, 127; of children’s semantic approximati
ons, 39–41; of chunked items in grocery stores, 92; of cognitive-dissonance reduction situations, 116; of colorful acts of categorization, 510; of common metaphorical uses of words, 62; of compound words in French and Italian, 89; of compound words with “air”, 86; of compound words with rival plurals, 87; of compound words with unnoticed components, 86; of computer concepts used in daily life, 402–404; of concepts at the core of a conceptual space, 79; of concepts close to golfer, 49, 50; of concepts modified by their “children”, 53–54; of concepts tacit in the concept hub, 52, 54; of concepts whose members have great reality to us, 132; of concepts with blurry boundaries, 60; of concepts with labels of ever-greater length, 111; of conceptual broadenings of catchy new concepts, 130; of conceptual-proximity slippage errors, 271–276; of conjunctions that name categories, 55, 70; of consequences of special relativity, 468; of containment situations in everyday life, 333; of conventional metaphorical usages, 232; of cousins of the word “and”, 72; of cousins of the word “but”, 30, 72, 74; of criteria for bird-ness, 55; of “dead” acronyms, 93; of decision-making situations, 330; of definitions of intelligence, 125; of definitions of multiplication, 412; of different ways of eating, 10; of diverse factors influencing categorization, 526; of diverse forms of caricature analogies, 320; of division word-problems concocted by students, 416; of division word-problems that give a larger answer, 418; of doctors who generalize known cures, 463–465; of dog breeds, 238; of English phrases used in French, 122; of entities belonging to rival categories, 191–192; of “equations” in advertisements, 409; of errors mediated by mutually reinforcing analogies, 277–278; of everyday analogies, 507; of everyday concepts of boundless richness, 5; of fairly low-frequency concepts, 81; of familiar concepts, 390; of families of metaphors, 63; of famous golfers of yore, 49; of fancy names used by professionals for familiar things, 421; of fancy technical concepts, 51; of fauxthenticity examples, 176–177, 178; of features of attics, 48–49; of features of offices, 47; of features of studies, 47–48; of four division problems involving photos, 422; of frame-blending Copycat analogies, 359; of French phrases used in English, 122; of French words for “pattern”, 81; of French words for “to get”, 80; of gearshift attributes, 344; of genericized brand names, 217; of generic-male usages, 193; of geniuses of yore who would be astounded by today’s commonplace knowledge, 130; of great commanders, 125; of highly variegated categories, 516; of historical precedents of the Vietnam War, 332; of household-item compound words, 88; of human needs engendering cultural activities, 314; of hypothetical contributions today of yesterday’s geniuses, 132; of hypothetical idioms for “spill the beans”, 96; of idiomatic phrases, 95; of ignored aspects of familiar things, 427; of impenetrable idioms, 105; of inferences made from category membership, 20, 21; of ingrained habit suddenly turns obsolete situations, 149; of items frequently used in division wordproblems, 419; of Jewish-mother jokes, 93; of Jewish-mother traits, 94; of labeled concepts, 20; of levels of abstraction in the speech chain, 25–26; of lexical blends, 260; of life lessons derived from Pac-Man, 303; of lists in this book, 569–570; of lovely spots in San Francisco, 296; of Mandarin verbs for playing instruments, 12; of marginal category-memberships, 56; of marginal members of the category bridge, 67; of marking in language, 193–194; of maternal traits, 34, 38; of meanings of the French word “ciel”, 375; of meanings of the word “band”, 3–4; of meccas, 220; of mechanical experiments, types of, 466–467; of medium-frequency concepts, 81; of members of the bark worse than bite category, 96; of members of the category unfortunate incidents caused by trying to avoid them, 524, 526; of members of the category very, 75; of metaphorical mothers, 38; of metaphorical usages of “to break”, 42; of metaphors casting abstract activities in terms of mundane activities, 63; of metaphors casting complex situations in terms of fights, 63; of metaphors casting moods in terms of heights, 63; of metaphors not belonging to a systematic family, 63; of metaphors used by metaphor-bashing philosophers, 22; of me-too’s featuring subtle conceptual slippages, 146; of me-too’s triggered by a compliment to a spouse, 147–148; of mistaken categorizations, 527; of monosyllabic lexical blends, 267; of morality-as-cleanliness stock phrases, 289; of “much” phrases, 67, 69, 70; of a multitasker’s activities, 403; of mundane, unseen analogies, 23; of negative numerical quantities in everyday life, 441; of 9/11’s, 297–298; of noncountability of members of the simplest of categories, 61; of non-lexicalized categories, 139; of non-subjective analogies, 525; of notions implicit in the category plate, 519; of objective categorizations, 522; of obsessions engendering analogies, 301–302; of office-like categories, 74; of old words with new technological meanings, 396, 398; of once bitten twice shy situations, 103; of opaque French idioms, 97; of operation–result “equations” in daily life, 408; of other cultures’ proverbs for “Once bitten, twice shy”, 105; of pairs of contradictory proverbs, 101; of parameters affecting one’s likelihood to jump to a conclusion via analogy, 307, 309; of Parises of the United States, 16; of parts of an airport, 52; of pasta types, 243–244; of phrases describing space in terms of time, 63; of phrases describing time in terms of space, 63; of phrases modified by “quote unquote”, 64–65; of physics phenomena belonging to electromagnetism, 467; of physics phenomena belonging to mechanics, 466, 494; of pieces of knowledge needed to understand a contemporary phrase, 128; of Platonic animal categories, 56; of plausible contributors to a lexical blend, 266; of pointless analogies, 283; of polysyllabic lexical blends, 267; of popes, 219; of possible meanings of Nick’s Nubian me-too, 151; of potential distinctions between categorization and analogy-making, 503; of potential members of the category bird, 59, 60; of proverbs about the sum of many little things, 109; of proverbs applicable to rationalization situations, 117–118; of proverbs poised halfway between categorization and analogy-making, 100; of pseudo-proverbs, 105; of questionable members of familiar categories, 528; of random thoughts in an airport, 33; of readymade sentences, 98; of reasons division always makes things smaller, 417; of reasons division word-problems cannot give a larger answer, 418; of reasons underlying Greece’s position in the Falkland Islands War, 332; of recent words coined from productive suffixes, 129; of reliable run-of-the-mill analogies, 529; of rival categorizations of a bag-toting woman, 127; of running-race metaphors, 289; of salient entities typically used in caricature analogies, 320; of sample languages that Google Translate offers, 377; of schoolday analogies, 17; of sci-fi fantasies rooted in familiar phenomena, 314; of sentences with the word “normalement”, 82; of similarities underpinning the Carol/Isabel analogy, 313; of single-word categories, 85; of situations defined by proverbs, 174; of sour grapes situations, 113, 114; of spicy one-line analogies, 136; of stock phrases shooting words into the speech chain, 25; of striking events liable to evoke memories, 158; of subcategories of dog, 240; of subjective categorizations, 523; of superordinate categories of dog, 240, 520; of symbols of sadness after a death, 300; of tail wagging the dog situations, 120-121; of thank-you’s of various flavors, 46; of things analogous to asparagus tips, 19; of trivial side show situations, 162–163; of types of analogies used in word- and phrase-retrieval in one’s native language, 376; of types of sandwiches, 214–216; of types of shadows, 204–209; of types of waves, 209–214; of unfamiliar concepts, 390; of unintended name slippages, 224; of universally important concepts, 80; of unstriking events not liable to evoke memories, 158; of unusual professions, 242; of usages of “much”, 70; of varieties of mess, 127; of verb-like phenomena presumably lacking mass, 475; of verbs used as category names, 66; of virtual actions frame-blended with real-world actions, 405–407; of virtual actions we perform daily, 395; of virtual objects we use daily, 395; of ways of missing the gist of a situation, 125; of wildly different-looking animals, 516; of words that start with “multi”, 413; of words with different connotations in English and Chinese, 368; of zeugmas, 6

 

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