Cognitive Science - George Lakoff

George Lakoff presented some very interesting facts about Cognition and presented them in a very applicable way in politics. I shan't go into the area of Cognitive Science in politics at the moment, but he did write several books with regards to it which I believe will be very facinating reads.

A few points stuck with me after I watched the following video. First of which is that emotions are deeply intertwined with rationality. He mentioned that with the part of the brain governing emotions damaged, a person is unable to think rationally. According to him, neural bindings link the intellectual with the emotional. The narrative example he drew out was very illustrative. The hero is a role given intellectually, but when the hero encounters a villian, the person viewing the narrative feels anxiety. When the villian does something bad to the hero, the third party feels angry watching the scene. These intuitive feelings seemingly gives evidence of this linkage. The conclusion i derived about this seemingly coupled aspects of a human is that empathy (emotions) can be a way that people can manipulate to govern the intellectual in ways deeper then we realize.

There was also another interesting fact he pointed out. The Primodial Cortex enables the human being to feel what another person is feeling. When we see another person greiving, in deep pain or feeling estatic, we often are able to identify with the feeling and on many occasions are able to feel the same way. This, he pointed out, gave evidence that our perceptions are intrinsically connected to the neurons controlling our own feelings and physical being. George calls them mirror neurons. Monkeys were used in physcially determining the precise neurons which gave these linkages. He explained that when a monkey peels a banana, the same set of neurons get activated as when a monkey sees a human peel a banana. Hence, he also argued that when we observe another person or thing doing something, it can be accrued that it has happened in our mind to us as well. To stretch it further Empathy is/can be Physical.

With these conclusions about perception, a deeper understanding about the influences of art, media and videos can be derived. Therefore it is exceptionally imperative that the eyes are exposed only to things which we are ready to address in our lives and society.

George also addressed the issue of Framing. When we address a certain issue in another person's life, we need to understand the mental model that the person has in order to bring out our issue effectively. Framing is somewhat similar to metaphors. Metaphors such as Up is good and Down is bad are learnt at a very young age, he mentions.



He also talked about Nurealistic Learning which is of interest. Will look into this aspect for deeper understanding.