Metaphorically Programmed Cognition

Metaphorically Programmed Cognition

In Metaphors We Live By George Lakoff, a linguist, and Mark Johnson, a philosopher, suggest that metaphors not only make our thoughts more vivid and interesting but that they actually structure our perceptions and understanding. According to Lakoff and Johnson, "the essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another." However, "metaphor is not just a matter of language, that is, of mere words… On the contrary, human thought processes are largely metaphorical". In other words, "metaphors as linguistic expressions are possible precisely because there are metaphors in a person's conceptual system"(http://psyche.cs.monash.edu.au/v2/psyche-2-32-day.html). Therefore the importance of metaphor does not lie in its linguistic connotation, but rather in its cognitive function, and how it structures our mind’s cognition of all things. Metaphor can be seen at the fundamental level of human cognition, at the sensory input level.

Metaphor is used by our mind to understand what we see, hear, touch, taste, and smell. Research of the neurological phenomenon synesthesia suggests that out minds come pre-programmed to think in metaphors. Synesthesia is an involuntary neurological process in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. For example, a synesthete might describe the color, shape, and flavor of someone's voice, or seeing the color red, a synesthete might detect the "scent" of red as well. For example, one with snesthesia may have a visual mental picture of something they hear. Letters can be seen by each having their own specific color. Synesthesia, then by definition, is a metaphor. It is a link between two “things,” where one could be replaced with the other, it is a comparison, it is an understood link. Synesthesia is thinking in metaphor.

Beyond sensory input, the mind processes all other things in metaphors as well. Intangible things, ideas and concepts are all understood by metaphor. Take the universally understood language, mathematics, as an example. Math is an idea that the mind can understand through metaphor. Lakoff explains in his book Where Mathematics Comes From that “One of the principal results in cognitive science is that abstract concepts are typically understood, via metaphor, in terms of more concrete concepts” (http://www.maa.org/reviews/wheremath.html). Take the idea of a number for example, how do we grasp the concept of a number? One way is we relate numbers linguistically by metaphor by calling them, “bigger” or “smaller,” “greater” or “less.” Our mind had a concrete grasp of size, and massiveness and things from our experience with physical objects. Building upon that our mind can link the already concrete ideas in out mind, and apply it to new things, like Math to “understand,” or “learn” a concept. Take also for example the mathematical graph. A graph of any kind is a metaphor to represent the ideas and concepts within math.

Steven pinker takes a different approach to the idea of metaphor. Pinker argues against Lakoff’s view of metaphor by stating that:

Cognitive science has also shown that thinking depends on emotion, and