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The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature

Steven Pinker · 2 HN comments
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Amazon Summary
This New York Times bestseller is an exciting and fearless investigation of language from the author of Better Angels of Our Nature and The Sense of Style and Enlightenment Now. "Curious, inventive, fearless, naughty." --The New York Times Book Review Bestselling author Steven Pinker possesses that rare combination of scientific aptitude and verbal eloquence that enables him to provide lucid explanations of deep and powerful ideas. His previous books - including the Pulitzer Prize finalist The Blank Slate - have catapulted him into the limelight as one of today's most important popular science writers. In The Stuff of Thought, Pinker presents a fascinating look at how our words explain our nature. Considering scientific questions with examples from everyday life, The Stuff of Thought is a brilliantly crafted and highly readable work that will appeal to fans of everything from The Selfish Gene and Blink to Eats, Shoots & Leaves.
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Thought uses experiential metaphors from basic physical interactions with the world such as light/dark, up/down, etc.

That certainly seems part of it. I've read Lakoff, and second your recommendation to anyone interested in this stuff. I'd also recommend Pinker's "Stuff of Thought" (http://www.amazon.com/dp/0143114247/) for this topic.

AI will never come from digital machines

If you consider AI as limited to human cognition, sure. I don't think it's anyone's goal to clone human cognition, however - humans are full of biases, survival instincts, tribal intuitions, etc.

Then I think we can agree that a subset of human cognition could also be very interesting, and I imagine the subset of cognition which can be "hoisted" without an embodied mind is quite significant. For example, I think we can achieve the level of cognition of congenial deafblindness (those born without vision and hearing), which is pretty extensive.

Calambrac's correct, nobody uses the first two forms, as google will tell you. But why not?

This is actually a very interesting question. You'd say "Cyberdyne Customers" is an indirect object.

I give Cyberdyne Customers a cookie. I give a cookie to Cyberdyne Customers. I ask Cyberdyne Customers a question. *I ask a question to Cyberdyne Customers.

Why is the last form incorrect? What rules apply here? If you're interested in questions like this, I can recommend Steven Pinker's "The Stuff of Thought" ( http://www.amazon.com/Stuff-Thought-Language-Window-Nature/d... )

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