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This is really cool. Our bodies are essentially battle fields with different replicating agents struggling for control and a "place" in the future. Any cooperat

by kmonad 11y ago

This is really cool. Our bodies are essentially battle fields with different replicating agents struggling for control and a "place" in the future. Any cooperative "agreement" is loose and subject to change at any point (for example cancer), and those offspring stem cells invading a mother's brain: mind-blowing (no pun intended).

vanderZwan 11y ago
> Our bodies are essentially battle fields with different replicating agents struggling for control and a "place" in the future. That's just another metaphor, and you have to be very careful with your choice there. To paraphrase Lakoff & Johnson[1]: the metaphors we use shape the thoughts that we understand through them. A very common one is thinking of arguments as war ("his viewpoints got attacked but he defended them well", etc). Imagine what would happen if we think of arguments as a dance? [1] http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo3637992.html http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo3637992...
- ThomPete 11y ago
  Yeah it's like when Dawking wrote the Selfish Gene. He spend some time talking about that the genes weren't in fact selfish it was just that they acted as if they were.
  - vanderZwan 11y ago
    Exactly. Denis Noble wrote a perfect counter to the trap of thinking that this metaphor often leads to (although not in Dawnkins himself). In The Music of Life[1] he invert the metaphor: instead of us being "lumbering hulks, slaves to our genes", our genes are captives of our bodies, depending on our choices to keep existing. Noble's point was that you could neither prove nor disprove one to be more accurate a metaphor than the other, despite having the total opposite interpretation. I'm not saying kmonad's explanation is wrong, just that it's dangerous to not be aware of the underlying metaphor. [1] http://musicoflife.co.uk/ http://musicoflife.co.uk/
    - ThomPete 11y ago
      I actually think it's much more important to realize what metaphors are exactly because they are derived through language which by default is framing our perspectives and is limited in it's ability to express more complex reality. (Hence a picture is worth a thousand words) I always look at language as a reduction of reality not a one to one relationship with reality. I.e. we as pattern recognizing feedback loops notice some phenomena and then try trough language to express it. But because we are limited beings and our language is limited in expression we end up only expressing perspectives rather than truth. This could, I believe, also be one of the reasons why we have such a hard time finding a way to describe QM and general relativity in a unified manor. Our language really doesn't do well with paradoxes. The exception is in zen-buddhist philosophy that actually are much more accepting of paradoxes (wisdom lies in paradox) But thats another discussion. The primary point I am trying to make is that this reduction of reality leads to our perspectives and can both provide clarity but also trap us in a certain way of thinking.
      - vanderZwan 11y ago
        I think you would really enjoy reading the works of Lakoff & Johnson I mentioned earlier, if you haven't already :D > I actually think it's much more important to realize what metaphors are exactly because they are derived through language which by default is framing our perspectives and is limited in it's ability to express more complex reality. (Hence a picture is worth a thousand words). I agree with everything you say - but I would like to give an opposing view to the "derived from language" bit. It's very likely to go in the other direction! One thing Lakoff & Johnson discuss - especially in their later work - is how our metaphors originate from our physical senses and our body (look up "embodied cognition" and "conceptual metaphor"). In short, they argue that we derive fundamental metaphors from the embodied experience, and inject what would otherwise be a otherwise purely symbolic language with meaning through a complex web of metaphors.
        ThomPete 11y ago
        Yes you are of course right. I am using metaphor more literally than they are.
  - jacquesm 11y ago
    > Yeah it's like when Dawking wrote the Selfish Gene. Dawkins.
    - ThomPete 11y ago
      Yeah typo thanks. Too late to fix it.
- anon4 11y ago
  Relatedly, on the subject of words: Twitter recently changed their favourite icon from a star to a heart. I've heard several people decry it as making it easier for stalkers to sexually harass women, because the new system lets them send hearts. Even though the functionality is exactly the same, some perceive it as more sexual and intimate now.
- kmonad 11y ago
  I don't know about "our arguments", but "battle" describes much better what is happening in the context of my comment than "dance". And indeed, shaping the way we think about what's happening in our bodies as "battles" was exactly what I intended to convey, risking the inevitable misunderstanding that comes with any analogy. Of course I do not mean to imply any form of intentionality, only the inevitability of competition, or "battle".
  - vanderZwan 11y ago
    I understand where you are coming from (and personally think our conversation is more like a dance). Like I said: I don't think your analogy is wrong, just that there's a big risk of ending up with false expectations without realising that is a misapplication of the analogy. Like you mentioned, projecting intentionality where there is none is especially likely. I can give a clear example of a mistake like this: based on Paul Ewald's TED talk[1] I once was talking about the evolution of lethality in diseases with some friends. They are all highly educated, some of them doctors as well. Turns out, the less a disease depends on its host to find new hosts to infect, the more lethal it tends to be. The reason is that the mutations that maximise reproduction - even at the cost of the host's life - have the advantage over less lethal pathogens. This gives it a clear short-term advantage, but of course it does not work in the long term because it runs out of hosts. And yet some of those friends insisted that this did not make sense because it would not be in the best interest of a disease to maximise lethality, thinking in terms of intentionality that is not present in evolution. [1] https://www.ted.com/talks/paul_ewald_asks_can_we_domesticate_germs?language=en https://www.ted.com/talks/paul_ewald_asks_can_we_domesticate...

by kmonad 11y ago

vanderZwan 11y ago

> Our bodies are essentially battle fields with different replicating agents struggling for control and a "place" in the future. That's just another metaphor, and you have to be very careful with your choice there. To paraphrase Lakoff & Johnson[1]: the metaphors we use shape the thoughts that we understand through them. A very common one is thinking of arguments as war ("his viewpoints got attacked but he defended them well", etc). Imagine what would happen if we think of arguments as a dance? [1] http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo3637992.html http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo3637992...

ThomPete 11y ago
Yeah it's like when Dawking wrote the Selfish Gene. He spend some time talking about that the genes weren't in fact selfish it was just that they acted as if they were.
- vanderZwan 11y ago
  Exactly. Denis Noble wrote a perfect counter to the trap of thinking that this metaphor often leads to (although not in Dawnkins himself). In The Music of Life[1] he invert the metaphor: instead of us being "lumbering hulks, slaves to our genes", our genes are captives of our bodies, depending on our choices to keep existing. Noble's point was that you could neither prove nor disprove one to be more accurate a metaphor than the other, despite having the total opposite interpretation. I'm not saying kmonad's explanation is wrong, just that it's dangerous to not be aware of the underlying metaphor. [1] http://musicoflife.co.uk/ http://musicoflife.co.uk/
  - ThomPete 11y ago
    I actually think it's much more important to realize what metaphors are exactly because they are derived through language which by default is framing our perspectives and is limited in it's ability to express more complex reality. (Hence a picture is worth a thousand words) I always look at language as a reduction of reality not a one to one relationship with reality. I.e. we as pattern recognizing feedback loops notice some phenomena and then try trough language to express it. But because we are limited beings and our language is limited in expression we end up only expressing perspectives rather than truth. This could, I believe, also be one of the reasons why we have such a hard time finding a way to describe QM and general relativity in a unified manor. Our language really doesn't do well with paradoxes. The exception is in zen-buddhist philosophy that actually are much more accepting of paradoxes (wisdom lies in paradox) But thats another discussion. The primary point I am trying to make is that this reduction of reality leads to our perspectives and can both provide clarity but also trap us in a certain way of thinking.
    - vanderZwan 11y ago
      I think you would really enjoy reading the works of Lakoff & Johnson I mentioned earlier, if you haven't already :D > I actually think it's much more important to realize what metaphors are exactly because they are derived through language which by default is framing our perspectives and is limited in it's ability to express more complex reality. (Hence a picture is worth a thousand words). I agree with everything you say - but I would like to give an opposing view to the "derived from language" bit. It's very likely to go in the other direction! One thing Lakoff & Johnson discuss - especially in their later work - is how our metaphors originate from our physical senses and our body (look up "embodied cognition" and "conceptual metaphor"). In short, they argue that we derive fundamental metaphors from the embodied experience, and inject what would otherwise be a otherwise purely symbolic language with meaning through a complex web of metaphors.
      - ThomPete 11y ago
        Yes you are of course right. I am using metaphor more literally than they are.
- jacquesm 11y ago
  > Yeah it's like when Dawking wrote the Selfish Gene. Dawkins.
  - ThomPete 11y ago
    Yeah typo thanks. Too late to fix it.
anon4 11y ago
Relatedly, on the subject of words: Twitter recently changed their favourite icon from a star to a heart. I've heard several people decry it as making it easier for stalkers to sexually harass women, because the new system lets them send hearts. Even though the functionality is exactly the same, some perceive it as more sexual and intimate now.
kmonad 11y ago
I don't know about "our arguments", but "battle" describes much better what is happening in the context of my comment than "dance". And indeed, shaping the way we think about what's happening in our bodies as "battles" was exactly what I intended to convey, risking the inevitable misunderstanding that comes with any analogy. Of course I do not mean to imply any form of intentionality, only the inevitability of competition, or "battle".
- vanderZwan 11y ago
  I understand where you are coming from (and personally think our conversation is more like a dance). Like I said: I don't think your analogy is wrong, just that there's a big risk of ending up with false expectations without realising that is a misapplication of the analogy. Like you mentioned, projecting intentionality where there is none is especially likely. I can give a clear example of a mistake like this: based on Paul Ewald's TED talk[1] I once was talking about the evolution of lethality in diseases with some friends. They are all highly educated, some of them doctors as well. Turns out, the less a disease depends on its host to find new hosts to infect, the more lethal it tends to be. The reason is that the mutations that maximise reproduction - even at the cost of the host's life - have the advantage over less lethal pathogens. This gives it a clear short-term advantage, but of course it does not work in the long term because it runs out of hosts. And yet some of those friends insisted that this did not make sense because it would not be in the best interest of a disease to maximise lethality, thinking in terms of intentionality that is not present in evolution. [1] https://www.ted.com/talks/paul_ewald_asks_can_we_domesticate_germs?language=en https://www.ted.com/talks/paul_ewald_asks_can_we_domesticate...