Metaphor Hacker - Latest Comments

Re: The brain is a bad metaphor for language

Eric Charles — Fri, 03 May 2013 20:24:13 -0000

Anthony Chemero, in Radical Embodied Cognitive Science, has a really cool attack on the idea of mental representations. He shows that when you have a description of the functioning constraints on a system, you can always point at part of it and claim that it "re-presents" something going on in another part, but you never add anything by doing so. This often (but certainly not always) strikes me as a problem with brain research.

WE KNOW that children's brains have certain flexibilities because we have observed the behavioral change. What is added by doing a scan that finds flexibility? Certainly the scan can't prove the flexibility... we never would have done the scan if we didn't already know the flexibility was there!

Blah.

Re: Pseudo-education as a weapon: Beyond the ridiculous in linguistic prescriptivism

Francesco Calitri — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 02:20:32 -0000

Mr.lukes:

I apologize for mistyping your name, which was an obvious typographical error, not a mis-spelling,
as you assume. Regardless, it’s negligent on my part, therefore I’m grateful
for your critique, and it compels me to be more scrupulous.

I did not criticize your liberal position on spelling; I
criticized your liberal position on misusage. It is obvious that if someone
writes “there” for “their” his problem is orthological rather than
orthographical.

My statement regarding the diminishing power of words when
misused is self-explanatory and commonsensical and does not need substantiation.
Misusage in language relates to more than interchanging homophones; it involves
grammatical, orthographical and orthological errors, but you seem to be only
concerned with homophones.

If you think that the power of words does not diminish with
misusage then there is no need for you to proofread, edit, or rewrite any of
your material. The esteemed American novelist, Herman Melville, would agonize
over just one word in a sentence.
He would spend a week rewriting, polishing, editing and reexamining until he was satisfied
he found the right word, and it was never mis-spelled.

Your stance is rather idealistic and a bit vague.

Re: Pseudo-education as a weapon: Beyond the ridiculous in linguistic prescriptivism

Dominik Lukes — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 17:13:20 -0000

It seems to me that "Words are extremely powerful tools, but when misused that power is severely diminished." is a statement that is in need of some proof. How is the power of the word "their" diminished when it is spelled "there"? If anything, if words are misused, it would seem to me, their power is increased (as in Newspeak).

And with most homophones, it is clear that people are using them correctly from the context: "I like there new car." and "I like to go their in a car" are clearly right. Just misspelled. There might be some confusion if it was spelled "I like to go they're in a car" but nothing that couldn't be clarified in a fraction of a second.

BTW: Mis-spelling the name of someone you're criticising about their liberal position on spelling is surely a sign of something.

Re: Pseudo-education as a weapon: Beyond the ridiculous in linguistic prescriptivism

Francesco Calitri — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 12:52:39 -0000

To Mr.Lukas:

I disagree with your position and also refute your claims.

Language is not always analogous to grammar and in some
instances they’re separate entities.

It is presumptuous of you to assert that people who
interchange homophones are familiar with their use. Furthermore, an individual
who transcribes: “I’m going ‘two’ the store” is either unschooled in
orthography or orthology. Can we
take such a person seriously? I don’t think so.

Words are extremely powerful tools, but when misused that
power is severely diminished.

Re: Pseudo-education as a weapon: Beyond the ridiculous in linguistic prescriptivism

Dominik Lukes — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 14:59:48 -0000

That seems to me what this post was about.

Re: Pseudo-education as a weapon: Beyond the ridiculous in linguistic prescriptivism

Tulilintu — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 20:18:03 -0000

But the words are spelled wrong. That looks bad. It's not a linguistic matter but a social one.

Re: Literally: Triumph of pet peeve over matter

Dominik Lukes — Sat, 08 Dec 2012 19:53:17 -0000

You are obviously right that words have an agreed meaning - this agreement is called convention in linguistic circles - and there's not a lot of controversy about that.

But what do you think the nature of this agreement or convention is? How do we know what the agreement over the use of the word "literally" is? Was there some sort of convention on "literally" that all these other people missed and they are breaking some sacred covenant on "literally"? You say that you cannot say "happy" and mean "violent" but this has happened to a lot of seemingly positive or negative words: "wicked", "bad", "awesome" all transferred their meanings from the negative pole to the positive. "Wicked" and "bad" only in lower registers while the previous meanings retain their power, while "awesome" now mostly means good rather than terrible. But how do you know that I mean "good" when I say "bad"? From context. Who is saying it about what or whom. Or from the linguistic context - "bad" in the meaning of "good" has a regular superlative "baddest" rather than "worst".

The extreme branch of descriptivist linguistics would say that we can suss out this agreement from the analysis of usage. Because that is how we (subconsciously) learn the use of words as children. I actually advocate a more nuanced approach on this blog but this blog post was basically an analysis of usage in an attempt to figure out what the "agreement" on literally is. I looked at how the word "literally" is being used by the majority of the community and came to the conclusion that it is primarily an intensifier. And has been for at least 100 years. So it seems to be you who insists that people use it against the agreement.

And the question you didn't answer is "why?" And why not other words where exactly this same thing is happening. The problem with literally is that if you look at it, it's etymology is fairly transparent. But you cannot judge the meaning of the components of words and figure out what they mean. Compare the difference between "our government" and "our agreement". The components "our" and "-ment" act very differently on the verbs "agree" and "govern". If you only knew the meaning of the components, you couldn't figure out that "governments" have ministers and "agreements" don't.

But literally isn't the only word with transparent etymology. So, what is it about "literally" that gets your goat? Why not complain about "virtually", "naturally", "practically"? They are all used in ways that goes against the grain of their componential analysis. "She's virtually a genius" says something about the strong reality not, made up one. "She's practically a genius" says nothing about practice. "She's naturally a genius." could mean either genius by nature or obviously a genius.

Don't these three words also have a "useful meaning" that is being lost? The answer is NO. All words have multiple meanings and uses. And they can quite happily coexist. "Literally put it in the pan" is using "literally" in concordance with current usage. There is nothing nonsensical about it. You know perfectly well what it means and you were not for a fraction of a second confused by it. You say that something is lost with changes in how words are being used. And that's true. But nothing has been lost with "literally" it has not meant "not metaphorically" in a long time. You can give me some contrived examples of where it would have been useful as a disambiguator but I challenge you to give me 1 real instance in the last year where you actually needed it badly enough that a bit of circumlocution wouldn't have done the trick. So it seems to me that it is you who wants to deprive the rest of the English speaking community of a useful intensifier that it has been using for a long time. Why is your need greater than theirs?

I'd suggest that your peeve with "literally" over all the other words behaving in exactly the same way is it's because it's a safe choice. Nobody ever got fired for liking Mozart, reading Dickens, buying IBM or saying we use "literally" wrong. If you started telling people that they're using "naturally" wrong, they'd think you're crazy. But they're insecure enough about "literally" that they might go along.

But most importantly I don't see any virtue at all in picking on footballers for the way they speak. Sure, you can do it but don't expect any respect or even polite nodding from me. I think it's a far worse cliche than what they say. I don't follow football but I assume you mean the sort of non-sensical post-game interviews where they speak about giving 110% and taking it one game at a time. But why would you want to make fun of some (most likely) working class guy who just spent 2 hours running around on a field for not being eloquent in answering bullshit questions like "how do you feel" by lazy journalists. Sure these guys are paid well so I don't particularly care about their feelings being hurt but making fun of their speech (and intelligence) is in some way making fun of the working class aspirations.

Why do you think you are the right person to comment on how "well or badly" somebody uses language? Why not focus on their ideas? What if they're finding it hard to express themselves through speech? How is this any more enlightened than making fun of someone because they have a stutter? Why not judge footballers on how well they use their feet? And why judge anybody by the way they speak at all? And isn't it in contradiction to your aim of keeping things not bland, anyway? Why should everybody speak the same way? Or even speak at all, if they can express themselves in other ways. How is blandness a consequence of relativism? Surely, it is the other way around.

And speaking of blandness and the point of communication? Have you ever talked to somebody about the weather? Or asked about their health? Did you really mean it every time? Obviously there's more to communication than exchange of vital information. I listen to the Today programme every day but I tend to avoid the 8.10 interview with high-profile politicians because they never say anything I couldn't have predicted they would say (or are asked any particularly unexpected questions). That's because they follow a form, convention, agreement - if you will. Just like most speeches opening academic conferences by university big wigs. Most keynote speeches by invited academic celebrities, etc. And it's the same way with footballer interviews. They are asked to say something new about a subject that is highly constrained in a way that is not their natural way of speaking. So they follow easy to use scripts. But it's more a fault of those who put them in those positions (and those who watch them) than the footballers themselves. But expecting anything more than uniformity is like expecting to hear something new in a eulogy. That's not the point of them!

There is nothing relativistic about what I suggest. It's perfectly fine to not like something (that's how I started the blog post). But it is another matter to elevate personal dislike into a value judgement.

So if you find the pointless conversations between footballers and journalists too irritating why not (instead of mocking people for not being good at what they're not supposed to be good at) turn the TV off and read about communication. John Austin - "How to do things words" would be a good start. Then move on to Goffman on footing. Schegloff on conversation repair. Halliday on texture. Louw on semantic prosody. Labov on sociolinguistic change. Turn your disdain into something positive.

Re: Literally: Triumph of pet peeve over matter

Phil Greaney — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 05:18:11 -0000

Agree with Martin here - don't discuss a definition, discuss its use (now who said that?) If people - even if we disagree with them - use it in a manner that has widespread understanding, we might not agree with the colour, or the effect, or the quality of their figure of speech - but I would *literally* fight to the death to for them to use it (now, someone I think said something like that, too).

Great post, btw

Re: Literally: Triumph of pet peeve over matter

Martin Weller — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 05:09:50 -0000

I don't think words have an intrinsic meaning, obviously they are just signifiers and it would be equally valid for the word for aubergine to be potato. But they have an _agreed_ meaning. Your stance takes relativism too far I think. In that case words can mean anything, which makes them meaningless. When I say happy I really mean violent, when I say nice I mean racist, when I say potato I mean aubergine. That's not going to work.
So yes I think literally has a useful meaning. Sure we can say it means something else, but we do lose something by doing that. I agree it's not worth getting angsty about. I play with word use all the time and I have frequent battles with real pedants so I'm not trying to preserve word use in aspic. I don't think 'literally put it in the pan' is a more intense version, it's just a nonsense version. And if I can't pick footballer's up on their bland use of language what is the point of communication? It's okay to comment on how well or badly someone uses language otherwise we get caught in a bland relativism where everything is ok. Liking some things more than others is ok.

Re: Literally: Triumph of pet peeve over matter

Dominik Lukes — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 00:44:30 -0000

Martin, I think the problem is that you build your argument on the assumption that words have some inherent meanings. If you open a dictionary you will find that almost no word in common use has a single meaning. Sometimes they have multiple meanings that are opposite of each other in different contexts (quantum leap = very large vs. quantum particle = very small). Our understanding of language is an interplay of our knowledge of the world, the context and out knowledge of “word meanings”. In my research, I’ve looked at how it is possible that the words German Holocaust and Jewish Holocaust can mean the same thing (they are in fact used about the same amount of time). And the answer is that we have knowledge of the world that helps us disambiguate (which is why you would not know without asking what I’m referring to if I say Hungarian Holocaust).

In fact, disambiguation is what we do all the time in communication. (Kind of like hard drives that do as much data correction as data storage.) So the notion that a word is less useful because it has multiple possible uses and meanings is not supported by what we know about language.

So the question you need to ask yourself is what made you pick on the word “literally”. You imply a scenario in which this once really useful word had a single meaning of identifying non-figurative use of otherwise figurative language and this meaning has since been devalued by its use for simple intensification. But as I showed, this has never been the case in your lifetime. In the last century, at least, literally has always been primarily used for intensification. What was the moment you realized what the proper meaning of literally was? Did you really learn it the right way and then heard it misused resulting in some irrevocable loss? How many times a day, week a month do you come on a situation where you would like to use the word “literally” but cannot because it has been devalued? I would venture that you had used the word literally in its typical intensifier use until you overheard somebody mention that it was wrong. As I found in my (albeit cursory) research, there are very few real situations where there is any doubt as to what is the meaning of the word “literally”. And in the case where there is any doubt, such as with “literally shitting oneself”, there are ample conversational and linguistic gambits available to make things clear.

And next, why do you think the value of “literally” is so much more worth protecting than the value of similar words like “really” or “properly”. They all have their “literal” meanings and intensifier meanings, yet, nobody is up in arms about them. When they are used in their “intensifier” meaning, they also “add nothing to the sentence” in which they are used – other than intensification, of course. What is your criterion of being a useful addition to a sentence? Which of the words in “He’s really very beautiful” would you take out? Obviously you don’t need both very and really. How about “He was being really properly silly”? What makes words like “literally” so indispensable as opposed to all the other words that can be used for multiple purposes depending on context (which is pretty much all the words)? Aren’t you being a bit hyperbolic when you say “What does that mean?” of “You literally just put it in the pan”. You obviously know exactly what it means. It means a more intense version of “You just put it in the pan” in the same way that “I really hate that” is more intense version of “I hate that”. So are you devaluing the meaning of the word “mean” when you use it in a way that does not refer to actual lack of understanding?

But you need to ask yourself more questions: What determines the “proper” way to use a word? Who should be an arbiter of word misuse? Why are you any more competent to judge the proper use of any given word than a footballer? Who is determines what words mean and how they should be used? What do they base their decisions on?

On the one hand, linguistic peevery is a bit of harmless fun. But the danger I warn about, for instance, herehttp://metaphorhacker.net/..., is that having linguistic peeves is a good way of amassing social capital of linguistic expertise. And since many people are convinced that they “don’t talk good”, being someone who has the reputation of knowing how to “talk proper” is a valuable thing. As Language Log shows every other day (http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.e..., people who complain about language use, frequently cannot to even properly identify the phenomena they complain about in their own speech. But they use their entirely illegitimate symbolic power to discriminate against people because of the way they speak. Which is why I spend all this time banging on about it.

Re: Literally: Triumph of pet peeve over matter

Martin Weller — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 03:19:52 -0000

Ok, you make a decent case but I still disagree. I agree about all the language being a living thing and not being prescriptive (I've given up on correct usage of fortuitous for instance). I think it devalues what is a very useful word. For instance if someone says "I was so scared I literally shat myself" there are two very different stories in that sentence depending on the use of literally. When used to mean "not metaphorically" it makes the listener sit up and reappraise what has been said. I heard a TV presenter the other day say "you literally just put it in the pan". What does that mean? It adds nothing to that sentence. But I agree there are soem greyish areas, like in some of your examples above. For instance if I was to say "he used the word "literally" in literally every sentence" that's kind of ok.
I think there is a difference between being a pedant and enjoying the use of words for their value. People misuse (I know you will argue that it isn't a misuse) literally because they hear people saying it in that context, and don't know the 'proper' way to use it. If they did then they might use it that way. Otherwise it becomes part of lazy, football player speak, which becomes effectively meaningless.

Re: Religion, if it exists, is negotiation of underdetermined metaphoric cognition [UPDATED]

Cris — Wed, 04 Jul 2012 19:17:45 -0000

Sorry I haven't gotten back to you on this -- I've been swamped with other stuff and this is deserving of extended comment. I just read an article yesterday that made me think of you and your line of argument. I want to send it to you -- shoot me an email: crisorigins at gmail dot com.

Re: Religion, if it exists, is negotiation of underdetermined metaphoric cognition [UPDATED]

admin — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 20:45:38 -0000

Hi Cris,

thanks for taking the time to comment. Your points are well taken. But you seemed to have picked up on the thing that I did not intend this post to be about - namely, the nature of science. It is, of course, my own damn fault. I just couldn't resist throwing in a few off the cuff remarks about science that I can believe I can elaborate in a way that will go some of the the way towards answering your objections.

But first, what this post was about intended to claim is that it is not just possible but incredibly common to hold contradictory beliefs about the world and that a process I call "frame negotiation" is what is used to deal with it when these contradictions come to the fore. This, I then claim, has an impact on our understanding of the natural vs. supernatural. The supernatural can be seen at the same time as of this and another world. But there's nothing mystical about it, it's just the way we talk about these things. And by adding the liminality concept in, I try to give the space in which this negotiation is happening to overcome the traditional dichotomies. It is arguably a bit broader than Turner's original conception of it but I think in essence quite faithful to it.

I think weather is a great example. I'm not sure you can easily claim that its "understanding" has moved from the "supernatural" to the "natural". I have not done any research on this (so correct me if I'm wrong) but it seems to me that weather is one of those phenomena that are both natural and supernatural in "pre-scientific" understanding. Sure, all sorts of sapient (supernatural) entities are postulated to be in charge (often in contradiction to each other) of specific phenomena. But it's not clear that when it rains, a believer in witchcraft, will think that the rain itself is magical. They may believe it was caused by magic or a supernatural intervention but a society that would believe that rain is a supernatural substance would not get very far. I think Greek myths illustrate how intermittent supernatural divine intervention in human affairs was. I would imagine than most of the time when it rained, it just rained. The supernatural would be invoked only when something unusual happens. Although the divine would have been present through the daily rituals, these would mostly become quite commonplace. You cannot maintain a constant state of awe! The analogy I would give is that we all know the Earth is round and hurtling through space but this intellectual "understanding" doesn't translate into the way we organize our lives.

Now what happened when science entered our understanding of weather? I have not studied this in detail but from my reading of the origins of chaos theory seem to indicate that science overreached quite spectacularly. Weather patterns are simply not as simply influenced as more basic understanding of mechanics would seem to suggest. We still don't understand quite basic stuff about rain - such as how drops are formed. So I would say that when it comes to weather early science made essentially a magical mistake. It assumed that similarity is enough for an explanation of causality. Now you will argue that what sets science apart from magic is the "method". There is nowhere, you'd say, a provision in religion for falsification. Whereas science has established mechanism for uncovering its erroneous conceptions, religion has none. Well, this is where I think the concept of "frame negotiation" can establish a continuity where you see discontinuity. While it is true that there are few religious precepts that say something like "try as hard as you can to prove you beliefs wrong", I think it has been quite conclusively established by research that science doesn't do this very well, either. If you look at the debates about religious beliefs, I think you will find a lot of quasi-falsificationist discourse (the debates around Arianism being one example). Equally, a lot of science is based on the idea that a causal "explanation" is just around the corner. Jean Valjean of Les Miserable is a great fictional example of this with far too many real life parallels.

I don't accept your argument that just because I would go to the hospital rather than a witch doctor I must confer a special epistemological status on science. Frankly, I don't think it's any more powerful than Samuel Johnson kicking a rock to "refute" solipsism. Remember I never said that nothing science ever comes up with is better than magic. All I'm saying is that the way scientific knowledge is structured and the way it is used is of a kind with knowledge of the supernatural. Metaphorical understanding doesn't mean it's not real. If you examined a neurosurgeon's knowledge and beliefs about the brain, I think would would find very similar structures to those of a witch doctor. We must not ignore that the institution of brain surgery has had more resources available to it than any "supernatural" tradition in history. So it's not surprising it's knowledge is much more useful. But the way that knowledge is acquired, held and transmitted by any individual surgeon is using the same cognitive, social and affective processes. I like to say that the heuristics are different but the hermeneutics remain the same.

But since we're speaking of medicine, it provides just as many examples of voodoo as of scientific reasoning. If the source I have is to be trusted, more than half of all medicines prescribed are placebo and about 5% of surgical procedures. Or take the debates over low-carb diet. They both seem to apply the same procedures and the same science, yet come up with contradictory precepts. How does a patient decide which method to follow. Faith! Or as I'd like to call it trust. We keep forgetting that even scientists have to simply trust a lot about what other scientists say. There's simply no way anyone can independently verify 99% of the results they believe are true. So a normal person has to have trust (faith) in the institution. In this light Tabo Mbeki's claim that AIDS isn't caused by HIV are not at all irrational. Black South Africans have a lot of good reasons not to trust Western/White science with the same blind faith we do. I myself do trust it a bit more so I believe that Mbeki was wrong but I have no better basis for my belief than he had for his. For instance, I no longer believe that the "germ theory" of disease fully supplants some possible alternative. Not because I had some sort of an alternative medicine conversion but simply because no single paradigm has historically been able to survive this long without missing something quite important. I will continue to take antibiotics or other pills as directed by my doctor, though. Equally, I don't believe in the "theory of evolution" - I'm sure it is due for significant rethink any century now. So, no, I don't believe that what I'm talking about is on the fringes of science. But then nor do I believe that it in some way invalidates the content of a lot of specific scientific knowledge.

But I think that simply pointing out all the wonderful results of science that are all around us won't stand up either. I think we need to start differentiating between science and engineering. Most of what the wonderful achievements that allow us to have this conversations are a result of engineering that is often far ahead of "scientific" understanding. Vaccines, scurvy treatment, powered flight, genetic engineering - all these are examples of technologies that were operational long before their "true" nature was known. Of course, there is a feedback loop between science and engineering but it's possible to be very good at something and not understand it. Ira Flatow has an interesting lecture on how a lot of aero engineers don't really fully understand the physics of flight. But I still continue to fly in airplanes. I use computers. I cross bridges. I trust that the engineers will keep trying to make things work. I trust them a lot less when they propose cosmogonical schemes like big bang theory. Frankly, I just don't care enough.

Again, let me reiterate, I'm after the nature of knowledge. I do not think that from such understanding follows an easy recipe for deciding which ideas are bogus and which are not. I am not criticizing science as such just its high priests.

Having said all that, I am willing to be persuaded that scientific knowledge is qualitatively different form magical knowledge about the world. But for that I think we'd need to establish better boundaries between the two (both diachronically and synchronically). And so far, I haven't see that done convincingly.

A few small notes:

I don't believe I called science a metaphor. All I'm saying is that its reasoning is analogical in nature in the same way that voodoo is analogical in nature. They may use different procedures and techniques and they certainly talk about different things. But they are still human endeavors and if you can show me one that is completely metaphor-free I won't eat my hat but I'll feel like I should. Calling something metaphorical is not a criticism.

Also, the bit about invisibility was just an off-hand quip. I was mostly referring to the invisible Newtonian forces (not things like atoms or germs). I obviously don't think that just because we cannot see something we cannot make meaningful statements about it.

It is interesting. I think we would agree on most things about religion and probably about science, too. Our disagreement is about their status. Ultimately, that may not be as important as all that. But it sure makes for a fun conversation. At least for me. So thanks again.

Re: Religion, if it exists, is negotiation of underdetermined metaphoric cognition [UPDATED]

Cris — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 15:07:43 -0000

Let me ask some questions about the shifting line between natural and supernatural, and the nature (pardon my pun) of science, which you seem to characterize as metaphor. I recognize that the line between natural/supernatural has consistently been moving through history. For instance, the weather used to be supernatural and was explained that way, as was disease. These things are no longer explained supernaturally. They are explained scientifically. Much of the science behind weather-disease explanation involves things that can't be seen or which aren't visible to the human eye, but which are hypothesized to exist and then, using various kinds of instruments, confirmed to exist through measurements and recordings that are beyond standard human evolutionary perceptual capabilities (i.e., our five senses which served us so well in Africa for millions of years). We may use metaphors to describe that which is being measured and explained when it comes to weather-disease, but this doesn't reduce it to metaphor, or to a social construction, or to epiphenomena.

So when we recognize, as you do, that what formerly was supernatural has become natural, this shift is a scientific one, is it not? The explanations aren't just metaphors, are they?

A few other points. The distinction between supernatural and science doesn't hinge on the criteria of invisibility or reduce to it. There are many invisible things in science, but these things are postulated to exist, and then various experiments are carried out to confirm that they exist. These invisible things are then often put to use, in very practical or technological ways. I think it disingenuous to say that because the supernatural involves invisible agents-forces, and that science involves invisible things, that they amount to the same thing. This is a kind of radical constructivism that surely is at odds with the science and technology, which is invisible, that pervades your daily and embodied life.

Also, your examples of scientific metaphor or science acting like religion come from the extreme fringes of scientific inquiry and speculation. As such, they function as a sort of strawman for the kinds of constructivist and metaphorical arguments you wish to make. Most scientists, or positivists (which is what I consider myself to be), recognize that the other universes, and strings, etc., are mere hypotheses that have no empirical support. Given this fact, most recognize them to be speculation that might even be akin to supernatural speculation. But most seem to recognize that until and unless these hypothesized invisibilities are eventually measured and/or manipulated empirically (i.e., put to scientific test), they remain nothing more than possible explanations.

Supernatural or religious thinking about invisibilities within their domains are simply different. No one espousing these ideas talks about measuring them, testing them, identifying them, or confirming that such things exist.

Let's put it this way. If you have a brain tumor or brain disease, you would go to medical doctors whose understanding of what is occurring and how it might be fixed involves natural explanations, and what they would do or not do would involve science. They aren't just dealing in metaphors, or social constructions. They know quite a lot about brains, and neurons, and pathology. If you were fortunate, as many people are, their work would assist you and you would get better.

While I recognize the metaphors and constructions that sometimes exist in science, to deny that it exists and that it traffics in the natural, and that it differs from the supernatural-religious just seems churlish to me.

I love metaphors as much as you do; I'm a skeptical Nietzschean sort of person. But my skepticism, and my wordplay, and my perspectivism, has its limits.

Re: Why Chomsky doesn’t count as a gifted linguist

G Bell — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 17:56:13 -0000

Generative grammar, unlike many common and useful ways of codifying grammar rules, is so precise that for any set of generative rules, there is an a computer program (algorithm) to list all the legal sentences. Its very precision might be held against it.

Re: Why Chomsky doesn’t count as a gifted linguist

LBHR — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 00:26:02 -0000

The Generative notion of ungrammaticality is certainly an artifact of the Generative/Generativoid model, but only insofar as forces are an artifact of Newton's model. I admit this kind of objection has made me worry about science, but it's not unique to generative grammar.

Would you find ambiguities in meaning to be a less controversial example of a linguistic phenomenon? For instance "I saw the man with the binoculars" (who has the binoculars) or "Every boy loves a girl" (the same girl?).

As for the pyramids… in science, there's always the risk that your results are going to be coincidental, and with a baby science like linguistics the risk is especially high. That doesn't mean we should give up-- on the contrary, it's all the more reason to keep hitting our frameworks with more and more data, control for various variables, and see which fmwks are fruitful and which are not.

[POSTSCRIPT: No generative grammarian would say that you have to specially learn what not to say. In calling a sentence ungrammatical, we're simply saying that it's not one of the things you do learn to say. I'm also puzzled by your mention of formal algorithms. Generative grammar has nothing to do with those. An algorithm is a list of instructions to accomplish some task– generative grammarians ask what the task is that's responsible for linguistic phenomena.]

Re: Why Chomsky doesn’t count as a gifted linguist

admin — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 07:43:43 -0000

Well, actually my objection is that even the difference between "I did not eat" and "I not ate" is not a real linguistic phenomenon. It's an artifact of the model adopted by Chomsky. Only if we think that sentences are generated by a formal algorithm do we have to be concerned not to generate ones that are not acceptable. But as Chomsky himself claims elsewhere, we mostly learn what to say and not what to say. But because there's no evidence that we learn it in a generative manner (and lots of evidence we don't), it's unlikely that some internal constraints prevent us from saying "I not ate". We say "I did not eat" because that's the pattern we learned to say.

Chomsky happened on some significant patterns of regularity in his description of language. But let's remember that Erich Von Däniken also came upon some strange regularities in the relationship between the dimensions of the pyramids and the distance to the Moon.

Re: Why Chomsky doesn’t count as a gifted linguist

LBHR — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 06:17:21 -0000

Can you clarify what your criteria would be for "elucidat[ing] an actual linguistic phenomenon"?

Presumably the difference in acceptability between the English sentences "I did not eat" and "I not ate." is a real linguistic phenomenon, right?

Is your objection to Generative Grammar that it is too narrow (i.e. ignores some interesting questions)? That there's something really deeply broken with it (i.e. it's a pseudoscience or something)? Something else?

Re: When is subtle manipulation of data a flat out lie? Truth about Chinese prisons [UPDATE]

Vladimir Menkov — Mon, 23 May 2011 04:11:34 -0000

Well, if you put together the country with the world's largest population, the one with the world's largest land area, and the one with the world's highest GDP, then it is not entirely surprising that probably "over half of the world's (almost) anything" is in these three countries put together. Whether you count prisoners, astronauts, sturgeon fish, electric bicycles, miles of railways, or tea consumption.

Re: The most ridiculous metaphor of education courtesy of an economics professor

Dominik Lukeš — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 08:26:29 -0000

Hey, thanks for taking the time. Just a few points:

1. "cargo cult" - see my somewhat stagnant project on Education as Voodoo (http://eduvoodoo.net).

2. I am most emphatically NOT saying that choice is a problem (although, it is not an unadulterated good or a moral sine qua non). But I am saying that frequently, choice is an illusion. Charter schools are pretend choice.

3. I don't think primary/secondary schools have to be monopolistic intrinsically (also in any one areas they tend to be duopolies) but at current economies of scale, it is pretty much the only choice (thus the analogy to US cable providers in the 80s and cell companies at the moment). So while there may be some boutique alt edu providers in many areas they do not put any competitive pressure on the monopolistic 'catchment' schools. Many suggest that going back to the system of small schools would be a good idea - but I suspect it would also be a really expensive thing to do. And the problem with the market approaches to education is that they are also obsessed with saving money.

Nothing is intrinsically monopolistic - not even the police, armies or tax collection (see Ancient Rome) - but there are areas where it is beneficial for the state to have at least a monopoly of regulation (electricity provision, spectrum interference, POTS, etc.) even if the provision of a service allows for competition on certain surface aspects of the service.

4. You make valid points about the weakness of parts of my argument about lack of choice in some areas. I'll have to think on this some more .

5. I'll leave the description of growing up in a "communist" country for another blog post.

Re: Do science fiction writers dream of fascist dictatorships?

Dominik Lukeš — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 08:07:02 -0000

Thanks for the links. Fascinating. But I'd say there's a distinction between focusing on the individual as part of the narrative - that's a fairly universal and perhaps unavoidable feature of story telling (although different eras use different codes for describing the individual's inner states and immediate social interactions - cf. Tolkien and Edda) - and an individual as the focus of a political movement.http://metaphorhacker.techczech.net/w...

Also, I'd distinguish reason from rationalism - reducing everything to reason. I fear rationalism, but reason is a fun thing to play with. The fascist rejection of rationalism was itself a product of rationalism - and I see hints of that in some SciFi. Two reasonable/ing people can disagree amiably, two rationalists would tend to try to annihilate one another (because, if reason is infallible, only one can be right and remain who they are). Also rationalists hold in them the seed of the suppression of any more rationalism once the pinnacle of their 'reason' was reached.

Re: Do science fiction writers dream of fascist dictatorships?

TGGP — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 02:54:07 -0000

Mark Kleiman is one of my favorite intellectuals I disagree with. "When Brute Force Fails" is an essential book for our time.

Funny that Tyler Cowen linked to this on sci-fi and libertarianism some days ago. I think sci-fi tends toward rationalism, which fascism tends to deride. I distrust rationalism as well, but don't go in for irrationalism (instead I think pluralism/empiricism helps us better attain accuracy).

"strong, charismatic leadership with a sense of duty and most of all a belief in the necessity of change led by common sense. The needs of the collective justified the suppression of the individual in almost any way."
Except for that second sentence, it sounds pretty normal. And if it was spun in a more mild version than "almost any way", that would also sound normal. I don't read much sci-fi, but I think (as with most fiction) the individual tends to be held above the collective. Sympathetic individual protagonists make for better stories.

For fear of tripping spam filters I'll refrain from linking to Scott Sumner's post at TheMoneyIllusion arguing that the narrative form is inherently liberal. You can google the title "Is the term ‘political art’ an oxymoron? (Part 2)". "Part 1" has a completely different title, so don't try searching for that.

Re: The most ridiculous metaphor of education courtesy of an economics professor

TGGP — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 03:00:42 -0000

I wrote a comment (currently in moderation) that grew rapidly. But I still forgot to include one bit: a reference to Albert O. Hirschmann's "Exit, Voice and Loyalty". I left the book as I came to it, an Exit chauvinist dismissive of Voice and Loyalty. I won't link to my discussion of it at my blog, for fear of tripping the spam filter.

Re: The most ridiculous metaphor of education courtesy of an economics professor

TGGP — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 02:55:48 -0000

"Bad restaurants don’t go out of business by some market magic"
A common story for how markets aren't perfectly competitive is that established businesses already have a brand-name and it is difficult for new entrants to get customers in the first place, as people by default may just continue making the choice that has been satisfactory in the past rather than taking a risk. None of this establishes that choice is actually a problem, since less choice wouldn't actually prevent bad experiences (it would merely prevent the feedback from bad experience leading to bankruptcy).

"They are only marginally educational institutions – going to one is just as important as learning something in it"
Makes sense if you accept the signalling model of education. That might then segue to edu-nihilism, which suggests that simply spending less on the wasteful practice makes sense (price competition uber alles!). From what I've heard, charters cost less, so score one for them. The signalling model also explains why universities advertise the ex ante standardized test scores of their students rather than any ex ante performance (which they could presumably affect).

Why is competition more feasible for boarding schools?
Why must prim/secondary schools "have reasonably local monopolies"? The fact that they are monopolies now is an artifact of public policy. The same is true of cable monopolies. Even roads, which you refer to later, are not "natural monopolies" but were provided competitively in the past before policy changed. See Thomas Dilorenzo's "The Myth of Natural Monopoly", which should be available online.

"whereas high school students are learning to be like everyone else"
Says who? Again this seems like an artifact of current policy whose desirability hasn't even been attempted to establish.

"If you had schools that would only take 50 students each year, you could have local competition – as long as they did not compete only on price"
Why couldn't you have local competition if they competed only on price? If edu-nihilism is correct, that may be the only reasonable criterion to judge schools.

"But Glaeser’s randomisation is a joke – he can never control for all the factors that are involved and never include all the other nexuses of which the test scores are just one"
The whole point of randomization is you don't have to know what factors are involved and statistically control for them. You create a meaningless distinction between subjects, tie that distinction to the treatment, and then any differences between groups should be the result of the treatment plus random noise (canceling out with large sample sizes). The issue of how meaningful test scores are is orthogonal to that of randomization. Part of the idea behind the "choice" movement is that people themselves would choose which nexuses they think relevant.

"profit is actually a good measure of success (non-profit institutions my ass!)"
From what I've heard the really elite schools can entirely rely on their endowments and don't actually have to seek out other means of profit. There is of course lots of differentiation in the field of higher ed, competition can tend to produce that.

Since I'm fairly ignorant of the daily reality of communist societies, I would be interested to hear in what sort of ways you did and didn't have choice.

"No choice to pay taxes"
That would be the case if we had a head-tax (which I could understand serious arguments for), but most of our taxation is highly dependent on decisions we make. So what we lack is the option of making certain decisions without paying taxes for them. Still, a meaningful restriction on choice.

"No choice to hear swearing on broadcast TV"
Carlin's dirty words seem relatively tame now, and even broadcast tv has many of them. And of course we can choose other sources of tv than broadcast.

"no choice to elect a politician outside a given number of parties"
There are electoral rules that usually require some number of signatures to get on ballots, but generally in national elections there are a number of parties on the ballots which hardly anybody chooses to vote for (regarding it as a waste). This tends to happen in a first-past-the-post system, but even Duverger's Law has been dismissed by political scientists recently, particularly after the previous general election in the U.K.

The examples you gave were mostly about how you are treated by the law and your inability to avoid the law. If we are going to discuss the appropriateness of metaphors, is that like schooling? Or is schooling (which I would suggest thinking of in the abstract to better perceive other possibilities than the status quo) more like attending a church (which has tended to be linked to private k-12 education), or daycare, participating in little league, or the other metaphors discussed above?

"And to introduce choice in school selection without reconfiguring the situation is going to be a bad thing."
It could be good, bad, or indifferent. I haven't seen you give any argument for one over another.

"I spent many years preferring reading and lazy thinking to making money"
Sounds like a choice!

"About a third of the people in any country live like that"
That leaves two thirds, which is not only not nothing, it's twice as much as one third! And furthermore, the bottom tertile does make choices as consumers, and their choices may even form a significant component of the identities they craft for themselves.

"Education reform based on zeal does not scale up!"
True enough. I suppose the hope is that somebody will figure out a method other than zeal, whether that hope is well-founded I don't know. It may call for experimentation.

"If you want to improve education, balance out the choices. Take away some from the rich"
You seem to regard this as zero-sum. It is in a pure signalling model, but I don't know if that's your reason. For a purely positional good (an extreme variant of the signalling model) we would tax education rather than spending taxes on it, and even a complete ban might be an improvement.

"Historically, education has followed economic progress not the other way around!"
I believe that's also correct, and much of the enthusiasm for education is cargo-cult. But another possibility other than edu-nihilism, is that greater wealth has made possible greater education, which doesn't grow on trees.

Re: The most ridiculous metaphor of education courtesy of an economics professor

Dominik Lukeš — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 18:04:07 -0000

First, I don't think that metaphors are a bad way to argue. I think they are the only way to argue (see the About page) but just like any argument, they can be used badly or well (D. A. Schön is probably best on metaphors and policy).

Second, I'm not necessarily saying that we could not use a market metaphor for education. Just that to use it like economists tend to, doesn't make any sense. But there are many reasons why universities are not a very good example for this. 1. They are only marginally educational institutions - going to one is just as important as learning something in it (a place to grow 4 years older near a library, some research and someone telling you something they seem to feel is important). 2. They are essentially boarding schools - which makes the competition much more feasible. Prim/secondary schools are more like US cable companies - they have to have reasonably local monopolies. Also universities are not judged by standardized performance tests - for them, profit is actually a good measure of success (non-profit institutions my ass!). 3. Related to 2, students at universities are trying to achieve a speciality distinguishes them from others, whereas high school students are learning to be like everyone else. So they can only differentiate to an extent.

Day care is also not a very good example because it doesn't try to achieve economies of scale. If you had schools that would only take 50 students each year, you could have local competition - as long as they did not compete only on price.

I'm absolutely certain that schooling matters a great deal for test scores. You go to a better prep for a test, you're going to do better on the test. But that means pretty much nothing in terms of education as presented by proponents of test scores. But Glaeser's randomisation is a joke - he can never control for all the factors that are involved and never include all the other nexuses of which the test scores are just one. We're at the point of statistics being used to flat out lie, here.

About choice: I grew up under a communist regime where we supposedly didn't get any choice. But we did in lots of respects. There are always choices to be made albeit within a proscribed context. But this limitation was no more limiting than being poor in a capitalist society (choice of travel, education, etc.)

In the "democratic" societies we limit choices in as many places as we give them. We just don't pay any attention to the limits. No choice to pay taxes, no choice not to have a social security number, no choice to drive on a particular side of the road, no choice in the interpretation of the green traffic light. No choice to hear swearing on broadcast TV, no choice to elect a politician outside a given number of parties. No choice to urinate in public. Many of these may seem ridiculous but are they? The lack of choice is given by external forces or by the configuration of the situation. And to introduce choice in school selection without reconfiguring the situation is going to be a bad thing.

But even where you think there is a choice, many people don't. I spent many years preferring reading and lazy thinking to making money. So going to a supermarket full of rows of choices presented no options for me at all. I had to buy the cheapest stuff. I could not go to the friendly local shop, I had to cycle 3 miles to a supermarket with discounts. I never ever went to a restaurant! About a third of the people in any country live like that. You give them a choice of schools, you give them no more choice than they have now. Vouchers are a joke unless you spend at least twice as much per student on a student from a poor family - CHOICE COSTS MONEY!

But most importantly, I still don't believe that school choice would make any difference at all to the quality of education overall. You cannot take the success of charter schools (of which there is a lot less than the hype indicates) and say we would have better education if we only had charter schools. Education reform based on zeal does not scale up! If you want to improve education, balance out the choices. Take away some from the rich (taxes and enforcement of white collar crime) and give some more to the poor - free school lunches, free universities, free healthcare, less incarceration, more development of local communities, more jobs. You can then ignore schools altogether. Historically, education has followed economic progress not the other way around!