Surfaces and Essences: Analogy as the Fuel and Fire of Thinking (143 page)
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Authors: Douglas Hofstadter,Emmanuel Sander
naïve equations,
407–411
names: conflated with items they name,
227
; retrieved by analogy,
224–225
Napoleon: of fossil bones, the,
222
; frame-blended with emperor penguins,
380
nature, cut at the joints by categories,
14
,
77
,
522–523
N
-dimensional spaces,
443–444
nebula, as image for a language’s filling of a conceptul space,
119
necessary and sufficient criteria for category membership,
55
,
436
negative numbers: fear of,
439–442
; square roots of,
442–443
Neruda, Pablo,
522
nested radicals in polynomial solution-formulas,
445
Newman, Paul,
318
Newton, Isaac,
130
,
210
,
443
,
471
,
490
,
491
,
500
; law of gravitation of,
389
,
489
; second law of motion of,
410
,
491
; of terrorism, the,
222
New York subway, as translation of Paris métro,
378
Nick’s me-too quip to the Nubian taxi driver,
151–152
Nixon, Richard: of superheroes, the,
222
; yearining to be known as “RMN”,
90
9/11,
see
September 11th
Nobel Prize: citation for Einstein, extreme caution of,
461–462
; for creative extensions of categories,
464–465
non-Euclidean geometry,
16
,
498–499
non-lexicalized concepts,
30
,
137
,
139–140
,
176–180
normalement
, as monolithic concept in French,
82
normal mass/potential energy
analogy,
480–481
normal mass/strange mass
membrane, broken,
480–481
,
482
,
484
norms as directing word choices,
73
novices: inability to spot depth,
341
;
versus
experts,
236–246
,
255
,
392–394
Nubians harmed by dam, me-too analogy centered on,
151–152
number
: blurriness of the category,
392
; relentless conceptual broadening of,
439–443
,
447–448
numerical comparisons as analogies,
153–154
,
281–282
,
285
,
331
—O—
oars replaced by javelins,
317
,
322
object recognition, mediated by analogy,
19
,
184
objectivity: of analogies,
522–526
; of categorization,
522–526
obsessions engendering analogies galore,
258
,
299–305
,
524
“Ode to Constraints” (James Falen),
315
“office”
versus
“study”,
47–49
,
74
,
76
office visit
as an example of a schema,
336–337
“official” boundaries of categories,
64–65
old town, as metaphor for a category’s core,
61–62
,
65
Once bitten, twice shy:
as an abstract category,
100
,
103–106
,
516
; as a proverb incarnated in various languages,
105
; as analogical pressure in column-translation dilemma,
306–307
“one”, as the name of a category,
75
one-dollar bill, as minimal banknote,
280
one-line analogies, list of,
135
one-member categories,
see
single-member categories
“one smart dude”, as indicative of category of speaker,
75
opacity: of acronyms,
91–93
; of compound words,
86–87
; of idiomatic phrases,
97–98
operation–result naïve analogy for equations,
407–411
;
see also
cause–effect
Oppenheimer, Frank,
275
opposite meaning: produced through biplans,
268
; produced through conceptual-proximity slippage errors,
276–277
Orwell, George,
57
—P—
“pacifier”, semantic components of, unheard by toddler,
86
Pac-Man, obsession with,
303–305
pantheons,
219–220
paradoxes stemming from the alleged dominance of the superficial in retrieval,
341–344
parallels between parallels, Maxwell’s love of,
502
Paris: being Paris,
522
; genericity of, to French people,
378
; growth of, over centuries,
61
; métro stations in,
215
,
377–379
; as tourist mecca
versus
book-writing locale,
163
; of the United States,
16
,
378
; as venue of Marie Antoinette’s dizzy remark,
358
parking places in San Francisco: beauty of,
296–297
; surprising availability of,
327–328
particle–antiparticle annihilation,
482
parts hidden inside wholes,
86–93
past, as key to understanding the present,
20
,
23
pasta, expertise in,
243–244
Pasteur, Louis,
300
patent clerk, Third Class,
457
,
460
,
463
,
470
“pathological” functions,
392
“Patsy is a pig”,
see
metaphors
,
“pig”
pattern
, as monolithic concept in English for which French has no single word,
81–82
patterns in discourse space,
69–76
patterns in multiplication tables of groups,
446–447
“peaks” of concepts poking out above clouds,
50
,
52
Pearl Harbor
, as category,
298
pedaling in sauerkraut,
248
pedestal, shared, as conceptual skeleton of two different word problems,
433–434
peel
, semantic halo surrounding,
126
,
270–271
people, analogically conflated,
181
,
224–225
,
275
perception: context-biased nature of,
299
; dependency on concepts,
171
; without concepts,
172
,
315
perception of grammatical situations,
69–70
permutations, successive, as giving rise to groups,
446
personal celebrities,
222–223
Peter-Defare, Evelyne,
259
Peter miswriting the year every January,
148–150
,
174
Phædrus,
112
Phædrus
,
522–523
philosophy of life, courtesy of Pac-Man,
303–305
phonetic proximity, role of in speech errors,
265
“phonon” as name for sound quantum,
459
photoelectric effect: behavior predicted by Einstein,
460–463
; discovered by Hertz,
460
; Einstein’s predictions confirmed by Millikan,
461
; merely an afterthought in Einstein’s 1905 light-quantum paper,
460
,
462
“photon” as name for light quantum,
459
,
461
,
462
,
482
phrase choice constrained by sentence choice,
26
phrases: blended together,
259–265
; retrieved by analogy,
93–98
physical world, understood via naïve analogies to computer world,
402–407
physicists: perception of equations by,
410–411
; stereotype of,
451–452
physics: naïve analogies in,
410–411
; seen as deductive, axiomatic discipline,
452
; seen as generalization of
mechanics
,
467–468
physics problems, as perceived by novices
versus
experts,
342
physics thinking/political thinking
analogy,
337
pianist: striking one wrong key,
270–271
; striking two keys at once,
263
,
266
“pig”, metaphorical use of,
228–232
pinball-machine obsession,
301
ping-pong, thanks to analogies, in discovery process,
500
pinpointing of essence,
see
essence-spotting
Pisa: Galileo’s use of the tower of,
492
,
493
; prior to its famous tower,
319
,
468
; with tower not yet leaning, 472: with tower starting to lean,
482
piton-placing as metaphor for concept creation,
131
pizza consumption, as generic bland event that does not trigger remindings of specific events,
158–159
Planck, Max,
456–458
,
460–461
; disdain for Einstein’s light quanta,
460
,
461
,
463
; likened to thirsty horse,
457
; pardoning Einstein’s sins,
461
; skeptical of existence of atoms,
460
planet
, as category requiring long deliberation to decide about membership in,
60
,
512
,
514
,
528
plans, blending of,
see
biplans plastic card as a key
,
254
plate
, as category lacking relationships among non-parts,
518–519
plate-throwing woman, frame blend by,
367
Plato: of freemasonry, the,
222
; objectivist vision of,
190
,
522–523
; warning of analogy’s slipperiness,
21
Platonic concepts, hopefully precise laws of,
56
,
58
“play”, zeugmatically exploited,
10–12
pluralization: of
Bible
,
220
; of famous people,
221–222
,
254
,
297
; of friends or relatives, revealed by speech errors,
224
; of friends, via strong resemblance,
224
; of
Hitler
,
335
; of
Jeff
,
223
; of
Mecca
,
220
; of
Mommy
,
34–35
; of
Moon
,
44
; of
Munich
,
335
; of
Pantheon
,
219–220
; of
Pope
,
219
; of
September 11th
,
297–298
; of
signature-botching
,
149
; of a specific wine,
244
plurals of compound nouns,
87
Pluto, debate over its status as
planet
,
60
,
512
,
514
,
528
poem learned by rote as member of category
boat on tracks
,
522
poems in the text: “Arizona Ants” (Kellie Gutman),
160
,
381
; “The Fox and the Grapes” (Benserade),
112
; “The Fox and the Grapes” (La Fontaine),
112
; “The Gardener’s Daughter” (Tennyson),
397
; “Karnak Caps”, (Kellie Gutman),
160
,
381
; “La cigale et la fourmi” (La Fontaine),
388
; “Ode to Constraints” (James Falen),
315
; “Psalm XXX” (Milton),
397
; “There Is No Word” (Tony Hoagland),
133
Poincaré, Henri,
132
; on flesh of geese and of dogs,
132
; letter of reference for Einstein by,
501
; on mathematical thinking,
439–440
,
509
; sudden flash of inspiration of,
16