"What are the consequences of the fact that evolution is a tinkerer and not an inventor, and has duct-taped metaphors and symbols to whichever pre-existing brain areas provided the closest fit?"
— Sapolsky, Robert (b. 1957)
Author
Date
November 14, 2010
Metaphor
"What are the consequences of the fact that evolution is a tinkerer and not an inventor, and has duct-taped metaphors and symbols to whichever pre-existing brain areas provided the closest fit?"
Metaphor in Context
What are we to make of the brain processing literal and metaphorical versions of a concept in the same brain region? Or that our neural circuitry doesn’t cleanly differentiate between the real and the symbolic? What are the consequences of the fact that evolution is a tinkerer and not an inventor, and has duct-taped metaphors and symbols to whichever pre-existing brain areas provided the closest fit?
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
Sapolsky, Robert. "This Is Your Brain on Metaphors" The New York Times. The Stone. November 14, 2010. <Link to NYTimes.com>
Date of Entry
11/21/2010
