INDEX
—A—
“A”, diversity of members of the category, 4–5, 57; picture, 5
“a”: as naming a category, 76; as vowel recognized in speech without one’s knowing how, 511, 512
“A rolling stone gathers no moss”, opposite interpretations of, 102
Aaron, Henry, 325–326
abc ⇒ abd, see Copycat analogies
Abel, Niels Henrik, 446
abstract dog and abstract bite, 104
abstract, grounded in the concrete, 28–29, 286–289, 333–337
abstraction: absurd levels of, 107–108, 166, 354, 448–449; as central to expertise, 245–246; by children, 38, 42–43; defined, 187; drive towards, 288; going hand-in-hand with generalization in math, 449; hierarchies of, 235–246; as impoverishing and enriching, 250; as key to encoding, 172, 174–176; legitimized by physics, 448; as luxury add-on to embodied cognition, 288–289; moving between levels of, 30–31; nature of, 107; opaque legalese as bad form of, see legalese; optimal level of, 108; relentless push towards, in mathematics, 448; streamlined by preplaced pitons, 131; techniques for, in mathematics, 449; unconscious acts of, 150–152, 165–166; in word problems in math, 428; see also category extension
accelerating frames of reference, 486, 488
acceleration: as indistinguishable from gravity, 491–492, 493–494, 496; linear versus circular, 497
acronyms, 89–93; catchiness of, 90; early examples of, 89–90; efficiency of, 92; list of, 90–91
actable-upon objects, category of, 253
action errors, caused by analogies, 279–280, 404–407
activated categories seeking instances of themselves, 299
adaptation of word meanings to contexts, 196–198
address, generalization to virtual world, 385–386, 395, 398
ad-hoc categories, 137–138; in metaphor understanding, 228–229, 232
adjectives: as labels for the two types of mass, 485; as names of categories, 272
Æsop, 112, 115, 388
affordances, perceptual, 278, 345, 450
airlines and airports as parts of hub concept, 52
airplanes, undetectabilityof motion of, 466–467
airport scenes: evoking words left and right, 33–34; evoking memories of analogous scenes, 157–158; as transculturation of métro scene, 377–379
Alberic of Monte Cassino, 22
Albert Einstein, Creator and Rebel, 473; see also Banesh Hoffmann
Albert’s Auberge, excellent coffee of, 462
algebra of classical categories, 56
Alice in Many Tongues (Weaver), 369–370, 372
alignment of two lives on time axis, 433–434
allegory for strange versus normal mass, 476
ambiguous category-membership, 59, 189–192
America/China frame blend, 367–368
amplification, proverbs about, 109
analogic versus logic, 258, 307–310, 311–312, 338, 393, 410, 439, 452, 453, 474, 499–500, 501; see also esthetics
analogical fabric of thought, 127
analogical reasoning, mistaken for analogy’s essence, 16–17, 283
analogies: between analogies, 27, 211–212, 502; between random things, 302; as bridges between mental entities, 181–184; coercing one’s flow of thought, 257, 258, 310–313, 444; as cognitive luxuries, 506; in competition, 260–278, 333; conveying truth despite falsity, 366; to counterfactual situations, 362; deep versus shallow, 337–346, 351–357, 375–376, 454–455, 517; as discardable crutches, 392, 421; down-to-earth, great utility of, 23, 507, 509, 516; by Einstein turning out to be eternal truths, 453–454, 486; engendered by obsessions, 258, 299–305, 524; extremely bland cases of, 155–156, 281–284, 507–509; failure of one as stepping stone en route to a deeper one, 356–357, 481, 490–491; as fallible and misleading, 22–24, 435; formal versus physical, 458; as frilly baubles and bangles, 506; functional and visual, coordinated, 277–278; as gems, 16, 506; high frequency of, 18, 507–510; as icing on cognition’s cake, 506, 508; imposing themselves, 29, 31, 289–307, 310–314; inspired by previous analogies, 211–212; invading minds willy-nilly, 257; involving frame-blending, 359–367; involving grammar patterns, 69–70; irrepressibility of, 104, 155, 157, 297, 305–313, 513–514; jumping unbidden to mind, 513–514; latent in semantic halos, 49, 271; like asparagus tips, 135; at the low end of the creativity spectrum, 450; manipulated by us, 331, 382–383, 513; manipulating our thoughts, 29, 31, 315, 331, 382–383, 501, 514; as mere sparkle and pizzazz, 506; as misleading, 21–23; mundane, by Albert Einstein, 454–455; nonstop deluge of, 155; not necessarily a source of pride, 517; objectivity of, 181–183; partially correct and partially wrong, 361; power of, 331–332, 444; pressures pushing for, 300–301, 355–356, 458; purposeless, 258, 281–286; rarity of, 506; seen as analogous to wild horses, 392; as sources of speech and action errors, 259–280; spicy one-line examples, list of, 136; stereotypes of, 135–136, 392, 486; strength of, as reflecting number of resemblances, 516; as strokes of genius, 16–17; superficial, in machine translation, 373, 375; taboo cases of, 104; as training wheels, 392; trivial and meaningless, ceaseless production of, 282, 284–286; unconscious, 259–281, 282, 285–286, 383, 386, 390, 403–407, 514; as uninvited guests, 31, 257; used in thermodynamics but not in electrodynamics, 337; versus frame blends, 363–364, 366–367; visual and sensory, 277–278, 286–289; wild and implausible, as hypothetical crux of creativity, 452
analogues versus schemas, 336–337
analogy: as analogous to asparagus tips, 135; as analogous to siren songs, 23; as analogous to wild horses, 392
analogy leapfrog, 211–212
analogy-making: addictive nature of, 155; as applying to entities versus applying to relations, 517–519; automaticity of, 513–514; as bridge-building between two items on the same level, 519–522; as a cognitive luxury, 506; as compatible with very few disparities, 515–517; as a conscious process, 510–513; as contrasted with assignment to a schema, 336; as the core of cognition, 3, 18, 25–26, 383, 505, 530; as creative, 508–510; as the crux of intelligence, 127; in decision-making, 330–337; as the Delaware of cognition, 17; delight provided by, 506; dependence on familiarity of source domain, 339–340; described by experts exactly as categorization is described, 436, 506; driven by surface-level cues, 337–346; efficiency of, 346; embodiment and, 287–289; in everyday life versus in wartime, 333–335; evoking symbol-manipulation recipes in mathematics, 450–451; as fallible and misleading, 22–24, 435, 527–529; as formal reasoning, 16; frame-blending and, 357–367; as the fuel and fire of thinking, 3; in getting used to new mathematical concepts, 442–444; going as deep as one can go in, 360; as the heartbeat of thought, 15, 17; identity with categorization, 503–530; illusion of necessary seriousness of, 282; incessant avalanche of, 18, 24, 28; as jumping between two levels of abstraction, 519–522; lack of right answers in, 16, 350, 352; as lacking in computers, 25; as the machinery of categorization, 15, 17, 39–49, 183–184, 309, 336, 399; as making the novel familiar, 436, 506; as making the world predictable, 436; by mathematicians, 439–451; as mediating object recognition, 19; misleading stereotypes of, 15–17; in mundane mathematical manipulations, 449–450; naïve analogy concerning, 451; as noble, 508; not used in domestic politics, 337; as objective, 522–526; opacity of the mechanisms of, 511; at the origin of metaphors, 63–64; in poetry translation, 380–381; as prerequisite to survival, 155, 157; as primarily done in intelligence tests, 16; as a rare luxury, 505–508; in real life as opposed to the lab, 339; as reliable, 527–529; as risky, 527; as routine, 508–510; in scientific discovery, 32, 210–214, 361; as subjective, 522–526; supposedly driven by superficial features only, 337–340; supposedly strengthened by disparities, 515–517; as suspect, 527–529; in translation of this book, 377–382; ubiquity of, 506–508; as an unconscious process, 510–513; underlying all word choices, see word choices; utility of, 135; versus categorization, 434–437; as a voluntary process, 513–514; in wartime de
cision-making, 17, 331–337; wide range of, 19; wide spectrum of abstraction of, in mathematics, 451
“analogy”, rarity of the word, 135
Anderson, John, 436
angel stung by bumblebee, see interplanetary bumblebee
animal, as highly variegated category, 516
animal words as metaphors, 228–232
animals: conceptual repertoires of, 54; as Platonic categories, 56
Ann, as member of many categories, 59, 190, 191
Anna, as spokesperson for the centrality of analogy-making, 503–529; poofing into thin air, 529; see also Katy, Katyanna
annihilating nano-boulders, 482
annus minimus of Ellen Ellenbogen, 463–464
annus mirabilis of Albert Einstein, 453, 467, 468–469
“Ant and the Grasshopper” (Æsop), 388
anti-economy, principle of, as a consequence of the dominance of the superficial in reminding, 341
ants: near Grand Canyon, see Danny at Grand Canyon; on orange, watching eclipse, 204–205, 367
appearances, as deceptive versus revelatory, 345
Arabic language, proverb in, 106
Archimedes, 130, 250–252, 300–301, 509; of minigolf, the, 222
Argentina, role of, in Falkland Islands War, 332
Aristotle, 15–16, 21, 437; of the airwaves, the, 222
arithmetical operations, relative difficulty of, 425
“Arizona Ants” (Kellie Gutman), 160, 380–381
army/thought analogy, 26, 27
Arnaud, Pierre, 259
Ars Magna (Cardano), 438–439
articles (“a” and “the”), as names of categories, 76
artificial intelligence, 20, 25
artistic unity, as goal of Einstein, 477, 495; see also esthetics
“as deep as one can go”, in analogy-making, 360
asparagus tip analogies, 19
“atmospheric harbor” as incomprehensible phrase, 86
“atom” as an unsplittable etym in English, 89 atom/solar system analogy, 142–143, 510, 513, 515, 518
atoms: lingering doubts about existence of, 459, 475, 487; vibrating in solids to make heat, 461, 475; vibrating in wall of black body, 456
attic, concept of 48–49, 278
avoidance maneuvers while walking, analogy-making in, 285
—B—
Babbage, Charles, 369
Bach, Johann Sebastian, 312; of the vibraphone, the, 222; rapid essence-spotting by, 501;
Bachelard, Gaston, 22
bagels belonging to a single batch, 309–310, 529
bait-and-switch as a concept available to anglophones, 123–124
balls, bells, and bowls, 488
Banach, Stefan, 502
banalogies (banal analogies), 143–156, 281–286; certainty of, 529; by Einstein, 454–455; elusiveness of, due to blandness, 152, 282, 285–286; great utility of, 23, 507, 509, 516, 529
bananalogy, of use when seeking bananas, 156
“band”, diverse meanings of, 3–4
Bar-Hillel, Yehoshua, 370
bark worse than bite category, 96
Barsalou, Lawrence, 137–138
baseball-based caricature analogies, 325–326, 383
base-level categories, 190
basketballs as members of the category floating objects, 58
Bassok, Myriam, 345
bassoonist falling off roof as source of me-too analogy, 150–151
“Bayh”/”bye” analogy, 27
“beaucoup”, as compound word in French, broken into two concepts in English, 83
bending over backwards to accommodate contrary evidence, 291–292
Bengali poetry, as perceived by non-speakers, 343
Benserade, Isaac de, 112
betting one’s life at all moments on a myriad of trivial and unconscious analogies, 156
Bezout, Étienne, 413, 415, 420
bibles, category of 220, 229
bike-rental anomaly, explained by analogy, 328–330
bilingual data bases in machine translation, 369, 372–373
biplans: involving actions, 279; linguistic, 268–270
bird: as an example of an imprecise category, 55–56, 58, 59–60; as a platform for making inferences, 102
birds in airport/accordionist in métro analogy, 378, 380
black body: defined, 455; Max Planck and, 456–457; spectrum of, 455–459
black body/ideal gas analogy: as found by Einstein, 457–459, 463; as found by Wilhelm Wien, 458
black body/swimming pool explanatory analogy, 455, 456, 458
blended scenario, see frame blends
blending, see frame blends, lexical blending
blinders, categorical, 58, 290–296
blindness as result of an inability to categorize, 21
blobs, colored, in conceptual spaces, 78–81
boat in amusement park as member of category trolleycar, 521
boat on tracks as category, 521–522
body-to-body analogies, 155–156
Bohr, Niels, 143; pooh-poohing Einstein’s light quanta, 462
Bolt, Usain, 75; of cognitive science, the, 222
Boltzmann, Ludwig, 457
Bombelli, Raffaello, 440, 442
bongos on savannah in museum, 364–366
books: as abstract, immaterial entities, 7; strange types of, 83
Borges, Jorge Luis, 38, 188
“bosse” (French word), 198–200
bottle, evolution of the concept in a child’s mind, 198–200
bottlecaps on ground, see Dick at Karnak
bottles thrown overboard, 284
box canyon, see impasse
boxes, as misleading model of categories, 13–14, 20, 52, 54–57, 60–61, 435
brainbows, 182–184
“brand”, evolution of meanings of, 202
brand names, genericized, 217–218
Brazilian street vendors’ arithmetic, 414–415, 422
breaking, marginal examples of the category, 41–42
bridge, as surprisingly elusive category, 67
bridges everywhere lighting up when button is pushed, 67
bridges, mental, 183–184, 336; see also analogy-making Brissiaud, Rémi, 424
Brownian motion, 458
“browse”, old-fashioned definition of, 397
“brush”, used zeugmatically, 8
“Brustwarze”, unheard parts inside, 87
bubbling-up of concepts from dormancy, 67, 170–171, 489, 491, 492, 498, 511, 513–514, 525; see also remindings, memory retrieval
Buffett, Warren, 320
bumblebee, see angel stung by bumblebee
bureaucratic use of acronyms, 92
Buresh, Ellie, 364–366
Buridan’s ass, 454
Bush/Schwarzenegger analogical conflation, 275
but as a category, 55, 70–75; contrasted with and, 72–75; in Russian, 74
“butter for lobster tails” joke, 358
“butterfingers”, as isolated metaphorical usage, 63–64
button #1/button #2 analogy by Monica, 169–170
buzzing interplanetary bumblebee, see randomly buzzing interplanetary bumblebee
—C—
c, the: in string abc, 349, 355; in string xyz, 354, 356
c2, enormous size of, 471, 482
Cairo, 75, 151, 162, 192
“camel”, marked and unmarked senses of, 199–200
Camille (who undressed the banana), 39, 41, 126
candle problem, Duncker’s, 250, 256
canine concepts, 178–181
canonization of individuals, 221–222
can-opener, universal, 439
Cantor, George, 444
“car”, marked versus unmarked senses of, 197, 230, 232
Cardano, Gerolamo, 438–440, 441, 445, 449
caricature analogies: analyzed, 320–330; blurted out, 323–324, 382–383; cascade of, 323–324; clarity as goal of, 317–318, 326–330; concreteness as force in, 329; creativity of, 324–326; diverse forms of, 320; drastic simplification in, 326; essence-spotting in, 321–322, 324–330; exaggeration as inadequate for, 321; for explaining subtle ideas to others or oneself, 326–330; feeble example of, 320; humorous baseball examples of, 325–326, 383; involving French number-words “cinq” and “six”, 380; list of, 318–320; involving Jan’s liquid and frozen assets, 476, 481, 485; mini-scenarios imagined in creation of, 323–324; mocking the timidity of Einstein’s Nobel Prize citation, 462; non-uniqueness of, 323, 325; rapidity of, 321, 323–324; reasons for concocting, 31, 317–318, 322, 324–328; search processes in, 321–322, 324–325; translation of, 380; used by the authors, 13, 18, 22, 25, 65, 108, 281, 320, 321, 337, 340, 366, 370–371, 411, 454, 462, 468, 476, 485, 497, 527
Carol signing with maiden name, 148–149
cars, blue, analogy between, 283
carving up the world in “the right way”, 14, 77, 522–523
casting pearls before swine, as category, 165
categorical blinders, 290–296, 400
categories: absurdly fine-grained, 83; ad-hoc, 137–138; base-level, 190; as blinders, 290–293, 313; blurriness in, 60, 61, 214–216, 244, 523; as boxes, 13–14, 435–436, 520, 522; of children, 39–43, 45; classical approach to, 13–14, 54–57, 435; competition between, 260–278, 281; defined by fables, 29–30, 113–118; as defining identity, 190; degree of centrality of members of, 57; development over time, 34–38, 43–45, 198–204; in discourse space, 69–76; of dogs, 178–181; dominant, 191; as drawers in a dresser, 13; extended by analogy-making, 34–38, 46, 62, 115–116, 246–248; with extremely intangible flavors, 75; as filters on perception, 292, 298–299; handed out on the silver platter of one’s language and culture, 123–124, 128–131; ideal degree of refinement of, 83–84, 108; imprecision of boundaries of, 55–61; instantly forgotten, 284; jumping unbidden to mind, 513; levels of abstraction of, 188; as the motor and fuel of cognition, 506; natural grain size of, 84; nested in the manner of Russian dolls, 520; non-lexicalized, 137, 139–140, 166–167, 176–180; organization of, as critical for expertise, 187, 237–246, 393; as organs of perception, 257, 299, 314; outnumbering words by far, 85; overly subdivided, 83; people’s frequent conflation with sets of visible objects, 54–55; private repertoire of, 166–168, 283–284; as relational, 517–519; seeming to be objectively there, 110, 111, 132–133; suburbs of, 65, 202, 213; unnoticed at their birth, 167; whose members exhibit great variety, 516; see also concepts categorization: as allowing prediction, 14–15; as applying to entities versus applying to relations, 517–519; as assignment to a schema, 336; automaticity of, 513–514; as bridge-building between two items on the same level, 519–522; carried out by analogy-making, 18–19, 179, 183–184, 309, 336, 399; as compatible with many disparities, 515–517; competition during, 261; as a conscious process, 510–513; as a constant necessity, 505; as the core of cognition, 505, 530; as creative, 508–510; described by experts exactly as analogy-making is described, 436, 506; errors in, 102–103, 527; by experts versus by novices, 342–344, 346; as fallible and misleading, 527–529; growing smoothly out of a single first instance, 182–184, 336, 520, 522; as humdrum, 508–510; identity with analogy-making, 503–530; illusion of automaticity of, 450, 513–514; as a judgment call, 117–118, 126; as jumping between two levels of abstraction, 519–522; as making the novel familiar, 436, 506; as making the world predictable, 436; as the meat and potatoes of cognition, 506; nature of, 13–15; not taught in schools, 60, 65, 126, 127; as objective, 522–526; as often being erroneous, 102–103, 527; opacity of its mechanisms, 511; “pure”, 65; rapid, as crucial for survival, 79, 83, 505–506; as rapid simplification, 505–506; reflecting one’s current perspective, 526; as reliable, 527–529; as risk-free, 527; as routine, 508–510; shades of gray in, 14; as subjective, 522–526; as suspect, 527–529; as an unconscious process, 510–513; as uncreative, 509; versus analogy-making, 434–437; as a voluntary process, 513–514; as weakened by disparities, 515–517