Transcript Cognitive Semantics and Time Travel Krystian Aparta [email protected] www.timetravel.110mb.com Time Travel • Time travel in physics – still theoretical • Time travel in speculative fiction – actual.

Cognitive Semantics and
Time Travel
Krystian Aparta
[email protected]
www.timetravel.110mb.com
Time Travel
• Time travel in physics – still theoretical
• Time travel in speculative fiction –
actual and heavily researched
Time Travel in fiction
• Early fiction – e.g. Urashima Tarou, 720 A.D.
• Early science-fiction – e.g. The Time
Machine by H.G. Wells, 1895
Time-travel Themes
• Journey into the past, future, alternative
past, etc.
• Time machines, consciousness shift
• Dopplegangers, paradoxes (e.g. the
grandfather paradox, ontological paradox,
predestination paradox)
Rationality of time-travel
• Common themes, but different theories
• Science-fiction theories based on
everyday rationality
• Some problems – clashes with everyday
rationality
• Fans argue about which theory makes
more sense
Cognitive Semantics
• Semantics – the study of meaning
• What has meaning, what is meaning –
different semantics
• Cognitive semantics –
meaning=conceptualization
Cognitive Semantics
• Many theories, e.g. conceptual metaphor
theory, conceptual blending theory
• Started in the mid-1970s in the USA
• Some names: Fillmore, Lakoff, Rosch,
Johnson, Fauconnier, Turner
Cognitive Semantics
• C.S. – the study of conceptual
structure (knowledge representation)
and conceptualization (meaning
construction) (Bergen, Evans 2006)
• Multidisciplinary – cognitive science
(neurology, cognitive psychology, cognitive
anthropology, etc.)
Embodied experience
• Our experience is structured by the nature
of our bodies
• Symbols etc. are "prompts" for meaning
construction
• Conceptual structure: interactional
properties, relations, scenarios, image
schemata
Conceptualization
• Pre-consciously constructing content
using conceptual structure
• Pre-conscious (in the cognitive
unconscious)
• Meaning construction based on embodied
experience: e.g. image schemata
Image schemata
• Based on embodied experience
• Conceptual structures with inner logic
• This logic also structures more "abstract"
concepts, constrains rational reasoning
(e.g. CONTAINMENT)
• The inheritance principle in conceptual
metaphor theory
Conceptual blending
• Theory of meaning construction (Gilles
Fauconnier, Mark Turner, 1993)
• Conceptual structure blended to yield
new structure
• Selective projection: the structure in
the blend can be impossible in the input
Will it blend?
• Blending is commonplace and preconscious
• Human scale – working to produce global
insight
• Compression – compress more diffuse
structure into familiar "frames" in the blend
• Incompatibility between the inputs does
not have to matter
Generic space:
common structure
Input space 1:
SURGEON
Input space 2:
BUTCHER
Blend:
blended structure, emergent meaning
This surgeon is a butcher.
Time – blending 3
conceptual domains
Fauconnier and Turner, 2006
1. Domain of events (E)
– Event ordering, type, the subjective
experience of events (episodic memory)
1. Domain of motion (X)
• Sub-section of E: the experience of
motion and movement with its inner logic
• The Source-Path-Goal schema
Motion Event (X) logic
The spatial logic of X becomes the "abstract" logic
of our conceptualizations of Events.
EXAMPLE:
– X: If there is a direct path between A and B,
and we are moving on that path towards B,
it means we are getting closer to B.
– E: If the Polish dinner ends with soy cutlet
and potatoes, the more we eat of soy cutlet
and potatoes, the closer we get to finishing
dinner/eating.
More Motion Logic
• The spatial logic of X is the source of such
"objective and rational" aspects of Events as:
– Length, order, speed, paralell
development, directionality, etc.
• It is impossible to conceptualize events
without this spatial logic. It is not
a decoration, but the content of our
conceptualization of events.
1. Universal Events (M)
• Blend of 2 sub-domains: the Cyclic Day
and the Timepiece.
• Cyclic Day: the compression of the
representation of single events (e.g.
sunrise, nightfall) into a new "concrete"
event – a cyclic day, which we all live
through (morning, afternoon, night, etc).
Universal Events (M)
• Timepiece: representations of recurring
mechanical or natural events (e.g. the
motion of a rod between two points on a
scale)
• The structure of the Timepiece network
blends with Cyclic Day, e.g. the
representation of a certain position of the
rod blends with "Noon" in the Cyclic Day
Universal Events (M)
Blending Timepiece with Cyclic day yields
new, objective, universal and recurring
events, e.g. minutes, seconds, millenia
The E/X/M blend = 'time"
• Blending the structure of E/X/M yields
a new reality: universal, actual, abstract,
objective events.
• Any concrete "local" event is contained in /
blended with an abstract universal event in
M
The source of the
concretness of time
• In the E/X/M blend, representations of
embodied, physical, subjective experience
blend with abstract, objective, universal
events.
• This creates an emergent experience:
the subjective, physical and direct
experience of an abstract, objective and
universal event (e.g. last Friday).
Travel in space
• Representations of complex motion in
space compressed using the Path schema
• A blended scenario of motion is created,
with a Path that is abstract, concrete and
actual
More specific models
• More specific concepts recruited to
provide better insight
• Question: Today, you"re in London.
Yesterday, you were in Paris. How did
you get here?
– A concept recruited for the compression
(e.g. AIRPLANE TRAVEL)
Space travel
• Sometimes a more specific model to
compress travel in space is not available.
– Question: Two days ago, you were in the kitchen.
Today, you"re in the living room. How did you get
here?
– In such cases, we are left with the Path
schema from the E/X/M blend – in the blend,
we move along the path of TIME
Space-time travel
• The abstract Path in the E/X/M blend is
still actual and compressess
representations of physical, located
experiences
• Science fiction provides a specific model
of motion, which allows the experiencer to
retrace this Path and visit some of the
physical locations that it compresses
Concepts of location
• "Normal" models of change of location
– based on "physical rules" (e.g. you
can't walk in the air)
• New models suspend rules and the writers
try to make up in many ways, based on
a selected model of change of location
– E.g. normal human movement – movement
among normal human places  you timetravel from the 10th floor to the 9th floor (the
10th hadn't been constructed)
Many interesting options
• Paradoxes: based on the Path schema
logic in causality
• "Unpacking" the blend causes clashes
between the abstractness and
concreteness of a location/event
• If the natural human location = mind in
body, the body itself – other scenarios
References
•
Aparta Krystian. "Conventional Models of Time and their Extensions in Science
Fiction." Unpublished Master's Thesis. Kraków, Uniwersytet Jagielloński, 2006.
<http://www.timetravel.110mb.com/Aparta_Models_of_Time.pdf>
•
Bergen, Benjamin K, Vyvyan Evans and Jörg Zinken. 'the Cognitive Linguistics
Enterprise: An Overview."
<http://www.port.ac.uk/departments/academic/psychology/staff/downloads/filetodownl
oad,68131,en.pdf>
•
Fauconnier, Giles and Mark Turner
• 2003 The Way We Think. New York: Basic Books.
• 2006 Rethinking Metaphor.
<http://www.cogsci.ucsd.edu/~faucon/RethinkingMetaphor19f06.pdf>
•
Johnson, Mark. The Body in the Mind. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press,
1987.