Douglas Hofstadter: The Nature of Categories and Concepts

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  • Опубликовано: 17 дек 2024

Комментарии • 124

  • @buddhabillybob
    @buddhabillybob 5 лет назад +22

    This man is a gift. I am in the Humanities, and I find his books to be downright bursting with insight.

    • @UCFc1XDsWoHaZmXom2KVxvuA
      @UCFc1XDsWoHaZmXom2KVxvuA 3 года назад +4

      He might not have the Feynman-like charme as a scientist but i think that, if you listen closely to him, he says some of the truest things ever spoken

    • @LarsTragel-zh7ei
      @LarsTragel-zh7ei 4 месяца назад

      Hofstadter is more of a psychotic than a scientist.

    • @LarsTragel-zh7ei
      @LarsTragel-zh7ei 4 месяца назад

      @@UCFc1XDsWoHaZmXom2KVxvuA no

  • @Achrononmaster
    @Achrononmaster 7 лет назад +73

    DRH hardly ever gets onto RUclips. Even Feynman seems to have more lectures on RUclips. Could I make a general play for humanity to all of Hofstadter's students to damn well take a decent quality media recording whenever DRH lectures, please.

    • @davegrundgeiger9063
      @davegrundgeiger9063 5 лет назад +2

      This this this.

    • @heckler511
      @heckler511 5 лет назад +1

      ha so true!!

    • @ecophile70
      @ecophile70 3 года назад +1

      How true it is! When I delved in Lucchino Visconti, I came to know that he directed several musical opera performaces starring Maria Callas. How beautiful it was. However, they can only be shown in fragments inserted in some documentary films about Visconti. I wish they should have recorded all the stage performances, all of which just disappeared.

    • @utuonebrown2273
      @utuonebrown2273 3 года назад

      6

    • @LarsTragel-zh7ei
      @LarsTragel-zh7ei 4 месяца назад

      Hofstadter is more of a psychotic than a scientist.

  • @mattyjmar10
    @mattyjmar10 4 года назад +6

    Danny at the Grand Canyon.
    Dick, on the River Nile, at the Temple of Carnac.
    Douglas, his eyes opened!

  • @mattrude103
    @mattrude103 7 месяцев назад +3

    As a Minnesotan, "Born in Minneapolis but Grew up in St. Paul," is hilarious to me. To the locals this is ironically true. "You go to Minneapolis to sin and St. Paul to pray," as the old saying goes.

  • @SimonSaysSimon
    @SimonSaysSimon 2 месяца назад +3

    All those screaming the question "What is a woman?" is supposed to have an easy answer should really give this a watch.

  • @MACTRUQUE
    @MACTRUQUE 4 месяца назад

    The fractal wonder of the abstract mind in full bloom!

  • @tzirufim
    @tzirufim 10 лет назад +7

    I just recently bought a book (Gödel Escher Bach) which was recommended to me. To my shame I haven't read it yet. So watching Hofstatders lectures makes me really want to dive in deeper into his mind, and I definetly will.
    I just thought that it might be nice to list the 2 movie titles the last student akss about. Because to me these are two of the best films in it's respective genre. Never thought one could bring them into this conversation.
    - Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (2001)
    - The thin blue line (1988)
    If you are interested in documentaries in general you might want to give "The thin blue line" a try, because it is beeing said that it changed the genre. You will instantly know why while watching it ;)
    Sorry for the off topic guys but I saw people doing this on other videosSLASHlectures and I really find this helpful ;)

    • @tbretten
      @tbretten 6 лет назад +1

      Phil Lawrence, I know it's three years ago but I don't think you have to be ashamed.
      In fact, this video motivated me to try (yet again) to understand the book.
      Did you manage in between?

    • @LarsTragel-zh7ei
      @LarsTragel-zh7ei 4 месяца назад

      Hofstadter is more of a psychotic than a scientist.

    • @Grateful92
      @Grateful92 28 дней назад

      ​@@LarsTragel-zh7ei And you're more of a *nothing* or even minute

  • @kishorekrishnadas5541
    @kishorekrishnadas5541 2 года назад +1

    If love this guy so much. A thinking American mind. Not quite unlike Warhol or Rawls. Thrilled to be here.

    • @kishorekrishnadas5541
      @kishorekrishnadas5541 2 года назад

      If only we could get some of the fellas together for a Robotussin party. One can dream.

  • @lukecresante
    @lukecresante 4 года назад +6

    Mixed reviews on the general value of this lecture (for earlier learners) without greater structure or a clear practical tie.
    - ## **Notes**
    - The categories in life are hard to pin down
    - We pick up words and phrases often without an understanding of why - **this is through analogy**. By hearing others, observing its use, and incorporating it into our own
    - Dictionaries, native speakers, courses, won't help us in certain cases. It's in practice, hearing the speech around you, that you pick it up through analogy - this natural feeling, it coming to your mind (sort of a sensational feeling, exciting moment)
    - Every word choice is a category and represents analogy making
    - "U.S. culture as a whole is excited by the creation of new categories (lives by the creation of new categories)"
    - Definition of intelligence - The ability to put one's finger on the essence of a situation rapidly. That means to categorize rapidly, to make analogies rapidly, to find strong and compelling analogies rapidly
    - ## **Note to Self**
    - **Look and think about the undertones/sub tones to more carefully consider deeper, possibly subconscious meanings and intentions.**
    - __"At the end of the day"__
    - Probably acquired through analogy but given more frequent use this could be an example of something picked up through repeated exposure from a variety of circumstances.
    - It may lend a political tone __after all this X__ or __despite that (negative / nearing negative)__ this prevails.
    - It should be considered as such because it may highlight underlying intentions in its use (think conversationally)

    • @schmetterling4477
      @schmetterling4477 3 года назад

      I don't even want to start counting just how many category errors you made in this post.

  • @MicahIsser
    @MicahIsser 8 лет назад +7

    Has anyone ever tried to apply this idea of categorization to Personality psychology - and in particular the work of Gordon Allport? The categorization of individuals, via a series of 'traits', is both a pragmatically useful tool (in that it gives a compressed analogy of predictive information) and possibly harmful (if it is a groundless mis-categorization, which Allport calls prejudice).
    Furthermore, the idea of categorization could be incredibly helpful to ethics - and Virtue ethics in particular. If qualities like 'courage,' 'kindness,' or even 'goodness' are understood as compressed analogies, they can serve as useful tools for making decisions and shaping identity, without falling into a trap of essentialist 'necessary & sufficient conditions', or psudo-Platonic forms.
    In general, Hofstadter's theories seem like a great development of Wittgenstein's language-based model of cognition. It paints a picture of thinking that doesn't a) reduce mental processes to neurology, b) suppose the existence of a transcendental 'consciousness' and c) doesn't put forth an unsubstantiated faculty-psychology.

    • @markuslepisto7824
      @markuslepisto7824 3 года назад +2

      George Kelly had some, in my opinion, extremely interesting insights about "categories". But I think it has more to do with the "subjective mental state" or "a belief".. thought..the "process" of it. Not so much about "evaluation of others.. quality", namely THEIR personality.
      Anyways in my opinion George Kelly and he's theories should have more attention amongst psychology students.

    • @LarsTragel-zh7ei
      @LarsTragel-zh7ei 4 месяца назад

      Hofstadter is more of a psychotic than a scientist.

  • @felicity9187
    @felicity9187 2 года назад +3

    this lecture is very darmok and jalad which is funny :) i think it’s really great and really apt that among internet users and star trek fans the phrase darmok and jalad has taken on a darmok and jalad meaning of its own

  • @prithvichaitanya5224
    @prithvichaitanya5224 2 года назад +1

    This truly is marvelous

  • @CarterColeisInfamous
    @CarterColeisInfamous 9 лет назад +3

    28:16 the reason he used but is because Texas is different from other states and wants to get TX cred for being raised there... it is as different from other states as growing up in Japan

  • @nelsonwhite1463
    @nelsonwhite1463 10 лет назад +6

    Truthfully, I have tossed his book several times in favor of Joyce.

  • @timeven4769
    @timeven4769 10 лет назад +22

    "And" and "but" are logically equivalent, but ... .

    • @golddebra
      @golddebra 10 лет назад +5

      Uhhhhh, and uhhhh but uhhhh!

    • @timeven4769
      @timeven4769 10 лет назад +3

      Actually, zzzzzzzzzzzz!

    • @LarsTragel-zh7ei
      @LarsTragel-zh7ei 4 месяца назад

      Hofstadter is more of a psychotic than a scientist.

  • @ComputerweltPodcast
    @ComputerweltPodcast 10 лет назад +1

    Thank you very much for sharing this and the CCRMA concerts! All the best from Stockholm

    • @eduardkoch5213
      @eduardkoch5213 4 года назад

      drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1YP_-yqhS3_exi6Kfo8Gq82qIyMlJy6_V

  • @briancornish2076
    @briancornish2076 Год назад +1

    It's all in Roget's synopsis of categories (1852).

  • @borntobemild-
    @borntobemild- 2 года назад +2

    Can someone try adding this to GPT-3?

  • @IKnowNeonLights
    @IKnowNeonLights 2 года назад +1

    (Give them a minute or so.)
    That is the whole lecture, in a very short sentence. Alluding, that language is some type of measure.
    The lecture is alluding, not language, as it is not such, hence me picking up, a very short sentence, such as!!!
    (Give them a minute or so.)
    Used right at the end of the lecture, by the lecturer, (in relation to people leaving or wanting to leave) before taking questions in relation to it.

  • @guillaumecharrier7269
    @guillaumecharrier7269 Год назад +1

    "I have to go to school to pick up my backpack" kind of works because he has to go to THE school to get it, but since (we assume) it's a school day, if he steps into the school as is necessary, then he can't decently play truant in full view of everybody (the teachers, principal, what not) and walk out right after he's fetched the thing, so he is stuck and he has to go to school.

  • @luckyyuri
    @luckyyuri 9 лет назад +2

    does anybody know "danny at the grand canyon" falls into semantic memory or episodic memory. normally it would be a clear episodic memory but when you see something that triggers the retrieval of that old memory, it kinda seems to me that it serves as a semantic

    • @matijabalic7960
      @matijabalic7960 8 лет назад +1

      I think it is better represented (thought of) as working memory. This concept allows one to safely "ignore" the source of a memory. This way, whether the memory was triggered by something from your surroundings or form your inner turmoils, becomes an irrelevant question. As log as one is aware of the memory - that is, as along as one is perceiving it - and as long as one is working on/with it, one may conceptualize it as a segment of experience now present in working memory. Regardless of where it came from (what stimulated it).

  • @bdbs5618
    @bdbs5618 7 лет назад +3

    Logic fully admits that "and" is not equivalent to "but" but for the sake of convenience, given the purpose of what they're trying to accomplish, namely to demarcate true statements from false ones, they explicitly assume the two words to be equivalent.

    • @KrausHyperOpera
      @KrausHyperOpera 7 лет назад

      True, but there are definitely some philosophers who view them as straight synonyms, with any differences between them attributable to implicatures or something else non-semantic. Certainly if you have the view that the truth-conditions for a sentence exhaustively characterize the meaning of a sentence they will seemingly have to be. I think it just comes down to what sort of equivalence you have in mind.

    • @samLsmith-zw6jt
      @samLsmith-zw6jt 7 лет назад

      Order in the court +Order in the court=But that's not all Folks.

  • @anthonymercuri8885
    @anthonymercuri8885 9 лет назад +9

    25:17 Such a missed pun opportunity!! "At that point, but(t)s became extremely interesting to me". It was right there, Hofstadter! What are you *doing*, man?!

  • @wafikiri_
    @wafikiri_ 10 лет назад +4

    Conjunctions in Spanish are officially categorized. I learned their different categories when I was 9 years old: copulative, adversative, disjunctive, etc. I think this should be taught in English too.
    Then half this lecture would have not been necessary.

    • @MrNewberryL
      @MrNewberryL 9 лет назад +10

      Wafikiri His point isn't, I don't think, that conjunctives should be recognised as being divided into categories by grammarians and so on. Rather, that conjunctives like 'and', 'but', 'however', etc. are themselves categories in his sense (concepts), rather than merely mechanical bits of language for binding together the bits of language that possess meaning or content ('tree', 'horse', 'hosepipe', etc.). This, I took it, was part of his point about the legacy of mathematical logic, which encourages us to suppress conjunctives as mere logical operators as though natural language could be adequately modelled on the idealised language of predicate calculus.
      Tl;dr: his point is that our choice of conjunctive is not merely about 'flavour' or 'feel', it makes a genuine contribution to what we mean or to the thought we express.

  • @eleonoraformatoneeszczepan8807
    @eleonoraformatoneeszczepan8807 3 года назад

    7:58 min ... why forms, designed to make things easier, complicate things ...

  • @SeiroosFardipour-sy3sh
    @SeiroosFardipour-sy3sh 4 месяца назад

    Take your loical tree and at each bifurcation point creates new bifurcations if the first were 0&1then next is 0101red horizontally Now rotate all tree fron starting point toward centre ,when rotated one becomes at same level of second the (0101) we will see that oprates like a logical doors having both doors potentially like 01or/and 01next ramification gives us 01,0,01 here the symbol of any sentence is related to other by the symbol ,0, therefore logical ports are by nature the symbols and inversely

  • @AG-yu6hi
    @AG-yu6hi 2 года назад

    Chị hướng dẫn bài Hà Lan đi chị mây ❤️

  • @dirkblabla
    @dirkblabla 3 года назад +1

    34:30 with regards to some English examples. This kid just learned the word "apparently"
    ruclips.net/video/rz5TGN7eUcM/видео.html

  • @sanpo777
    @sanpo777 10 лет назад

    The Singularity is Near, Douglas! (1:19:40)
    )

    • @dutchbrannigan9739
      @dutchbrannigan9739 9 лет назад

      +sanpo777 Ah yes, the end of mankind...what wonderful news **sarcasm**

  • @digmerjustinianosantos7002
    @digmerjustinianosantos7002 9 лет назад

    Una conferencia muy importante.

  • @ceticamente
    @ceticamente 3 года назад +1

    34:10 ➡️➡️apparently kid 💁

  • @luizhenriquemoraismazzucco4526
    @luizhenriquemoraismazzucco4526 4 года назад +1

    hmmm ya

  • @sibam_debnath
    @sibam_debnath 5 месяцев назад +1

    Professor look like andy worhol

  • @wafikiri_
    @wafikiri_ 10 лет назад +14

    After having watched this video's lecture, I feel disappointed, because the title is totally misleading. It should be called "The power of words in categorization and their cultural diversity" instead, or something like that. I was expecting a lecture on "the nature" of categories. And on that of concepts. I have a clear, neat, neurologically sound, and mathematically precise concept of categories and of concepts, and of how they are created, modified, recognized, and combined in the nervous system; therefore I do not need to be told. But I wanted to learn whether this clear, neat, neurologically sound, and mathematically precise concept diferred from Professor Hofstadter's. And I hoped for a Cognitive Science description on how concepts and categories are created, modified, recognized, and combined in the nervous system. To see if they match the way I see them.
    Oh, well. Maybe next time.

    • @PicaMonedula
      @PicaMonedula 10 лет назад +6

      you seem to have misunderstood - noone has a clear idea of the things you claim to have so it might be appropriate to be open to theories. Mabe try Gödel, escher, bach for deeper speculation.
      btw. his point is that there is no precise concept of anything, and because someone made up a way of categorizing something, doesn't mean that the categories are there, but that someone did what the brain does by putting stuff into boxes as a means of understanding and applying knowledge
      This guys theories are pretty coherent with and mabe even inspiration for modern attempts of mind simulation, AI so just mabe be a little humble in your approach, Hofstadter is a modern genius

    • @wafikiri_
      @wafikiri_ 10 лет назад +3

      Rasmus Daugaard Hansen
      I do not doubt this lecturer is a genius. But if his genius has not carried him to that clear and sound understanding of how concepts and categorization (and even how analogies) are made in the brain, he is one step behind me. Are YOU open to theories? For I can expose a falsifiable one on this matter in less than 100 lines. But then, if, as you say, nobody has a clear idea on that, I want the merit too. Would you recognize its merit if it is really sound?

    • @PicaMonedula
      @PicaMonedula 10 лет назад

      Wafikiri 100 lines?

    • @wafikiri_
      @wafikiri_ 10 лет назад

      Rasmus Daugaard Hansen Sorry. I meant lines of text but in fact a score of words would state the essence of my theory. The remainder I'd use to explain the why's and how's, show examples, elaborate on consequences.

    • @PicaMonedula
      @PicaMonedula 10 лет назад

      If the whole of you believed yourself what you are saying, then i think you would/should seek someone else's attention.
      If it floats i will be watching development on this topic anyway so don't bother about me. I don't feel any kind of intrigued by or have any trust or faith in anything you say so...
      Good luck with it

  • @ONeilXaviera-g3j
    @ONeilXaviera-g3j 3 месяца назад

    Anderson Margaret Perez Christopher Hernandez Daniel

  • @donsevers
    @donsevers 2 года назад

    If he does more than give examples, I'll be gratified but surprised. I've never heard him say anything about the nature of categories or analogies in his books or lectures.

    • @donsevers
      @donsevers 2 года назад

      At about 1:22:00 an audience member asks about the relation between Platonic categories and Hofstadter's work. He repeats some examples. He's a philosopher if anyone is, but I haven't heard anything from him about the ontology of categories.

  • @davioustube
    @davioustube 3 месяца назад

    I don't know: exploring the vast world of analogy is like shooting fish in a barrel. I guess that's his point.

  • @Vladimirwlr1234
    @Vladimirwlr1234 7 лет назад +1

    For someone who mentions Eleanor Rosch, his understanding of categorization seems to be very fuzzy and vague. I think he might have done what a lot of people have done and read Rosch up until the second stage of her theory, so he gets prototype effects, but not a whole lot of other things like radial categories or generators. Rosch didn't stop working in the 70's, there's new stuff to be read.

  • @MendTheWorld
    @MendTheWorld 5 лет назад +1

    He should perhaps write a book that provides a grand compilation of words together with other words belonging to the same category of meaning. He can call it, um,... er.... ooh, ooh.... I've GOT it: a "thesaurus".
    My favorite part is where he discovers the difference between a definite and indefinite article (or should that be THE definite and indefinite article, if you want to refer to articles in general).

    • @yushpi
      @yushpi 5 лет назад +2

      Is this a sarcastic dismissal?

  • @jorgelarangeira1502
    @jorgelarangeira1502 2 года назад +1

    I think DH stumbled on the Wittgenstein's concept of “language games”

  • @nelsonwhite1463
    @nelsonwhite1463 10 лет назад

    Remember, we aren't out of the woods yet!

  • @executivedysfunction
    @executivedysfunction Год назад

    Proverbs are part of a typical mental status exam

  • @jabrown
    @jabrown 8 лет назад +4

    douGlas hOfstaDter

  • @VyvienneEaux
    @VyvienneEaux 4 года назад

    Perhaps Danny was young enough to not be impressed by the Grand Canyon because it was just as novel as the ants.

  • @billearp245
    @billearp245 8 лет назад

    Just footprints in the sand.

  • @luizhenriquemoraismazzucco4526
    @luizhenriquemoraismazzucco4526 4 года назад

    interessant

  • @ChrisSargent-f5j
    @ChrisSargent-f5j 2 месяца назад

    Brown Sharon Thompson James Brown Jennifer

  • @ireneeherron
    @ireneeherron 11 месяцев назад

    'Nevertheless', 'however', 'but' indicate that what is said or written next is a modifying thought ie modifies the initial statement by adding something unexpected or subtracting from the implications of the first statement. I am definitely missing something in all this stuff about categories. Seems to be complicating things unnecessarily. 'But' is an event in discourse space, he says. OK.
    I think this is a real mess of a lecture, it's all over the place. What's his point, what's his insight? Please, someone, enlighten me!

  • @jameshalford1180
    @jameshalford1180 3 года назад

    yeah, no, it's an error

  • @LaureanoLuna
    @LaureanoLuna 2 месяца назад

    Insubstantial, as usual.

  • @nelsonwhite1463
    @nelsonwhite1463 10 лет назад +1

    Mr. Hofstadter is losing his hair. That's for sure. And that is no paradox! I think.

  • @vinpalace6934
    @vinpalace6934 8 лет назад +3

    You lost me.

  • @TheWyrdSmythe
    @TheWyrdSmythe 10 лет назад +3

    [Fail] 0:35 minutes in and nothing interesting or even particularly on-topic has been said. It's been mostly a simplistic ramble about grammar and only revealed Hofstadter seems clueless about "and," "but" and "nonetheless." Not gonna bother to find out if it gets better further in.

    • @Losloth
      @Losloth 10 лет назад +2

      It doesn't get better, but I can recommend his talk "analogy as the core of thinking" - which is more to the point, and actually gives you something more to think about. I can summarize that hour long talk in three sentences though: (1) Analogy drives categorisation. (2) Concepts and categories are the same. (3) Concepts relate to each other in two ways; as sort of members of the same family (this idea is from Wittgenstein), such that they share features but are not the same, OR they are sort of nesting within each other, so that some categories taken together make up the next one. This concept is called nesting.

    • @TheWyrdSmythe
      @TheWyrdSmythe 8 лет назад

      Emil Danielsen Funny, I've got that one queued up. But you make it sound as self-evident as this one.

    • @efegokmen
      @efegokmen 6 лет назад

      I share the same point of view with you

    • @ArtOfTheProblem
      @ArtOfTheProblem 6 лет назад

      @@Losloth nice summary. i'm working on a series on AI and digging around to understand all theories

    • @MahmoudIsmail1988.
      @MahmoudIsmail1988. 4 года назад

      Thank you, totally agree, I think it is merely a self-indulgent useless show off

  • @superdeluxesmell
    @superdeluxesmell 3 месяца назад

    Disappointingly superficial

  • @smackronme
    @smackronme 8 лет назад

    believed/fall for that..

  • @guillaumecharrier7269
    @guillaumecharrier7269 Год назад +1

    "FRENCHLANGUAGEXXX, quoi." means that you have successfully expressed in a succinct, practical way a complex thought. You have successfully boiled it down to its conceptual essence and practical import. It's a little nod to yourself for having achieved that, and an invitation for your interlocutor to acknowledge as much - while also admitting that some less important, but nonetheless existent, elements of the original thought have been lost through the boiling down process.