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[Phys-l] Are Concepts Instantiated in Brain Synapses? (was Bunkum Awards #2. . . .)



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ABSTRACT: In response to my post "Bunkum Awards #2. . ." EvalTalk's Liam Rourke asked "Could you provide a reference to the neuroscientist and his data that convinced you that 'neuroscience tells us that each of the concepts we have - the long-term concepts that structure how we think - is instantiated in the synapses of our brains'." But my post indicated that it was George Lakoff, not I, who stated "Neuroscience tells us . . . ." I suggest that Lakoff may have answered Rourke's excellent question in "Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought" and/or "Where Mathematics Comes From: How the Embodied Mind Brings Mathematics into Being." Although it's not germane to Rourke's question, I do not regard as "fantastic" - as does Rourke - Lakoff's assertion that concepts are instantiated in brain synapses. This can be seen from my discussion in a recent article of the relevance of neuroscience to education.
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If you reply to this long (14 kB) post please don't hit the reply button unless you prune the copy of this post that may appear in your reply down to a few relevant lines, otherwise the entire already archived post may be needlessly resent to subscribers.

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PROLOGUE: I realize that bracket lines (such as "RRRR. . . ." below) surrounding quotes are unorthodox and confusing to some readers, but they do serve to:
(a) avoid (in most cases) awkward quotes within quotes ". . . .'........'. . . .", and
(b) "clearly indicate who said what, unlike the ambiguous marginal angle brackets ">", ">>", ">>>". . . . . that befoul many posts. Therefore I shall continue their use in the present post.
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In response to my post "Bunkum Awards #2 (was Education Research by Conservative Think Tanks)" [Hake (2007a)], EvalTalk's Liam Rourke (2007) "wrote [bracketed by lines "RRRRRRRR. . . . ."]:

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In a recent post you made a fantastic assertion:

"Neuroscience tells us that each of the concepts we have - the long-term concepts that structure how we think - is instantiated in the synapses of our brains."

Could you provide a reference to the neuroscientist and his data that convinced you of this?
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I fear that Liam may not have read my post carefully. The "fantastic assertion" was made by cognitive linguist George Lakoff in his book "Don't Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate" [Lakoff (2004)], NOT by me. [For an introduction to cognitive linguistics see e.g., Evans & Green (2006).

I wrote [bracketed by lines "HHHHHH. . . ."]:
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GEORGE LAKOFF <http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/people/fac/lakoff.html> in "Don't Think of an Elephant" [Lakoff (2004)] provides an insightful discussion of framing and the effective conservative vs the generally ineffective progressive strategies for influencing policy. On pages 16-17 [online at <http://www.chelseagreen.com/images/DTE_Sampler.pdf> (1MB) ] he WRITES [my CAPS]:

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Neuroscience tells us that each of the concepts we have-the long-term concepts that structure how we think-is instantiated in the synapses of our brains. CONCEPTS ARE NOT THINGS THAT CAN BE CHANGED JUST BY SOMEONE TELLING US A FACT. We may be presented with facts, but for us to make sense of them, they have to fit what is already in the synapses of the brain. Otherwise facts go in and then they go right back out. They are not heard, or they are not accepted as facts, or they mystify us: Why would anyone have said that? Then we label the fact as irrational, crazy, or stupid. That's what happens when progressives just "confront conservatives with the facts." It has little or no effect, unless the conservatives have a frame that makes sense of the facts.
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Thus, Liam's excellent question "Could you provide a reference to the neuroscientist and his data that convinced you of this?" should be directed to Lakoff and not to me. I suspect that Laim may find Lakoff's answers to his question in either or both of:

1. "Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought" [Lakoff & Johnson (1999)] whose index <http://tinyurl.com/33lwj4> has extensive neural-related entries including "cognitive neuroscience."

2. "Where Mathematics Comes From: How the Embodied Mind Brings Mathematics into Being" [Lakoff & Nunez (2001)] whose index <http://tinyurl.com/2oa9jz> has an entry on the "neural structure of the brain."

Although it's not germane to Rourke's question, I do not regard as "fantastic" - as does Rourke - Lakoff's assertion that concepts are instantiated in brain synapses. This can be seen from my discussion of the relevance of neuroscience to education in "Should We Measure Change? Yes! [Hake (2007b)] [bracketed by lines "HHHHH. . . "; SEE THAT ONLINE ARTICLE FOR THE REFERENCES]:

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WHY ARE INTERACTIVE ENGAGEMENT (IE) COURSES MORE EFFECTIVE THAN TRADITIONAL (T) PASSIVE-STUDENT COURSES?

"The Brain . . . Use It or Lose It. . . no matter what form enrichment takes, it is the challenge to the nerve cells that is important. Data indicate that passive observation is not enough; one must interact with the environment." [Marian Diamond (1996)]

The superiority of IE methods in promoting conceptual understanding and higher-order learning is probably related to the "enhanced synapse addition and modification" induced by those methods. Cognitive scientists Bransford et al. (1999, 2000) stated:

". . . synapse addition and modification are lifelong processes, driven by experience. In essence, the quality of information to which one is exposed and the amount of information one acquires is reflected throughout life in the structure of the brain. This process is probably not the only way that information is stored in the brain, but it is a very important way that provides insight into how people learn."

Consistent with the above, biologist Robert Leamnson (1999, 2000) has stressed the relationship of biological brain change to student learning. In his first chapter "Thinking About Thinking and Thinking About Teaching," Leamnson (1999) defines teaching and learning thusly [my *emphasis*]:

. . . teaching means any activity that has the conscious intention of, and potential for, *facilitation of learning* in another. . . . .*learning is defined as stabilizing, through repeated use, certain appropriate and desirable synapses in the brain*. . . ."

And biologist James Zull (2003) in "What is The Art of Changing the Brain? " wrote [my *emphasis*]:

"Although the human brain is immensely complicated, we have known for some time that it carries out four basic functions: getting information (sensory cortex,) making meaning of information (back integrative cortex), creating new ideas from these meanings (front integrative cortex,) and acting on those ideas (motor cortex).). . . [for Zull's schematic of the brain see <http://www.case.edu/artsci/biol/people/zull.html>]. . .. . From this I propose that there are four pillars of human learning: gathering, analyzing, creating, and acting. This isn't new, but its match with the structure of the brain seems not to have been noticed in the past. *So I suggest that if we ask our students to do these four things, they will have a chance to use their whole brain.*"

For pro and con articles on the relevance of neuroscience to present-day classroom instruction see e.g., PRO: Lawson (2006) and Willis (2006); CON: Marchese (2002) and Bruer (1997, 2006). See also the commentary on Willis (2006) and Bruer (2006) by Hake (2006i) and Redish (2006).
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Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
24245 Hatteras Street, Woodland Hills, CA 91367
<rrhake@earthlink.net>
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake>
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~sdi>

REFERENCES [Tiny URL's courtesy <http://tinyurl.com/create.php>.]
Evans, V. & M. Green. 2006. "Cognitive Linguistics: An Introduction." Lawrence Erlbaum. Amazon. com information at <http://tinyurl.com/2v6vmm>. I thank PhysLnrR's Joe Redish for this reference.

Hake, R.R. 2006. "Possible Palliatives for the Paralyzing Pre/Post Paranoia that Plagues Some PEP's" [PEP's = Psychometricians, Education specialists, and Psychologists], Journal of MultiDisciplinary Evaluation, Number 6, November, online at <http://evaluation.wmich.edu/jmde/JMDE_Num006.html>.

Hake, R.R. 2007a. "Bunkum Awards #2 (was Education Research by Conservative Think Tanks)," online at <http://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0706&L=pod&O=D&P=10435>. Post of 14 Jun 2007 to AERA-D, AERA-L, ASSSESS, ARN-L, EDDRA, EvalTalk, Math-Teach, PhysLrnR, POD, STLHE-L, TIPS, TeachingEdPsych, PsychTeacher (rejected).

Hake, R.R. 2007b. "Should We Measure Change? Yes!" online as ref. 43 at <http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake>. To appear as a chapter in "Evaluation of Teaching and Student Learning in Higher Education," a Monograph of the American Evaluation Association <http://www.eval.org/>. A severely truncated version appears at Hake (2006).

Lakoff, J. & M. Johnson. 1999. "Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought," Harper Collins. Amazon.com information at <http://tinyurl.com/2jeuhx>. The "Search Inside" feature at <http://tinyurl.com/33lwj4> shows extensive neural-related entries including cognitive neuroscience. For an introduction to the "embodied mind" see the Wikipedia entry on "embodied philosophy" <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embodied_philosophy>.

Lakoff, J. & R.E. Nunez. 2001. "Where Mathematics Comes From: How the Embodied Mind Brings Mathematics into Being." Basic Books. Amazon.com information at <http://tinyurl.com/2eddau>. The index, available in the "Search in this book" feature <http://tinyurl.com/2oa9jz> indicates that the neural structure of the brain is discussed on pages 134 and 347.

Rourke, L. 2007, "Re: Bunkum Awards #2 (was Education Research by Conservative Think Tanks)," EvalTalk post of 15 Jun 2007 06:56:44-0600; online at <http://tinyurl.com/3d3j48>.