cognitive semantics and time travel krystian aparta [email protected]
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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 conceptualmetaphor theory
Conceptual blending
• Theory of meaning construction (Gilles Fauconnier, Mark Turner, 1993)
• Conceptual structure blended to yieldnew structure
• Selective projection: the structure inthe blend can be impossible in the input
Will it blend?
• Blending is commonplace and pre-conscious
• 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
This surgeon is a butcher.
Blend:blended structure, emergent meaning
Input space 1:SURGEON
Input space 2:BUTCHER
Generic space:common structure
Time – blending 3 conceptual domains
1. Domain of events (E)– Event ordering, type, the subjective
experience of events (episodic memory)
Fauconnier and Turner, 2006
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) logicThe spatial logic of X becomes the "abstract" logicof 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 cutletand 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 nota 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 yieldsa 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 ona selected model of change of location– E.g. normal human movement – movement
among normal human places you time-travel 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/filetodownload,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.