Metaphors We Live By - by George Lakoff & Mark Johnson

This book is about realizing metaphors as fundamental to perception of the world around us. Like seeing, hearing or tasting, they allow us to understand the truth of our experiences, whether “external” (as in, the physical realm) or “internal” (ideas, thoughts and feelings). They’re a representation of the experiences we live: past, present or potential. They’re information in packages. The combination of both learned language and metaphors, aside from providing perception, drive a lot of our actions.

The deeper this book goes into defining, decomposing and categorizing metaphors, the more it mingles in philosophy. Our own personal philosophy is defined by a heavy use of metaphors. This likely happens unconsciously for most. It is also influenced by the culture we live in, which is also defined, in large parts, by metaphors.

Since we’re limited in the amount of literal definitions for concepts, we turn to metaphors to expand our understanding. They’re easier to remember, friendlier as components that compose concepts and are instantly relatable. They’re language’s representation of the human mind’s capacity to interconnect concepts. Gateways into ideas and interconnection of thoughts that flow out of our mind. This paragraph was full of metaphors. It’s fascinating.

Objectivism is not infallible for understanding the world (both physical and non-physical). Not for humans anyway. We require a grain (or a whole bag of) subjectivism as a complement. Through the injection of the subjective “metaphorical reasoning” we expand our understanding, using unique relationships between entirely different concepts. It’s a skill, inherent to human beings, and a huge driver of our species’ dominance over others.