Reflections on Metaphor and the Nature of Mind

Ethan Buchman, Studies by Undergraduate Researchers at Guelph, 2011, 4, 2.

Abstract: Experience is not given to us; it is constructed. As we develop in a particular culture, our minds establish a framework of reality by which we are able to make judgments about the world and discern its nature. Each culture develops a slightly different framework, and tends to see the world in slightly different ways. We often lose sight of this fact, finding ourselves hypnotized by our own mental constructions and technologies. It is through the power of metaphor that we become ensnared in illusory conceptions of reality. But it is also through this same power that we may free ourselves from these bonds.

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