Donald Hoffman
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Podcast Appearances
That's right.
And a cat, how'd you learn?
Some point your mom or your dad said to, you know, Lewis, cat.
And then Lewis looks and you get it.
That's called learning by ostensive definition.
Ostensive definition is someone points and names.
And you- And you get it somehow.
And it's actually, right, it's actually magic because if someone points and says cat and you look, how did you know what to think of as the cat?
Is it the ear?
Is it the color of the fur?
Is it the right paw and the rug?
Yeah.
But the whole being of it.
Yeah, yeah.
And also what mom doesn't do is go, Lewis, quadruped.
She doesn't say quadruped or feline.
She knows exactly the right level of word.
So there's a language game that goes on when we learn.
And that's the problem with ostensive definition.
But what's interesting is...