The Mysterious Power of Naming in Human Cognition

I’ve written a long-form essay for the blog/aggregator site 3 Quarks Daily: 

Boundaries and Subtleties: the Mysterious Power of Naming in Human Cognition

Here’s a taster:

I’ve divided up the essay into four parts. Here’s the plan:

1. We’ll introduce two key motifs — the named and the nameless — with a little help from the Tao Te Ching.
2. We’ll examine a research problem that crops up in cognitive  psychology, neuroscience and artificial intelligence, and link it with  more Taoist motifs.
3. We’ll look at how naming might give us power over animals, other people, and even mathematical objects.
4. We’ll explore the power of names in computer science, which will facilitate some wild cosmic speculation.