Recent content by timtak

I wonder what fact that late Neolithic and bronze age peoples clearly believed in an afterlife tells us? Perhaps that they believe in a self, in William Jame's parlance a "me" which dies, but are at the same time believe that it is not their true, or truer being, "I," which does not die...

Thank you @Michel You have given me ideas for about three years of reading, at my pace. Perhaps I can find in the mental reasoning literature, a visual reasoning task that Japanese are demonstrably better at. There a couple of pieces of research of this type 1) Japanese are better at...

I am sorry I did not notice your posts. This forum allows us to edit our posts, using the submit button, without updating the forum, I think. I will be more careful should you be so kind as to reply in future. I wish I could say, with sincerity, "You may well be right," but due to that...

I need to read some taxonomies in "Diagrammatic Representation and Inference ". Thank you very much. Thank you so much for reading, or skimming even, the paper which is mine. It is very primitive, I agree. This is partly because I have not read 1/50 of that which you have read. I also feel t...

Imagination -- thinking by calling images to mind -- is my shtick. But I am not sure I would call it "reasoning." I have never heard of biosesmiotics. It seems to me that Japanese call images to mind. This means that they are not thinking for communication, as many post-decision making...

Thank you! Interesting opinions. Here is another experiment, or two, in support of a plurality in mind. Vygotsky, like his compatriot Bakhtin, Derrida, and Freud (A note on the Mystic Writing Pad), holds that words in mind are silent speech and mean in the same way as spoken speech - through...

You mention just Ideas, ideas that are just, and ideas that are true, or can be tested. Normally it is assume that true ideas are ideas that are just, but it could be the case that the testable true ideas are really bad, both in what they reveal about oneself, and in their consequences. I...

Thank you @Michel I will have a look at those papers and subsequent ones. To be honest, I had a sort of insight myself when I was young, about 32 years ago (I am now 55). I had a psychotic experience, that sort of confirmed for me Freud's theories. Of course, my psychotic experience is unlikely...

@Manifold That is an excellent video. Thank you. The research is at https://tiny.cc/maskswork The mask making stuff is at http://tiny.cc/masks4all Unfortunately, even with their mask making movement, the number of cases has started increasing again but I am all for masks (and gloves)...

There is a virologist who studied SARS who stresses gloves as a means of discouraging hand to face touching. That is the important thing. Viruses get on our hands and we touch our faces. The viruses can get on our gloves too, but as we bring our gloves up to our face, we are more likely to...

There is research showing that masks work for medical personnel https://forums.livescience.com/threads/how-will-the-coronavirus-outbreak-end.1070/page-3#post-4902 Even non N95/surgical masks are argued to work by some...

Thank you again @Michel. Unfortunately my low ranking Japanese university does not give me access to that journal, so I have to be content with that which I can google. Should you be so kind as to email me the papers (to the email link at http://nihonbunka.com/) I would be very grateful. I...

According to the Wikipedia page on level four virology labs, there is another lab in Harbin, at which SARS research is also, afaik, carried out (google) but, the one in Wuhan was the first and is the home of "bat woman". And there are about 700 cities in China. Afaik the lab is 20 miles and...

I couldn't find Michel's final post, replying to mine above, but it has now reapeared (due to my ineptitude I have not doubt) and contained interesting references one of which I am reading now containing a critique of Nisbett and Wilson's critique of our ability to make conscious decisions...

I think it is very relevant. The "myth busting" research at least demonstrates that it is conceivable that the virus could have mutated naturally, but since it would have mutated naturally in a wet market just down the road from lab that makes the same type of virus, it is a very big...