TED Community » Hans Bauer

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• A reply on Talk: Jean-Baptiste Michel: The mathematics of history

  Jun 3 2012: Are you writing to us from the future? ( ;
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  A reply on Talk: Jean-Baptiste Michel: The mathematics of history

  May 23 2012: A great deal of scientific progress in the last 4 decades is not so much based on new discoveries but on the progress in electronic data processing. Imagine e. g. genetic research but also meteorology. So I can imagine well that human behaviour - which history is - shows recognizable and even predictable patterns.

• A reply on Talk: Jean-Baptiste Michel: The mathematics of history

  May 23 2012: I agree. Unfortunately polticians would not respect futurists' warnings very much.
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  A reply on Talk: Paul Zak: Trust, morality -- and oxytocin?

  Nov 3 2011: People who believe in science think that emotions are caused by substances. People who believe in God or in mystics believe that they come from beyond. And many of both think the other side is wrong.
  
  I don't regard this necessarily contradictory. Wherever an impetus comes from -- to have physical effects, it is accompanied by physical and chemical phenomena.

• A reply on Talk: Paul Zak: Trust, morality -- and oxytocin?

  Nov 3 2011: Religious people usually think that their own religion is.
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  A reply on Talk: Paul Zak: Trust, morality -- and oxytocin?

  Nov 3 2011: Human beings may be fond of very different things. Some become addict of delicious things, some of euphoric drugs and some even of being spanked. Less delicious preferences may be substitute for more delicious things being out of reach. So, does any kind of satisfaction raise the oxytocin level, even revenge?
  
  I don't know, but as far as I found in other publications, testosterone seems to reduce the effects of oxytocin while estrogen seems to enhance it.
  
  "Vive la petite différence!"
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  A reply on Talk: Paul Zak: Trust, morality -- and oxytocin?

  Nov 3 2011: Being called "Dr. Love" certainly causes a rise of oxytocin in his brain.

• A reply on Conversation: The west can no longer claim to be an honest broker in the search for peace in the Middle East.

  Feb 27 2011: So far you are answering your question yourself, don't you?
  
  But it was wise to challenge others before to post their opinions.
  
  By the way: I couldn't go on reading after: "David Cameron's efforts to promote democracy in the Middle East by becoming the first foreign leader to visit Cairo..."

• A reply on Conversation: Can people who deny science be educated? How?

  Feb 25 2011: @ B. Reynolds
  
  From the moral point of view you are right. "Cuz we are the good, the moral, the educated ones!" ;)
  
  But I wanted to point out the impression of the "stupid", the untrained, the uneducated ones, because the answer depends much on their mental and their emotional condition. The question was not if they should be educated but how, respectively if there is a way.
  
  It can only be answered individually, I'd say. Some may be reasonable enough to accept arguments so that you need not put them into a space shuttle for them to see that there is no turtle underneath the world. But who has not the slightest notion of logical thinking, will regard scientific "evangelizing" the same as religious or other evangelizing. He will either turn down all of it as indoctrination or choose what he simply likes better. Thats's his sensation of moral.
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  A reply on Conversation: Can people who deny science be educated? How?

  Feb 23 2011: I want to stress what you say about "(3) each person has his own truth.", Christophe.
  
  As you say, "There is only one truth" - if we can ever reveal that truth or not. So the expression "own truth" is semantically paradox though widely spread because it even appears in philosophical and psychological publications. What people want to express with this term should be named "personal opinion". Personal opinions may be as close to truth as human perspective allows, even congruent, but are never identical with truth itself as being a different category. An opinion may be true ur false but never is "the truth".
  
  I want to point this out because the term "own truth" or "personal truth" is highly suggestive and even purposefully used for manipulation.