TED Community » Cory Martin

More About Me

I'm passionate about

The wellbeing of others, Explanations of human behaviour, Pondering unanswered questions, Always asking why, Being optimistic, Truth,

An idea worth spreading

If the western world could spend just 30 minutes a day contemplating what they are grateful for, the world would be a much happier place.

Talk to me about

Psychology, Philosophy, Education, Science, Learning, Martial Arts, Dance

People don't know that I'm good at

Dance, Brainstorming, Composition, Generating Ideas.

Comments

• TEDCred score: +0.60 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• A reply on Conversation: is Stress correlated to to the level of believing and loving God?

  May 4 2011: This is a subject that has been thoroughly researched, it is called 'Terror Management Theory" and has been associated with stress anxiety. Yes I am saying that when people thinking about the possibility of damnation they have some form of stress reaction; however, they have the same reaction to thinking about being hit with a bat, or going to war, or going to have surgery. What I'm saying is people stress about a lot of things. Thinking of bad things happening to ones self does elicit a stress reaction.
• +1

  A reply on Conversation: What is good for the geese is good for the gander! Should the sexuality of a person define values n principles in life?

  May 4 2011: This is totally untrue. This is merely relying on some age old assumptions. Yes Women could be considered to be considered to be less physically strong than men on the whole due to genetics, however, there a many many, many exceptions to this rule. Take Female gymnasts or free-runners or labourers or soldiers. All of these woman are FAR MORE physically fit than I am. Women are anything but fragile. They can give birth to children! they in general have higher amounts of subcutanious fat cells and can survive longer in the cold. Research women warriors, some cultures have had the strongest women in history. I've been a martial artist for many years and have met plenty of women who can whip my ass..
  
  This is just a wild assumption that women are more compassionate or loving or kind than men. This is just crap that has been dogmatised into society through centuries of female opression. The claims you make about women not being suitable for jobs of judgement have no substance, women are just (if not more) level headed and rational as men are.
  
  Sorry but I completely disagree with you.

• A comment on Conversation: What is good for the geese is good for the gander! Should the sexuality of a person define values n principles in life?

  May 3 2011: Short and long, no. A woman should be allowed these same 'privillages' as a man currently has. I feel that the cultural climate where I live is like this. Men cannot help checking out an attractive woman, even while he is with his partner, to tell him not too would be like trying to get him to not taste sugar as sweet. However, a woman should have precisely the same liberty as the man to do so.
  
  I could go on but I've written enough long responsies for today :P
  Cory
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  A comment on Conversation: is Stress correlated to to the level of believing and loving God?

  May 3 2011: There have been some researchers that have found correlations between religion and higher self-esteem, sense of community and lower stress. These were found generally by using subjective measures like subjective wellbeing scale. However, these studies do note that it is not all encompassing. For some religion is associated with guilt and shame. Those who are homosexual and catholic for example.
  
  Most research on the whole has found mixed evidence. Most religions encourage gratitude, and provide a sense of purpose and community but for some hinders them with guilt and anxiety by forcing people to follow rules that may be damaging to their wellbeing.
  
  Overall results are inconclusive. Stress and subjective well-being is really a personal thing depending on worldview and perceptions of the good life. It is a difficult yet very interesting subject. I think the most important thing to remember is that all people deal with stress. I am an athiest and am a generally unstressed person. I know of people who are religious and are highly stressed and vica versa. Measures of stress cannot be pinpointed onto a spesific characteristic such as a belief in got but rather a myriad of things such as income, poverty, genetics, environment etc.
  
  So to sum up yes, having a religious may effect the manner in which people experience stress but it is a fact that everyone experiences stress in some shape or form and it is inconclusive whether the level of relationship a person has to god has an effect of physical or percieved stress. My hypothesis would be that no it does not have a causal effect but probably helps some (not all) people manage stress.
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  A comment on Conversation: How can a talented teenager prepare himself for a scientific career? What do you scientists recommend? (Personal experiences, please).

  May 3 2011: Hi Sigal (and son), I'm a student completing my final year in a Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Arts (conjoint degree). And though I probably wouldn't be considered a fully fledged scientist (yet :P) the best advice I can give is to never stop exploring your options. If something sparks your interest read and watch everything you can about it. Love learning, don't think of it as a chore. Be creative with it, don't just read what you are given by school, search for stuff that is related to what you are studying. If there is a university that is near by you go to open lectures about stuff that you are interested in.
  
  I hope my little two cents helps. Never stop learning :D
  Cory

• A reply on Conversation: What are 10 things YOU know to be true?

  May 3 2011: Sorry if I was if my scentences were confusing in anyway but no the counter-argument to relativism I was attempting to express was a logically self defeating statement that resides in relitivisms core argument. Basically relativism contends that all truth is relative and that there is no such thing is an absolute statement/law/universal or maxim or that any absolute statement/universal/law or maxin is false or is not the only truth. In turn does this not make the core reletavist proposition (that ALL absolute statements are false) false by it's own definition? My appologies if that was hard to follow. Conciseness has never been my forte.
  
  Secondly I agree with you about falsifiability and I assume you are using that argument under the same conditions of Karl Popper.
  
  However, I do contend your final statement that "x proposition can be both true and false at different contexts and times. This statement justifies almost anything as culturally relative. For example, William Wilberforce put forward a bill for the abolition of slavery twice, first it was rejected, then it was accepted. A culturally relative condition Wilberforce was wrong in opposing slavery in the first place but was subsequently right when the bill was accepted. I just do not understant how ,logically, a proposition can be both true and false.
  
  Another example: The world was once believed to be flat and under the context of the time (and your condition) the people of the world were correct in believing that the world was flat, this was the truth. However, when people migrated to the belief that the world is round somehow belief in the world being flat would be false.
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  A reply on Conversation: What are 10 things YOU know to be true?

  May 2 2011: I have a problem with #1
  
  Do you have a way around the self-defeating nature of relative truth?
  Saying that all truth is relative is a non-relative statement.
  Also do you believe there is no objective truth and that people do not have the means to discover it, or do you believe that x proposition can be both true and false at the same time or at different times?
  
  Sorry I'm not bashing your views or anything I just tend towards the absolutist/hardline/moderate skepticism side of the debate and interested in your respose :D
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  A reply on Conversation: What are 10 things YOU know to be true?

  Mar 23 2011: Best series ever!

• A reply on Conversation: What are 10 things YOU know to be true?

  Mar 23 2011: 8 : I will die
  
  You mean you probably will die :P
  
  @Anna: He's talking about the singularity - take a look at Ray Kurzweils talks on TED. The exponential growth of technology, he believes, will one day surpass human computational capacity.
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  A comment on Conversation: What are 10 things YOU know to be true?

  Mar 23 2011: 1) I have senses, experience, perception and memory.
  2) Mathematical (Logical) proofs.
  3) I am justified when I reason inductively; however, I cannot possibly 'know'
  3) Everything else is a rough estimate.
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