TED Community » Ari Hahn

More About Me

I'm passionate about

Helping people expand their perceptions.
..of self, of self in place, and of self in time.

My TED Story

After three decades as a psychotherapist I made a career change and began teaching in a NYC college that caters to inner city minorities. Teaching psychology and sociology, I found TED to be a fantastic resource for my own intellectual stimulation, but also have used talks to inspire people who have not been convinced that they have the power to influence the world around them.
As a life coach (I got tired of working through people's traumas) I find TED to stimulate creativity and metaphors for all areas of human endeavor.

Comments

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• A comment on Conversation: The evolution theory & religion

  May 13 2011: There are two major issues that need to be discussed and explored in this issue. One general and the other specific to the Bible.
  The first is the issue of comparing science and religion. Science is a means of studying the relationships between measurable phenomena and making theories, hypotheses, and experiments concerning those phenomena. Religion is about a belief in a non-observable "truth" that since it is a belief it cannot be proven either correct or incorrect.
  
  If science stays in the realm of science and religion stays in the realm of religion there cannot be conflict any more than an idea can be so deep that even the most muscular man cannot pick it up.
  
  Evolution conflicts with religion only because it is a case where science treads in the realm of beliefs and does not follow scientific methodology. Although there have been many books about this, most of them have been written by people who are not scientists and this has muddled the arena terribly. With no experimental evidence of any species mutating into a different species, evolution is a mere theory that has been accepted as fact by general society. And since all scientific theory is constructed to be eventually disproved in the course of developing science, it seems a disservice to society that any theory should be taken as "law." Regardless of religious view.
  
  The question concerning evolution and the Bible is one of physics and measurement of time. At the speed of light there is no passage of time. If there was a "Big Bang" the beginning of matter was at the speed of light and time needed to "slow down" "over time". The 13 billion years of the universe are years measured by earth years -that didn't exist for most of that time. If calculated in universe years - relative to the matter originating in the big bang - there would be less than 6000 years. Just plain physics. No religion in that argument but 12th century mystics (Nachmonidies) wrote about it....
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  A comment on Conversation: Do you have a story where yours or someone's smile totally changed the outcome of an unpleasant situation?

  May 13 2011: I have one that I have used and suggested that others use. It is really quite powerful. Your teenage daughter goes out for the evening, and is expected home at, say, 11 PM. 11:30 and she's not home. You start getting worried. 11:45, your anxiety increases. By midnight you are getting really worried. 12:15 you are already imagining her somewhere on the side of the road and you are just about ready to call the police when she walks in. You know what the "natural" immediate reaction is going to be. But instead you put on a smile and give her a hug and say,"I am so glad to see you and that you are home safe." Then explain how worried you were. It works like a charm.....
  (But ain't always so easy...)

• A reply on Conversation: If raising children is one of the most important things we do in society, shouldn't the subject be directly taught in schools?

  Apr 28 2011: As an educator of college level inner city youth I can pretty safely say that the higher incarceration rate of that population correlates with the lack of parents to influence the school systems.
  
  And doing something is not always better than doing nothing. It only feels better.

• A comment on Conversation: If raising children is one of the most important things we do in society, shouldn't the subject be directly taught in schools?

  Apr 28 2011: I certainly believe that such a role falls way out of the role of government, but even if one were to assume that it can be the role of government, it is simply not achievable.
  There are many fully engaged discussions concerning the capabilities require for successful parenting in the fields of psychology, sociology, psychiatry, social work, and recently neuropsychology and other fields. We simply do not have even the beginning of a real idea of how to answer the question. It was about 100 years ago when Watson claimed that with enough control over the environment he could produce any type of person from any infant. Since that time society has believed that we have no control over our overt behavior (psychodynamics) to no free choice but complete control (behaviorism) to free choice (humanistic psychology.) Today we are looking more and more into biological processes that effect parenting. See the TED talk concerning the importance of human interactions in development of language between the ages of 6-10 months. Look at Ken Robinson's talk on creativity in schools.
  
  While parenting worked fairly well in the centuries prior to the industrial revolution, we have hardly caught up socially with the technological advances that have been seen in the industrialized world. I would venture to say that it is at least equally valid and viable option to devise a system where more, nay, much more power to influence a child's education is put in the hands of parents, while still giving the schools the responsibility to teach trades....
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  A reply on Talk: Eric Whitacre: A virtual choir 2,000 voices strong

  Apr 11 2011: Count me in the same camp!
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  A comment on Conversation: Wealth and power have been our conventional measures of success. What definition will better sustain us now and how can we move into it?

  Apr 10 2011: Your premise that wealth and power are flawed measures of success is powerful and an idea that I have championed for years. Although it can be applied to a myriad of ideas that have been conceived, born, and flourished since the industrial revolution, there is one that seems to be particularly relevant to your introduction. Feminism, while in essence is the struggle for equality between the sexes, is doomed to partial failure because of this uncompromising criterion. In its original paradigms feminism sought to give females equal opportunity for wealth and power in stead of changing the measure of success to include lateral relationships and interpersonal influence. Though given the terrible unbalance of power in this male dominated world it was probably the only way to start the process of rebalancing, we might just be at the point in history to re-examine the questions of criteria of success to include characteristics that modern psychology, neuroscience, and other fields have now found to be more gendered than previously thought.
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  A reply on Talk: Caroline Casey: Looking past limits

  Apr 10 2011: I must agree with Michael. The point of this talk can only be to inspire people to go beyond their limitations and if your have a complete and unswerving belief in your ability to go beyond your limitations you stand a good chance of achieving a lot more than others in similar circumstance. Her circumstance was (and is) unique. I doubt if there is any other legally blind girl with a father inspired by "A Boy Named Sue", but it does illustrate a potential in everybody, and might just inspire some great achievement in the world. So it deserves the title of a great idea.