TED Community » Chunxiang Qian

More About Me

I'm passionate about

Hiking, Traveling, Languages, Meeting new people, 古琴，Chinese Medicine, Physics

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• TEDCred score: +97.30 TEDCred reflects your contribution to the TED community.

• A reply on Talk: Leslie T. Chang: The voices of China's workers

  Sep 17 2012: it will migrate to other countries, like Cambodia, Bangladesh, African countries.
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  A reply on Talk: Leslie T. Chang: The voices of China's workers

  Sep 17 2012: people tend to have the mind set that english literacy is an indicator of modern education. but english is just another product exported to the world under the globalization and standardization. English per se is simply a tool, what those workers got is training, not education.
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  A comment on Talk: Annie Murphy Paul: What we learn before we're born

  Dec 6 2011: Can't understand why TED invited an journalist to talk some biological/ medical/ psychological issue even she is really excellent in her field and an editor of a popular psychology magazine.
  Isn't TED mission is to bring new ideas to people and provide us a channel to know what's new in the world in all different fields?
  I dont tend to argue the contents of her talk which are scratches from evolutionary biology and psychology and I've been heard and read that so many times.
  My point is: she is not an researcher specialized in this field, nor she provided a new perspective of such issue as an outsider, then why TED/or her doesn't just talk something like objectivity of scientific writing in journalism?

• A comment on Talk: Hasan Elahi: FBI, here I am!

  Nov 7 2011: it is very smart to build up this site which would be the versification of his innocece by giving all the information to the public if some day something bad happen. So this website is not only his defessive gesture towards this accident, but also a protective mechanism he worked out. Exposure to everyone helps him find witness of everyone.

• A comment on Talk: Joan Halifax: Compassion and the true meaning of empathy

  Sep 8 2011: I, myself am practicer of Zen, so I have no problem with her argument that how significant compassion is and how it would alter his/her life and those of other people as well as. But as compassion is good, so does that mean it can and would prevade the world and turn human beings into semi-god species? I highly doubt it. Human beings are selfish species so are others, we need to survive and evolve, if we deny this then there are more than half curriculum in modern education count for nothing.
  Why it takes an entire group of Buddhists to practice compassion not just some fast-food cultural common sense? why it takes years to study buddhism and learn compassion not just to a temple stay then you can bring it back? Compassion this great humanity quality, I do believe it exist in everybody, but use it change politics, the world and human nature? I don't think it is a possible mission.
  Changing a certain person is a continent event to the enter society, Changing the society is a systmatically qualitive change.

• A comment on Talk: Marco Tempest: The magic of truth and lies (and iPods)

  Aug 13 2011: A remarkable performance. I dont mean to be a wet blanket, but part of the trick seems to be simply premade video, what he did is to sychronize his hands with the video. Around 2 minutes, he is a little bit late, the "LIE" tag turned into red before he activated it. There is another performance on TED -- Miwa Matreyek's glorious visions which is amazing too and very beautiful, using similar methods. The butterfly and smiling face are actually real magic tricks we've been seen many times. It is a great demonstration with ingenious idea--iPods as medium, but i dont know whether it would make me give a standing ovation. Guess it is a nice trick for guys to learn with iPods, you might get a standing ovation from girls.

• A comment on Conversation: What would it take to make sign language is a universal language?

  Aug 5 2011: Language is the media for communication.
  So take the first element communication, if the magnitude of communication is not large enough to involve most people in the world, then even the universal language which we already have an artificial one is chose and forced to be applied people still wont really use it cuz the objects you use such language to comminicate with are absent.
  Second, as a media which conveys information, language will be so easily accosiated with different meanings beacuz it is not a physical fixed object. Like different English in the world, like Chinese in differet cities in China. Even sign language as previous relies mentioned still has the inevitable problem. Intangible media to transfer complicated information or data must have some loss.
  So I think if someday cheap and advanced technologies, particularly transportation technologies which accelerates physical contacts can allow a large world population communicate with each other, then one universal language might emerge. But sitll, there must still be information loss but with larger and larger communication less and less loss would happen.
  I Think information or data can only be precisely transfered from sender to receiver only when there is no the third media especially intangible ones. If in theory thougts could be sent by brainwave or electronic pulse, then that would be a languageless world with precise communication. But in that case, humans' deceit skills would be not appliable either cuz you show what you think.
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  A comment on Talk: Mark Pagel: How language transformed humanity

  Aug 5 2011: I just finished translating this speech and couldnt hold my obnoxiousness to his opinions even when I was still working on it. Language, like other abilities, is one of the outcomes based on humans' physical development, especially brain. Other animals have their own languages and methods to communicate. But they are not highly evovled like people therefore of course their languge ability is not fully developed either.
  And the destiny doesnt look as what he said it would be. Even within the same circumstance, different subcultural groups still try to creat their own vocabularies no mention so many different forms of culture in the world. One world with one language only would happen if we are upload to an intelligent mechanic system something like Matrix then our languge is 0 & 1. And in that case, language doesnt even exist anymore, cuz we would exchange data directly. It is very impossible to use one universal tool to communicate information unless information can be converted and transfered itself like brainwave or electronic pulse. I sound like talking centries later or science fictions.