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Joined 11 months ago
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Cake day: December 7th, 2023

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  • To be frank, I don’t know. I just think we are in a situation where we can rule out some of the possibilities by making comparisons between earlier societies and today, as well as different countries. For example, if we assume that bad living conditions are the root cause, then we have the problem that in earlier societies with much less wealth, that has been more demanding for the average person, people tended to have more children. In addition, we see that people in quite poor countries have a lot of children. You could save the assumption by adding a hypothesis like “if people know that life could be better but cannot achieve that better life, they are less likely to have children”. While this might work, we must note that inequality was even worse in earlier societies. The difference between a peasant and a member of the nobility may have been much greater than the inequality we see today (within most socienties). Maybe the peasant wasn’t aware of it, or whatever.

    Anyway, you need a more complex theory in this case.



  • I quoted the article in order to comment:

    One company is aiming to treat infections with a different strategy: arming tiny viruses called bacteriophages with Crispr.

    I checked it just out: CRISPR is already part of the intra-celluar immun system of baacterias and archaea.

    Whereas antibiotics kill bacteria indiscriminately—including the beneficial kind—phages have evolved to be selective in the strains or species of bacteria they target.

    So, the phages would not attacke the “good” bacteria within the stomach but the evil ones. Could be a great idea.














  • This is a criticism of the article, no one should be offended by it. Criticism is a tool for archiving the truth.

    The DSM-5 is just a kind of definition. We define Dyscalculia as a specific learning disorder. Thats in itself isn’t a factuall point.

    number-based information because their brain doesn’t process math-related concepts in the same way as those without the disorder

    The link is a 404. Anyway. If we assume that the brain processes math-related concepts somehow (!) different, we have a lots of implication. First, the brain works in a way that it can process math-related concepts different but all other informations normal. Secondly, there are a neurological basis which differentiate between mathematical and other realms of thinking, lets say linguistics. Thirdly, if the add the assumption that this “math-related reasoning” is locelated somewhere in the brain, we could find a “mathematical area” just like the “Wernicke’s area”. Fourthly, you could develop a test for dyscalculia based on biomarkers.

    People with dyscalculia often struggle with transitive inference—a form of deductive reasoning used to derive a relation between items

    But not with spatial tasks? I would expact that transitive inferences could be more linguistic and spatial taks need to be done mathematically.

    They may also have trouble keeping track of time

    This is reminiscent of Kant on arithmetic…

    a child with dyslexia is 100 times more likely to be diagnosed and given support than a child with dyscalculia.

    It’s a shame…

    While acknowledging that being able to label learning disorders is necessary for allocating resources to students, Ansari says it’s important to think about them as a continuum.

    Doesn’t this view (at least in a naive interpretation) implies that the theory of a general factor of intelligence, the g, are false?

    Morsanyi points out that children typically learn to read within a few months, and once they have, that skill is mastered.

    While this is true, the art of understanding a text, got the intention of the author, “read between the lines”, are more rare. Some people got a nearly natural feeling about words and their meaning. Other not.

    The largest study to date, which included 1,303 children, points toward number blindness as the cause.

    Interesting, if this ability is connected to the faculty to make transitiv inferences.

    But over the past five to 10 years, researchers have started to focus on how these numerical systems interact with domain-general cognitive skills, cognitive abilities that are not specific to math, such as executive function and memory.

    If these different branches are highly interconnected, doesn’t that contradict the above statements that there is a specific problem with math?





  • I suspect the idea may be that given a fully constructed context, you may be limited to however that context permits you to be instead of an independently actualized/realized person.

    Could have some unwanted implication for religious people. Or maybe not. 😉

    To be frank, I cannot make much of this line. This doesn’t preclude some other can make more of it. From the point of view of a reader, it would be great if the writer of this article would put a bite more into this line.

    Although if that may be what Nozick was getting at, it’s not without its own problems, much as you highlight with their position supposing existence harboring deeper meaning and significance apart from conscious creations.

    To make a long story short: I feel agnostic about this questions. At least, to a degree.