Nature is Nature
[20 Jun 2008]   [ vahid v. motlagh ]
I think that the bio-Luddites usually fail to take into careful consideration that accepting to manipulate the nature ( e.g making new physical/chemical infrastructures) as long as it does not mean manipulating living parts of nature is a semantic paradox. In other words, nature is nature. Thinking and talking about the frightening consequences of the synthetic DNA technology, for example, is nothing new in the historical context of human civilization. In fact, quite to the contrary, we have done a terrific job to come in terms with, and even forget, many similar doomsday prophecies about shifting from carriages to automobiles, from paper-based communication to

The future is behind us!
[20 Jun 2008]   [ vahid v. motlagh ]
So far all documented languages appear to share a spatial metaphor that maps future events onto spatial locations in front of ego and past events onto locations behind ego. But in 2004 cognitive and linguistic scientists Rafael E. Núñez and Eve Sweetser reported that they have discovered a language, Aymara, spoken in Bolivia which appears to present a fascinating contrast to these well-known patterns, and indeed a challenge to the cross-cultural universals of metaphoric cognition. In this language FUTURE IS BEHIND EGO and PAST IS IN FRONT OF EGO. Both linguistic and gestural data give strong confirmation of this unusual culture-specific cognitive pattern

The future is behind us
[30 May 2008]   [ vahid v. motlagh ]
So far all documented languages appear to share a spatial metaphor that maps future events onto spatial locations in front of ego and past events onto locations behind ego. But in 2004 cognitive and linguistic scientists Rafael E. Núñez and Eve Sweetser reported that they have discovered a language, Aymara, spoken in Bolivia which appears to present a fascinating contrast to these well-known patterns, and indeed a challenge to the cross-cultural universals of metaphoric cognition. In this language FUTURE IS BEHIND EGO and PAST IS IN FRONT OF EGO. Both linguistic and