English Grammar: Hypothetical Past

No it isn't - and it is certainly interesting to discover that Chinese is so different in this respect - do you have any tense other than the present.


Wow - you can analyse English better than I can!


Chinese grammar doesn't have a concept of tense, verbs do not have any inflections under any person(you, he, I, etc.), gender(he, she, etc.), number, time(present, past, future, future of a past time, past of a previously mentioned past), aspect(simple, progressive, perfective, perfective progressive).

Verbs are always used in their one and only one form listed in the dictionary. We don't call that form as "present form", because tense is an absent concept in Chinese grammar. We call that form as the only form. This only form conveys nothing about past, present, or future.

When we want to explicitly and unambiguously express an action happened in the past, we add "in the past" or "at that time" or "yesterday" or alike into the sentence, either at the front, or to the end, or somewhere amid the sentence.

For example, verb "play"'s Chinese equivalent (nearest equivalent) is "玩", pronounced "wan".
"I play football" is expressed as "I 玩 football" in Chinese.
"I played football" is expressed as "At that time, I 玩 football", or "Yesterday, I 玩了 football".

"了" is a character added after the verb, just to further express that the action conveyed by the verb happened in the past, but it is totally optional.

By the way, we say "I kick football" more than "I play football", but that's about the words usage habit rather than grammar.

Further, Chinese sentences are composed of characters, each of which occupies a grid-like square space. The characters follow immediately one after another, there is no empty space between a previous character and a posterior character. Each character is syntactically independent, meaning there can't be an "-ed" or "-ing" or "-s" attached to its tail (to its right).

Sometimes, a meaning expressed by an English word requires a combination of several characters. For example, the meaning expressed by English word "play" requires one character "玩", while the meaning expressed by English word "allow" requires two characters "允许", and the meaning expressed by English word "I" requires one character "我".

So,
"I play" is written as "我玩".
"I allow" is written as "我允许".

The difference is that, "I play" and "I allow" are in simple present tense, while "我玩" and "我允许" are in no tense, they don't convey any meaning specifically about past, now or future.

If I'd like to convey a meaning of "I played", I can say:
"那时候,我玩" which means "At that time, I played".
"昨天,我玩" which means "Yesterday, I played".
"我玩过了" which means "I've already played".
"我玩过它了" which means "I've already played it".

If I'd like to convey a meaning of "I allowed", I can say:
"那时候,我允许" which means "At that time, I allowed".
"昨天,我允许" which means "Yesterday, I allowed".
"我允许了" or "我允许过了" which means "I've already allowed".
"我允许它了" or "我允许过它了" which means "I've already allowed it".

Although, adding some characters to convey a perfective meaning, is like adding "have" prior to and "-ed" posterior to the verb, the added characters are not always in the immediate vicinity of the verb, so they are not the verb's inflection but the whole sentence's addition.

I wasn't clear if you feel that this language difference impacts on the way we see issues connected with ψ - but I can imagine that it might.

David

I guess ψ means psi or psionic. I strongly think so, this language difference impacts on the way we see issues connected with psi.

But, since I can communicate with English speakers, and I can understand their meaning, and I can make my meaning be understood by them, I think impacts can be mediated, pruned, mingled and assembled.

I think meaning is meaning, meaning is all the same, no matter conveyed by whichever languages. Sometimes it is just so difficult to yield the exactly identical meaning using different languages. But with enough effort this can always be expected.
 
The interesting thing, is that I think a lot of Europeans think English lacks grammar because it has very few inflections of verbs, and none of nouns (except singular/plural), whereas German (say) has about 6 cases for every noun, times 2 for singular/plural.

Perhaps our large number of tenses are more useful.

David
 
If Chinese people want to express a hypothetical meaning, they don't shift the present tense to past, because there is no concept of tense, no verb inflection, instead, they add "I suppose ...", "... but these are only hypotheses", "... but they are not true", explicitly into somewhere in the sentence.
 
The interesting thing, is that I think a lot of Europeans think English lacks grammar because it has very few inflections of verbs, and none of nouns (except singular/plural), whereas German (say) has about 6 cases for every noun, times 2 for singular/plural.

Perhaps our large number of tenses are more useful.

David

When I started to learn English tenses, that was a headache, but once I mastered it, it have become a joy.

One grammar book I read says, English tenses consist of two concepts: time and aspect.

There are two kinds of time: present and past, four kinds of aspect: simple, progressive, perfective, and perfective progressive.

A tense is a combination of one kind of time and one kind of aspect, there are 2 kinds of time and 4 kinds of aspect, so there are in all 2 X 4 = 8 tenses.
Present simple: He plays football. Football is played by him.
Present progressive: He is playing football. Football is being played by him.
Present perfective: He has played football. Football has been played by him.
Present perfective progressive: He has been playing football. Football has been being played by him.
Past simple: He played football. Football was played by him.
Past progressive: He was playing football. Football was being played by him.
Past perfective: He had played football. Football had been played by him.
Past perfective progressive: He had been playing football. Football had been being played by him.

As to future, since there is no future form of verb, no future participle, therefore, semantics of future is not realized by the syntactic structures relating to tense, rather, it is within the scope of the semantics of modal auxiliary verbs.

Another grammar book I read says, English tenses consist of two concepts: time and aspect, but different from above, there are 4 kinds of time: present, past, future, and future of a past.
Future simple: He will play football. Football will be played by him.
Future progressive: He will be playing football. Football will be being played by him.
Future perfective: He will have played football. Football will have been played by him.
Future perfective progressive: He will have been playing football. Football will have been being played by him.
Future of a past simple: He would play football. Football would be played by him.
Future of a past progressive: He would be playing football. Football would be being played by him.
Future of a past perfective: He would have played football. Football would have been played by him.
Future of a past perfective progressive: He would have been playing football. Football would have been being played by him.

I think they are by two ways expressing the same meaning. The above formula sentences are only for formulas, I made bad examples, some of them can't be right without a proper context.

:D
 
Hello Hurmanetar, I enjoyed the perusal and fathoming of your kind, profound explanation and I find it is my first time getting so deep in the syntax and semantics of the English language.
It makes me feel that English language is even further more exquisite, beautiful and ingenious than I have sensed strongly before.

I think you have expressed these subtle meanings very very clearly and I have fully (or nearly fully) understood what you mean.

Chinese people innately feel difficult to be accustomed to past tense of verbs. We must keep reminding ourselves to change the lexical form of a verb into past tense when we want to express an action which took place in the past. When we are told that "past tense of verbs doesn't always convey a meaning of the past, but sometimes conveys a hypothesis about now", it is like that a person had been asked to fly to Alaska and on his arrival to his destination, he was dictated again to immediately fly to Florida.

You not only told me unambiguously this phenomenon of "using past tense to convey hypothesis", but also made me understand why so use for the first time of my life.

"Different timeline", "parallel universe", these words ignite a bulb in my mind. A hypothesis is like an event actually happened in one of the parallel universes, and that parallel universe has a different timeline. I'm not sure whether parallel universes exist, just an analogy, metaphor.

This is not the only key concept I learned from your writing, for the rest significant discovery and enlightening, I need to fathom more carefully and try to memorize them firmly.

I'm glad I could help! You're doing very well with English! Yes I think you're on the right track thinking in terms of alternate timelines and placing yourself in different locations on the timeline.

I thought of another use for past tense hypotheticals that are implied to be true now: they can be used to lightheartedly or humorously ease someone into a shocking bit of news. It's as if the news might be too shocking to handle if stated plainly as a definite fact so a series of hypotheticals gives a person the chance to slowly accept the fact.

For example, suppose I (were rich and) bought my kid a sports car for his 16th birthday - the car he's been dreaming about for 10 years. I might say to my son, "What if I told you that there is a new car in the garage?" <son's eyes get big> "...and what if I told you it's an Audi R8?" "And what if I told you it's all yours! Happy Birthday!"

And then later on, my son might timidly approach me and say, "So uh, what if I told you I got a little ding in the car today?" "What if it's a little more than a ding? ....okay, I totally wrecked it."

Sometimes I listen to foreign language courses on my drive to work. Spanish is much easier because I've had a few years of Spanish in school and I've seen how many of the words are written. Being of Latin origin, many words are similar to their English translation. However the lessons I did on Mandarin were very difficult being audio only because I have to see how the words are spelled phonetically to remember them. I found myself mentally creating my own spellings based on what I heard and I have no idea if they are correct. For example: "Waw whey shwah Yin Wan" is how I would write what I heard for "I can speak English." Or "Ni whey shwah Po Tong Whaw ma?" for "Can you speak Mandarin?"

Anyway, I got back on the Spanish lessons since they're easier and it would be more useful in my area, but would like to learn more of Mandarin in the future.
 
I'm glad I could help! You're doing very well with English! Yes I think you're on the right track thinking in terms of alternate timelines and placing yourself in different locations on the timeline.

I thought of another use for past tense hypotheticals that are implied to be true now: they can be used to lightheartedly or humorously ease someone into a shocking bit of news. It's as if the news might be too shocking to handle if stated plainly as a definite fact so a series of hypotheticals gives a person the chance to slowly accept the fact.

For example, suppose I (were rich and) bought my kid a sports car for his 16th birthday - the car he's been dreaming about for 10 years. I might say to my son, "What if I told you that there is a new car in the garage?" <son's eyes get big> "...and what if I told you it's an Audi R8?" "And what if I told you it's all yours! Happy Birthday!"

And then later on, my son might timidly approach me and say, "So uh, what if I told you I got a little ding in the car today?" "What if it's a little more than a ding? ....okay, I totally wrecked it."

Sometimes I listen to foreign language courses on my drive to work. Spanish is much easier because I've had a few years of Spanish in school and I've seen how many of the words are written. Being of Latin origin, many words are similar to their English translation. However the lessons I did on Mandarin were very difficult being audio only because I have to see how the words are spelled phonetically to remember them. I found myself mentally creating my own spellings based on what I heard and I have no idea if they are correct. For example: "Waw whey shwah Yin Wan" is how I would write what I heard for "I can speak English." Or "Ni whey shwah Po Tong Whaw ma?" for "Can you speak Mandarin?"

Anyway, I got back on the Spanish lessons since they're easier and it would be more useful in my area, but would like to learn more of Mandarin in the future.

I once tried to learn Japanese but later I became a deserter from learning. Although Japanese is in many ways similar to Mandarin, I found it's super difficult to learn so I abandoned. I absolutely understand how odd Mandarin may seem to letter-languages speakers. If I were a westerner from birth, I would wince from the idea of learning Mandarin and wouldn't dare to initiate at all.
(・ω< )★
I will constantly come back to this nice forum, wish it won't be blocked.
 
I will constantly come back to this nice forum, wish it won't be blocked.
Is it the sort of forum that might be blocked in China? If so, would it be the off-topic political discussions, or the central idea of discussing psi (ψ) and consciousness. (BTW, I tend to use the Greek letter ψ rather than psi, because psi isn't a real word I think).

Does the blocking really work, or can you go via a proxy server. (Ignore any questions that might cause you problems).

David
 
Is it the sort of forum that might be blocked in China? If so, would it be the off-topic political discussions, or the central idea of discussing psi (ψ) and consciousness. (BTW, I tend to use the Greek letter ψ rather than psi, because psi isn't a real word I think).

Does the blocking really work, or can you go via a proxy server. (Ignore any questions that might cause you problems).

David

The most straight and direct description for China's internet censorship (block or limit our access to many foreign websites and online services) mechanism, is that it's sometimes brainless, thoughtless, and ridiculous.

Chinese people are not all the same, they are various, any kind of people can be found here, any kind of news can be heard here. There are a lot of extremely cruel, brutal, low-educated gangsters, criminals, outlaws, swashbucklers in China. Imagine if some foreign terrorist forces could recruit members from China, their military forces could double. If some heresy cult organizations want to utilize people to serve for their wicked ceremonies, many Chinese people are a good target, because they are easy to be brainwashed.

But foreign terrorists and heresy cult organizations can't influence China (in major cases) thanks for our government's policies. Their information and incitement can't be heard by Chinese people. This is a good aspect of the blockage policies. I fully understand and support our government's decision (in an overall sense). We don't want people from our nation to cause trouble to the world.

The merit doesn't mainly goes to internet censorship mechanism I think. It is other policies which play important roles, including Chinese borderline control, population census, iron fist policies against stowaway, etc. As to the internet censorship mechanism, I'm saying it is funny, like when a toddler kiddo needs to make laws and formulate regulations to constrain adults. Some obvious decent, academic, nice, useful foreign websites have been blocked for no reason.

This can be understood, the network administrative department censors malicious or controversial foreign websites either manually or by an automatic software algorithm. When they executed censoring manually, they couldn't understand what did some websites say, so they blacklisted them anyway or randomly, when they executed censoring by an automatic software algorithm, the algorithm was going to be a disorder.

Skeptiko is relatively likely (I'm afraid) to be blocked by our network administrative department, because officials don't take interest in these deeply thoughtful topics and they won't be able to understand what here says. They can easily deem and mark this website as propagating superstition just by some keywords. The reason why they haven't blocked this website is that (I guess) they had absolutely no idea about what is this website all about when they bypassed here, or they were in a good mood. When they were in a bad mood, they could block a website teaching toddlers walk.

Any questions won't cause my problems. Thank you for the kind concerns, David Bailey. I heard by that North Korean has a tyrannical politic to prohibit their people from using internet or making free speech. The freedom of speech in China is nearly like that of western countries. We have a relatively democratic politic. As to the China's internet censorship, it is childish rather than tyrannic. :)

China has one important difference from most of the western countries, that is, different regions in China have too drastic gradient in social conditions, criminal rates, employment rates, health care, medicine and hygiene, education, pollution, kindness of local government to people therein, economic and business environment, fundamental facilities for livelihood, etc. So please don't visit some regions of China should anyone perform a worldwide journey, especially for a single woman, a large tour group will be safer.

Many would say, in western, regional developments are also unbalanced, some places are relatively wealthier. Sure, but the severeness and degree of the unbalanced regional development in China are extremely unparalleled. You could see cavemen somewhere in China (don't visit there, there can be outlaws and that's dangerous to you), and you could encounter westerners who were coincidentally from your hometown, in elsewhere in China. But in western, people are relatively the same civilized everywhere. In western, it is possible that rich people choose to live in a beautiful countryside, companies establish basement in a sparsely populated valley, whereas in China, these are like suicide plans. Perhaps some sparsely populated regions, wild jungles in western are also very dangerous (I watched quite lot of western movies), but I still believe conditions there are somehow different from our country. Sorry for the deviated topics. :D
 
Sometimes I listen to foreign language courses on my drive to work. Spanish is much easier because I've had a few years of Spanish in school and I've seen how many of the words are written. Being of Latin origin, many words are similar to their English translation. However the lessons I did on Mandarin were very difficult being audio only because I have to see how the words are spelled phonetically to remember them. I found myself mentally creating my own spellings based on what I heard and I have no idea if they are correct. For example: "Waw whey shwah Yin Wan" is how I would write what I heard for "I can speak English." Or "Ni whey shwah Po Tong Whaw ma?" for "Can you speak Mandarin?"

Anyway, I got back on the Spanish lessons since they're easier and it would be more useful in my area, but would like to learn more of Mandarin in the future.

Hello Hurmanetar, today I reviewed all the sayings in this topic (and I will constantly review here like textbook).

I think the method of your using phonetic spelling to record the pronunciations of Mandarin sentences is feasible. Just a little problem is that some Mandarin pronunciations seem to have no counterpart in English phonetic spelling or there might be a little distortion. However, with the help of audio lessons, this won't be a big deal.

The pronunciation "Waw whey shwah Yin Wan" is written as "我可以说英文".
The pronunciation "Ni whey shwah Po Tong Whaw ma?" is written as "你可以说普通话吗?".
Both of these two spellings created by you are facile and expressive. The pronunciation "whey" seems to better be "kwhey", its meaning is "can" or "be able to".

Although Mandarin is difficult to learn even in my eyes (according to my failure experience of learning Japanese), when you take interest in Mandarin again, it will be my pleasure to provide every help that I can.

Just a friendly concern, major attention should be focused on driving and just take the broadcast casually.
Safe driving and take care.
(・ω< )★
 
The most straight and direct description for China's internet censorship (block or limit our access to many foreign websites and online services) mechanism, is that it's sometimes brainless, thoughtless, and ridiculous.

Chinese people are not all the same, they are various, any kind of people can be found here, any kind of news can be heard here. There are a lot of extremely cruel, brutal, low-educated gangsters, criminals, outlaws, swashbucklers in China. Imagine if some foreign terrorist forces could recruit members from China, their military forces could double. If some heresy cult organizations want to utilize people to serve for their wicked ceremonies, many Chinese people are a good target, because they are easy to be brainwashed.

But foreign terrorists and heresy cult organizations can't influence China (in major cases) thanks for our government's policies. Their information and incitement can't be heard by Chinese people. This is a good aspect of the blockage policies. I fully understand and support our government's decision (in an overall sense). We don't want people from our nation to cause trouble to the world.

The merit doesn't mainly goes to internet censorship mechanism I think. It is other policies which play important roles, including Chinese borderline control, population census, iron fist policies against stowaway, etc. As to the internet censorship mechanism, I'm saying it is funny, like when a toddler kiddo needs to make laws and formulate regulations to constrain adults. Some obvious decent, academic, nice, useful foreign websites have been blocked for no reason.

This can be understood, the network administrative department censors malicious or controversial foreign websites either manually or by an automatic software algorithm. When they executed censoring manually, they couldn't understand what did some websites say, so they blacklisted them anyway or randomly, when they executed censoring by an automatic software algorithm, the algorithm was going to be a disorder.

Skeptiko is relatively likely (I'm afraid) to be blocked by our network administrative department, because officials don't take interest in these deeply thoughtful topics and they won't be able to understand what here says. They can easily deem and mark this website as propagating superstition just by some keywords. The reason why they haven't blocked this website is that (I guess) they had absolutely no idea about what is this website all about when they bypassed here, or they were in a good mood. When they were in a bad mood, they could block a website teaching toddlers walk.

Any questions won't cause my problems. Thank you for the kind concerns, David Bailey. I heard by that North Korean has a tyrannical politic to prohibit their people from using internet or making free speech. The freedom of speech in China is nearly like that of western countries. We have a relatively democratic politic. As to the China's internet censorship, it is childish rather than tyrannic. :)

China has one important difference from most of the western countries, that is, different regions in China have too drastic gradient in social conditions, criminal rates, employment rates, health care, medicine and hygiene, education, pollution, kindness of local government to people therein, economic and business environment, fundamental facilities for livelihood, etc. So please don't visit some regions of China should anyone perform a worldwide journey, especially for a single woman, a large tour group will be safer.

Many would say, in western, regional developments are also unbalanced, some places are relatively wealthier. Sure, but the severeness and degree of the unbalanced regional development in China are extremely unparalleled. You could see cavemen somewhere in China (don't visit there, there can be outlaws and that's dangerous to you), and you could encounter westerners who were coincidentally from your hometown, in elsewhere in China. But in western, people are relatively the same civilized everywhere. In western, it is possible that rich people choose to live in a beautiful countryside, companies establish basement in a sparsely populated valley, whereas in China, these are like suicide plans. Perhaps some sparsely populated regions, wild jungles in western are also very dangerous (I watched quite lot of western movies), but I still believe conditions there are somehow different from our country. Sorry for the deviated topics. :D

As a person who is openly sympathetic (or, at the very least, not hostile) to the organisations and communities that are commonly described as "terrorist" and "extremist" - or, alternatively, "heretical" and "cultish" - by the authorities and pro-authority members of the public like you, I can say that ANY censorship is ALWAYS stupid and reactionary. And people's occassional misguided defence of it is just a sign of growing up without being exposed to "radical" and "fringe" notions - notions which are underpinning all progressive movements in the world.

And - before you ask - I have nothing against the anti-authoritarian armed struggle (even I do not practice it myself) and do not beleive in "cult brainwashing" (a mythical accusation born in mid-20th century "cult wars" and later rejected by most).
 
Interesting. A tangent, just to keep in line with the oddity of this forum... ¿What can you say about the effect of ban the on all things "supernatural" in the media?

For me, it seems odd that you can't merchandise anything that features a ghost prominently, yet the government itself does its part to promote Shaolin monks as these mysterious pseudo-superhumans to bolster tourism. It's one hell of a double standard...

Has this state imposed materialistic atheism affected how the people living in China perceive the paranormal, or has the campaign simply drived the discussion underground?
 
Also: A lot has been published in "alternative" sites about a report by the US Air Force (authored by Eric Davis) that discussed a lot of psi research being sponsored by the Chinese government during the 1980s. I have never been sure what to make of it, since he is quoting third party sources that we are not very familiar with and -worse- old journals that are not widely accessible. My posture has always been that it's curious, but could also been hearsay or even an attempt by the Chinese government to misdirect the US/Russia amidst the Cold War (since both had their own psi programs as well). Have you heard of these?

Here is one such link: http://www.collective-evolution.com...ecial-abilities-able-to-do-impossible-things/

If you can't see it, I can copy the full text.
 
Also: A lot has been published in "alternative" sites about a report by the US Air Force (authored by Eric Davis) that discussed a lot of psi research being sponsored by the Chinese government during the 1980s. I have never been sure what to make of it, since he is quoting third party sources that we are not very familiar with and -worse- old journals that are not widely accessible. My posture has always been that it's curious, but could also been hearsay or even an attempt by the Chinese government to misdirect the US/Russia amidst the Cold War (since both had their own psi programs as well). Have you heard of these?

Here is one such link: http://www.collective-evolution.com...ecial-abilities-able-to-do-impossible-things/

If you can't see it, I can copy the full text.

Hello, E.Flowers, I have things to do tomorrow and I need to go to sleep soon, here is deep night.
I will read your sentences in the above two posts, and the link provided by you (I tried and had no problem of seeing it) carefully tomorrow whenever I have time.
I want to reply to you quickly and briefly, and for now, say what I mostly want to say.

1, Where you take interested in, is also where I take interested in. So I'm very glad to talk about these topics.

2, I will tell whatever I know and provide the most honest information including our domestic situation, people mentality, etc. And please feel free to ask me anything, even if they are about politics controversies and the complex international relationships. I will propose my own opinions in the most non-offensive way I can. But I'm a very very common commoner so I don't know anything that a commoner should be kept from knowing. I shouldn't comment on something I'm very ignorant about, though sometimes I wish to propose my naive opinions anyway. I even want the others to refute and retort me.

3, Not long ago I watched TV drama <<Under the Dome>>, one episode mentioned that China threatened to attack them before the dome's advent.

I know very clearly that many western people take China as a threat every day, imagining that we are at any time doing nothing other than planning on dropping a nuclear missile on them. Instead we do everything except that, like dreading westerners are planning on dropping a nuclear missile on us.

For westerners' worrying, I don't see any possibility, China's every international policy and move are for defensive purposes. For Chinese people, to rule the world, or to conquer the others are not even the last thing to consider in all possible imagination. Many Chinese people are very kind and very friendly to westerners. But we are vigilant too as we know that friendly pose doesn't always incur friendly response so we take the military and national defense very importantly. And we understand that it is natural that westerns take military and national defense very importantly, too.

4, During Cold War there were many crisis of World War III, my history knowledge is very scarce but as far as I can remember, China didn't involve into Cold War at all, one reason is that China had and has many domestic problems. Superficially China mainland had and has only one ruling party, in fact within this communist party there were and are many factions and the political struggles are always very complicated, and cruel, not only my personal opinion. As a commoner, I know how cruel some politics rivalry could be but I don't know and won't know any specific acts and conspiracies. Commoners can smell but they won't meddle politics. I know there are probably something I shouldn't know for keeping myself alive.

5, About "a lot of psi research being sponsored by the Chinese government during the 1980s" mentioned by that report published in "alternative" sites:

I was born in 1985 and I heard absolutely zero information about that since my birth. I can't say that's impossible but I can't imagine that 1980's China had just recovered to thrive in industrial construction and at the same time could have mood or resource to do psi research. During that period, I think all China's concerns laid in railway, civilian aviation, chemical industry, electricity power plant, etc.

During my 30 years living in China mainland, there has never been even a shadow, a hint, or a mirage about the idea of "psi research carried out by Chinese government", this is not like various rumors about 51 area in USA, in which at least the area truly exists and can be located.

I will come back. Have a good day. :)
 
Hello, E.Flowers, I have things to do tomorrow and I need to go to sleep soon, here is deep night.
I will read your sentences in the above two posts, and the link provided by you (I tried and had no problem of seeing it) carefully tomorrow whenever I have time.
I want to reply to you quickly and briefly, and for now, say what I mostly want to say.

1, Where you take interested in, is also where I take interested in. So I'm very glad to talk about these topics.

2, I will tell whatever I know and provide the most honest information including our domestic situation, people mentality, etc. And please feel free to ask me anything, even if they are about politics controversies and the complex international relationships. I will propose my own opinions in the most non-offensive way I can. But I'm a very very common commoner so I don't know anything that a commoner should be kept from knowing. I shouldn't comment on something I'm very ignorant about, though sometimes I wish to propose my naive opinions anyway. I even want the others to refute and retort me.

3, Not long ago I watched TV drama <<Under the Dome>>, one episode mentioned that China threatened to attack them before the dome's advent.

I know very clearly that many western people take China as a threat every day, imagining that we are at any time doing nothing other than planning on dropping a nuclear missile on them. Instead we do everything except that, like dreading westerners are planning on dropping a nuclear missile on us.

For westerners' worrying, I don't see any possibility, China's every international policy and move are for defensive purposes. For Chinese people, to rule the world, or to conquer the others are not even the last thing to consider in all possible imagination. Many Chinese people are very kind and very friendly to westerners. But we are vigilant too as we know that friendly pose doesn't always incur friendly response so we take the military and national defense very importantly. And we understand that it is natural that westerns take military and national defense very importantly, too.

4, During Cold War there were many crisis of World War III, my history knowledge is very scarce but as far as I can remember, China didn't involve into Cold War at all, one reason is that China had and has many domestic problems. Superficially China mainland had and has only one ruling party, in fact within this communist party there were and are many factions and the political struggles are always very complicated, and cruel, not only my personal opinion. As a commoner, I know how cruel some politics rivalry could be but I don't know and won't know any specific acts and conspiracies. Commoners can smell but they won't meddle politics. I know there are probably something I shouldn't know for keeping myself alive.

5, About "a lot of psi research being sponsored by the Chinese government during the 1980s" mentioned by that report published in "alternative" sites:

I was born in 1985 and I heard absolutely zero information about that since my birth. I can't say that's impossible but I can't imagine that 1980's China had just recovered to thrive in industrial construction and at the same time could have mood or resource to do psi research. During that period, I think all China's concerns laid in railway, civilian aviation, chemical industry, electricity power plant, etc.

During my 30 years living in China mainland, there has never been even a shadow, a hint, or a mirage about the idea of "psi research carried out by Chinese government", this is not like various rumors about 51 area in USA, in which at least the area truly exists and can be located.

I will come back. Have a good day. :)

It is very interesting to read the perspectives of people in foreign countries such as yourself - especially countries that are somewhat opaque and mysterious to the West. Incidentally, you are also the same age as me!

There are some voices in the Western media and politics that wish to vilify other nations such as China and Russia, but I think most people are aware that the vast majority of the common people in these countries are our friends. It is governments, or more specifically corrupt elements that have arisen to power within governments that are the danger.

My view is that all hierarchical organizations of power (including national governments whether communist or democratic or other) have a tendency to become corrupt over time and abuse the common people at the lower levels of the hierarchy. This is because people who wish to control others and who have no empathy (sociopaths) eventually rise towards the top of hierarchies.

To maintain a stable prosperous society and culture, the people must retain power at the individual level in order to balance the power accumulated at top. The common people must retain the ability to develop their own news and narratives and also retain their ability to defend themselves against criminals and violent aggressors. This puts a check on the tendency of the hierarchy to become corrupt and abusive.

You will notice that embedded in the English word "authority" is the word "author". An author writes a narrative or a script for others to follow. So it is the people spreading news and information who author the narrative and therefore have the authority.

The internet has allowed common people to access practically all information and has allowed common people to author their own narratives and this has brought some power to the people that previously was accumulated at the top of governmental and corporate hierarchies.

For that reason I am opposed to all government censorship of the internet. It is an attempt by the top of the hierarchy to increase power over the common people which in turn allows corrupt elements to abuse common people without reproach. If I had a young child, I would attempt to censor what they could look at in order to protect them. But I am an adult and do not need such protection. If I permit my government to "protect" me in such a way, then the government becomes my parent and I become again a child.

There is a big effort being made right now by Western governments to sell the idea of internet censorship because the internet has exposed much corruption and abuse in Western governments. The internet and "alternative news" has made it very difficult for corrupt elements in our government to keep secrets and continue with very bad and murderous policies that only benefit a few elite at the top of the hierarchies.

I think a prosperous stable society will result when hierarchies are not allowed to grow too large and powerful and are benevolent and when the individual common people are empowered with the ability to freely learn and author their own narratives and defend themselves. This is what the United States used to be and still is to some extent, but over time many corporations and government organizations became too powerful with too much secrecy and the media became basically an extension of the government instead of the voice of the people.

I believe the study about political hierarchy and power structures can provide metaphors that aid in understanding power structures that exist both within our own minds and also beyond this reality. God, the Demiurge, the Devil, and Jesus could be thought of as archetypal representations of the four extremes in political power and the four seasons of the cycles of civilizations. But now I'm getting way off topic :)

In regards to threats of nuclear war, I think that long term the threat is very real, but hopefully all tense situations will be diffused with diplomacy and benevolence. I personally wonder if the Tianjin explosion was a covert act of aggression by some power. I've heard there is an ancient Chinese curse: "may you live in interesting times." We certainly do! :)
 
Interesting. A tangent, just to keep in line with the oddity of this forum... ¿What can you say about the effect of ban the on all things "supernatural" in the media?

For me, it seems odd that you can't merchandise anything that features a ghost prominently, yet the government itself does its part to promote Shaolin monks as these mysterious pseudo-superhumans to bolster tourism. It's one hell of a double standard...

Has this state imposed materialistic atheism affected how the people living in China perceive the paranormal, or has the campaign simply drived the discussion underground?

Hello E.Flowers,

I want to give the best answer I think to these questions:

Best answer to what is the Chinese people's faith system:
Before my writing sentences to chat with you here, if someone asked me: "What's the Chinese people's faith system? Can we say that the majority of Chinese people believe materialistic atheism?", I would answer: "Yes, most of us do not believe any God, including Buddha, so most of us are materialistic atheism.". Tonight I reconsidered and pondered this answer and I found it is not the best answer.

I now think it is better to say, asking a Chinese people about his or her faith system, is like asking a kindergarten kiddy about his or her faith system, especially when he is playing his toy siege tank, or she is trying her mother's rouge surreptitiously. Most Chinese people haven't even really seriously started to think about this question.
Their top faith is "fulfilling their life path, life duty, and life ideal".

Since Chinese people's growing and maturing until the end of their lives, the most concerned things of theirs, are "getting a high score in examinations, entering an ideal college, making more friends, cultivating their interests and career skills, finding a good job, meeting the right lover, forming a harmonious family, giving birth to healthy children, loving their children, teaching their children how to become a good and survivable person, giving their children best helps and best educations and sending their children to ideal universities and seeing their children forming family and helping their children take care of their children's children, i.e. their grandchildren and leading a happy old age".

Everything else they consider seriously is for serving their top faith and top purpose. If some question and some thinking are irrelevant to their top faith and top purpose, they incline to ignore them and do not choose an opinion queue to abide by. Our government is very democratic, it allows various religions, it allows both idealism and materialism, we can choose whatever we feel reasonable as long as we do not hurt the others or sabotage the society. Our government recommends and encourages materialism. If a commoner wants to join communist party and become a government official, he must to claim his faith of materialism in public. In examinations, we must to give answers in accordance with materialism to get a high score. That's all it matters. In the bowel of Chinese people's heart, they are open-minded and do not strictly cling to anything like religion, materialism, idealism, deities, atheism, theism, etc.

If you obstruct and stop a Chinese people on the street, and ask him or her: "I heard by that most Chinese people are materialistic atheism, why don't you ever think the alternative possibility of that there can be something higher than us?", he or she would answer: "Sure, why not? You are right! That's possible. It's reasonable for you to think about that possibility. I don't know but everything I can't see is a potential possibility of existence. But, I'm going to vegetable market to buy cuisine ingredients and will prepare supper for my children, I will prepare delicious food for them and they will be healthy and will study hard, they will pass the examination and enter a good university and their future lives are going to be beautiful. What did you say? A possibility of something higher than us? A higher existence? Could you please kindly ask him or her to instruct my children how to learn Math and English and get high score in examination? No? The higher existence won't show up and won't help? Then I'm busy of going to find another who wishes, a private teacher maybe." They won't really speak these words out but they will think in this way.

Sometimes, when Chinese people are tired or they have the time and the mood to make a rhapsodic thinking, they may want to find a religion for spiritual attachment. But they only take religions as a culture, a tradition, or a serene way of doing social gathering, they won't be that serious about religions or philosophies. Religions and philosophies are always less important than their top faith and top purpose: "to fulfill their life path, life duty, and life ideal".

One important caveat: the above description of Chinese people's faith system doesn't apply to all Chinese people in all China mainland regions. Because Chinese people are super various, every kind of person can appear here, every kind of news can be heard here. It is not reasonable to put all Chinese people into a same frame. I think, what I described above are like the people surrounding me, in the region, the province in which I live. And I still believe these traits of mentality represent those of a considerable large proportion of Chinese people.

Since Chinese people do not take religions, philosophies, paranormal research, etc. seriously, they only take the legendary of Shaolin disciple monks as a tradition, a culture, a story, an entertainment. No one thinks anything ethereal mysteries could help them to fulfill their lives. And considering China is a country of ubiquitous frauds, charlatans, we think it is always a wise idea to ignore anything which we are uncertain whether is true or not. Chinese people's mentality and faith system are very practical and pragmatic, to serve their mundane life plan, in a most stable and effective way.

What I said are only about the Chinese people who I'm familiar in the region, the province where I live. There are many Chinese people living in a far less developed or civilized region, they believe in superstition strongly. There were many news of people in there committed infanticide just because of local shamans' instructions. In order to prevent them from making detriment to the overall society, government makes and administers various information censorship. So the censorship is also quite different in different regions. As long as we do not sabotage the society, censorship in some regions can be fairly lenient. Paranormal discussions are neither strongly prohibited nor encouraged in my region. But the censorship algorithm is severely not smart in most of the time, it blocks websites like a bug fly flying around inside a silo. :D
 
It is very interesting to read the perspectives of people in foreign countries such as yourself - especially countries that are somewhat opaque and mysterious to the West. Incidentally, you are also the same age as me!

There are some voices in the Western media and politics that wish to vilify other nations such as China and Russia, but I think most people are aware that the vast majority of the common people in these countries are our friends. It is governments, or more specifically corrupt elements that have arisen to power within governments that are the danger.

My view is that all hierarchical organizations of power (including national governments whether communist or democratic or other) have a tendency to become corrupt over time and abuse the common people at the lower levels of the hierarchy. This is because people who wish to control others and who have no empathy (sociopaths) eventually rise towards the top of hierarchies.

To maintain a stable prosperous society and culture, the people must retain power at the individual level in order to balance the power accumulated at top. The common people must retain the ability to develop their own news and narratives and also retain their ability to defend themselves against criminals and violent aggressors. This puts a check on the tendency of the hierarchy to become corrupt and abusive.

You will notice that embedded in the English word "authority" is the word "author". An author writes a narrative or a script for others to follow. So it is the people spreading news and information who author the narrative and therefore have the authority.

The internet has allowed common people to access practically all information and has allowed common people to author their own narratives and this has brought some power to the people that previously was accumulated at the top of governmental and corporate hierarchies.

For that reason I am opposed to all government censorship of the internet. It is an attempt by the top of the hierarchy to increase power over the common people which in turn allows corrupt elements to abuse common people without reproach. If I had a young child, I would attempt to censor what they could look at in order to protect them. But I am an adult and do not need such protection. If I permit my government to "protect" me in such a way, then the government becomes my parent and I become again a child.

There is a big effort being made right now by Western governments to sell the idea of internet censorship because the internet has exposed much corruption and abuse in Western governments. The internet and "alternative news" has made it very difficult for corrupt elements in our government to keep secrets and continue with very bad and murderous policies that only benefit a few elite at the top of the hierarchies.

I think a prosperous stable society will result when hierarchies are not allowed to grow too large and powerful and are benevolent and when the individual common people are empowered with the ability to freely learn and author their own narratives and defend themselves. This is what the United States used to be and still is to some extent, but over time many corporations and government organizations became too powerful with too much secrecy and the media became basically an extension of the government instead of the voice of the people.

I believe the study about political hierarchy and power structures can provide metaphors that aid in understanding power structures that exist both within our own minds and also beyond this reality. God, the Demiurge, the Devil, and Jesus could be thought of as archetypal representations of the four extremes in political power and the four seasons of the cycles of civilizations. But now I'm getting way off topic :)

In regards to threats of nuclear war, I think that long term the threat is very real, but hopefully all tense situations will be diffused with diplomacy and benevolence. I personally wonder if the Tianjin explosion was a covert act of aggression by some power. I've heard there is an ancient Chinese curse: "may you live in interesting times." We certainly do! :)

Hello, Hurmanetar, I'm amazed! I should have made a thorough perusal before replying to you but I dread that would be a bit too late. So I want to express my gratitude as soon as possible to how nice of you for saying these words. :)

Not only do I find that we have so many similarities, but also, I find that you spoke out some of my heart, my English is just far too lagged to be that good to express these ideas as good as your sentences, which are like the best textbook on how to express these meanings! Knowing that we are in the same age, I imagine whether this is by an arrangement of the Goddess of Fate, like an appointment.
\(^o^)/~

Common people have fewer powers individually than the privileged authority establishment and powerful politicians, but when common people are united, that will be a fearsome power to be reckoned.
When several covert political factions rival with each other, they would definitely consider common people's support. If their opponents gained the unanimous support of common people of a large quantity, they would be in a disadvantage situation and be easily overthrown by their opponents. Although Chinese common people's political influence is weaker than that of USA common people, common people's acknowledgement and support to the government are still very important. We always choose and support our leader to be benevolent. We want leaders who are not belligerent or aggressive, but at the same time attaching great importance to national defense and maintenance on regional and worldwide peace. Chinese common people do not want to defeat any of other countries, we do not want our military forces to cause a single injury to a person in other countries. But reviewing history, I think construction of national defense is very necessary and important, even if there isn't a prospect of crisis.

Your mention of Tianjin explosion surprised me again, I thought the news was blocked well from leaking to international media. Tianjin is a big metropolis in the middle of China mainland, and I live in the southeast part of China which is quite remote from Tianjin, so I have less information about that event. Though, that was a heavy news and a sadness to know there were so severe casualties of innocent people. Discussion on that event was and is not allowed, and there were and are many post-deleting by the internet censorship. I'm surprised that you know China more than I thought, although I shouldn't comment on something I'm ignorant about, I want to say I quite agree with what you said. And this is only a cape of iceberg of many concealed darkness. Tragedies happen everyday in many corners on the earth. The only thing I can do is to help the kind people I know.

Best wishes for you.
 
Hello, E.Flowers, I have things to do tomorrow and I need to go to sleep soon, here is deep night.
I will read your sentences in the above two posts, and the link provided by you (I tried and had no problem of seeing it) carefully tomorrow whenever I have time.
I want to reply to you quickly and briefly, and for now, say what I mostly want to say.

1, Where you take interested in, is also where I take interested in. So I'm very glad to talk about these topics.

2, I will tell whatever I know and provide the most honest information including our domestic situation, people mentality, etc. And please feel free to ask me anything, even if they are about politics controversies and the complex international relationships. I will propose my own opinions in the most non-offensive way I can. But I'm a very very common commoner so I don't know anything that a commoner should be kept from knowing. I shouldn't comment on something I'm very ignorant about, though sometimes I wish to propose my naive opinions anyway. I even want the others to refute and retort me.

3, Not long ago I watched TV drama <<Under the Dome>>, one episode mentioned that China threatened to attack them before the dome's advent.

I know very clearly that many western people take China as a threat every day, imagining that we are at any time doing nothing other than planning on dropping a nuclear missile on them. Instead we do everything except that, like dreading westerners are planning on dropping a nuclear missile on us.

For westerners' worrying, I don't see any possibility, China's every international policy and move are for defensive purposes. For Chinese people, to rule the world, or to conquer the others are not even the last thing to consider in all possible imagination. Many Chinese people are very kind and very friendly to westerners. But we are vigilant too as we know that friendly pose doesn't always incur friendly response so we take the military and national defense very importantly. And we understand that it is natural that westerns take military and national defense very importantly, too.

4, During Cold War there were many crisis of World War III, my history knowledge is very scarce but as far as I can remember, China didn't involve into Cold War at all, one reason is that China had and has many domestic problems. Superficially China mainland had and has only one ruling party, in fact within this communist party there were and are many factions and the political struggles are always very complicated, and cruel, not only my personal opinion. As a commoner, I know how cruel some politics rivalry could be but I don't know and won't know any specific acts and conspiracies. Commoners can smell but they won't meddle politics. I know there are probably something I shouldn't know for keeping myself alive.

5, About "a lot of psi research being sponsored by the Chinese government during the 1980s" mentioned by that report published in "alternative" sites:

I was born in 1985 and I heard absolutely zero information about that since my birth. I can't say that's impossible but I can't imagine that 1980's China had just recovered to thrive in industrial construction and at the same time could have mood or resource to do psi research. During that period, I think all China's concerns laid in railway, civilian aviation, chemical industry, electricity power plant, etc.

During my 30 years living in China mainland, there has never been even a shadow, a hint, or a mirage about the idea of "psi research carried out by Chinese government", this is not like various rumors about 51 area in USA, in which at least the area truly exists and can be located.

I will come back. Have a good day. :)

Interesting. The truth is that our psi experiments only became known due to public pressure. After rumors circulated and one particular president had acted over-excitedly after witnessing a session of remote viewing, it became the topic of controversy. So, I can see why the topic is murky over there as well.

The Russian tests... I'm not even sure where to begin. Some of the videos that have surfaced are so odd that it's hard to know how much is legit and how much is propaganda.

Hello E.Flowers,

I want to give the best answer I think to these questions:

Best answer to what is the Chinese people's faith system:
Before my writing sentences to chat with you here, if someone asked me: "What's the Chinese people's faith system? Can we say that the majority of Chinese people believe materialistic atheism?", I would answer: "Yes, most of us do not believe any God, including Buddha, so most of us are materialistic atheism.". Tonight I reconsidered and pondered this answer and I found it is not the best answer.

I now think it is better to say, asking a Chinese people about his or her faith system, is like asking a kindergarten kiddy about his or her faith system, especially when he is playing his toy siege tank, or she is trying her mother's rouge surreptitiously. Most Chinese people haven't even really seriously started to think about this question.
Their top faith is "fulfilling their life path, life duty, and life ideal".

Since Chinese people's growing and maturing until the end of their lives, the most concerned things of theirs, are "getting a high score in examinations, entering an ideal college, making more friends, cultivating their interests and career skills, finding a good job, meeting the right lover, forming a harmonious family, giving birth to healthy children, loving their children, teaching their children how to become a good and survivable person, giving their children best helps and best educations and sending their children to ideal universities and seeing their children forming family and helping their children take care of their children's children, i.e. their grandchildren and leading a happy old age".

Everything else they consider seriously is for serving their top faith and top purpose. If some question and some thinking are irrelevant to their top faith and top purpose, they incline to ignore them and do not choose an opinion queue to abide by. Our government is very democratic, it allows various religions, it allows both idealism and materialism, we can choose whatever we feel reasonable as long as we do not hurt the others or sabotage the society. Our government recommends and encourages materialism. If a commoner wants to join communist party and become a government official, he must to claim his faith of materialism in public. In examinations, we must to give answers in accordance with materialism to get a high score. That's all it matters. In the bowel of Chinese people's heart, they are open-minded and do not strictly cling to anything like religion, materialism, idealism, deities, atheism, theism, etc.

If you obstruct and stop a Chinese people on the street, and ask him or her: "I heard by that most Chinese people are materialistic atheism, why don't you ever think the alternative possibility of that there can be something higher than us?", he or she would answer: "Sure, why not? You are right! That's possible. It's reasonable for you to think about that possibility. I don't know but everything I can't see is a potential possibility of existence. But, I'm going to vegetable market to buy cuisine ingredients and will prepare supper for my children, I will prepare delicious food for them and they will be healthy and will study hard, they will pass the examination and enter a good university and their future lives are going to be beautiful. What did you say? A possibility of something higher than us? A higher existence? Could you please kindly ask him or her to instruct my children how to learn Math and English and get high score in examination? No? The higher existence won't show up and won't help? Then I'm busy of going to find another who wishes, a private teacher maybe." They won't really speak these words out but they will think in this way.

Sometimes, when Chinese people are tired or they have the time and the mood to make a rhapsodic thinking, they may want to find a religion for spiritual attachment. But they only take religions as a culture, a tradition, or a serene way of doing social gathering, they won't be that serious about religions or philosophies. Religions and philosophies are always less important than their top faith and top purpose: "to fulfill their life path, life duty, and life ideal".

One important caveat: the above description of Chinese people's faith system doesn't apply to all Chinese people in all China mainland regions. Because Chinese people are super various, every kind of person can appear here, every kind of news can be heard here. It is not reasonable to put all Chinese people into a same frame. I think, what I described above are like the people surrounding me, in the region, the province in which I live. And I still believe these traits of mentality represent those of a considerable large proportion of Chinese people.

Since Chinese people do not take religions, philosophies, paranormal research, etc. seriously, they only take the legendary of Shaolin disciple monks as a tradition, a culture, a story, an entertainment. No one thinks anything ethereal mysteries could help them to fulfill their lives. And considering China is a country of ubiquitous frauds, charlatans, we think it is always a wise idea to ignore anything which we are uncertain whether is true or not. Chinese people's mentality and faith system are very practical and pragmatic, to serve their mundane life plan, in a most stable and effective way.

What I said are only about the Chinese people who I'm familiar in the region, the province where I live. There are many Chinese people living in a far less developed or civilized region, they believe in superstition strongly. There were many news of people in there committed infanticide just because of local shamans' instructions. In order to prevent them from making detriment to the overall society, government makes and administers various information censorship. So the censorship is also quite different in different regions. As long as we do not sabotage the society, censorship in some regions can be fairly lenient. Paranormal discussions are neither strongly prohibited nor encouraged in my region. But the censorship algorithm is severely not smart in most of the time, it blocks websites like a bug fly flying around inside a silo. :D

Thank you for that post, it is most illuminating. However, I must ask, belonging to a culture that generally lives the "here and now", how did you find yourself interested in the epistemological? Surely that interest arose prior to the one in the PN, as the first usually leads to the second.
 
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Also: A lot has been published in "alternative" sites about a report by the US Air Force (authored by Eric Davis) that discussed a lot of psi research being sponsored by the Chinese government during the 1980s. I have never been sure what to make of it, since he is quoting third party sources that we are not very familiar with and -worse- old journals that are not widely accessible. My posture has always been that it's curious, but could also been hearsay or even an attempt by the Chinese government to misdirect the US/Russia amidst the Cold War (since both had their own psi programs as well). Have you heard of these?

Here is one such link: http://www.collective-evolution.com...ecial-abilities-able-to-do-impossible-things/

If you can't see it, I can copy the full text.

Hello E.Flowers, I haven't given my opinions about The CIA Document titled “Chronology of Recent Interest in Exceptional Functions of The Human Body in the People’s Republic of China.” mentioned in that hyperlink.

I won't forget it. I have read that article and I managed myself a serious and careful thinking. I think I will disappoint you because I would like to propose a high probability on that the telekinetic power performer Zhang Baosheng was a suspected fraud, and the whole set of his performance was a suspected hoax and farce. There probably isn't a breakthrough on the worldwide paranormal research by that suspected hoax and farce.

Though, I will always be open-minded and I do not firmly cling to my proposition of that "high probability". I will tell whatever I know by my most honest motives. I also want to find a truth of reality.

The likelihood of fraud, hoax, and farce is very high.

I imagine if I were another person, I might think this person tarantulanebula, either is trying to cover some secrets, or do not dare to say the truth lest incurring trouble by being a tattletale. In my history, whenever I smelled dark affairs, I would stop digging (probing, sniffing) further, even if I had an opportunity to know more, I knew when I should stop to keep myself alive, and I would keep a safe distance, but simultaneous smelled that there was something dark there, and told good people to heed. I also always want to know the truth of reality. Smelling a dark and unspeakable affair, naturally rise the question: "why those sorrow were arranged by higher existences". However, Zhang Baosheng probably wasn't an example of a Special Access Black Budget Program (SAPs) or alike. :D

I searched domestic websites and found the person whose name is pronounced as "Zhang Baosheng" truly exists, his name is 张宝胜, he is a debunked fraud by public awareness.

He started as claiming a local superhuman in a limited region, then became more and more famous. Research of Chinese government meanwhile was only for debunking him as a fraud and setting a good example to give common people a lesson that superstition was deceiving and malicious. During that period, Chinese people did not have a good education and didn't have a scientific mindset, there were many illiterate, superstition prevailed, caused many detriment to various aspects of the whole society.

Sorry for my disappointing opinions on that there probably wasn't any breakthrough on paranormal research by the cases of Zhang Baosheng, i.e. 张宝胜. My sentences above were not well made, I felt fairly difficult to use English language to express my meaning which I tried to express above.

I need to go to sleep immediately and I would like to talk about later, how ubiquitous China is of frauds and charlatans. Later I would like to propose my opinions on the topics in your latest post. And I would like to talk about Chinese near death experiences which I think are likely to have been honestly told (not as obviously fake as like Zhang Baosheng's cases). I will visit this forum often. You are right, I'm quite different from the people surrounding me, in the sense that I want to know the truth about epistemological.

What I said above is only my personal opinion, I think I should be open-minded, there is still a possibility that Zhang Baosheng's cases were paranormal phenomena later covered by some reasons. In my eyes, this possibility is very unlikely as to seems like a joke. :D
 
Hello E.Flowers, I haven't given my opinions about The CIA Document titled “Chronology of Recent Interest in Exceptional Functions of The Human Body in the People’s Republic of China.” mentioned in that hyperlink.

I won't forget it. I have read that article and I managed myself a serious and careful thinking. I think I will disappoint you because I would like to propose a high probability on that the telekinetic power performer Zhang Baosheng was a suspected fraud, and the whole set of his performance was a suspected hoax and farce. There probably isn't a breakthrough on the worldwide paranormal research by that suspected hoax and farce.

Though, I will always be open-minded and I do not firmly cling to my proposition of that "high probability". I will tell whatever I know by my most honest motives. I also want to find a truth of reality.

The likelihood of fraud, hoax, and farce is very high.

I imagine if I were another person, I might think this person tarantulanebula, either is trying to cover some secrets, or do not dare to say the truth lest incurring trouble by being a tattletale. In my history, whenever I smelled dark affairs, I would stop digging (probing, sniffing) further, even if I had an opportunity to know more, I knew when I should stop to keep myself alive, and I would keep a safe distance, but simultaneous smelled that there was something dark there, and told good people to heed. I also always want to know the truth of reality. Smelling a dark and unspeakable affair, naturally rise the question: "why those sorrow were arranged by higher existences". However, Zhang Baosheng probably wasn't an example of a Special Access Black Budget Program (SAPs) or alike. :D

I searched domestic websites and found the person whose name is pronounced as "Zhang Baosheng" truly exists, his name is 张宝胜, he is a debunked fraud by public awareness.

He started as claiming a local superhuman in a limited region, then became more and more famous. Research of Chinese government meanwhile was only for debunking him as a fraud and setting a good example to give common people a lesson that superstition was deceiving and malicious. During that period, Chinese people did not have a good education and didn't have a scientific mindset, there were many illiterate, superstition prevailed, caused many detriment to various aspects of the whole society.

Sorry for my disappointing opinions on that there probably wasn't any breakthrough on paranormal research by the cases of Zhang Baosheng, i.e. 张宝胜. My sentences above were not well made, I felt fairly difficult to use English language to express my meaning which I tried to express above.

I need to go to sleep immediately and I would like to talk about later, how ubiquitous China is of frauds and charlatans. Later I would like to propose my opinions on the topics in your latest post. And I would like to talk about Chinese near death experiences which I think are likely to have been honestly told (not as obviously fake as like Zhang Baosheng's cases). I will visit this forum often. You are right, I'm quite different from the people surrounding me, in the sense that I want to know the truth about epistemological.

What I said above is only my personal opinion, I think I should be open-minded, there is still a possibility that Zhang Baosheng's cases were paranormal phenomena later covered by some reasons. In my eyes, this possibility is very unlikely as to seems like a joke. :D

Thank you for the background of the case. I generally do my own research on things instead of taking them at face value, but there is a language barrier there and online translation tools are very unreliable.

We are also generally skeptical (as in the literal definition of the term, not the ideology) of public displays of macro-scale psi, and that includes the legit parapsychological associations, due to people like Uri Geller. What intrigued me was that it somehow made it to a USAF report.
 
Thank you for the background of the case. I generally do my own research on things instead of taking them at face value, but there is a language barrier there and online translation tools are very unreliable.

We are also generally skeptical (as in the literal definition of the term, not the ideology) of public displays of macro-scale psi, and that includes the legit parapsychological associations, due to people like Uri Geller. What intrigued me was that it somehow made it to a USAF report.
Hello E.Flowers, no matter whatever, the link provided by you is valuable and interesting to read. I have no idea on why the editorial author who wrote that article seemed to be in an affirmative and positive stance regarding to self-claimed Chinese superhuman in 1980s. Anyway, perhaps there are somethings I don't know.

I got a bad mood these days, I couldn't organize my mind to be orderly. But I want to communicate with people in this kind of forum badly.
I don't want the others to agree with my opinions, I don't wish the others to believe what I say, rather, I want to tell the others how I have drawn my conclusions, and listen to the others' feedback about where of what I said are reasonable and where are not.
Only if the others understand my meaning, I will be happy, my major purpose is to successfully make the others understand what I mean, and then I will welcome and be waiting for any agreement, consensus, or disagreement, refute, retort, etc.
I said in my previous posts that I thought it is highly possible that most or all of the Chinese superhuman mentioned in that hyperlink were highly possibly frauds and charlatans, and there were never trustworthy Chinese paranormal phenomenon discovery or research breakthrough heard by me since my birth. But I haven't made it clear that how I had drawn those conclusions.
Now I want to say why, and I will propose my personal relevant analysis.

First, China is a country where frauds and charlatans are ubiquitous.
Take an example, nearly every Chinese people who has a cellphone, receive this sort of telecommunication messages daily:

"Daddy, I've arrived there, but my money has been stolen, together with my cellphone, I'm using my companion Little Lee's cellphone to send you this message, please transfer some money to this bank card number: XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX, I'm starving, explain more later."

"This is a court summon: we have intercepted a bunch of smuggled goods and the receiver phone number printed on the package is yours, please call this number: XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX to cooperate with illegal transportation seizure police, without your response in 24 hours we will take compulsory measures."

If the one who received this sort of messages started to worry that what they said might be true, there would be a series of consequent trickery to bilk money from this victim by the frauds who sent those messages.

Someone would say these deceptions are very low and meaningless, no one would believe them and be going to be trapped by their guile. China has a tremendously large population, and people are tremendously various, there are people who live in a relatively claustral region, they are low-educated, thoughtless, and have scarce information import channel, some people even do not know how to use bank card. When they come out of their claustral hometown and visit a relatively more developed and civilized town, and try to apply bank services, they need bank clerks' instructions step by step. Sometimes they dread the bank clerks or the other clients would mock at them so they incline to do the business as quickly as they can. Due to various reasons and factors, these people can be deceived.

Telecommunication frauds use some illegal apparatuses to massively send short messages to phone numbers in a chosen number range. One specific person won't be deceived, but the wider number range to which the frauds send messages, the higher possibility that there may be a hapless and credulous person. Several months ago, there was a news about a university student, who lived in a very poor family, he or she (I don't remember the gender of the victim in that news) studied very hard in middle school and entered a good university, and his or her family expected him or her to find a good job when he or she would graduate, and earn money to alleviate the family's economic difficulty, and perhaps there were younger brothers or sisters in that family, waiting for tuition to enter university themselves. This diligent and excellent student was bilked a large amount of money by telecommunication frauds and then committed suicide. This news stroke the whole society and after it happened our government made an iron fist strike against domestic telecommunication frauds.

This is only one example. Deceit saturates all aspects of our society. There are many many self-claimed superstition masters. I have immersed into this kind of deceiving society for more than thirty years. It is like that if many insects were tossed into an incubation dish which was full of insecticide, the survived insects out of many which died, could gain an immunity. I (and many Chinese people living in my region) saw too many these trivial trickery (they are not big conspiracies), so I have generated an immunity inside of me, to incline to ignore something sounds not very true, immediately after I just hear its initiation. Otherwise, even if I hadn't been bilked a large amount of money, I would have wasted too much time to distinguish and deal with whether those were true or fake. Strangers say this, ignore them, strangers say that, ignore them, hypes recommend me to buy their merchandise, ignore them, superstition masters say they can what what, ignore them. The hoaxes' quantity is in astronomical scale so as to that you would spend all of your time even if you just initiated to pay attention to them when you received them everyday.

In the eyes of many Chinese people, westerners are generally very honest, their commerce is credible, especially compared with our nationals. It is ironic that many Chinese people choose to purchase merchandise in foreign countries. Many, as they do not find an opportunity to go abroad by themselves, they ask their friends who happen to go abroad to do a favor of bringing foreign merchandise for them.

I don't mean, the phenomenon that there is a statistically high rate of deceiving activities in China, can in any sense logically deduce that the self-claimed superhuman in 1980s were frauds. I want to emphasize that, by being immersed in this kind of society for more than thirty years, I seem to have generated a kind of subtle subconscious ability to distinguish a Chinese people (only Chinese people, not any westerner)'s genuineness, by his or her visage, characteristics, disposition, temperament, temper, facial expressions, gestures, postures, attitudes, actions, accents, way of speaking, movements, niche adaption, and many other human traits which I don't know their English language nominalization. This subtle subconscious judgement ability can't always be right or reliable, however, its significance is that it helped me from being deceived to death in this kind of society because of its statistically high rate of correct judgement proven in my history.

Another reason is that telekinesis is a concept easy to be understood and utilized by an illiterate fraud, and this concept's effects would be shocking if being true, so for frauds telekinesis is one of the favorable.

I didn't investigate any self-claimed special power superhuman in China, so I do not have the right to claim that their anecdotes are fake. It is the experience living in this kind of society for more than thirty years which gives me a subtle subconsciousness sense that I incline to believe that Zhang Baosheng's cases have a high probability of being a hoax. To be responsible of what I say, and to be responsible to the people who would be so kind to read my awful (not satisfied by me firstly) English sentences, I do not insist my judgement.

Second, I would like to propose my opinions about the relationship between Chinese people's general and wide-distributed practicality mentality and many Chinese people's high inclination of enjoying being a fraud. Being accustomed to be practical has some relation with being accustomed to bilk money by deceiving, under Chinese people's specific traits.
I said that most Chinese people are practical and pragmatic. By your enlightening, I learned that this can also be described as "lives the here and now" in English language. From first glance, one might sense that I was praising Chinese people by using those words, after all, "practical and pragmatic" is a positive epithet. Now I would like to say that I meant to use these words in their most neutral senses. Having a general practical mentality has drawbacks as well as advantages. Sometimes it helps one avoid daydream and focus on the serious and imminent problems. Many Chinese people are diligent and they concentrate when they work. This is one of the good aspects. However, their inclination to avoid deep thinking results that Chinese theoretical physics research lags behind that of westerns. In a long term, this is very bad and disadvantageous.
Behind the superficial curtain of most Chinese people's practicality mentality, they do not choose this way of thinking, this way of life by careful strategic game theory consideration. Rather, the reason that Chinese people seem like being practical, is that their refusal, rejection to think deep, think far is embedded in their physiological, psychological, or genetic structures. Many Chinese people would do inferior and meaningless entertainment out of work, rather than think the essence of consciousness, etc. I don't think Chinese people's general practical mentality is a kind of wisdom. And of course, I never think westerners are generally impractical. I never think that deep thinking (relevant to philosophy, epistemology, paranormal phenomenon, consciousness research, etc.) is a waste of time. I think Chinese people innately incline to shun thinking deep and as a parallel consequence, most of them are less imaginative, creative, inquisitive than westerners, and I think this is not good. Being practical at the right time is preferable, but Chinese people are practical all the time.

Sorry I tend to be verbose, I'm going to sleep soon, and I will try to be concise ^_^. I think Chinese people's general practicality, or more precisely, their hatred to think deep (about philosophy, epistemology, paranormal phenomenon, consciousness research, etc.) plays a role in their wide-range inclination of being deceptive.

Imagine that a person is eager to cure his discomfort and he looks for a doctor, he will tell everything to the doctor in the most honest and detailed way. Eagerness to find the answer to the truth of consciousness, paranormal phenomena, ultimate fate of mankind, something higher who arranged our fate, is like eagerness to cure a sickness. On the opposite case, if a person has no discomfort, he will have no problem to tell every lie to a doctor, because he won't care. Chinese people are like that, because they take no interest in the things other than mundane trivial affairs (including both important ones and meaningless ones), they have no problem to tell various lies. They don't care about making a communication with the others on the topics which are both profoundly thoughtful and meaningful, they never worry about something higher, further, more inextricable.

I think it is right to say that I'm a bit different from the typical traits of Chinese people, in the sense that I think relatively deeper than most of our nationals, but I have no idea why.

Going to sleep, chat another day.
 
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