How Body and Soul Interact with the Spiritual Mind: Multimodal Cognitive Semiotics of Religious Discourse
Cognitive Linguistics as an enterprise provides new theoretical and methodological instruments in understanding the relationship between people's thoughts and the language they use. Spiritual and religious experiences (particularly the ones involving some type of revelation from or communication with a transcendent being) are especially interesting since they involve some type of external, physically invisible force or agent, contributing an "ineffable" quality to the phenomenon. However, people can and do describe such events, and metaphors and blends pervade the representations of certain concepts of the transcendental when attempting to talk about such abstract ideas. One of the main ten…
Blending the Erotic and the Divine in Mystical Literature
THE BEGINNINGS OF SYMBOLIC-RELIGIOUS COGNITION - Cognitive Archeology and Cognitive Fluidity: About 30,000 years ago (70,000 years after the fossil records of the anatomically modern human), religious thought and symbolic conceptual activity arose from the capacity of integrating specific-domain a process called "cognitive fluidity" (Mithen 1996). Metaphor, Anthropomorphism and Cognitive Science: Metaphor is a basic mental capacity by which people understand themselves and the world around them through conceptual mappings of knowledge between mental spaces, using everyday knowledge to reason about more abstract concepts. Of all the templates for supernatural concepts, the ones that seriousl…
Linguistica Cognitiva e Testi Religiosi: Spiegare l'Inspiegabile con le Metafore
Low levels of testosterone levels increase the risk of major cardiovascular events in a follow-up to 5 years
Materials and Methods. We evaluated a series of 802 patients with intermediate cardiovascular risk according to the Framingham Risk Score (FRS). The endothelial function through flow-mediated vasodilatation (FMD), the erectile function (EF), and the total serum testosterone levels were assessed. Patients were followed for up to 5 years and the prevalence and predictors of MACEs were evaluated. Results. The levels of serum testosterone are related with both endothelial function (FMD) (t=9,4080, 95% CI= 0,9318 to 1,4234, p<0,0001) and erectile function (FMD) (t=8,9584, 95% CI= 0,7642 to 1,1932, p<0,0001). Analysis of variance (ANOVA) of serum testosterone levels are related with the MACEs (F-…
Cognitive Semiotics and On-Line Reading of Religious Texts: A Hermeneutic Model of Sacred Literature and Everyday Revelation
In this essay a hermeneutic model of the higher level understanding during on-line ritual reading by devotees of their respective sacred literatures is proposed, using the instruments provided by cognitive sciences. The way a devotee reads a sacred text differs from the way he or she would read a common piece of literature or how a lay person might read the same sacred text. After providing an overview of metaphor, anthropomorphism, and the “religious brain”, it is suggested how devotee-readers might make sense of a religious text and why it should be so important for their own personal everyday life. Universals are implicated in this genre of literature and the way it is interpreted.
Testosterone levels are directly related with erectile function and endothelial function in men with intermediate risk according to the Framingham score
Background. The value of testosterone levels and erectile dysfunction (ED) as early markers of atherosclerosis is not well understood. Objectives. To analyze the relationship between plasma testosterone levels in men with both endothelial function (F) and ED. Methods. We enrolled 802 asymptomatic, intermediate cardiovascular risk patients, according to the Framingham Risk Score, aged 40 to 80 years, who underwent the study of EF, evaluation of ED and dosage of plasma testosterone. Results. At linear regression, EF (t=9.40; 95% CI from 0.9318 to 1.4234; p<0.0001) and erectile function (t=8.96; 95% CI from 0.7642 to 1.1932; p<0.0001) statistically increased with increasing levels of testoster…
Polisemia e slittamenti semantici nei concetti ANIMA e CORPO nel mondo occidentale, ovvero l'Errore di San Paolo
Storicamente il cristianesimo deve molto al giudaismo. Il cristianesimo di San Paolo, tuttavia, ha cambiato il modo di ragionare su concetti come il sé, il corpo, e la cognizione umana. Senza volere trattare certi concetti teologici, mi prefiggo di sottolineare come il punto di vista della scienza moderna è più vicino al giudaismo tradizionale che al cristianesimo, e di spiegare la diffusione dell’“errore” di Paolo nel mondo occidentale, analizzando la semantica dei riferimenti linguistici (e in particolar modo le metafore e le metonimie) dei concetti anima e corpo e del rapporto con la concezione del sé. Cresciuto da “uomo franco” cioè, da cittadino romano in un ambiente cosmopolita, Paolo…