1,000 knives of thought - answers

No, I cannot let it happen, especially when I've never met the donor.

I would hate to see someone risking his or her life for my sake. I guess it's not because I'm a loving person, but because I'm more comfortable with surficial relationships.

Kenji Saito

False. Truth is, human imagination has not caught up with science. Engineering, perhaps, has not caught up with human imagination, because it is to actualise what people imagine. Science, however, is to understand how nature works, which is often beyond what people can imagine.

Kenji Saito

It depends. A simple figure such as a triangle or a circle would be very easy to recognise, whereas it would take some time to distinguish between two polygons with 17 and 18 sides. Human brains are pretty good at recognising people's faces. In fact, that's one of their specialties. It shouldn't be surprising if we recognise people more easily than most geometrical figures, because our brains have evolved for millions of years to recognise natural objects rather than artificial ones which have been around for just several thousand years.

Kenji Saito

1. The history repeats itself. The age of reason is known to be recurring, and in order for it to occur again, it has to cease.
2. People are beginning to realise that many of us don't want democracy. Many of us want somebody else to take responsibilities.
3. Advanced individualism will inevitably lead to a class society, as meritocracy classifies people albeit not hereditarily.

Kenji Saito

1. It doesn't state if the 90% of all diseases listed in a book or 90% of the patients who visit the doctor daily can be cured naturally. It would make a lot of difference to patients.
2. If the statement is true in any of the above cases, the extra medical aids should rather be stopped.

Kenji Saito

In 2001: SPACE ODYSSEY, what the monolith does mostly is to give inspirations to apes and human beings so that they can go beyond their limitations. In reality, such a role is often taken by strangers.

Kenji Saito

Do you mean they get head over heels?

Kenji Saito

It depends on how much it costs to make a time travel. If it pays to travel back in time in order to collect evidence for a crime (or even to prevent it before it happened), then such a crime will be pointless to commit. Other kind of crimes will not be affected by the invention of a time machine. Also, we can forget about crimes using a time machine if the cost of a travel is high, because if it pays to make a time travel to commit a crime, it would probably pay to prevent it too. The moral is, a time travel should better be expensive.

Kenji Saito

1. Moving up in a big lift in a huge building complex.
2. Working in a company.
3. Some situation in a (mostly high) school.
4. Staying in NYC.
5. Working with Ryuichi Sakamoto.
6. Composing music.
7. My dog.
8. Erotic involvement with a naked woman.
9. Solving some logical problems.
10. Flying.

Kenji Saito

People can feel safe in such a house.

Kenji Saito

1. A plan fails when its executer is different from the one who conceived the idea, and when they have small communication.
2. A plan fails when it is installed to serve a different objective from the original idea.
3. A plan is unlikely to be well-designed when the planner receives no real feedback. In this case, when the planner has no personal financial crisis.

Kenji Saito

Because I know I'm real, but I'm not so sure about the others.

Kenji Saito

An image of myself as a baby crawling projected on a monochrome screen.

Kenji Saito

I guess that is exactly what I have been doing, and I should be more practical.

Kenji Saito

No, because I'm not that into capitalism. But my body is a basis of everything I do. Without it, I cannot do a thing.

Kenji Saito

1. It might teach me how to succeed.
2. It gives me a new idea. (It is a new idea because it's unexpected.)
3. It teaches me that I'm incomplete.
4. It teaches something about human nature.
5. It may be a hint to understand how our brains are wired (in other words, what is more natural for human brains).
6. It's funny.
7. It may be a relief to prevent bigger mistakes.
8. It may be a source of questions like this.
9. It may be a vaccine to tolerate bigger failures.
10. Everything is equally valuable.

Kenji Saito

One living in my head.

Kenji Saito

We don't own possessions - they own us. They demand we protect, house, insure and care for them. We feel compelled to use them. And if we are no longer able to support ourselves, they, through our local pawn shop, will supply us with the means to do so.

Mike Mihanovich

According to Dr.Takafumi Matsui, an astrophysicist, even our bodies are not exactly our possessions because we have to give it back to Earth when we die. And in billions of years from now, it will then be Earth's turn to give all its atoms back to the space between stars where it all started. From this view point, everything we think we own is really a sublet from someone who rented it first, and our position in this universe is just a tenant.

Kenji Saito

• They are both studies about our mental processes.
• Consequently, they can show us the bases of our logics.
• As people may have different types of logics, part of their concerns are how different languages, linguistic or mathematic, are related with each other.

Kenji Saito

• Mathematics has no direct link with actuation of our bodies.

Kenji Saito

False, or at least the statement is inaccurate. It should be: "you cannot be influential and accurate at the same time," because in order to amplify your impact to the ordinary listeners, viewers or readers, you will have to exaggerate. But you don't have to tell a lie.

Kenji Saito

If it is a personal question, yes, definitely it is true. My fiancée would kill me the moment she found out that I was unfaithful to her, if it ever happens. However, in general, it is one of the driving forces of our civilization and we owe a lot about our very existence to it.

Kenji Saito

False. Without a mistake we won't even be alive today. Think about how genetic information has been incorrectly copied from time to time which made the whole evolution of life possible. A mistake is the mother of change.

Kenji Saito

It looks as though they are solving their problems while they are supposed to solve ours. I think problems are best solved when people solve their own problems, so perhaps it's not really their fault. It's just that politics today is based on the misconception that someone should be solving someone else's problems.

Kenji Saito

I think that who should be representing the Earth should be decided according to the skills and personality of an individual and not according to their nationalities, but I guess this is just a game. Still, it's rather difficult to decide between an American and a Japanese, as they both have their good and bad properties for communicating with strangers. While Americans are known by their effort in building barrier-free societies, their foreign policy seems rather elementary as they have had no real outside menace. Japanese are not good at living with foreigners, but they are used to communicating with outside civilizations which are superior to theirs. I'd say, if the civilization we are trying to communicate with looks inferior to ours, let an American talk, and if not, a Japanese may be able to learn more. If we don't have to choose between an American and a Japanese, I think Swedish people are the best choice because of their adaptability to new situations.

Kenji Saito

1. Write down the dream when you wake up.
2. Practice distinguishing foods by their smells.
3. Spend one day blindfolded.
4. Find Wolly.
5. Play tennis.
6. Rap with many rhymes.
7. Practice drawing objects in the next room without looking at them.
8. Practice guessing people's heights.
9. Practice hearing melodies within noises.
10. Practice understanding people's conversations in a restaurant.

Kenji Saito

True. It is to lead listeners to the acoustic joy. A composer must, if I may apply the MOI model proposed by Mr. G.M.Weinberg in his book "Becoming a Technical Leader - An Organic Problem-Solving Approach," motivate listeners to continue to listen to his or her work, organise the work so that listeners don't get lost, and innovate (or have interesting ideas). If one thinks that he or she can become a composer by just doing what they want, I must say such a person is ignorant, because perhaps he or she is aware of just the last part of MOI.

Kenji Saito

Yes, I do, because I have to have one to become a leader, and I must become a leader to achieve what I want, which is my vision.

Kenji Saito

True. If their value systems are not based on reasoning, they must be based on emotions.

Kenji Saito

I cannot exlpain as I think my life should not be a war against but a coexistence with the insects or automation within.

Kenji Saito

Politics is a show business for ugly people.

mailto: ks91@cornell.edu