Questions That Don't Deserve Their Own Thread thread

Let's get one of these up...

My question may not be explicitly literary, but I am curious if anyone can parse what I mean, and point me to some writing that talks about it. Is there anything to the idea that being conscious in this time, when our Earthly human population is at an all-time-high, that it means that the future "must" not have as high of a populace? More grimly, does being alive NOW possibly indicate that you could not be alive in the future? Philosophical, maybe nonsense, I know... But maybe someone more literary than I can point me to someone who articulated this in a better way, and expounded on it?

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>Is there anything to the idea that being conscious in this time, when our Earthly human population is at an all-time-high, that it means that the future "must" not have as high of a populace?
The population increases every day, so I don't think this is right at all.

More grimly, does being alive NOW possibly indicate that you could not be alive in the future?
Every second is the future and I'm still here.

You are likely right, but I wonder this based on the notion that tomorrroooooow won't have more prosperous and larger human race that my consciousness could have been apart of, instead of the present. But these are practically stoner thoughts.

what is the best history of western philosophy book series?
i wonder if that one nietzsche was into is translated into english

What is the absolutely best way to read Aristotle?

If you're not going to post pictures of cute! Twiggy with your posts pls stop tripfagging

I'm still not sure what you mean. Are you saying people in the past weren't conscious? And people in the future won't be either?
Because that is kind of like solipsism (the belief that only you exist)

needa find my folder of pics

There isn't a best way really. The guy wrote on almost every topic. I'd start with Metaphysics and On the Soul though, because it really underlies a lot of his later work.

By keeping an extremely plastic conception of "what Aristotle meant," so that you can read progressively more complex attempts to understand Aristotle's thought, and use them to expand your own interpretation until you are able to have an authentic encounter with the Greeks.

Also by being extremely mindful that Greek philosophy was the FIRST attempt at a systematic study of "what there is" in general, in the Western tradition, maybe in human history. What this means in practice is that every single foundational principle of the inquiry, every swerve of thought or assumption taken for granted, will disproportionately structure the inquiry and all culture and thought FOUNDED on that inquiry (read: the entirety of Western science and philosophy since Aristotle).


Read something easy and relatively systematic first (I always recommend Rist's Mind of Aristotle), a base for reference and subsequent understanding. Then read Aristotle, with an eye to ambiguities not only in the writing (and therefore the historical reception of the writing) but in Aristotle's own thought and the other possibilities of his thought that he DIDN'T take. Ultimately you probably want to read several cutting-edge approaches to the Greek Weltanschauung, informed by Heidegger's reading of Greek thought and Aristotle in particular.

Plato and Aristotle become most exciting when you reach the point that you can fully appreciate how "raw" their encounter with Being is - no other philosophers in the Western tradition have been so free to apprehend Nature or Life itself so cleanly. When you first understand the rawness of that encounter, you see them with new eyes and want to rush back and read them for the first time, because you can actually understand what's at stake. Most philosophy is incestuous, weighed down by and oriented toward tradition even when it's original or innovative, but Greek philosophy is something else.

No, just likelihood of me being conscious. I'm not saying people in the past weren't conscious, I wasn't conscious then BECAUSE it was harder to be born back then. Might mean the same about the future.

My friend gifted me a copy of World Without End. Can I read it without having read Pillars of the Earth first? It's such a long read by itself...

With your eyes closed.

Just finished the tale of Beren and Luthien in the Silmarillion. In one part, Luthien Grows her hair and uses that as rope to escape from her imprisonment which is an obvious allusion to Rapunzel.

My question is why Tolkien included this theme at all? I mean it's not as if there's a shortage of ideas one could have used in place of that part of the story, so there must be concepts brought into the story through that allusion.

Was he simply including it as a sort of metaphor about the underlying archetypes or something?

I've gotten interested in political philosophy. What are the must reads in that area?

Is there such thing as 'proper reading posture,' or is it solely a matter of comfort? For example, I've found that I read faster sitting in a chair, craned over a book on a table (as opposed to book in arms, or lying in bed), but I feel like I'm asking for physical problems in the future. Is this an actual issue, or am I retarded?

I believe the regular posture of straight back, squared hips and shoulders, but that the book should be just below your chin. I find reading a book with my head straight and the book just below chin-level pretty uncomfortable.

No, you're not retarded. If you do yoga or some other stretching excercises that work towards constantly correcting bad posture that might develop then you'll be better off.

Whatever position you decide to settle in, a straight back is ideal . It's the slump that one develops that begins to be and issue, or herniated disk'.

Yes, the book stands on its own. Pillars of Earth is a better though (imo)

Where can I find books for cheap online?
All I know of is HamiltonBooks.

How can I know if the print is good when I order some hardback online?

You can't.
If there's cheap delivery to you online, you probably live in a country where you can find cheap books in bookstores and used bookstores already.

What're some good translates of Molière, Corneille, and Racine?

Suppose I'm writing a fairly straight-forward science fiction novel with all the regular tropes like space ships and aliens and shit. Until a certain point, the only indication that the universe is not a straight-forward sci-fi universe is a throwaway comment about Character X coming from the "Independent Micro-nation of Larchtree."

Would it be too weird if it turned out the missing Fleet Admiral that suddenly disappeared during the interplanetary war 8 years ago has been hiding under everyone's noses the entire time, and is, in fact, the mess-hall dog and unofficial mascot of the crew of the ESS Ptolemaeus V space ship?

Or is random animal transformation going to be too weird.

Keeping in mind that animal transformation is a regular occurrence in the Independent Micro-nation of Larchtree, were you to read a different and mostly unrelated work set 2000 years earlier.

Thanks

How is that concept not science fiction?

I didn't mean it so confrontationally, it sounds within the realm of scifi to mean. And so not weird.

Is it racist to say blacks are inferior to whites in regard to intelligence? Pic is from a university website. Definition of inferior: lower in rank, status, or quality. So, by definition, blacks are literally inferior to whites in IQ scores. IQ scores of course measure intelligence, thus blacks being inferior to whites in regard to intelligence is a statistical fact. I ask this because I was banned before for "racism" when I stated this statistical fact before, and yes, it was relevant to the OP.

Maybe just read a textbook on statistics and probability or something. Your reasoning is something along the lines of:
>1. Throughout all time, the total number of humans ever to have lived will be finite.
>2. My consciousness manifests in only one human throughout all time.
>3. My consciousness has an equal chance of manifesting in any human throughout all time.
>4. My manifestation at this current moment means there is a high probability of manifesting in this era - i.e. there are a large number of humans born in this era.
>5. Given the low probability of manifesting in previous eras, and 4. means there must be a low probability of manifesting in future eras.
>6. Therefore the human population will decrease in the future.
?
I think 4. is the biggest weak point in the argument. Getting a particular outcome once says nothing about it's probability. The winning lottery combination was just as unlikely as all the rest, but it still happened. That's never mind the philosophy of mind stuff too.

If you're interest, there's a vaguely similar line of reasoning used by Bostrom to argue we're living in a computer simulation.
simulation-argument.com/simulation.pdf

You're right in your conclusion. But you should never expect to say it out lound and not be attacked.

"statistical fact" is an oximoron. The problem with that is that we know the distribution but not the cause that generated it. It may be that black people have genetically a lower iq than caucasians, but that as to be proven scientifically. Correlation doesn't imply causation.

I personally think that social factor have a much bigger influence in that than genetics.

Number 5 is complete bullshit

Should I read whole philosophy books? It's starting to really bother me that I never finished Aristotle's Metaphysics, Plotinus' Enneads, and Descartes' First Philosophy.

Thanks, this pretty much spells out what I was thinking; there's some finite quality of consciousnesses and probability was determined by my having consciousness in this era. It isn't very sound, but I was intrigued none the less!

...

I remember a lot of people posted about this when it released. I'[m considering buying it. Was anyone able to actually get through it? Was it enjoyable?

I have heard great things about it.I hear that it's plot is strange, but mechanically it is ambitious and interesting. I love Alan Moore, but I haven't read that yet.

What are the best responses to Rawls/Nozick's contract theories (e.g. modern liberalism vs libertarianism)?

From browsing here and searching other sites, it doesn't look like there have been any major leaps since the 70s.

Yeah, it would follow if:
>4. My manifestation at this current moment means there is a highest probability of manifesting in this era - i.e. there are a large number of humans born in this era.
>high --> highest
then
>5. The peak probability in the current era means low probability in the future.
It still fails at 4. though because you can never know about the probability. If you did, you'd know the total number of humans ever to live, and then you'd likely know whether the population reduces in the future anyway.

What are those tropes that tell you when a book's targeted audience are women?

Aside from romance ofc

How is this? I just bought it

Any good books on Zen Buddhism? I'd like to read an introduction and then a more thorough work.

I posted this in another thread, but figure it can fit here, too:

I just started Infinite Meme yesterday. Can somebody explain the bit with Marathe & Steeply/put that scene into terms a retard can understand?
>Pretending to pretend to pretend to pretend to pretend to pretend to

I've got a question:
Can I read Kant's Critique of Pure Reason and Heidegger's Being and Time by themselves, or do I need to read something before those?
I study literature and linguistics, and I think they may be useful for the future. I've read Kant's Critique of Judgement and I understood it and enjoyed it and things about Heidegger, and I want to know how should I tackle those big tomes.

are any of Harold Bloom's books actually worth reading.

`He was a faggot

Many of them are, but take the following into account: he likes to go over the top or declare absolute statements, so you ought to have a critical eye whilst reading him.
Bearing that in mind The Western Canon or Shakespeare, The Invention of the Human, as examples, are really interesting and actually pretty insightful when you consider what I said above.

The random and unexplained were-dog in a setting where supernatural elements are regularly witnessed.

why does the new lcd soundsystem album suck so bad?

luckily the new Hercules & Love Affair album goes hard af

why no gf

is there any hope for the ASOIAF series

book series obviously

I just finished Paradise Lost. Should I read the much less know, shorter sequel Paradise Regained or just go straight to the Divine Comedy?

How come Paradise Regained is so lesser known/praised?
Also finished Something Wicked This Way Comes, anyone else read it? I don't like science fiction generally but that title drew me in, I love it

Nozick is fairly easy to attack because (as he readily admits) he doesn't have a principle of restitution which his theory requires and it's quite obvious that a satisfactory principle could never be formulated/implemented.

Rawls is a little harder but I think that people have picked up on the fact that the veil of ignorance creates an unrealisted idea of self which no one would really be able to work from. He requires a Kantian ideal of personhood which many would reject.

They're both major philosophical watersheds that a lot of people started with, so objectively and historically speaking yeah you can read them without needing to read the medieval scholastics or anything

But in practice of course the more generally familiar you are with their terminology and points of reference the better off you'll be

For Kant, use the new Guyer translation and read the itnro, and the Guyer-edited Cambridge companions to the Critique + Kant generally.

For Heidegger, google Dreyfus' Being and Time course at Berkeley and use the lectures on archive.org and the syllabus at Berkeley's course website. He recommends a lot of good introductory works as well, glossing them in the first lecture, so you should have everything you need.

Most likely in more recent editions Paradise Lost/Regained have been combined into one volume and you didn't even know it. Also you should have read Dante first :^)

Don't read poetry in translation you fat american

It is racist, but that doesn't mean you're wrong.

It is racist, just not wrong. If you want to push this idea I would steel yourself against the tides of criticism such as

>Measuring the IQ of races isn't even a valid scientific inquiry
>Races aren't real
>IQ isn't a valid or reliable measurement.
>Any study that determined IQ is connected to race was bias by the racist leanings of the author to begin with, because only a racist would examine such a question
>So you're admitting Asians and Jews are smarter than?
>IQ differences between races exist, but are wholly socially constructed, see this evidence showing IQ and socioeconomic status are strongly correlated
> I'm going to tell your friends, family, significant other, employer, and general public that you're a racist. Because of this, you can't be rational, because a rational person would avoid this shaming, thus making you irrational, thus not worth listening to.

At the end of the day society would be significantly less retarded, and ironically less racist, if people actually realised what racial differences were. Currently people blame easily explained racial differences on shit like the collective discriminatory actions of one racial group while believing this makes them anti-racists when it's no less racist than the actual truth. However, what they're believing is a lie so it's worse.

Any good horror novels/series for someone who can barely read? I'm either half retarded or dyslexic but I want to get into lit and I love horror.

M.R. James' short ghost stories?

Algernon Blackwood's Wendigo/Willows?

Are cruiser boards Veeky Forums?

Number four is just completely and egregiously wrong. It's actually kind of stunning how wrong it is. You have no grasp of how probability works or what it is.

>Odyssey
>Illiad
>Bible
>Shakespeare

Can I just watch a video summary of these or do I have to read them? They're a bore but are essential if I want to better understand classic literature.

t. brainlet