|
On September 09 2014 01:48 bookwyrm wrote:
(because an explanation must be smaller than the thing you are explaining, otherwise it's just a tautology)
I don't mean to drag you guys back into your discussion (which seems to have concluded), but Bookwyrm, could you explain this little tid bit? I have an idea of what you're getting at here, but on a practical sort of level, I often feel as though explanations are often LONGER than the thing they attempt to explain. Often you need to provide many examples and almost inscribe a concept by explaining many things that it ISN'T, before someone can understand what it IS (or are we assuming that what something ISN'T is in fact part of its identity?).
Just curious, because I thought that little comment was particularly interesting.
|
Johan Huizinga - Homo Ludens: Vom Ursprung der Kultur im Spiel
![[image loading]](http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348419723l/290953.jpg)
Jean Baudrillard - The Transparency of Evil: Essays on Extreme Phenomena (Radical Thinkers)
![[image loading]](https://www.dukeupress.edu/Assets/Books/978-0-8223-5676-9_pr.jpg)
The Structure of World History: From Modes of Production to Modes of Exchange
I work for once in my life and immediately I spend the surplus money on too many books. agh. :X
|
On September 14 2014 13:11 Fighter wrote:Show nested quote +On September 09 2014 01:48 bookwyrm wrote:
(because an explanation must be smaller than the thing you are explaining, otherwise it's just a tautology) I don't mean to drag you guys back into your discussion (which seems to have concluded), but Bookwyrm, could you explain this little tid bit? I have an idea of what you're getting at here, but on a practical sort of level, I often feel as though explanations are often LONGER than the thing they attempt to explain. Often you need to provide many examples and almost inscribe a concept by explaining many things that it ISN'T, before someone can understand what it IS (or are we assuming that what something ISN'T is in fact part of its identity?). Just curious, because I thought that little comment was particularly interesting.
At the risk of sounding dumb, the way I see it our friend is saying that you can't reduct reality because it is non-linear, and you can't predict events if the system itself is chaotic. Only the system can 'explain' itself.
Also he did said that nonlinear dynamics mean that explanations of reality are larger than reality itself.
-
Reading a fuckload of Nietzsche and brazilian sociology(plus Macunaíma and Memorias de um Sargento de Milícias) for my monography.
|
Haven't followed this thread too closesly in the past few months. Whatchu monographing on? 
|
Surth please let me know what you think of the karatani as I've been eyeing it.
fighter I'll have to respond to you in a few days. What dmnum says is right. Explaining why that is is longer and frankly I don't know how well I can do it. I've studied enough complexity theory to think philosophically about it but I'm hardly an expert in the field itself, I can't even understand the maths
|
While I dont want to start the discussion again, I still dont understand what nonlinearity has to do with reducting (is this even a word?) reality. but anyway, i think fighters question has nothing to do with complex systems etc., but what an explanation actually is.
|
I'm not sure what non linearity is about OTHER than the failure of reductionism I think that's the whole point
|
Has someone read the Star Wars books? What book should I start with?
|
Wow, it's been a LONG time since I read the Star Wars stuff... but for me, Timothy Zahn's "Thrawn" trilogy was the best. His follow up series "Hand of Thrawn" was also pretty good.
|
Show nested quote +On September 15 2014 05:43 Surth wrote:Johan Huizinga - Homo Ludens: Vom Ursprung der Kultur im Spiel Jean Baudrillard - The Transparency of Evil: Essays on Extreme Phenomena (Radical Thinkers) The Structure of World History: From Modes of Production to Modes of Exchange I work for once in my life and immediately I spend the surplus money on too many books. agh. :X
Nice choices and nice find with Karatani.
So I have been listening to Wind Up Bird on audiobook and it taught me that the only way to experience literary phone sex is to listen to it. Holy shit was that experience weird and amazing. I will never look at melting butter the same
|
On September 10 2014 04:43 bookwyrm wrote:
Have you read much Classical Chinese? I don't have any Chinese at all but my impression is that the classical language is a whole nother animal. The Zhuangzi is brilliant though recommend checking it out. For a really nice overview of Classical Chinese philosophy I recommend _Disputers of the Tao_ by Graham
I haven't read too much Classical Chinese, except for some poetry, and you are right about it being like night and day compared to "ordinary" Chinese. Disputers of the Tao, I writing down that book on my to-buy list.
Right now I'm in between two courses and winding down with some fiction. Anybody here who has read Mr Sammler's Planet? I'm only 30 pages in but I'm enjoying it so far.
|
My ex girlfriend loved it but that's all I can say
|
I've decided that Fernand Braudel is a bad motherfucker and required reading. Passed through Berkeley last week so I picked up this stuff at Moe's and I'm going to sit down and power through it
unfortunately I woke up this morning to an email that Wasteland 2 had been released (finally) and so I'm going to have to battle the temptation to get sucked into that...
![[image loading]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/517kcShJgFL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51xcRxWpd9L._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://img2.imagesbn.com/p/9780375703997_p0_v1_s260x420.jpg)
|
Great choice, Braudel's influence in France is huge, inside and outside history.
I've finished Berkeley's Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, which is lots of heinous bullshit with lots of great argument, and Hume's Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, which is tame and boring by comparison :p Pretty funny stuff, I need to get to Locke one of these days. Also thank god for Kant.
I've almost finished an average Zola too, after that I'm gonna try some chine stuff, id est Wu Jingzi's The Scholars, finally got the second tome.
|
![[image loading]](http://www.bookfever.com/book_photos/49847.jpg)
I'm about half-way through now. I don't even know what to say about this so far, it's just such a joy to read.
|
On September 20 2014 01:56 corumjhaelen wrote:
Great choice, Braudel's influence in France is huge, inside and outside history.
yes, since I've been having a crisis in my graduate education I'm trying to figure out what it is I actually want to do. The answer is that it has something to do with thinking like Braudel, only not as a historian but as a philosopher/literary thinker. But that's not a thing you are allowed to want to do. But I have to read Braudel first
@Above: I just drove through vast tracts of California (including Salinas), thinking a lot about Steinbeck and Okies and California and all the rest of it . I've pretty much driven through the whole state now. It's a crazy crazy place.
|
I think what you want to become is a French intellectual :p Learn the language and come over here !
|
Lol I know. Maybe I should. But how would I pay to live in paris? You guys all know English already so I don't know what skills I have  I would have to live there for at least a year before I would be able to follow a seminar I think
it's a good idea though. I need to take some kind of drastic decision in my life because what I'm doing sucks
|
On September 20 2014 02:05 [SuNdae] wrote:I'm about half-way through now. I don't even know what to say about this so far, it's just such a joy to read.
Really enjoyed this when I read it a while back too. Grapes of Wrath seems more popular/renowned but according to Wikipedia, Steinbeck considered East of Eden his Magnum Opus.
I'd recommend "The Good Earth." I read that a long time ago, and even though I don't remember the detailed plots of either book anymore, they both seemed to have a similar lasting impression on me.
|
![[image loading]](http://www.humano.com/assets/CatalogueArticle/32826/caste_metabarons_1_original.jpg)
Reading comics is probably not the best way to learn French, but I guess it is better than nothing This was more or less a random choice at the local library. I have finished the first six parts, and this series is complely crazy. It starts out like a strange Dune clone and then turns weird: patricide, incest, invincible warriors, cyborgs, strange futuristic cults, brain transplantations, time travel, ... Still quite fun, but probably not for everyone.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT![[image loading]](http://pandoxeio.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/homo-ludens.jpg?w=220&h=400)
