Looks good.

That’s the spirit.

@Noble Dust An update:

I’m more than half way through The Manuscript Found in Saragossa and I’m revising my estimation in an upward direction. It’s really great.

Didn't impress me, but it was a long time ago.

I haven’t read any detective novels except for Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Conan Doyle, and Georges Simenon.

It might seem odd but I can’t remember. It was many years ago and I read several in a short span of time, and in my mind they meld into one. The outsider for me is the Long Goodbye. I think Farewell, My Lovely, The High Window, and The Little Sister were great.

Elliot Gould was great and the rest of the cast was very good — T Clark

Including an uncredited early performance by Arnold Schwarzenegger.

I see the book and the film as two entirely different things, both good, but hard to compare. I don’t find the book’s prose to be distracting at all, maybe because I’ve read a lot of Chandler and find it very natural and comfortable. It might be his best, but it’s not my favourite, I think because it’s heavier than his other work, more emotionally revealing, tragic, and dispirited in tone.

Looks fun.

Maybe a bit like that, but it’s better, and as far as I can tell it isn’t just a philosophical parable like Candide.

This is one of the reasons I love reading on Kindle. When I forget exactly who a character is, I can just search for the first instance in the book where the person's role is usually specified. Kindle has really improved the quality of my reading. — T Clark

Yes, I do that a lot.

This looks fascinating. Recommended? Based on what you know of my taste — Noble Dust

It’s 600 pages and I’m 200 pages in. I’m finding it mostly fascinating and enjoyable, but I don’t know if I’d recommend it unreservedly. It’s made up of innumerable nested stories told by different characters one after the other with little in the way of interior reflection from anyone, even the main character, who doesn’t seem to be a normal main character at all, more of an absent centre around which the various stories revolve. Generally it’s not concerned with character so much as diverting and odd events and dramas, like a picaresque novel.

On the other hand it involves zombies, demons and vampires that may or may not be real (I’m not sure yet); bandits and outlaws; encounters and tensions between Christians, Muslims, and Jews (including a couple of Kabbalists); plenty of sex, though never described in detail; and all things Andalusian, Spanish and Southern European.

I’m half expecting it to feel too long in the end. One of the stories I found boring and almost gave up, but I’m glad I didn’t. So far it’s hard to tell if there’s much of an overarching plot and how much the individual stories are contributing to that or whether they’ll just keep on coming and not add up to much. I’ve seen suggestions by critics that it does tie up in the end.

It reminds me a little of Don Quixote, partly because it’s set around the Sierra Morena, and also because of the multiple stories told by different characters, but Don Quixote has a character dynamic at the centre of everything, which is missing from this book.

But it’s too early to tell.

The Manuscript Found in Saragossa by Jan Potocki.

Weird fiction from 1805 by a Polish count who thought he was a werewolf and killed himself with a silver bullet. As one reviewer says on Goodreads, "When there’s lesbian incest demon sex on page 11, you know you’re in for a ride."

Probably Bowie, Tom Waits and Nick Cave too — Tom Storm

Indubitably.

With the amount of data being provided by apps like Spotify and iTunes, along with the development of auto tune, it seems these days that song writing has become ever more of a formula/algorithm and singers are more often selected based on their physical attraction/charm or social standing rather than their raw singing ability.

Does this erode the natural basis for musical talent and authenticity? If anyone can now sing like a professional die to technology, and highly likeable songs are being mass produced like a high volume factory output, do we not see a diminishing impact for those that write songs from the soul, and sing because it's what they were born to do?

Is musical originality dying? Artists certainly are not as rare as they used to be. — Benj96

To me the problem here is that "raw singing ability" is overvalued, such that the unique voices of people who are technically not very good singers become less acceptable to the mainstream. The technology reinforces this. I'm thinking Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Lou Reed.

So there's more to being a good singer than being a good singer. On top of that, there's more to music than the mainstream. I've noticed that when people say music isn't as good as it used to be (including knowledgeable curmudgeons like Rick Beato), they often mean the music in the pop charts. But as @Banno and @Noble Dust implied, music is more than the music industry. The industry, starting with recordings, was built on three-minute songs and, in the seventies and eighties, on albums. That's all more or less moribund, but music will continue. It doesn't make much sense to me to say that music in general gets better or worse.

That said, having been born in the early seventies I sympathize with those who lament the album's decline. Vinyl albums, along with the lore and the mystery (because no internet) were special and wonderful things, and they stimulated many great creative achievements.

But I don't know if we ought to want to get that back again. Things like YouTube seem to have enabled the growth or re-growth of musical community, where there is less distance between performer and audience. In that context, it's good that artists are not as rare as they used to be. So long as they're not slaves to industry, the more musicians the better.

How all these musicians can dedicate themselves to music and still make a living, and whether they should expect to, is another matter.

On the other hand, it is interesting how your wife showed you "Soviet films". I mean, movies which represents how that era looked like. Here in Spain we had something similar in a cinema called "NO-DO". The films were about family topics about Franco's era and most of them were even so far from reality. If one day you watch one (I wish not) you would see they are so eccentric on the reality about middle-class families. Most of them are even available nowadays in a program called "cine de barrio" (it is special and is only available in Saturday) and only older people see them. I remember watching one with my grandmother and laughed at the actors and plot because everything was so forced. — javi2541997

Interesting. From what you say, it seems like those films are not as popular in Spain as Soviet films still are in the ex-Soviet sphere, where they are familiar to all ages, though obviously the nostalgia is a big part of it.

Yep, that was in my list.

Well, I personally think that the quality is not good enough. You mentioned Almodovar's films but even their films are weird and wacky. The problem is not about the availability outside Spain, because if ours films were acceptable, many translators would pay for them. I guess that some cultures are more interesting than others. For example: I see that some users put a lot of films of Kurosawa and Ōzu in this thread and they are "so Japanese" and despite this fact, their movies are over the world and translated in different languages.
I must accept (and this is true) that Japanese culture is more interesting than Spanish one, it is a fact. I understand that for a foreigner could be boring our dramas about politics and territories. — javi2541997

So, the Spanish film industry is small because of a lack of global demand (perhaps even domestic and Hispanic demand in general), and this is because Spanish stuff is less attractive, interesting, or fashionable than, e.g., Japanese stuff.

You might be right, but it doesn’t follow that the proportion of Spanish films that are high quality is lower, only that there will be fewer high quality films coming out of Spain than e.g., Japan, because there are far fewer films being made there.

Personally, I have no real preference when it comes to Spain vs Japan. Feels like I’m as likely to be interested in a Spanish film as a Japanese one.

On the other hand, I do enjoy films from unfamiliar cultures, partly for the novelty. When I met my wife she introduced me to Soviet movies, most of which I hadn’t heard of but which are massively popular in Russia and the other ex-Soviet countries.

Highlights were Kin-dza-dza and Office Romance, the latter partly because there were no subtitles and my wife had to translate, which was fun, but also because it was fascinating to see everyday office life in late 1970s Moscow, in the context of a romantic comedy.

I notice that nobody mentioned a film from Spain. I understand it because our film makers and industry are not good enough compared to America or Asia. — javi2541997

Rather than a lack of quality, it's probably because they're less available to watch outside Spain. A long time ago, the films of Almodovar used to be shown on TV in the UK. More recently, I watched a lot of the Spanish films on Netflix when I was in Spain, if they had English subtitles.

I liked these:

El hoyo
Tiempo compartido
Tarde para la ira
Handia
Errementari

I've included those last two because they were only on Spanish Netflix, though I'm aware they're Basque.

I haven't seen Vacas though.

Blow-Up — Joshs

Have you seen Blow Out from 1980, which Brian De Palma modelled on Blow Up? Another of my favourites.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.- I'm surprised no one has mentioned this — T Clark

One of my favourites too. On another day it might make my top ten.

I've enjoyed these eleven films the most (that I can bring to mind right now):

The Wicker Man
The Truman Show
Pulp Fiction
2001...
Mulholland Drive
Andrei Rublev
12 Angry Men
Taxi Driver
Stalker
Blade Runner
The Long Goodbye

Pleasant enough aye

Then I think there are two ways to look at ownership.

The more general way you seem to want to go is a question about any kind of society, because people will always have personal possessions and at the same time live with other people.

The other way is to look at the distinction I made between personal possessions and private property in the kind of societies we now have. It’s only in capitalist ideology that these are conflated, as if ownership of land and capital is just another form of personal possession.

For the first, more general question, anthropology might shed some light on it. What about this: do what you want with your own stuff (and here this only includes stuff you’re using for yourself) so long as it doesn’t harm anyone else.

What about land? — Mikie

I think it’s important to distinguish between personal possessions and ownership for profit. Everyone should have their own private, spacious shelter, but private ownership of land and buildings to generate rent, or profits from sale, is something else. The latter shouldn’t be possible, the former should be guaranteed for everyone.

EDIT: When Proudhon said that property is theft, he wasn’t talking about your toothbrush.

:up:

Nearing the end of Pynchon’s Against the Day. — Jamal

Finished it. A big fat mess. Recommended.

Next: Stephen Gregory, The Cormorant.

Nearing the end of Pynchon’s Against the Day. The mining tycoon Scarsdale Vibe, at the climax of the Colorado Coalfield War in 1914, gives a speech about workers:

“So of course we use them,” Scarsdale well into what by now was his customary stemwinder, “we harness and sodomize them, photograph their degradation, send them up onto the high iron and down into mines and sewers and killing floors, we set them beneath inhuman loads, we harvest from them their muscle and eyesight and health, leaving them in our kindness a few miserable years of broken gleanings. Of course we do. Why not? They are good for little else. How likely are they to grow to their full manhood, become educated, engender families, further the culture or the race? We take what we can while we may. Look at them—they carry the mark of their absurd fate in plain sight. Their foolish music is about to stop, and it is they who will be caught out, awkwardly, most of them tone-deaf and never to be fully aware, few if any with the sense to leave the game early and seek refuge before it is too late. Perhaps there will not, even by then, be refuge.

“We will buy it all up,” making the expected arm gesture, “all this country. Money speaks, the land listens, where the Anarchist skulked, where the horsethief plied his trade, we fishers of Americans will cast our nets of perfect ten-acre mesh, leveled and varmint-proofed, ready to build on. Where alien muckers and jackers went creeping after their miserable communistic dreams, the good lowland townsfolk will come up by the netful into these hills, clean, industrious, Christian, while we, gazing out over their little vacation bungalows, will dwell in top-dollar palazzos befitting our station, which their mortgage money will be paying to build for us. When the scars of these battles have long faded, and the tailings are covered in bunch-grass and wildflowers, and the coming of the snows is no longer the year’s curse but its promise, awaited eagerly for its influx of moneyed seekers after wintertime recreation, when the shining strands of telpherage have subdued every mountainside, and all is festival and wholesome sport and eugenically-chosen stock, who will be left anymore to remember the jabbering Union scum, the frozen corpses whose names, false in any case, have gone forever unrecorded? who will care that once men fought as if an eight-hour day, a few coins more at the end of the week, were everything, were worth the merciless wind beneath the shabby roof, the tears freezing on a woman’s face worn to dark Indian stupor before its time, the whining of children whose maws were never satisfied, whose future, those who survived, was always to toil for us, to fetch and feed and nurse, to ride the far fences of our properties, to stand watch between us and those who would intrude or question?” He might usefully have taken a look at Foley, attentive back in the shadows. But Scarsdale did not seek out the eyes of his old faithful sidekick. He seldom did anymore. “Anarchism will pass, its race will degenerate into silence, but money will beget money, grow like the bluebells in the meadow, spread and brighten and gather force, and bring low all before it. It is simple. It is inevitable. It has begun.” — Thomas Pynchon

This is the final flourish reminding us that Vibe is the arch-villain, and it’s also a concentrated outpouring of Pynchon’s anger towards capitalism. I’ve found the stuff on US labour conflicts in the book really interesting, because I didn’t know much about it. I’m guessing this history is covered in Howard Zinn’s A People's History of the United States, a book I haven’t read.

As always, we're open to suggestions, but I don't see a reason to change things at the moment. We introduced the Suspended status last year, but we don't have standard criteria for its use.

However, I think it is quite unjust to permanently ban a long-term poster who has contributed well and evenly for most of their TPF travels. — Amity

It has happened many times over the years, both on the old PF and on TPF. It normally doesn't happen without a lot of discussion first, as Hanover has described. But occasionally it does.

I know that this discussion was prompted by the recent banning of Olivier5. In that case I didn't take it to the rest of the staff for discussion. The refusal of moderation, the attitude it was received with, and his suggestion that he be banned for all he cared, are what led directly to the ban. Refusal of moderation has been a reason for such bannings before, e.g., The Great Whatever, who was a high-quality poster who refused to make a small change to his spelling habits.

What 'status' other than 'Banned' would be appropriate?
Suspended account? — Amity

As others have said, we do now have a Suspended user role, but it hasn't been used much.

That is a valid point, I think. It would be better to find a neutral term - "account closed" or some such. Not sure if the software can be tweaked? — unenlightened

I had a look and it seems that we can't change the word. We could assign the user to a custom user role that would prevent them from posting, but I don't think that would be equal to banning, since I think they'd still be able to log in, as I assume they can't do if they've been banned. Alternatively, we could delete the member, while retaining their posts.

But this brings up a question closer to the topic of the thread. If, and when, someone flags a post, thereby reporting it to the moderating team, do we have access to that information, as to who makes the report. — Metaphysician Undercover

We can’t see who flagged a post.

I read some comments to the effect that heated conflict gets the creative juices flowing. I think this is only true in the case where there is an established underlying camaraderie, that won't be damaged by such conflict, an underlying respect and agreement. — Pantagruel

I agree with this. I also think that those comments in favour of heated conflict were based on a basic misunderstanding. Even if there are some people who enjoy that kind of thing, it doesn’t mean it always results in a productive debate, one that is worth anyone else’s while to join or to follow. In fact, abusiveness produces, at the very best, low quality debates that revolve around who misquoted whom, who took the other out of context, and so on.

So as I see it, it’s not just a matter of hurt feelings and thin skins, as those commentators seemed to imply. It’s about how enjoyable, productive, substantive, and welcoming a debate is.

Does this work for anyone? I don't see any way to check or uncheck a category on the Categories page. — SophistiCat

Yeah I think that one's outdated, so I'll remove it.

Instead, if you open a particular category page, at the bottom of the discussion list there is a faint eye icon. Clicking it will toggle the visibility of the category on the All Discussions feed. — SophistiCat

Yep, that's item 12 (soon to be 11).

What thread are you talking about? Is there a link to the examples of the alleged trolling? — Amity

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/13850/why-is-the-hard-problem-of-consciousness-so-hard

I don't think he specified which posts he considered to be trolling. His point was that anyone arguing that the hard problem of consciousness is not actually a problem is trolling and should stop posting. He was at risk of derailing the discussion and turning it into another flame-war, so I deleted the post. This led to him posting the same thing, only worded differently, whereupon I asked him to stop, whereupon he called me an idiot, and so on.

Banned @Olivier5 for persistently attempting to derail a thread with accusations of trolling and so on, refusing to stop when I asked, calling me an idiot and refusing to take it back, and then suggesting I ban him and saying he wouldn't care if I did.

He would disagree with parts of that, but those are my reasons.

Well, if a scientific paradigm has no place in discussions about consciousness, then will everyone please stop going on about neuroscience (the failings thereof) in relation to it. — Isaac

I’m in agreement with a lot of what you’ve said in this discussion, but I think it’s worth pointing out why people do this. I think it’s an understandable reaction to the claims in popular science to the effect that consciousness has been, or will soon be, explained away by neuroscience. That is, a scientism that thereby devalues our stories. Do you recognise that this is a thing?

:up:

will their be an insistence on niceties such as that when someone is mentioned they are linked, and that quotes have an attribution? — Banno

Insistence, no. The Help section is to make it easier for people to find out how to use the site.

Whether people want to use the @ mention functionality is up to them. It’s easy to use and Wayfarer might cover it in his how-to series, but we won’t insist on it in the guidelines.

when the person is Bartricks — Metaphysician Undercover

Normally I consider the celebration of a ban unseemly, but in this case I encourage it.

It appeared to me from looking at his posting history that he was unpleasant to nearly everyone, usually without provocation. Whatever caused this behaviour, it wasn’t you.

Incidentally, he had been warned about it twice, once around the time he joined, and again recently.

Banned @Bartricks for a consistently disruptive and insulting attitude. Long overdue really.

:up:

So the entry in Britannica under Noumenon is wrong? — Wayfarer

Yes and no. They’re certainly not synonymous, as Britannica implies, but things as they are in themselves and noumena are closely related. Both are only thinkable, though some metaphysicians have also claimed that they can be actually apprehended directly, that is, through reason alone.

There’s no substitute for reading the thing, but there are also some good secondary texts.