And scientists no longer expect any ultimate foundation or certainty for their theories. — bongo fury

This is why I think that solipsism and external world scepticism should be seen as important ideas in intellectual history rather than challenges to face on their own terms. It can be argued that Descartes was well-motivated in his time. Such motivations are no longer felt, so the ideas as expressed today become mere psychological curiosities.

Unfortunately, a noxious personality is much harder to give up than smoking.

Yes, I knew that. At the same time, I also wanted to explain its existence.

Yes, but it exists to gather all the anti-life stuff in one place, so that it can be easily ignored. Until Baden merged them all into this thread, there were at least two or three such active discussions. We've had enough. Containment seems like the best option.

There's nothing like the words of a professional torturer to send you into a peaceful sleep.

I'm told the version with Jonathan Davis is excellent. Don't know about Roy Avers.

In any case, prepare to have no idea what is going on or why. :grin:

I love paper books, but now I find myself tapping on words I want to know the definitions of or get more information on. Turns out that doesn't work. — T Clark

I do that too. Doesn't work for me either :chin:

Sometimes I'll look up a word or place and then go off on a tangent for 15 minutes, looking at maps and photos, following a Wikipedia trail off into the sunset. Love it. — T Clark

Too, I do that too. Attention deficit.

I know of Henry Cow, but haven't listened. Where should I start? — Noble Dust

Not sure it matters with Henry Cow. Legend or Western Culture. But I’m a bit more familiar with solo Fred Frith. Gravity and Traffic Continues are very different but both fantastic.

:up:

I’m sure I’ll read it again. Not right now though. Although I am curious about his other Sun books.

I'm reading The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe — Jamal

Finished it. Brilliant, and in my opinion gets steadily better as you go through the four parts. Sort of Jack Vance plus Nabokov, Borges and Proust. As it happens he was influenced by all of those, and references them pretty openly, though indirectly.

I must say though, I was able to get through it much more easily this (second) time round only because I was reading on an iPad, so I could look things up. Even a regular dictionary isn’t sufficient, because the lexicon makes use of many archaic words, so it was essential to have easy access to the web.

Jamal (mod), is this post ok? — Agent Smith

Of course. Don't play dumb.

Feels more proggy. Some Ian Anderson vibes or something. — Noble Dust

Prog feels like my musical home. I don't know about Ian Anderson; what I hear is the influence of Henry Cow (now that's a weird rabbit hole for you if you don't know them; Fred Frith is one of my favourite musicians).

If we're still trading tracks, this is the Oceansize magnus opus. The ending is profound. — Noble Dust

For some reason I assumed they were American, but I see they're from Manchester, and they were starting up around the time I was living there. I'd never heard of them.

I quite like it and I recognize the artistry, but it does have that solemn, portentous 90s guitar rock sound that I'm not that into. Maybe it'll grow on me. I appreciate learning of their existence.

I like the use of the horns on the first track — Noble Dust

Yeah I think that's one of the things that really attracted me. They did a lot of stuff with bassoon as well. This was the first song of theirs that I heard, one of their best:

How are they connected to Cardiacs? — Noble Dust

The lead guy, Kavus Torabi, was in the Cardiacs in the early 2000s, and Tim Smith of the Cardiacs had produced some of his music in the 1990s I think.

Oceansize is one of my favorite bands. One of their best — Noble Dust

Cool. I especially like the tinkly bit in the middle, and generally the whole thing has a satisfying anthemic quality.

That's cool. Definitely hear the influence.

I never really got into the Cardiacs--I think the vocals put me off--but I do like one of the bands that came out of the Cardiacs, called Knifeworld.

Ok. I defer to your better judgment — Agent Smith

I don’t want your deference. Go read some philosophy.

You've then missed the point of solipsism — Agent Smith

No, I'm guessing you just misinterpreted my use of the phrase "our existence", by which I meant the existence of me, Pie, 180, and everyone else aside from you.

If you really don't see it, then maybe you're not aware of how certain you actually are of our existence. We don't need proof for the things we're most certain of. That's pretty much what certainty is.

I for one am glad that I'm not trapped in your head.

Isn't it quite clear that, in line with solipsism, the only thing we can be certain about is our own self — Agent Smith

So the following wasn't a joke?

if we want absolute 100% certainty, we'll all havta be solipsists — Agent Smith

Great post.

But at least we can trust Tolkien — Cuthbert

Yes, I live in the heart of Mordor so I know it's all true.

I'm having a similar experience right now. I'm reading The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe, in which Wolfe claims that the narrative contained within is his translation of a manuscript that reached him by means of time travel from tens or hundreds of thousands of years in the future, but as far as I can tell there is no evidence for this. Nowhere has he given details about how he found the manuscript, and I can't find any reports about it. I'm forced to conclude that Wolfe made the whole thing up, which surely casts doubt on his reputation.

Agreed.

You can have a smaller or larger slice of the pie, but when it gets to half the pie and beyond, you basically have the pie, minus a slice or two. A slice has to have 2 cut sides and the slice between them. — unenlightened

If buns were pies, rather than small loafs, I'd admit defeat here.

*loaves?

Half a bun is not a slice of bread — unenlightened

Your logic is valid but this premise makes it unsound.

:up:

The worst faulty idea about trade unions is that they are a socialist endeavour promoting socialism.

They aren't, actually. They are just a common sense way to deal with your employer. — ssu

Obviously they can be and have been both.

In 2022 we view it as extravagant, but doubtless it wasn't viewed as such 2,000+ years ago. — Noble Dust

Starting with the Presocratics, Greek philosophers were very sceptical of mythology. Plato (and probably Socrates) thought the ideal republic ought to curtail the teaching of myths.

But maybe I don't know what is meant here by "extravagant".

And no, the idea that it shows us metaphors is just us projecting our modern concepts of poetry and literature unto the past. The metaphor didn't even exist at the time. — Noble Dust

You seem certain of this, but it's a striking claim that doesn't fit with my knowledge. Aristotle wrote about metaphor, and you only have to read the Odyssey to see lots of them. On top of that, it seems that they're deeply ingrained in all languages, hence are not modern.

If you mean metaphor more generally, something more like allegory or symbolism, then I can see that it's much more difficult to disentangle any allegorical interpretation from our own points of reference, but as far as I know it's reasonable to think that allegory played a role, especially because there are obvious examples of explicit allegory in 2,000+ year old texts (the allegory of the cave).

Im surprised its not an unspoken rule. — Yohan

It is. As far as I can tell, Xtrix avoided, or tried to avoid, modding in that thread for this exact reason, but there were no other mods around at the time.

Just on the subject of colour...

I've been reading Color Realism and Color Science and Color Properties and Color Ascriptions: A Relationalist Manifesto. The first one is a good overview of colour realism and its discontents.

The crucial question for me, which I don't think is answered in them, is whether colour relationism implies that perceived objects are not coloured. I think not necessarily, although I can see why some would think so.

Intuitive first step: my brother is a brother despite brother or being a brother being a relational property. The tomato is red despite its colour being a property of the relation between an object and a particular kind of perceiver.

Okay, but I don’t quite see how it follows that it is less susceptible to supremacism than Christianity or Islam. Christianity at least has an anti-supremacist doctrine that can potentially be used to oppose the excesses of the powerful, whereas Shinto’s avoidance of doctrine allows it to go along with anything that respects ritual.

I rather being in Shinto or Asian philosophy side. At least they tend to find an equilibrium or inner peace with nature without impositions. — javi2541997

In the early twentieth century and right up to the 1940s, Shinto apparently did no better than Christianity or Islam in opposing supremacism, ultranationalism, divine dictatorship, and atrocity. It seems like it was part of the whole nasty enterprise.

@ssu attempted to mention @Christoffer but got the wrong username. I wouldn't get involved in this discussion if I were you!

Coming from someone I'm with, just about any kind of request to refrain from smoking would work on me. Coming from a stranger in public, it would depend on the situation. If I were outside I might refuse, but a polite and friendly request would be most likely to work.

I usually vape these days, but people even complain about that sometimes.

:up:

I moved this to where it might elicit more responses. Feel free to move it back to the Lounge if you prefer.

I think of sentimentality as akin to regret but distinguished from regret in that instead of wishing you could travel back in the past to change your errors, you wish you could travel back and relive the romanticized perfection of what once was. It shares with regret the impossibility of correction and so a melancholy. — Hanover

:cry:

That comment sent my mind on a journey in which I explored the role of storytelling in relationships and noted the difficulty in creating satisfying endings in life.

And they both lived happily ever after. The end.

The characters live on in my imagination so I would actually like to read through to the end.

Now I think about it, there was a point when I just stopped reading for a month, from around February 24. Mason & Dixon may well have been the book I was reading at the time. So, blame Putin.

Ah, you never said if you enjoyed Mason & Dixon, did you finish it? — Manuel

It’s an odd thing what happened. I loved it, was totally into it, totally involved and swept up, but with around a hundred pages to go I don’t know what happened, I just dropped it. It was like okay, that was a lot of fun, but it’s boring now and I don’t need to read on.

I’ll likely go back and finish it some time soon though.