Just a brief update...
Well, this big ol' book is a bit of a disappointment so far. Halfway through, and there's hardly a highlight worth highlighting.
But I am nevertheless determined to finish it, because there's a deeper principle involved: that the next book hasn't yet arrived in my mailbox.
Or in other words, while the author's mind goes a mile an hour, the Post Office is even slower.
Turns out the book is an extremely fine-grained look at the entire history of philosophy, with every obscure nook & cranium getting a moment in the sun. I now know more than I want or need to know about the Presocratics, the Stoics, the Epicureans, and the Neoplatonists, and although I've finally made it to Thomas Aquinas, now I'm afraid to leave him behind and venture into modernity. Save us from the Enlightenment!
One has only so much memory, and besides, Bob has never pretended to be a scholar so he has no use for all this historical trivia. Rather, Bob pretends to be a __________, a _________, even an unalloyed _________!
Just give me your bottom line take. I don't really care how you got there. For example, there are philosophers who deny the existence of free will. Good. That means I can ignore them.
Likewise there are philosophers who deny essences, or don't believe language has an external referent, or insist that natural selection is a sufficient explanation of humanness. Thanks for the warning!
It's not even Brandolini's Law ("the amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude larger than to produce it"), rather, just Dávila's Admonition:
A few lines are enough to demonstrate a truth. Not even a library is enough to refute an error.
Moreover, as we tell nearly every troll, we were once leftists too, and there but for the grace of being odd did we leave it below:
Let us say frankly to our opponent that we do not share his ideas because we understand them and that he does not share ours because he does not understand them.
So,
Engaging in dialogue with those who do not share our assumptions is nothing more than a stupid way to kill time.
In short, life is short, and there will never be sufficient time to respond to every quibble of every assoul.
Besides, this is in fact a LAWFUL cosmos, and here are some of our favorites, courtesy of Señor D:
The doctrines that explain the higher by means of the lower are appendices of a magician’s rule book.
Either God or chance: all other terms are disguises for one or the other.
Well, this book had better be building up to something big.
16 comments:
Well, this book had better be building up to something big.
If nothing else, it could probably serve as a good doorstop or brick. Firestarter supply, maybe? Or improvised weapon - nobody expects a beatdown with a heavy tome...
I finally had to quit. It was making me feel dead.
Oof. Hate when the happens. I've stopped a lot of books because they didn't grab me for whatever reason, but haven't encountered real deadness since reading college textbooks. Life is just too short for that nonsense.
Thanks for being the canary in the coal mine with these books ;)
Weren't you the one that said most books should be able to say what they need to under a 100 pages? I sort of think that's true the older I get.
I would say two to three hundred pages, depending on the subject. Aphorisms, each one a gem:
--The fewer adjectives we waste, the more difficult it is to lie.
--Write concisely, so as to finish before making the reader sick.
--Write concisely in order to finish before you become boring.
--Wordiness is not an excess of words, but a dearth of ideas.
--Only ideas save us from adjectives.
--The idea that does not win over in twenty lines does not win over in two thousand pages.
--Clarity is the virtue of a man who does not lack confidence in what he says.
--He who wishes to influence is prolix. Brevity is an indication of respect for the reader.
--The writer who has not tortured his sentences tortures his reader.
--The deluded are prolix.
All goes to explain why good memes are so effective.
The aphorisms you posted could have been utilized as supporting arguments in Spencer Johnson's book One Minute Manager. And there are only the two choices, God, or chance. Choose wisely.
Simple talent is to literature what good intentions are to conduct.
There are never too many writers, only too many people who write.
In the writer of today the knowledge of man is not more profound than in previous writers, but merely more verbose.
To write for posterity is not to worry whether they will read us tomorrow. It is to aspire to a certain quality of writing. Even if no one reads us.
Last night I had a realistic dream that I'd undergone a head transplant. Or at least it passed for realistic in the dream. In real life it probably wouldn't have been as matter-of-fact.
For example, I was impressed with my thick new eyebrows, but a bit disconcerted as to what became of the old head -- did they just toss it in the trash, and did it merit a proper burial?
Eyebrows?
I don't know why, that just strikes me as funny. Then again, having a whole new head would be pretty strange, I don't know what I'd focus on first.
I don't know what I'd focus on first.
A new hat? Crazy dream, Gagdad.
If I were to get a new head hopefully this time I get one with a full head of hair. :-)
My new hair was impressively thick. Also, during the dream, I began to wonder if it had been a head transplant or merely a face transplant. I thought to myself, "I still feel like me, so I must be entirely separate from the brain." Then I thought, perhaps my face will begin to resemble the old one because of the persistence of the soul.
My favorite postscript, "Sorry this letter is so long; I didn't have time to make it shorter."
"...although I've finally made it to Thomas Aquinas, now I'm afraid to leave him behind and venture into modernity."
Wise. It's best not to rush in where angels fear to tread. Of course... we're here... and it's all around us... but still. As Dávila noted:
"A few lines are enough to demonstrate a truth. Not even a library is enough to refute an error."
, especially as that library is there to prove that their error is the truth they deny can be known.
Sigh.
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