Quote from: H on August 04, 2017, 11:33:00 am

Probably something akin to when Akka is telling Cnaiûr about how the soul is a pin-prick through existence:

Quote

Each man, he explained, was a kind of hole in existence, a point where the Outside penetrated the world. He tapped one of the beads with his finger. It broke, staining the surrounding parchment. When the trials of the world broke men, he explained, the Outside leaked into the world.

Very poignant now, post TUC.
Literal outside leaking in - Ajokli - caused by an actual event - circumfixtion.

This thread has really helped me interpret TSA, as I shared Triskele's perplexity over the statements in the "WHCB" prologues concerning Kellhus' "madness". I have been stuck with my real-world view of madness as an inability to function or cope with everyday life (and committing the same error I've accused other readers of committing; namely, reading real-world conditions onto a fictional world). If I've got this right, going mad in Eärwa means being vulnerable to the Outside, which means being vulnerable to possession by the Gods.

I simply post a percentage of links I read here if I think Bakker fans might be interested in. I don't vouch for the argumentative or logical validity therein, titles or otherwise.

Somehow I feel like the three of us have now wasted seconds or minutes of our lives.

Not me. I enjoyed concocting the paradox. So, this "Bakker fan" was "interested ".

Quote from: BeardFisher-King on January 23, 2018, 04:22:49 pm

Quote from: Madness on January 23, 2018, 03:40:26 pm

Your smartphone📱is making you👈 stupid, antisocial 🙅 and unhealthy 😷. So why can't you put it down❔⁉️

Bonus: The Great Attention Heist

Apologies if I've linked this already... Repeat-Madness.

Now I'm flummoxed. Should I click on the links provided by Madness? Or should I just put my phone down?

If the argument is correct, then by clicking through and reading the argument, I would become stupider, since there I am, on my smartphone. But, if the argument is correct, reading the argument should make me smarter.

Quite a paradox, Madness. Kudos!

Use your lap/desktop ... 

That's like using a chainsaw to cut through the Gordian knot!

That's the main trouble though, isn't it? If we think we're special, by definition nothing else can be.

We can think that we are "special" and still recognize the limits of how we are "special". More importantly, we can recognize the implications of our "specialness"

Just as astronomers spent millennia developing maths to explain how stars move around the Earth, because they assumed they were the center.

And yet that assumption was superseded, somehow.

Once you have a hammer, all your problems become nails. There's no guarantee that someone will come along and point out we're wrong, or that we'll listen if they do.

I agree that a larger toolkit is a good idea. That's why I keep banging on about cognitive dualism and the need for (at least) two methods of talking about reality and human nature. The "hammer" of mechanistic materialism is as limited as the "hammer" of faith or of philosophy.

I fully expect us to genocide every species on the planet, and if it comes to it, the Universe, should we continue to believe we are special (especially given how we treat fellow humans).

Just as I feel that an eternal afterlife, and a personal god, drains all meaning from the world, so to does Humanity being special deny us a civil place among the universe. I hope we either learn better, or are exterminated for our folly, before we do irreparable harm.

Well, if you take Cixin Liu's speculative cosmology seriously, the guiding principle of the universe is "Exterminate or be exterminated". His assumption is that humanity is not uniquely genocidal, and that irreparable harm might be inevitable.

Nice post, Wilshire. My main thrust is that humanity can recognize that we have "special" characteristics without reading those characteristics as a free pass to do any damn thing that occurs to us.

Note: I finally figured out how to work the quote tags!

I'm in Bolivar's corner on this debate. Very well said. I'd just note, as did Bolivar, that the existence of a soul (or, to use a term less religiously-charged, a self) and its free agency does not require a divine foundation. Our nature as independent selves arises from our self-consciousness, our ability to use the first-person case, and our ability to look at others as subjects possessing the same abilities as us.

As for free will, if one believes that the only valid method for studying human nature is the mechanistic, cause/effect, reductionist approach of science, then there is no room for free will. Fortunately, there are other valid methods.

Bolivar, that's a beautiful post. You mentioned Catholic music, so I thought I'd add that I sing Gregorian Chant at my church, where we are blessed to attend the traditional Latin Mass.

Good choice, Tao. No Faulkner at all on this list; bad omission. I really like "Absalom, Absalom".  Two books by Kerouac? Two too many, imho, but certainly one would be plenty. At least the Nichomachean Ethics made the cut; surprised the hell out of me.

NFL Playoff Predictions, Championship Weekend:

Bolivar: 1-1
Tao: 1-1
BFK: 0-2
MSJ: 0-2

Totals:

Bolivar: 6-4
Tao: 5-5
BFK: 4-6
MSJ: 3-7

Oh, I'm always reading something, MSJ. I'm just so random; I pick up one book, switch to another book, etc. Not good with lists.

But I have started "The Worm Ouroboros" by E. R. Eddison. Written in 1922, the style is "densely ornamented and deliberately archaic". In fact, its dialogue is very Shakespearian. A most difficult and offputting read.