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moss

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  1. The Man Without Qualities is indeed a fantastic, if daunting, book. A enriching book, too. Just read Megan O' Gieblyn's God, Human, Animal, Machine - a terrific account of the ways in which we think of and relate to technology, especially AI- and Machine learning-related technology. It highlights the theological roots of the concepts and metaphors we use to talk of such things as intelligence, particularly Artificial General Intelligence and the Singularity. In doing so, it also highlights the contemporary order of enchantment, which is crucial because we tend to think of the contemporary world as a world of disenchantment. By presenting our enamorment with tech as a form of disenchantment, we are not only committing transductive error; the book asks "what could the political goals of such a move be?" A thought-provoking read.
  2. It's been so long since I logged in. I haven't been using message boards much since the pandemic struck. Just wanted to stay away from the internet and avoid noise (PS: not saying this forum produces "noise," just referring to the general use of the web.) Looks like it has been quiet here, unless I'm mistaken . Hopefully, this thread will get going again. A number of my favorite books have been mentioned in this thread before (Les Misreables, Anna Karenina, 1984, Old Man and the Sea), so I'll stick to a recent read that turned to be great: Robin Wall Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass (the full title is, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants). It melts the borders between fiction, non-fiction, and memoir, though most stores and sites continue to list this one as a non-fiction book (it is surely that, but not only that). It examines scientific objectivity and its positioning as the ultimate arbiter of knowledge through so-called indigenous epistemology. Very interesting to say the least.
  3. @MisterSwig Thank you. These were the diversifying opinions that i was looking for. Yes perhaps my thoughts about the juvenile nature of this conversation was misplaced. Thanks for your thoughts.
  4. The notes are really detailed. Thank you for sharing them. Some brilliant insights!
  5. Bringing your attention to an interesting conversation and discursive to and fro taking place between Gregory Mankiw and Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson about the need to tear out or not our economics textbooks. Find the to and fro here on Washington Post and here on Mankiw’s blog post titled ‘Not So Fast’. Author of the popular textbook ‘Principles of Macroeconomics’, wrote back stingingly saying that the days of textbooks are far from over. It makes for an interesting read. This stands out to me for multiple reasons: 1. The unprofessional and juvenile behaviour of writing about each other and not writing TO each other, which would be more grown up. 2. The interesting point raised about the obsoleteness of textbooks. I wonder if the time of textbooks is actually over? 3. The politics of fame as a writer. Does a Washington Post columnist tend to have a larger readership than a popular textbook author or is it the other way around? Thoughts?
  6. I'm not sure if this has been mentioned in this thread before: "I Am A Rock" by Simon and Garfunkel. It is not just individualistic, but bitterly so. There's a lot of loneliness and resignation in the song. PS: Sorry for posting in an old thread, but I found the title of this thread really interesting, and it got me thinking about the individualistic songs I may know.
  7. I particularly like the ways in which these are defined--sometimes in a complimentary manner, sometimes in contesting manners. I am interested in two kinds of arguments: (i) the argument that metaphysics and ontology should be considered different strains and (ii) the argument that they are inextricably interrelated, if not the same kind of inquiry. I myself see the two as interlinked modes of inquiry, and I really like Deleuze's approach to the question of ontology,
  8. As for the question of loss, I particularly like Blanchot's approach, as well as George Bataille's. Even Foucault has much to say about loss, drawing much from Greek philosophy. To be more specific, I like how the above mentioned authors explore aspects such as grief, loss, desire, etc. through the lens of what they call limit experience.
  9. I don't think psychologists, analysts, or therapists have focused solely on the transformation from being religious to being atheist. They have addressed this question, but just not as a standalone problem (as far as I know). Moreover, it can be argued that grief is not a necessary or inevitable condition in this context. That is, one may not always require grief to make the full transformation. However, I'm sure you can find much about grief in relation to religion and atheism in many seminal works, especially the works of Lacan, Freud, Fromm, etc. Even literature addresses the conflicts between religious conduct and a free, atheistic life. Hanif Kureishi's The Black Album, structured as a bildungsroman, focuses on this very aspect. It especially draws on the fatwah issued against Salman Rushdie for having published The Satanic Verses. I only mention this work here because literature might be a more useful tool to explore this question (more useful than psychology). This is because literature also focuses on the experience of doubt--that liminal space between faith and renunciation of faith. You can find much about grief in relation to your question in Freud's works, and Lacan's, too, I'm sure. However, the relevant nuggets will mostly be interspersed and quite sparse. Even anthropologists have studied the impact of religion and what it means to renounce faith, not from the individual but from the communal perspective. It might be worthwhile to explore titles such as "Cultural Anthropology: A Perspective on the Human Condition" (10th edition). Anthropology, what with its insistence of field work, provides more concrete, tangible insights. I'm not discrediting psychology, lit, or philosophy; I just think it is best to draw from different, yet interrelated, disciplines to address complex questions such as this one. Sorry for the long post
  10. Hi, there! I'm new here, and my interests include Literature, Epistemology, Metaphysics and Ontology. I'm really glad that I found this forum. Looking forward to interesting comments/conversations. Have a great week, all!
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