Now Reading

[zkom]

Tegmark's Our Mathematical Universe is getting pretty tedious in the second half as he's building straw men that oppose his views with no real counter arguments and then claim that people who don't agree with him are "100% unscientific". He also has little sense of modern philosophy of mathematics or metamathematics. He just skips the theoretical foundations of mathematics pretty much completely. Also a lot of the arguments he says rest on the assumption that there is a Theory of Everything that is mathematical and explains everything. But since we haven't found one yet I think that's a pretty fucking big leap of faith, lol.

Mneh, maybe I still try to get through the book.

[auxien]

^saw Tegmark on a conversation/debate episode of PBS Spacetime a couple months ago. he seems like he’s gone off the deep end into almost hippydippy territory. i think he did some really important real science/math at some point in the past but i am unfamiliar so i’m just blabbering really. said all that to say not surprised by what you’re saying...no one would blame you for not finishing it. but sometimes those out there stances are the most interesting (and obv very often very wrong)

[Cryptowen]

15 minutes ago, zkom said:

claim that people who don't agree with him are "100% unscientific"

not terribly familiar with him or his book but yeah, in general when ppl start doing this sorta shit (or reference "the science" as some sorta unified transcendental validator of whatever the individual happens to be arguing for) i go "nah nope i'm out, friend"

[zkom]

45 minutes ago, auxien said:

^saw Tegmark on a conversation/debate episode of PBS Spacetime a couple months ago. he seems like he’s gone off the deep end into almost hippydippy territory. i think he did some really important real science/math at some point in the past but i am unfamiliar so i’m just blabbering really. said all that to say not surprised by what you’re saying...no one would blame you for not finishing it. but sometimes those out there stances are the most interesting (and obv very often very wrong)

I like reading speculative cosmological stuff, like Wolfram's ideas that reality is actually based on cellular automata which I find interesting but don't believe for a second, lol. But Tegmark is pretty full of himself in the book and comes off as really condescending seeing how little he actually understands mathematics research. I think this review, written by a mathematician, hits the nail on the head, particularly the last paragraph https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jan/31/our-mathematical-universe-max-tegmark-review

[MadameChaos]

I'm reading about 5 books right now, I like to chop and change.

I started reading this after watching My Octopus Teacher, it's pretty good and covers some of the same ground as another book:

Which is interesting but a little dry, lots and lots of comparing the mind to a basic computer and what-not. 

[auxien]

38 minutes ago, zkom said:

I like reading speculative cosmological stuff, like Wolfram's ideas that reality is actually based on cellular automata which I find interesting but don't believe for a second, lol. But Tegmark is pretty full of himself in the book and comes off as really condescending seeing how little he actually understands mathematics research. I think this review, written by a mathematician, hits the nail on the head, particularly the last paragraph https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jan/31/our-mathematical-universe-max-tegmark-review

ha that breakdown of the book makes it sound unbearable to me. any form of multiverse hypotheses, especially the extra complex version he’s saying Tegmark is suggesting, is just ludicrous imo. i’m with you on finding that stuff interesting (jesus fuck that Wolfram shit i’d almost forgotten about it...thanks for giving me a chuckle) but i just can’t entertain it too often these days.

31 minutes ago, MadameChaos said:

I'm reading about 5 books right now, I like to chop and change.

I started reading this after watching My Octopus Teacher, it's pretty good

that is a good one, picked it up last year because like 15 people here recommended it over the last few years lol

[Limo]

1 hour ago, MadameChaos said:

I'm reading about 5 books right now, I like to chop and change.

I started reading this after watching My Octopus Teacher, it's pretty good and covers some of the same ground as another book:

Which is interesting but a little dry, lots and lots of comparing the mind to a basic computer and what-not. 

Loved both of these. The octopus book was obviously fantastic and the mind book really helped make clear that the mind, too, is probably a collection of prefab parts working together. Stephen Pinker was pretty cool before he started talking about things he knows nothing about (history).

 

[Cryptowen]

56 minutes ago, rhmilo said:

Stephen Pinker was pretty cool before he started talking about things he knows nothing about (history).

I've only read some of Pinker's linguistic-related work, which I found to be quite pleasant. But yeah I've noticed that anti-liberals on the left & the right all have it out for the guy. I assume he must have some kind of RIchard Dawkins thing going on, where any time he attempts to step out of his lane & do larger social commentary it's a painful experience

[Limo]

15 hours ago, Cryptowen said:

I assume he must have some kind of RIchard Dawkins thing going on, where any time he attempts to step out of his lane & do larger social commentary it's a painful experience

Yup, very much this. The closing chapter of "The God Delusion" is wonderful, but the rest is just painful to read. Guy doesn't know the first thing of what he's talking about. Such a shame because I love his biology and evolution books.

[Cryptowen]

I think I figured out why I've had a mixed response to Taleb's work - his writing style is often fairly chaotic & random. IE in the space of a single chapter/subsection/paragraph he might drift from fairly dense statistical analysis, to self-helpy musings, to trashtalkin philosophers, to personal anecdotes, to silly jokes involving his made-up characters, etc etc. It made his books feel rather unfocused, but now that I'm consciously aware of the fact, I feel like I can better appreciate the fact that it's almost certainly intentional (seeing as he's mostly writing about chaos & randomness)

I'm reminded of a novel I read 10 years ago: The Dice Man by George Cockcroft. Essentially the premis is that a nondescript man working a restrictive career as a psychiatrist in the early 70s + in the midst of a midlife crisis begins to use dice roles to determine his decisions for every choice that comes up in his life, and that this eventually leads to his life spiraling off in totally unpredictable directions. Also apparently the book itself was written using the same method, ie dice roles to determine plot points & overall tone. This central idea was very interesting to me (still is) - the idea, basically, that by embracing the infinite minute chance variables present in every moment, a person can easily break up the systematic stagnation in their life. But the novel itself was kinda trash

Spoiler

the very first question the main character asks the dice is whether or not he should rape his best friend's wife. Now say what some may about the violent, barely-constrained nature of the male libido, this to me does not at all suggest "a normal man" whose life "gradually goes off the rails", but rather someone who was pretty far gone from the outset.

Now all that to say, maybe 10 years of life perspective would allow me to go back & find more depth in it now, than I did then. Maybe. I dunno. In any event I think Taleb (and Deleuze) gives me what I hoped to get from that book: an actual investigation into the nature of complex systems, and what actual potentialities might be available for utilizing chance.

[Boxus]

Now reading - the extensive and beautifully written text in Disco Elysium

[prdctvsm]

2 hours ago, Cryptowen said:

The Dice Man 

 

[Cryptowen]

it warms my soul to know that afx twin was probably reading the same dumb shit as me at age 19

[Limo]

Thanks to the hype train here I just blasted through vol. 1 of Liu Cixin’s Three Body Problem trilogy.

Normally not much of a SciFi reader but this was great. Lots of technical stuff but most of it was quite fun. The bit where they try to unfold a photon was Lem level hilarious.

Hype is justified. On to book two.

[Nil]

48 minutes ago, rhmilo said:

Thanks to the hype train here I just blasted through vol. 1 of Liu Cixin’s Three Body Problem trilogy.

Normally not much of a SciFi reader but this was great. Lots of technical stuff but most of it was quite fun. The bit where they try to unfold a photon was Lem level hilarious.

Hype is justified. On to book two.

Hehe exactly the same here :)

[Limo]

45 minutes ago, Stickfigger said:

The "Now Reading" thread on WATMM; very enlightening 

Welcome to WATMM. Come for the music, stay for the book recommendations, movie recommendations and tv show recommendations.

 

 

And the grumbling of old people about youngsters these days.

[zkom]

The third book in R.F. Kuang's Poppy War saga was finally released and I'm reading that now for a change. The trilogy is a grimdark fantasy set in a fantasy version of China. Kind of combining the Opium wars, Japanese occupation, Communist revolution, etc all in one fantasy setting where superpowered shamans act as avatars of gods. And by grimdark I mean it's both really grim and dark. Lots of good ol' violence, murder, torture, raping and drug abuse. Major characters killed, traumatized and maimed left and right. So if that's your thing then it's pretty entertaining.

[Cryptowen]

the cloud of unknowing (teaching myself middle english)

wilhelm reich's the function of the orgasm (full disclosure i own multiple chunks of orgonite)

henri bergon's matter & memory (the original french version, too lazy to do the accent marks with my keys tho)

thinking fast & slow (it was on a free stuff shelf. there's some nuggets but dunno if i'll finish it, it feels kinda entry-level tbh & i'm morally wary of these sort of models of consciousness)

i have a pdf of capital as power i'll be starting this week because i'm taking a break from marx but still want stuff in this general realm

[dingformung]

You don't really need to learn Middle English. It would surprise me if you don't already understand it (apart from the occasional weird word).

[Cryptowen]

21 minutes ago, dingformung said:

You don't really need to learn Middle English. It would surprise me if you don't already understand it (apart from the occasional weird word).

yeah it's pretty intuitive so far tbh, especially if i imagine how it would sound out loud. i should clarify: i'm actually trying to learn old english by gradually working my way back to it. i have an old english copy of beowulf & that shit looks like gobblygook. i feel like there must have been some pretty significant linguistic jumps in the, what, 300 or so years between these two texts.

[Limo]

34 minutes ago, dingformung said:

You don't really need to learn Middle English. It would surprise me if you don't already understand it (apart from the occasional weird word).

You and I probably could, but if modern English is your first language it's harder to understand as Middle English is much more Germanic.

Old English is, of course, even more Germanic, but also Old, so modern German or Dutch won't help you there.

[Limo]

2 hours ago, dingformung said:

Yeah, the roman invasion already introduced a bunch of new words and changed the writing system from runes to latin based Old English letters. And the Norman conquest fucked it up totally.

Interesting. Do you have a source for this?

As far as I know Old English is the language of the Anglo Saxon invaders - who came in *after* the Romans had left.

[Braintree]

I started reading Working Class History: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/products/working-class-history-everyday-acts-resistance-rebellion-book

It's basically a calendar-style book that has a couple entries for each day of the year, giving a brief description of an event (protests, massacres, birth dates of notable people) in the history of the working class. Pretty interesting so far, as much of that history isn't in text books or easily available to people that aren't scholars.

[dingformung]

6 hours ago, rhmilo said:

Interesting. Do you have a source for this?

As far as I know Old English is the language of the Anglo Saxon invaders - who came in *after* the Romans had left.

Yeah, I totally mixed that up out of pure ignorance. What I thought was memory was a mere product of my imagination . Apparently Celtic runes were replaced by Latin letters through the Romans and the Germanic peoples who invaded Britain later continued using them but with a delay of a couple of hundred years, and mostly used Anglo-Frisian runes until then.

[luke viia]

Just read PKD's VALIS in one sitting (okay, two - started on Monday and got about 50 pages in). What a great book. I feel kinda dizzy.