What are you currently reading?

[DavidRoss]

[bwv 1080]

First book I have read by Sears, so far I am thinking he is the best contemporary writer on the war between the states

[drogulus]

THOMAS S. KUHN:        "The Structure of scientific revolutions"

One of the most important and influential books of the 20th century. Kuhn rejects the idea that science proceeds by accumulation of knowledge, but, instead, in some ways like Art's history, by ruptures, deep changes of pattern or paradigm.

     There's less there than meets the eye. When you increase knowledge you have to rearrange it into "new paradigms". The best approach is through Quine's "web of belief". We're talking about epistemic problems, not things changing. Knowledge is a collection of models organized into theories, not a complete picture that duplicates the world. I suppose you could say that the belief that there's a world is metaphysical (and indeed there's no test for it), which is not to say there isn't one. Nothing, so far as I can tell, says that.

     This quote from Quine is legendary:

     As an empiricist I continue to think of the conceptual scheme of science as a tool, ultimately, for predicting future experience in the light of past experience. Physical objects are conceptually imported into the situation as convenient intermediaries -- not by definition in terms of experience, but simply as irreducible posits comparable, epistemologically, to the gods of Homer. Let me interject that for my part I do, qua lay physicist, believe in physical objects and not in Homer's gods; and I consider it a scientific error to believe otherwise. But in point of epistemological footing the physical objects and the gods differ only in degree and not in kind. Both sorts of entities enter our conception only as cultural posits. The myth of physical objects is epistemologically superior to most in that it has proved more efficacious than other myths as a device for working a manageable structure into the flux of experience.

     

[DavidRoss]

     There's less there than meets the eye. When you increase knowledge you have to rearrange it into "new paradigms". The best approach is through Quine's "web of belief". We're talking about epistemic problems, not things changing. Knowledge is a collection of models organized into theories, not a complete picture that duplicates the world. I suppose you could say that the belief that there's a world is metaphysical (and indeed there's no test for it), which is not to say there isn't one. Nothing, so far as I can tell, says that.

     This quote from Quine is legendary:

     As an empiricist I continue to think of the conceptual scheme of science as a tool, ultimately, for predicting future experience in the light of past experience. Physical objects are conceptually imported into the situation as convenient intermediaries -- not by definition in terms of experience, but simply as irreducible posits comparable, epistemologically, to the gods of Homer. Let me interject that for my part I do, qua lay physicist, believe in physical objects and not in Homer's gods; and I consider it a scientific error to believe otherwise. But in point of epistemological footing the physical objects and the gods differ only in degree and not in kind. Both sorts of entities enter our conception only as cultural posits. The myth of physical objects is epistemologically superior to most in that it has proved more efficacious than other myths as a device for working a manageable structure into the flux of experience.

Kuhn's Structure is one of the seminal books of the last century.  Without understanding it, you are not culturally literate.

Quine's statement that knowledge of physical objects differs only in degree and not kind from knowledge of Homer's gods, that both are naught but cultural constructs, is a splendid example of the limitations of intellect and the ridiculousness of intellectualism.  Well do I recall a lecture by him about thirty years ago in which he simply dismissed the mind-body problem with a statement to the effect that present research left no doubt that mental states would soon be understood as nothing more than manifestations of material processes.  End of story.  Two thousand years of inquiry dismissed by a statement of faith differing neither in kind nor degree from a kindergartener's statement of faith that if he wished hard enough while blowing out candles on a birthday cake, he would soon get a pony! 

[greg]

Not sure if I mentioned that I finished Slaughterhouse-Five... overall, I liked it.

I've read Part I of Ulysses and don't think that I'll continue for a long time because I just don't understand it. There are study guides and summaries online, but I don't feel like getting into all of that right now, but maybe eventually.

[Brian]

First book I have read by Sears, so far I am thinking he is the best contemporary writer on the war between the states

That's an excellent book.

[Brahmsian]

Lately, I'm into sea adventures (The Perfect Storm, Moby Dick).  Anything else along these lines that anyone can recommend?

Also, what do you guys use as a site that is very useful for book reviews, outside of Amazon?

Merci beaucoup! 

[karlhenning]

Are you done with Moby-Dick, Ray? What do you think?

[MN Dave]

Lately, I'm into sea adventures (The Perfect Storm, Moby Dick).  Anything else along these lines that anyone can recommend?

Also, what do you guys use as a site that is very useful for book reviews, outside of Amazon?

Merci beaucoup! 

CAPTAIN BLOOD

[Brahmsian]

Are you done with Moby-Dick, Ray? What do you think?

Almost done, Karl.  About 80% done.  Really, really enjoy it.  It is a little tedious at times with all the technical info regarding the whales and whale fishing, but otherwise I think it's excellent! 

[karlhenning]

I do love it, too-much-information and all!

A similarly rich read is Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi, though that may be a shift from your current topic.

[Florestan]

Almost done, Karl.  About 80% done.  Really, really enjoy it.  It is a little tedious at times with all the technical info regarding the whales and whale fishing, but otherwise I think it's excellent! 

Some of these days months I should take it off the shelves for a careful re-reading. 

[bwv 1080]

A very thorough, if not overly meticulous, argument against the possibility of rationalist, top-down constructions of society and against the idea that the social sciences are comparable to the physical sciences

[Florestan]

A very thorough, if not overly meticulous, argument against the possibility of rationalist, top-down constructions of society and against the idea that the social sciences are comparable to the physical sciences

Excellent!

[drogulus]

     

     In which Rama cures phantom limb pain by "amputating" the phantom limb using a mirror box of his own invention.

     

     It started as an experiment to see if patients could visualize their missing limb and stop the pain (the brain decides that the phantom is OK after all and sends a "never mind" signal). It worked for many of them and after practice some of them reported the phantom limb had disappeared as well.

     
     

     Ramachandran says:

     Pain is an opinion on the organism's state of health rather than a mere reflective response to an injury. There is no direct hotline from pain receptors to 'pain centers' in the brain. There is so much interaction between different brain centers, like those concerned with vision and touch, that even the mere visual appearance of an opening fist can actually feed all the way back into the patient's motor and touch pathways, allowing him to feel the fist opening, thereby killing an illusory pain in a nonexistent hand.
     


     

[SonicMan46]

The Grand Design: Strategy and the U.S. Civil War (2010) by Donald Stoker - new book that concentrates on the strategy surrounding the American Civil War rather than a myriad of details on the actual battles (plenty of books on that subject) - about half way through this 400+ page book - quite good and a different discussion from the many that I've read to date - plenty of comments on Amazon HERE for those interested in this subject - 

[MN Dave]

"Thrillers require plot above all else, which makes it all too easy for them to avoid heroes with any depth or believability." -- Justin Cartwright/New York Times

Hm...

[Bogey]

As posted on the sci-fi thread:



Here is a partial synopsis:

A review by Victoria Strauss

In the far future universe of Richard K. Morgan's debut novel Altered Carbon, human consciousness has been digitized. Every human being is implanted at birth with a cortical stack, which records every second, every thought, every experience. If you have the money (or purchase the right insurance policy), you can be brought back to life after you die by the simple expedient of implanting your stack into a new body, a process known as sleeving. The penal system no longer stores live criminals, but only their digital selves. Travelers beam their minds across space via needlecast, and wake up in new sleeves. Wars are fought by troops whose minds are downloaded into bodies on-site -- troops like the Envoy Corps, the enforcement arm of the despotic UN Protectorate, which rules Earth and its colony worlds with an iron fist.

Takeshi Kovacs is a former Envoy. Envoys' specialized training and neurochemical enhancements, designed to make them perfect long-distance warriors and flawless investigators, also place them just this side of psychopathic. Many Envoys, when discharged from the Corps, turn to crime, and Kovacs is no exception. Sentenced on his home planet to more than a century of storage for his part in a brutal heist, Kovacs wakes to find himself in Bay City, Earth, housed in an unfamiliar sleeve. He's been retrieved and hired by industrialist Laurens Bancroft, whose fabulous wealth allows him, among other things, to maintain a clone facility that renders him and his family effectively immortal. Kovacs' assignment: to investigate Bancroft's death in a previous body, which the police have ruled a suicide but which Bancroft is certain was attempted murder.

Sounds kind of Blade Runner-ish, so I am in!

[MN Dave]

The new Fanfare...

And a thriller: THE SHIMMER by David Morrell (it's okay)

[karlhenning]

A chapter in MS., "Betrayed by the Finest Hand." Excellent! Absorbing, abounding in expertly turned phrases, vividly and sensitively depicted characters, thrills, nostalgia.  Rich reading indeed.