91–100 of 337 posts
For my part, one of the most striking things which I recall from my youth was reading Dumas' _The Count of Monte Cristo_ and the Abbé Faria contending that everything a gentleman needed to make his way in life was contained in less than 100 books --- which he had memorized the content of, and could impart to the young Edmond Dantes. A naïve younger me tried to brute force this by reading one non-fiction book from eac…
How to: Read lots of non-fiction. Whatever interests you. Try to find overlap over the different interests. Try to find new thoughts there. You might be the first to find them. Assume everything you know is wrong. It's generally true of >50%. Hard is best, too hard is bad, too easy is bad.
And I truly honestly mean this comment to be more of a thoughtful contribution than my high level of snark makes it sound.
> In August 2018, in the last month of my three-month sabbatical, I arrived at the Hamta village in Himachal Pradesh. I rented a one-room cottage, and my caretakers were Dolma Aunty and Kalzang Uncle, a couple well into their 70’s. I got to this part and realized: I've read this article before in some form. It's a really common trope to head out to some remote area of Asia and admire how happy people are. There's oft…
For what it's worth, I had something of a similar experience, but it was in a plywood shack on a desert island off the coast of California.
> In August 2018, in the last month of my three-month sabbatical, I arrived at the Hamta village in Himachal Pradesh. I rented a one-room cottage, and my caretakers were Dolma Aunty and Kalzang Uncle, a couple well into their 70’s. I got to this part and realized: I've read this article before in some form. It's a really common trope to head out to some remote area of Asia and admire how happy people are. There's oft…
I think you're moralizing over a pretty bland bit of psychology: people need to be shaken from their frame of reference to see different parts of the world. Even if they exist next door. For many Americans, Appalachia will be too close to home to force off the blinders.
I've flown all over the US for work, and in every location found the same exact city. It's hard to take away someone's footing when they feel at home. OTOH, the preconditions that gave me many life broadening experiences within 100 miles of a single US city are not available to everyone.
Assigning someone internal character traits so that their external practice of respectful travel can still be judged is cruel.
This is a little meandering so just to focus on one part: Philosophy can be valuable, but applying the ideas meaningfully requires discernment. I’m thinking particularly about the popularity of “Meditations”, for example. Take Plato, for example: He and his also-famous mentor believed knowledge was a form of recollection from past lives, an idea illustrated with an unconvincing geometry lesson in Phaedo (EDIT: It’s M…
Philosophy isn't a set of ideas or texts. It's a practice.
Just because you can prove mathematically that most link chains "end" at "philosophy" doesn't mean that's the end you should end up at. I spend at least 2 nights a week just reading links through wikipedia as I'm falling asleep, and I almost inevitably end up at languages and cultures or historical events that I knew little about. Philosophy isn't an end, and it's pretty meaningless without some stone cold knowledge…
personally I believe that philosophy helps to "compress" more knowledge about the world into "less" knowledge by shifting quantity of data into difficulty from advanced conceptual abstractions
Thank you.
I tried this for awhile, but was dissatisfied. I found myself a constant consumer of intellectual material instead of being an engaged participant. Once I realized that, I set course to become more of a producer of useful things. That's led me to woodworking, to running a consultancy, to producing AI/ML for nonprofits, and to writing academic works. All in all, I enjoy life substantially.
I've been trying to create/produce more but I'm stuck in the consumption mindset. I can't think of what to create. How did you decide what useful things to produce?
See someone else make something, try to do it yourself. Sometimes you get something nice, sometimes you have fun and then throw away the worthless object.
There are a few danger signs to watch out for. Don't get caught up in learning how - you can spend the rest of your life watching "how to make a guitar" videos and never build anything. You can spend a lot of money on tools, or think you cannot do something for lack of tools - for the first one figure out how to use minimal tools (not zero!) so you don't get invested in a hobby you turn out not to enjoy - the big bucks should be only after you are sure the hobby and the tool is for you. You can start with a project too complex - start with small projects you can get done - take on the complex ones only after you are sure this hobby is for you.
Question for you: does creating mean building something? Do you count playing music as creating? What about art? What about dancing? There is no right answer to these questions except whatever you decide.
> In August 2018, in the last month of my three-month sabbatical, I arrived at the Hamta village in Himachal Pradesh. I rented a one-room cottage, and my caretakers were Dolma Aunty and Kalzang Uncle, a couple well into their 70’s. I got to this part and realized: I've read this article before in some form. It's a really common trope to head out to some remote area of Asia and admire how happy people are. There's oft…
It’s a common trope among urban Indians. They’re enamoured by the simple and rustic living of the villages and think of them as noble savages. I grew up in rural India and I always recommend people to read Dr. Ambedkar’s rights on this subject.
Just because you can prove mathematically that most link chains "end" at "philosophy" doesn't mean that's the end you should end up at. I spend at least 2 nights a week just reading links through wikipedia as I'm falling asleep, and I almost inevitably end up at languages and cultures or historical events that I knew little about. Philosophy isn't an end, and it's pretty meaningless without some stone cold knowledge…
Nothing ends at philosophy. They reach there, but they can reach lots of different places. Without scrolling on philosophy I can see more than 50 other links from that page that are thus reachable from anywhere by at most one more step. Pick a random thing and see if it is reachable from anywhere. A lot of them are. I suspect most are, but I don't know how to run this study (other than a brute force algorithm that wi…