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How to live an intellectually rich life

utsavmamoria.substack.com

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Re: How to live an intellectually rich life

#321

Post by MarkusQ »

whatnow37373 wrote: post #301
MarkusQ wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dodn't think it's a quote; more a paraphrase of: https://www.loebclassics.com/view/marcus_tullius_cicero-orat...

That’s a very … liberal interpretation. I find it fascinating how many interesting quotes turn out to be fabrications of unknown origin.

I suspect what happened here (and possibly in other similar cases) is that some author glossed a body of work in a way that made sense in context, and others mistook it as a quotation. It's as if I remarked that Isaac Asimov said a lot of prescient things about robots, and people saw that and started quoting it:

> A lot of prescient things about robots.

> -- Issac Asimov

Re: How to live an intellectually rich life

#322

Post by concerndc1tizen »

concerndc1tizen wrote: post #307
sepositus wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But yes, European countries were heavily influenced by communist ideology, which continues to shape our values today, about well-regulated free markets, fair taxation, public service, and so on So this is the first time I've seen well-regulated free markets and fair taxation as being associated with communist ideology. Granted, I'm not well-studied here, but I recall being taught quite the opposite. I did some prel…

I don't remember the original argument anymore. Something about communism being justification for US warmongering. Personally I think 19th century communism was context-specific to the 19th century; we now have AI, and central planning could be done with the same computational efficiency as the stock market. For me, communism is more about fundamental beliefs. Like "Do you believe in Jesus Christ as your savior?", th…

Also, IIUC, China is communist but has a "socialist market economy", so the two are not mutually exclusive.

Re: How to live an intellectually rich life

#323

Post by gen220 »

ivape wrote: post #260
gen220 wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally agree. I think for theological reasons (if your goal is to convince yourself that Jesus is the Messiah of the Abrahamic religions), then it can’t be distilled. However, I do think the abrahamic origin stories (genesis), the tribulations of the Jewish people in Egypt and reception of the Ten Commandments (exodus), and the moral teachings of Christ that replace those commandments (gospels) are more or less se…

I appreciate your points. Morality is what most people want to take away from all of these books, but the thing they want to leave behind is one requirement that God seems to have, and that's straight up obedience. Obedience doesn't really fit inside morality, and in fact if you just distill morality out, obedience won't make it. The Old Testament hammers home the need for obedience to God's laws in story after story…

I appreciate yours! And agreed it’s a fun topic :)

I don’t have much more to add but I’d really recommend you to read Tolstoy’s “Confession / What I Believe”, because I think you’d find it fascinating even if you don’t agree with it completely.

He has a metaphor (in a very Tolstoy-esque way), in which the world is like this bountiful, picturesque farm filled with sharp, durable tools, beasts of burden, rich soil, and so on. It was given to us and filled with people who each have their own slice of it, who eventually grow jealous and guard their slice and think themselves better than everyone else. The garden overflows with weeds, the well runs dry, so on. And then God rolls up and is like “how did you guys manage to mess it up so bad this time??”, fixes everything, and then tries to give us rules to prevent the disarray from occurring again. People start off ok, but then we invent new rules or ignore the existing rules in our own self interest, backslide, rinse and repeat.

Tolstoy’s thesis is basically that we’ve done the same thing to Jesus and the sermon on the mount that the Pharisees did to the Ten Commandments. i.e. constructed all these artifices and dogma that somehow allow Christianity to coexist with authoritarian, hierarchical, violent structures in our own self interests. We’ve let the garden spoil. No wonder the world is biblically messed up :)

Anyways that’s the core thesis but there are many other fascinating ideas in there, I really recommend giving it a try!

Re: How to live an intellectually rich life

#324

Post by ivape »

gen220 wrote: post #323
ivape wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate your points. Morality is what most people want to take away from all of these books, but the thing they want to leave behind is one requirement that God seems to have, and that's straight up obedience. Obedience doesn't really fit inside morality, and in fact if you just distill morality out, obedience won't make it. The Old Testament hammers home the need for obedience to God's laws in story after story…

I appreciate yours! And agreed it’s a fun topic :) I don’t have much more to add but I’d really recommend you to read Tolstoy’s “Confession / What I Believe”, because I think you’d find it fascinating even if you don’t agree with it completely. He has a metaphor (in a very Tolstoy-esque way), in which the world is like this bountiful, picturesque farm filled with sharp, durable tools, beasts of burden, rich soil, and…

Right up my alley (very much aligns with I've been thinking), will absolutely check it out!

Re: How to live an intellectually rich life

#325

Post by andrepd »

lolinder wrote: post #290
andrepd wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm speaking specifically about Western classics (esp. Roman).

Which centuries did you have in mind? In what countries were these purgings? Which authors were purged and by which sects of early Christianity? I ask because "Early Christianity" as a period ends with the First Council of Nicea, and Christians before Nicea were (a) not at all unified and therefore had very different opinions on things like pre-Christian literature and (b) not very politically powerful and therefore…

I'm talking about Christianity from Theodosius up until the high middle ages. So "early Christianity" is indeed not correct.

Re: How to live an intellectually rich life

#326

Post by lolinder »

andrepd wrote: post #325
lolinder wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which centuries did you have in mind? In what countries were these purgings? Which authors were purged and by which sects of early Christianity? I ask because "Early Christianity" as a period ends with the First Council of Nicea, and Christians before Nicea were (a) not at all unified and therefore had very different opinions on things like pre-Christian literature and (b) not very politically powerful and therefore…

I'm talking about Christianity from Theodosius up until the high middle ages. So "early Christianity" is indeed not correct.

And the rest of the questions?

My understanding is that the idea that Christians destroyed vast numbers of ancient texts was heavily exaggerated by anti-Christian polemics during the Enlightenment. There were some isolated instances, but even some of those, like the Library of Alexandria, were much less significant than the polemics assumed. The Library of Alexandria had already largely fallen into ruin and disuse by the time Christians are supposed to have gotten to it, and the works left there had already been copied all over the Mediterranean anyway.

The other problem with this line is that it ignores the enormously important role that Christians had in preserving large numbers of texts. Did they selectively preserve texts while allowing others to disappear to time? Probably. But when each copy has to be transcribed by hand, it's to be expected that what survives is the stuff that the people responsible for preserving texts thought was most important.

It would be very unfair to accuse someone of burning books just because they didn't manually copy everything that had ever been written and instead only copied their favorite texts.

Re: How to live an intellectually rich life

#327

Post by j7ake »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #59
WillAdams wrote: post #32

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…

St John's College is known for their Great Books curriculum - the foundation of their four year program - where students read the primary text of western civilization. It's always held a soft spot in my heart as my own experience was mostly reading derivative descriptions and the rare times when I was able to read a primary text during my coursework were always my happiest memories. 1. https://www.sjc.edu/academic-pr…

Interesting that they don’t consider any eastern cultures to have produced any books worth studying.

Re: How to live an intellectually rich life

#328

Post by uncletaco »

xphos wrote: post #133
kurthr wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trying to learn Newtonian Mechanics from Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica is kinda dumb though. I certainly noticed that it was ineffective in discussing implications with the students. I found Boyle's observations far more effective in teaching science. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophi%C3%A6_Naturalis_Pri...

One issue I have with modern teaching of both Math and Physics though is that they give the "correct" answer to fast which teaches the material and accelerates learning but I think it also leaves a lot of motivations for why certain decisions were come to and how which is important. Recently I've been following long with the Distance Ladder challenge I saw on 3 blue 1 brown with Terence Tao. Going through those quest…

This is how I feel about learning street fighter. On one hand yes I can learn how to do Ed’s dream combo by watching Momochi in tournament then reading a discord message that writes it in numpad notation, but I think it’s equally important to understand what motivated him to sit in training mode and figure it out. What was he trying to achieve other than an optimal combo? What situations was he looking for answers in?

Re: How to live an intellectually rich life

#329

Post by kylecazar »

Balgair wrote: post #293
kylecazar wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure you're familiar with the Harvard Classics (5 foot shelf) and have browsed their volumes? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Classics

You can download them all for free here: https://www.myharvardclassics.com/categories/20120212 The Reading Guide at the bottom of the page is the best way to get into them, I think. It's a daily ~15/20 minute selection. Be aware, it's the book's page number that is referenced, not the .pdf's page number.

Very cool. I actually inherited the collection as part of my dad's library. It's almost complete, missing a few (Elizabethan dramas if I recall). My process has been to periodically pick out a volume and start reading, been doing that for years -- I'll check out the guide. May be time to introduce some methodology.

Re: How to live an intellectually rich life

#330

Post by xphos »

andrepd wrote: post #238
xphos wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One issue I have with modern teaching of both Math and Physics though is that they give the "correct" answer to fast which teaches the material and accelerates learning but I think it also leaves a lot of motivations for why certain decisions were come to and how which is important. Recently I've been following long with the Distance Ladder challenge I saw on 3 blue 1 brown with Terence Tao. Going through those quest…

Hmm but you can (an in fact do, in many physics programs) follow the historical development of theories using modern textbooks. The pedagogical value is in understanding, not exactly in wading through the archaic language and the confused early papers. Even for modern theories like general relativity people study by textbooks written many decades after the fact, with a clear picture after things were settled, and not…

Absolutely but I think when people are first learning math especially they ask this question, why are we learning things like trig and or logarithms? The answer we give is usually they are important for the future math people learn. That is very uninspiring to students in my opinion (ages 12-18). While its true they will use them in the future those two things were invented to reason about the distance between the sun and the moon, the size of the earth, and other hard questions. Even doing machine tool work you'll quickly develop an appreciation for trig if you are doing any time of manual machining.

Logarithms were used percisely because they made long tedious multplication and division into simple additiona and subtraction. That's really valuable if you don't have calculators but when we don't talk about this it makes things feel arbitray. There properties don't stop being useful after we have calculators either but the motivation in my academic career was basically ignored until college (sample size of 1 :( ) but I think its something that I hear from many many people.

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