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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   2953 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 8, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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So, what are you reading?

I'm still on Korzybski's Science and Sanity. I haven't managed to wrap my head around all the implications of his system, but Korzybski had an interesting project. In his view, the reason why people have not caught up to science is related to our conception of language. I've started adopting the term "semantic reaction" to describe people's understanding or lack of understanding of what underlying structure they are referring to when they speak. God knows I could do better in that regard.

I am reading The Kurt Diemberger Omnibus. Kurt is one of the two people to have ever done the first ascents of two 8000m peaks without oxygen. The other was his climbing partner, the legendary Herman Buhl. This is a story of his life and climbing. I love stories of adventure, of humans operating at the very limits of what is possible, in unforgiving environments. Reading these stories really stokes my own passion for adventure climbing. Hopefully my kidney transplant will happen soon and I can resume my mountaineering activities.

I found a freshly-opened used bookstore this weekend! Picked up

  • The Big Short - since my dad raves about the movie

  • The Future of Conflict in the 1980s - I expect some fascinating and/or hilarious essays, seeing as this was written in 1981

  • Tom Clancy’s Patriot Games and Rainbow Six - because Red October was so much fun

  • Audubon guide to the night sky - I’m slowly collecting more and more of the set ever since I got my grandmother’s copy of the mushroom guide

  • the first Witcher book - out of general curiosity (despite not having any experience with the franchise)

Very cheap. But their organization was terrible. Perhaps that’s just incentive to come back once things are sorted.

Regardless, I’m idly reading the Witcher first. Might be fun.

Should be noted that the first Witcher book is somewhat different from the rest of the franchise, as it is more a collection of stories with Sapkowski riffing on old folk tales. IIRC the second book features that as well, but after that the "main plot" gets going. I mean, the first books are not bad, I'd say I prefer them to the later books with the plot getting convoluted.

So I actually got Blood of Elves and not Last Wish. I have no idea if the previous short stories introduced Triss, Yennefer, Vesimir, Dandilion, Ciri or anyone else with a speaking role in the first few chapters. I just recognize names from Internet discussion. It’s basically started with a hyperbolic time chamber training arc.

The Last Wish introduces Yennifer, Dandelion, Cintra and Ciri's origins as Geralt's child of surprise. The next short story collection, Sword of Destiny, introduces Ciri proper and builds her and Yenn's relationship with Geralt, something Blood of Elves dives into already established. Some of the stories are building the groundwork to the main series like that. I recommend them first not just so you get the important world building, but because they are pretty good on their own. The ending of Sword of Destiny made me tear up, but it should be known that I am a sap. The video games take some of the characters from the stories. Villentretenmerth, for instance, is only in "The Bounds of Reason".

The Big Short

At the risk of straying into culture-war territory, I will also recommend the Financial Crisis Inquiry Report (free; includes separate Democrat, Republican, and libertarian viewpoints) and Hidden in Plain Sight (on Amazon, $10 electronic or $6 paper; an expanded version of the same libertarian viewpoint).

I've been going through 80s pop musician autobiographies. Just finished Andy Taylor's (of Duran Duran Fame) Wild Boy and started Bananarama's Really Saying Something. I'm some ten years too young to have properly appreciated the music back then, so I guess this is my way of trying to get a feel of what it was like. Not that the local Finnish scene would have been even a shadow of London in the 80s anyway (insert only half joking quips about Soviet Finland here...)

If anyone has more suggestions for the genre (80s & pop / pop rock, particularly if British), I'm all ears. I've already gone through Steve Lukather, Dave Stewart, Guy Pratt, John Illsley and Phil Collins.

Why?

Why not?

Just finished The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro, a classic novel about an overly reserved* English butler and his tsundere housekeeper failing to fall in love in the 20s and 30s. Also appeasement. Well written and overall enjoyable. Since the story plays out as a kind of soft tragedy I was surprised that the very ending is cute and a bit optimistic.

*bordering on autistic in the 4chan sense of the word.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by semantic reaction. Is he describing the reflex to bullshit, or is it about the language used to qualify one's statements?

As I understand it, it refers to the response, which is conditional on personal (non-verbal?) meanings applied to an event. An example might be if someone sees a criminal and says "he believes in law and order." A verbalistic/"elementalistic" analysis wouldn't be able to understand how such a semantic reaction is formed.

Though to be honest, Korzybski is quite confusing, so I possibly misunderstood. I just think it's a neat term for the relationship between map and territory (Korzybski coined the phrase) when specifically talking about how people respond to things.

For clarity, it isn't just mismatched reactions, it's any reaction. One of his goals was to teach "extensional" semantic reactions (ie. non-elemental, multi-level) such as more use of words like "I don't know," I have run into some of this in my experiments with E-Prime. I ended up using a lot more of the phrase "I don't know at present" rather than things that let one off the hook like "I'm not sure" (which often implies that I have an idea and knowledge is just around the corner, and does so without explicitly trying to justify that claim).

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