Why wouldn’t a newly dead body have a soul if a rock can have a soul? Now, o know, I k ow, we insisted that soul only applied to living things- but that would be a metabolism, whereas the definition for a soul that was given applies on its own grounds to rocks, and pretty obviously so.

(March 4, 2022 at 10:42 am)emjay Wrote: What do you think of Swann's Way? I started reading that/listening to it as an audiobook a long time ago, based on the recommendation that it was a good book about love, but found it very hard going and gave up about half way through. If I recall correctly (which I might not, it really has been a long time), I found it very heavy going and repetitive its descriptions of the scenery. I understand that that's important for painting a picture with words, but it was still very hard going for me, and not what I really enjoy most about reading books... I prefer dialogue I guess, as a means to move a book along, than descriptions of the surroundings. Basically I found reading Dickens easier, and that's probably saying quite a lot. But still, is that a book you'd recommend revisiting?... indeed in line with, like you say, a measurement of personal growth... ie like with the layers of Plato or any revisiting of ideas, usually there is a change in perspective, so maybe I'd see it different now. Or would you recommend something else?

Swann's Way is the first volume in Proust's enormously long novel. And you're right, it's hard going, repetitive, slow, intentionally boring, with wordy run-on sentences and confusing grammar. It's also a great great work of art. It's way easier than some of the middle volumes, though, like The Captive. That's like punishment. 

When Proust first submitted it to a publisher they asked André Gide to read it and decide whether to accept it or not. He turned it down flat and said that it took fifty pages to describe going to bed and didn't hold his interest. (He later admitted he'd made a mistake.) 

I don't know... It's clearly not everyone's cup of tea (pun intended). Maybe it's one of those things where you get it or you don't, and it doesn't reflect badly on a reader if he doesn't want to put up with it. 

Now that you mention it, I suppose that one element of its greatness is that it makes unique demands on people. Corporate media like Star Trek is designed to flatter and massage the audience, spoon feeding emotions in pre-tested satisfying amounts. So if a book demands that a person change his pace and his type of attention, and sort of re-do how he relates to a thing, it has managed something important. 

Nobody would blame you if you wanted to stick with Dickens, however. Nothing wrong with that.

(March 5, 2022 at 8:33 am)Belacqua Wrote: Corporate media like Star Trek is designed to flatter and massage the audience, spoon feeding emotions in pre-tested satisfying amounts. So if a book demands that a person change his pace and his type of attention, and sort of re-do how he relates to a thing, it has managed something important.

I never really got into Star Trek, so can't comment on what you say specifically about that series. However, what you say here does remind me of the distinction I felt between the Japanese (original) version of Ghost in the Shell and the American version. The Japanese version was very confusing to me, and I didn't know what to make of it when I first watched it, as it felt too artistic and left it to me to figure out the various messages the movie was trying to convey in very subtle ways (this was quite a while ago when I had not been primed to really get into such movies and just wanted some thought-provoking but nevertheless "easy" movie to enjoy). Years later, when the American remake came out, I went to watch it with my partner, and the difference was very clear: the American version made sure I understood all the points they wanted me to take away from the movie, by explicitly stating these points, even when the context implicitly made some of these points clear anyway. At the end, I was basically left feeling meh about it and just made me learn to appreciate the Japanese version more.

This is not to say, of course, that all movies made in America are lame or anything like that. But the kind of artistic and philosophical subtlety you see in foreign movies doesn't seem common enough in American Hollywood.

(March 5, 2022 at 8:33 am)Belacqua Wrote: Corporate media like Star Trek is designed to flatter and massage the audience, spoon feeding emotions in pre-tested satisfying amounts. So if a book demands that a person change his pace and his type of attention, and sort of re-do how he relates to a thing, it has managed something important. 

I'm not one to claim that Star Trek is better than than difficult or special works.

But your appraisal seems a bit too cynical. A lot of people have worked on Star Trek. Some of them wanting to flatter and spoon feed a key demographic for profits, sure. But others were simply capable craftsmen. And there were even some extremely creative and free thinking people, who poured that part of their nature into the project.

Think of network TV as being a set of creative parameters. (You can't make a network tv show dull and monotonous, for example.) As we all know, limitations can enhance a creative project-- and help give it structure. Limitations don't always stifle creativity.

(March 6, 2022 at 1:12 am)vulcanlogician Wrote: others were simply capable craftsmen. And there were even some extremely creative and free thinking people, who poured that part of their nature into the project.

Well, I have no idea what the crew and writers complain about over beer after a long day in the Star Trek factory. Maybe they idealistically want to do more. But the result is on the screen to see. 

I think it's likely that anybody who wants to work on it in the first place already buys into the ideology and values that Star Trek (in fact most of Hollywood) has always had. If you didn't like the message, you wouldn't go to work there. So we're on the third or fourth generation now of people who were propagandized by the message, who believe the message, and who recreate the message with ever-improving special effects. 

Chomsky points this out about the news media. Most of the smiling propagandists on CNN actually believe what they're saying. They grew up in a circle that believes it and they have no trouble staying within that bubble. 

I'm not just picking on Star Trek. Any pop, made-for-money media will have the same standard subtexts, tropes, and methods. To be popular at all, a media product has to be about 98% repetition of what came before, with just enough original to catch the eye.

Quote:Limitations don't always stifle creativity.

Granted. But it depends on what the goals are, what the limitations are, and, of course, who's paying the bills.

(March 6, 2022 at 1:18 am)Ferrocyanide Wrote:

(March 4, 2022 at 1:07 am)Belacqua Wrote: This was addressed in my earlier post.

You had written:
“Therefore souls are not material, but always exist with matter. Matter always has a form, form can't exist without matter.”

Quote:Nothing in modern science shows that hylomorphism, or Aristotle's definition of the soul, is incorrect.

I don’t know what hylomorphism is so I did a weeb search and clicked on the wikipedia link.

Generally speaking, hylomorphism isn't saying anything remarkable. It's just unremarkably true. The issue is more to do with the Aristotelian vocabulary being outdated.

(March 6, 2022 at 2:33 am)GrandizerII Wrote:

(March 6, 2022 at 1:18 am)Ferrocyanide Wrote: You had written:
“Therefore souls are not material, but always exist with matter. Matter always has a form, form can't exist without matter.”


I don’t know what hylomorphism is so I did a weeb search and clicked on the wikipedia link.

Generally speaking, hylomorphism isn't saying anything remarkable. It's just unremarkably true. The issue is more to do with the Aristotelian vocabulary being outdated.

I think Furrysuicide has effectively argued that hylomorphism doesn't do the thing that no one has ever claimed it does. 

Another proud graduate of Three Minutes of Googling University.

(March 6, 2022 at 2:29 am)Belacqua Wrote: Any pop, made-for-money media will have the same standard subtexts, tropes, and methods. To be popular at all, a media product has to be about 98% repetition of what came before, with just enough original to catch the eye.

I bet you some great classic art was made for money, and I bet you can't distinguish the parts of great works that are made for money and made to feed the soul.

Quote:Well, I have no idea what the crew and writers complain about over beer after a long day in the Star Trek factory.

No shit. You have no idea what workers complain about.

I blame the workers for that.

I think you, and others like you, should form some kind of a "vanguard" social entity. So you, and people like you, can coerce working people into thinking what they ought to think. After all, as Aristotle pointed out, working people can't be trusted to philosophize properly. Working all day in a factory makes you pretty stupid, doesn't it? Good thing we have the vanguard. They'll make sure the soviet vision is realized properly.

(March 6, 2022 at 2:56 am)vulcanlogician Wrote: So you, and people like you, can coerce working people into thinking what they ought to think.

This is what Hollywood does. 

I would like less coercion.

Who are "people like" me?