Currently reading?

[Ariets]

Originally Posted by svin

Ernst Juenger WWII diaries "Strahlungen". It's of particular interest to me, because there is a part about Russia.

I want to read that soon, Polish title is "Promienie"

[Lutiferre]

Just came across this book, that I am going to try to get a hold of:

Which supposedly proposes a black origin and influence on all of Europe from the beginning of Europes history. Yes, thats right. Black Moorish Picts, African Scandinavians, Black Danish Conquerors.

Written by an Afrocentrist Scot, who apparently strives to be black, named David Mac Ritchie.

Here is a review which explains an outline of the book, by an apparently entirely convinced "expert" reviewer on the subject:

Book I and II are to be found in Volume I. Book III is to be found in Ancient and Modern Britons, Vol. 2.

This book focuses on the early/original inhabitants/historical conquerors of the British Isles who weren't white. There have been various peoples who had been known by even more names. And confused by name with each other. There are the original black inhabitants, some Egypt colonizers, conquering "Danes" and other Black (!) Scandinavians and Huns/"Scythians". The author focuses on the culture of the "Gypsies", with all the possible meanings of this term.

He meticulously explains names meaning Black and geographic areas referencing their bygone Black inhabitants. There are also reflections on Black history usually dropped or disguised in school and elsewhere in popular culture. Also traces in contemporary culture are examined. Of 1884 that is, for that's the original publishing date.

Usually, that old books are hopelessly out of date. Yet, most of this book isn't, for it is about historical research of names etc., which doesn't really change that much, no matter, when you do that. In fact, David MacRitchie is closer to the times he describes than we are, which in some aspects is an advantage. There are sources available which have been destroyed, people(s) and culture still existing (even part-time troglodytes!), having vanished in the meantime. Linguistics are still better traceable. And most of all: He seems to be some sort of pioneer. Mostly, he is doing original research and reflecting primary sources, not merely copying other historians' findings. In other words, he is still unimpressed with any meme (memory) pool notion of whitening European/British history, which has happened since, while the availability of this book had been downpressed.

What wasn't known, for example, in the 19th century is the Indian origin of the "Roma and Sinti" ("Gypsies"). Which has been found out via linguistics later. But what has happened ever since is that ALL people(s), who are "known" today as "Gypsies" or by any supposedly politically correct name, are believed to have come from India. Which isn't the case. Some non-white European peoples may have (visually and/or for real) vanished altogether by now. Of course, Europe had to have been populated by "Black"/non-white people, before one mutation for "White" occurred, which then expanded, putting ever more pressure on the original inhabitants (i.e. in part the same people, only changed in skin color). Genetics confirm that several of the first European inhabitation waves weren't white skinned. As islands, the ancient "UK" and Ireland, of course, harbored those non-Whites much longer than most parts of "continental Europe". But there are also Black references in this book of other countries, such as Spain, Denmark and Germany. All of the latter (Black) re-influencing the British Isles in the last two millennia.

Most interesting is the history, not that awfully long ago, of INNER-European slavery, i.e. of the enslavement of non-Whites, after the belligerent downfall of the Black kingdoms/earldoms, persecution, expatriations and genocides of Blacks, even referencing the witchhunt as originally designed to annihilate Black druidesses. (It wasn't called "black magic" to describe the magic, but the skin color of the people "engaging" in it.)

David MacRitchie's literary style may be a bit dry and appearing at times a bit repetitive, yet the reader will stay awake, not only for the naked bodies and cruelties described all the time, but mostly for the fascinating revelations, such as the context of the origin of the word "blackmail", the various children's games of who's afraid of the Black man, and even the Tories. But also of the professional descendents of Blacks, such as clowns and tattooed sailors. The 19th century language seems funny at times, with different meanings for the words "Bohemian", "gay colours" (which is the most harmless example in that direction, I may hint), and names mentioned, which have become much more famous in the meanwhile ("Potter", which fascinatingly makes sense in the Harry version). Occasionally, he addresses the reader of the 21st century and predictions for the 20th century have become true.

The subtraction of a star is the result of a lacking preface, updating this work, i.e. dusting it thoroughly. Also for the racist-classist-culturalist attitudes of the book. Which astonishingly isn't as bad as the times were in general. Sure, there's much talk about savagery, ugliness and low end of humanity, etc., yet in a context completely in reverse at times, even accusing White culture a lot.

In short: This book is an essential classic in overstanding that white European culture has emerged in various ways along black culture. Even though further (modern) knowledge lacking in this book helps a lot in overstanding this even better.

[Lutiferre]

[lunulae]

i must confess that i have a penchant for michel houellebecq. i am currently reading platform. i intend to read a novel by lászló krasznahorkai, sundry aphorisms by nicolas chamfort and eventually some phenomenology, videlicet edward saïd and gaston bachelard.

[Delbáeth]

My grandfather just bought me the 50th anniversary edition of The Lord of the Rings with all 3 books in one and some extras etc. So I’m going to launch my self into it, but not before I get my knew glasses, I hate reading with out them.

[Savorgnan]

Originally Posted by Leipreachán

So I’m going to launch my self into it, but not before I get my knew glasses, I hate reading with out them.

Really? For me it's the contrary, I'd like to wear off my contact lenses before taking on a book, so I can stick with face in it. It's really like "plunging in the book", with zero visual distractions, only paper and ink. I've noticed that my imagination works even more, doing so.

[Jejunity]

Ernesto Dalgas: Kundskabens Bog (The Boof of Knowledge). His last book, essentially a philosophical suicide note.

[Delbáeth]

Bk 2. The Great Hunt, Robert Jordans Wheel of Time series.

[RolloDesaixDeBurgh]

Douglas R. Hofstadter: Godel, Escher, Bach : An Eternal Golden Braid

Gödel, Escher, Bach
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid
Author Douglas Hofstadter
Country USA
Language English
Subject(s) Consciousness, intelligence
Publisher Basic Books
Publication date 1979
Pages 777 pages
ISBN 978-0465026562
Followed by I Am a Strange Loop

Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid (commonly GEB) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning book by Douglas Hofstadter, [1] described by the author as "a metaphorical fugue on minds and machines in the spirit of Lewis Carroll".[2]

On its surface, GEB examines logician Kurt Gödel, artist M. C. Escher and composer Johann Sebastian Bach, discussing common themes in their work and lives. At a deeper level, the book is a detailed and subtle exposition of concepts fundamental to mathematics, symmetry, and intelligence.

Through illustration and analysis, the book discusses how self-reference and formal rules allow systems to acquire meaning despite being made of "meaningless" elements. It also discusses what it means to communicate, how knowledge can be represented and stored, the methods and limitations of symbolic representation, and even the fundamental notion of "meaning" itself.

In response to confusion over the book's theme, Hoftstadter has emphasized that GEB is not about mathematics, art, and music but rather about how consciousness and thinking emerges from well-hidden neurological mechanisms. In the book, he presents an analogy about how the individual neurons of the brain coordinate to create a unified sense of a coherent mind by comparing it to the social organization displayed in a colony of ants.[3][4]
Contents


* 1 Structure
* 2 Themes
* 3 Puzzles
* 4 Translation
* 5 People featured in GEB
* 6 Fields of study covered in GEB
* 7 See also
* 8 Notes
* 9 References
* 10 External links

Structure

GEB takes the form of an interweaving of various narratives. The main chapters alternate with dialogues between imaginary characters, inspired by Lewis Carroll's "What the Tortoise Said to Achilles", in which Achilles and the Tortoise discuss a paradox related to modus ponens. Hofstadter bases the other dialogues on this one, introducing characters such as a Crab, a Genie, and others. These narratives frequently dip into self-reference and metafiction.

Word play also features prominently in the work. Puns are occasionally used to connect ideas, such as "the Magnificrab, Indeed" with Bach's Magnificat in D; "SHRDLU, Toy of Man's Designing" with Bach's Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring; and "Typographical Number Theory", or "TNT", which inevitably reacts explosively when it attempts to make statements about itself. One Dialogue contains a story about a genie (from the Arabic "Djinn") and various "tonics" (of both the liquid and musical varieties), which is of course entitled "Djinn and Tonic". A final example of the book's word play combines a double pun and a Spoonerism with an analogy, whilst simultaneously expressing the main metaphysical theme of the book: "Is the soul greater than the hum of its parts?"

One dialogue in the book is written in the form of a crab canon, in which every line before the midpoint corresponds to an identical line past the midpoint. The conversation still makes sense due to uses of common phrases which can be used as either greetings or farewells ("Good day") and the positioning of lines which, upon close inspection, double as an answer to a question in the next line.

Themes

GEB contains many instances where objects and ideas speak about or refer back to themselves (Cf. recursion and self-reference). For instance, TNT is an illustration of Gödel's incompleteness theorem. There is also a phonograph which destroys itself by playing a record entitled "I Cannot Be Played on Record Player X" (this being an analogy to Gödel's incompleteness theorem), an examination of canon form in music, and a discussion of Escher's lithograph of two hands drawing each other. To describe such self-referencing objects, Hofstadter coins the term "strange loop", a concept he examines in more depth in his follow-up book I Am a Strange Loop.

To escape many of the logical contradictions brought about by self-referencing objects, Hofstadter discusses Zen koans. He attempts to show the reader how to perceive reality outside the normal confines of their own experience and embrace such paradoxical questions by rejecting the premise - a strategy also called "unasking".

Call stacks are also discussed in GEB, as one dialogue describes the adventures of Achilles and the Tortoise as they make use of "pushing" and "popping" tonics. Entering a picture in a book would count as "pushing", entering a picture in a book within a picture in a book would have caused a double "pushing", and "popping" refers to an exit back to the previous layer of reality. The Tortoise humorously remarks that a friend of his performed a "popping" while in their current state of reality and has never been heard from since; the implied question is, "Did the friend simply cease to exist, or has the friend achieved a higher state of reality?" Also, since the reader is "pushed" into the world of Tortoise and Achilles, would the friend have ascended to the same level of reality in which the readers of GEB currently reside? Subsequent sections discuss the basic tenets of logic, self-referring statements, ("typeless") systems, and even programming.

One puzzle (in the dialogue Aria with Diverse Variations) is a speculation concerning an author who writes a book and chooses to end the story without actually stopping the text. That an author cannot make a sudden ending ('sudden' from considerations of plot, that is) comes as a surprise, when the physical fact that there are only a few pages left in the book is obvious to the reader. Such an author might wrap up the main point, and then continue writing, but drop clues to the reader that the end has already passed, such as wandering and unfocused prose, misstatements, or contradictions.

Puzzles

The book is full of puzzles. An example of this is the chapter entitled Contracrostipunctus, which combines the words acrostic and contrapunctus (counterpoint). In a dialogue between Achilles and the Tortoise, the author hints that there is a contrapuntal acrostic in the chapter that refers both to the author (Hofstadter) and Bach. This can be found by taking the first letter of each paragraph, to reveal: Hofstadter's Contracrostipunctus Acrostically Backwards Spells 'J. S. Bach'. This is only the acrostic. The counterpoint acrostic is found by taking the first letters of the acrostic (in bold) and reading them backwards to get: J. S. Bach (which is what the acrostic claims)!

Translation

Although Hofstadter claims the idea of translating his book "never crossed [his] mind" when he was writing it, when approached with the idea by his publisher he was "very excited about seeing [the] book in other languages, especially ... French". [5] He knew, however, that "there were a million issues to consider" when translating, [5] since the book relies not only on word-play but "structural puns" as well - writing where the form and content of the work mirror each other (such as the "Crab Canon" dialogue, which reads almost exactly the same forwards as backwards).

Hofstadter gives one example of translation trouble in the paragraph "Mr. Tortoise, Meet Madame Tortue", saying translators "instantly ran headlong into the conflict between the feminine gender of the French noun tortue and the masculinity of my character, the Tortoise". [5] Hofstadter decided to translate the French character as "Madame Tortue", and the Italian version as "signorina Tartaruga". [6] Because of other troubles translators might have retaining the meaning of the book, Hofstadter "painstakingly went through every last sentence of GEB, annotating a copy for translators into any language that might be targeted". [5]

Translation also gave Hofstadter a way to add new meaning and puns. For instance, in Chinese, the subtitle is not a translation of an Eternal Golden Braid, but a seemingly unrelated (and nonsense) phrase Jí Yì Bì (集异璧, literally "collection of exotic jade") which is homophonic to GEB in Chinese. Some material regarding this interplay is to be found in Hofstadter's later book Le Ton beau de Marot, which is mainly about translation.

People featured in GEB

* Johann Sebastian Bach
* M. C. Escher
* Kurt Gödel
* Charles Babbage
* Lewis Carroll
* Georg Cantor
* Alonzo Church
* Frederick the Great
* Douglas R. Hofstadter
* Johann Kirnberger
* René Magritte
* Marvin Minsky
* Johann Joachim Quantz
* Alfred Tarski
* Alan Turing
* Zhaozhou
* Terry Winograd

Fields of study covered in GEB

* Artificial intelligence
* Bongard problems
* Brain, mind, and cognition
* Formal systems, computability
* Free will vs. determinism
* Fugue, counterpoint, and musical form
* Genetics
* Holism vs. reductionism
* Isomorphisms and meaning
* Juxtaposed layers of meaning, counterpoint, semiotics, codes
* The Lisp programming language
* Logic, number theory
* Metamathematics
* Molecular biology
* Paradoxes
* Self-reference, recursion, strange loops
* Self-organizing, emergent sense of identity: consciousness (e.g. "I am a true statement, and what I state is that I cannot be proven within this system to which I belong" or "I am truthful, but my truth transcends this universe")
* Symmetry
* Syntax vs. semantics
* Translation
* Typography and syntax
* Zen Buddhism

[Aptrgangr]

I read "Capt. Jack O. Bennett - 40 000 hours in the skies".