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Parallel Worlds
What books are you reading?
- Thread starter PurpleStorm
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I read parts of it when I was younger. Don't remember much of it tbh.
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the language of creation has some serious problems that need addressing man. he seems to be implying that you can operate from a set of principles and use that to correctly interpret the meaning behind ANY symbolic representation in the world from any religion. this is absurdly wrong and false.... just a simple delving into indigenous spirituality and its use of symbolic meaning shows that cultural and regional differences lead to absolutely contradictory symbolic meanings.
for the 10 time or so
finished writing my first book I took all the way a few months ago (I did make it through 2 revisions of a previous book before scrapping it).
almost done with first draft of second book. (and actually made a whole outline for a book i decided I didn't want to write and scrapped it)
note taking begun for 3rd book
its not as if religion knows what physical object ACTUALLY represent in the mind of god itself. religion can only know what the religion itself has come to see and attribute as the meaning in physical objects. and those meanings for specific objects of symbol will change from religion to religion. unless you have the equivalent of a Rosetta stone for each tradition it can/will be impossible to know for certain what symbolic meaning is being referenced. there is no such Rosetta stone for the old testament unfortunately.
there is no "Key" that can allow one to understand symbols from even one tradition let alone allow you to span many different traditions. on top of that he does not source ANYTHING he says when speaking about the judaic religion so there is no way to know if he is just talking out of his ass and or importing ideas from other traditions into his interpretation of the old testament.
no serious student of the judeo christian tradition can use this book as a foundation for the interpretation of biblical symbolism.
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The Devils Hand by Jack Carr. It’s decent and I’m looking forward to The Terminal List coming out on Amazon
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Sweet. I found Manly about a year ago. Been using his lectures on youtube to nap to, totes puts me to sleep.
i read it on my phone before i go to sleep and usually puts me right out quick better than any sleeping pill
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A Little Hatred by Joe Abercrombie...
I've been dragging my feet on this trilogy, but bought a new kindle and am running out of excuses... gonna try to finish the three books this summer. I've heard really good things, and wish Abercrombie wouldn't have wasted his time on the Half a King trilogy.
I've been dragging my feet on this trilogy, but bought a new kindle and am running out of excuses... gonna try to finish the three books this summer. I've heard really good things, and wish Abercrombie wouldn't have wasted his time on the Half a King trilogy.
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Not finished yet but where is this? Seems pretty judeo-christian specific to me.
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he said that in the early part of the book that it could be used on other world mythologies.. basically he is claiming to use his system to be able to interpret the symbolic meanings in the bible but he does not source ANY of his conclusions or data. that is a big problem. i am somewhat versed in this topic (steeped in it actually) and this book sounds like its coming from somebody who has no training and thinks he has come up with some kind of secret code or something. its definitely putting up a TON of red flags for me even though the basic idea (that the semetic peoples were more concerned with what an event meant than with its factual details) is a sound one. but you simply MUST cite all sources used in this kind of work or it cannot be taken seriously.
if you read the reviews some people are claiming that he is using extra biblical mythological symbols to interpret biblical ones and that is obviously not a sound approach.
the fact is that we CANNOT know in many cases what the symbols were referring too at the time..... and we also CANNOT even know just exactly when the writers were intending a symbolic rather than literal meaning. there is definitely no panacea for solving this issue unless the specific author wrote a commentary and we were to find it in a jar somewhere in the desert.
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@Panty Raider
the church teaches this approach when reading scriptures
-- see all characters in every story as representing aspects of the self and use that for self examination.
-- see the possible and likely literal meaning of each story.
-- see every story as being symbolic and interpret it as symbolic.
-- consider who wrote the gospel (some authors such as john were more symbolic than others such as luke) and to whom and for what purpose the book was written as historical context matters greatly.
-- what do the early church father say in their commentaries about the specific passage (the church fathers were close to the source material and those who wrote it, were advanced in the spirituality Christianity provides and were scholars.
-- listen to what modern scholars say using the techniques of literary criticism about the text in question.
the church teaches this approach when reading scriptures
-- see all characters in every story as representing aspects of the self and use that for self examination.
-- see the possible and likely literal meaning of each story.
-- see every story as being symbolic and interpret it as symbolic.
-- consider who wrote the gospel (some authors such as john were more symbolic than others such as luke) and to whom and for what purpose the book was written as historical context matters greatly.
-- what do the early church father say in their commentaries about the specific passage (the church fathers were close to the source material and those who wrote it, were advanced in the spirituality Christianity provides and were scholars.
-- listen to what modern scholars say using the techniques of literary criticism about the text in question.
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I was listening to some of his stuff a little while back it’s pretty wild how much content he has in the public domain it would take a long time to go through it all earnestly. Good stuff.
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Which honestly has been kind of a let down so far. I’m about a third the way through it. It was well reviewed. It’s well researched but it just hasn’t been very engaging to me. Maybe it’s because I already know that era so well that I don’t find it as interesting as some. I dunno.
just bought this last night because it sounded interesting. Looking forward to starting it
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Reading the Three Kingdoms now, that one is my next. I hope to read all four Chinese classic novels.
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Same, but I'll probably spread them out.my wife bought me 3 of them but I haven't decided what to read next for the Chinese classics. Going to shift a bit and read one of the newer Tim Dorsey books as I'm a few behind.
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Cool, I am a big Chinese history and culture fan so I will probably just hop right into the next lol.
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I was worried it would be hard to read but that wasn't the case at all. I'm nearly done now and I've throughly enjoyed it.
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Ya, im 3/4 through and it has been a surprisingly smooth read. I was worried that it would be like reading the Illiad or something but its really not like that at all even though you can tell its an old book.
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A few highlights of mine the past month or so:
Currently I am finishing up "Demons" right now, by Dostoevsky. I would say it's probably the funniest out of his four major novels, but also my least favorite of his major works.
I also read "The Open Work" by Umberto Eco two weeks ago. I thought it a lovely meditation on major developments in aesthetics of the 20th century, moving nimbly from themes in semiotics, entropy and information theory, live television, and serialist composers, to name only a few. For those who enjoy Eco's fiction but do not typically read aesthetic criticism, I think you might find Eco's writing illuminating. It will shine some light on what he's up to in works like "Foucault's Pendulum" and "The Name Of The Rose".
"On Nature and Language" was a collection of essays by Noam Chomsky mapping the progress of generative linguistics over several decades. Chomsky has a wonderful sense for the philosophical history of science and many of the conceptual problems that under-gird much scientific inquiry. While I do not possess a specialist's vocabulary, I must say that I am still skeptical of linguistic nativism; there are serious practical issues when demarcating general cognitive learning systems from a more language-specific module of cognition. On the other hand, the descriptive impact of generative linguistics alone is impressive, and worth acknowledging. I would recommend this essay compilation to anyone interested in the philosophy of language and its intimate relationship with computational linguistics in the 20th century.
I am also bouncing around in Donald Davidson's essay collection, "Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation". I am enjoying it so far, but it is a very grueling read. I am under-booked wrt anglophone philosophy in the 20th century but am trying to slog through it.
Currently I am finishing up "Demons" right now, by Dostoevsky. I would say it's probably the funniest out of his four major novels, but also my least favorite of his major works.
I also read "The Open Work" by Umberto Eco two weeks ago. I thought it a lovely meditation on major developments in aesthetics of the 20th century, moving nimbly from themes in semiotics, entropy and information theory, live television, and serialist composers, to name only a few. For those who enjoy Eco's fiction but do not typically read aesthetic criticism, I think you might find Eco's writing illuminating. It will shine some light on what he's up to in works like "Foucault's Pendulum" and "The Name Of The Rose".
"On Nature and Language" was a collection of essays by Noam Chomsky mapping the progress of generative linguistics over several decades. Chomsky has a wonderful sense for the philosophical history of science and many of the conceptual problems that under-gird much scientific inquiry. While I do not possess a specialist's vocabulary, I must say that I am still skeptical of linguistic nativism; there are serious practical issues when demarcating general cognitive learning systems from a more language-specific module of cognition. On the other hand, the descriptive impact of generative linguistics alone is impressive, and worth acknowledging. I would recommend this essay compilation to anyone interested in the philosophy of language and its intimate relationship with computational linguistics in the 20th century.
I am also bouncing around in Donald Davidson's essay collection, "Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation". I am enjoying it so far, but it is a very grueling read. I am under-booked wrt anglophone philosophy in the 20th century but am trying to slog through it.
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You should check out "The Black Hole Wars" by Leonard Susskind if you haven't already! It's one of the more comprehensive books aimed at a general audience and there's a free audiobook available on youtube, if you're into them.
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