Utsob Roy
This is a journey, and a deeply contemplative one. But, what is the goal? In the author's words:
In a word, GEB is a very personal attempt to say how it is that animate beings can come out of inanimate matter. What is a self, and how can a self come out of stuff that is as selfless as a stone or a puddle? What is an "I", and why are such things found (at least so far) only in association with, as poet Russell Edson once wonderfully phrased it, "teetering bulbs of dread and dream"– that is, only in association with certain kinds of gooey lumps encased in hard protective shells mounted atop mobile pedestals that roam the world on pairs of slightly fuzzy, jointed stilts?
But a person like me, who enjoys the journey more than the destination, surely finds their stays in the way nourishing. For this is a book nothing short of cross-disciplinary. Music, Mathematics, Philosophy, Biology, Logic, and Computer Science, even Zen Buddhism, all found their fair share of pages in this work.
The Strings
Gödel
Philosophers of mathematics have toiled long to make mathematics's theoretical underpinning unassailable. Many minds of extraordinary abilities have devoted their lives to it. Gödel, in his incompleteness theorems, has shown that such efforts are futile. A sufficiently powerful system cannot prove all truths about itself.
Escher
Escher's paintings are illusory, puzzling to say the least. They are full of self-reference and paradoxical connections.
Bach
Bach is beautiful. Bach is sublime. And, Bach, mysteriously, is more mathematical than we think he is.
The Braid
These strings, along with others, braided and narrated a story and theory about consciousness. At the base of it is Gödel's incompleteness theorems, which allow, with sufficient layers, to build a self-referential and introspective system which is the basis of consciousness. For the author, this is the cornerstone of true AI.
Summarising like this, of course, doesn't do justice to this book. Instead of a run-of-the-mill scientific book, the author tried to invoke vivid scenarios to not only know this, but also to understand and feel his arguments. The primary tool for this endeavour was some Quan-like, paradoxical conversations used as preludes to every chapter.
With all these literary devices, this book is not a pop-science book. The subject matter, and to the depths they have been covered, requires a slow-going, mindful approach to comprehend.
Thoroughly enjoyed!
Originally posted at hermitage.utsob.me.
I consider myself a writer. However, I fear writing, and I fear publishing more. For, writing is agonising. And, I don't dare to publish until I really have a story to tell. My fear accumulated over time by reading more, by reading books just like this. And, I will tell my fellow writers this: If you are not really as serious as Danielewski, Borges, Tagore, Pessoa, or Jibanananda, stop writing.
The structure of this book is recursive, layered and of a madman. It is a book you should approach with an arsenal of bookmarks, much patience for multiple re-readings and the intention to read cover-to-cover— footnotes and appendix and all. While some of the references in this book are purely fictional, many are real. It is not necessary, but some familiarity with classic literature, and existential philosophy (resources like Being and Time by Martin Heidegger) can be very rewarding. I will also recommend reading Walking by Thomas Bernhard which deals with madness singularly unlike this book which deals with a lot of things. A knack for etymology and the exact meaning of words can be rewarding too.
Now about the madness… It is everywhere, and it must be relished. It must be understood on its own terms, not from our couch of comfortable 'normality'. Madness is, in some sense divine. Madness is motherly. Madness is a concentrated potion, too hard to gulp down, of the essence of our existence. This book talks about that madness, and love, and madness-inducing love, and love-inducing madness.
Most readers of this book may find the preceding paragraph needs some qualifications. The book is considered to be of genre horror, and rightly so. However, it is not a run-of-the-mill horror. I will put it in a sub-genre: philosophical horror. Because, most horror content depends on unfamiliarity, and not understanding of the situation, this book depends on understanding and examining. Instead of jump-scares and goosebumps, author brings in elaborate discussion on meanings of words like 'uncanny', 'space', 'echo' etc. so that as the meanings sinks in us in most accurate and non-trivial manner, so does the horror of the situation.
But, at the end, it still remains a story of love, or seeking, of remembering, of hope, and of redemption.
Originally posted at hermitage.utsob.me.
An excellent exposition of Sufism if you are already well-versed in philosophy in general. It explains both the core tenets and the historical development of Sufism in a concise yet well-developed manner.
Sufism is a religion of Knowledge and Love. In this, it is like every other spiritual cult (cult, because only a handful is following them) comes with organised religion. It focuses on self-searching instead of social demonstration and the execution of faith. Like every such cult, not only has Sufism been marginalised for the last few centuries, but it has also been persecuted heavily.
The only problem with this book is that the author starts from an axiom (there is a God) that has been out of fashion for around four thousand years. No one invokes absolute belief in God as a starting point for any serious philosophical discussion. One can argue that this is a book of Religion, not philosophy. However, it is a very philosophy-ridden book. It is natural to expect it to maintain certain standards. Many of the attacks on science and other modern philosophies made in this book are uninformed and misleading.
Darwinism is now common knowledge to anyone who reads any amount of pop science. But, most often it is a much revised version of natural selection commonly known as neo-Darwinism.
It still remains an interesting read. Just like Newton's laws of motion can be easily proved by calculus. But, the original geometric proof is a much more satisfying read.
Biology, back then, was mostly about observations and record-keeping. Predictive theories are scarce, knowledge is fragmented. Truly, most of these fragments started to make sense in the light of the theory of natural selection.
The book is written quite hastily yet shows how meticulous a mind Darwin really had. His prose is not only very accessible but also elegant in places.
What Darwin did required a paradigm shift. It was not easy as paradigm shifts go. But, he was confident and that confidence stands on intellectual honesty and a rebellious mental makeup.
Originally posted at hermitage.utsob.me.
This book neither dives deep into the subject nor is a textbook. It is more of an overview of the subject and a survey of the state of its development.
In various branches of science, we encounter systems regularly. Von Bertalanffy defines systems as such:
A system can be defined as a set of elements standing in interrelations. Interrelation means that elements, p, stand in relations, R, so that the behavior of an element p in R is different from its behavior in another relation, R′. If the behaviors in R and R′ are not different, there is no interaction, and the elements behave independently with respect to the relations R and R′.
According to von Bertalanffy, some phenomena can only be understood/interpreted at the system level:
Nevertheless, the necessity and feasibility of a systems approach became apparent only recently. Its necessity resulted from the fact that the mechanistic scheme of isolable causal trains and meristic treatment had proved insufficient to deal with theoretical problems, especially in the biosocial sciences, and with the practical problems posed by modern technology.
His aim was to establish a theory for systems that is applicable to all systems.
The implication of this idea is a paradigm shift. But, this is not only an ambitious idea. The author, using his multidisciplinary knowledge, mathematics, and reasoning— has given a sufficiently compelling demonstration of what he wanted to achieve.
I will not agree with everything the author said, though. For example, he was unable to see how music, culture etc. are useful for survival:
Greek sculpture, Renaissance painting. German music—indeed, any aspect of culture— has nothing to do with utility, or with the better survival of individuals or nations.
Culture actually is very important for our survival. It enables us to achieve higher, and more complex organisation, often spanning lifetimes of multiple generations.
But these are minor things. His main point remains valid. If we think from a system perspective, many of our current ideas will need radical reevaluation. The author reevaluated stress like this:
Also the principle of stress, so often invoked in psychology, psychiatry and psychosomatics, needs some reevaluation. As everything in the world, stress too is an ambivalent thing. Stress is not only a danger to life to be controlled and neutralized by adaptive mechanisms; it also creates higher life. If life, after disturbance from outside, had simply returned to the so-called homeostatic equilibrium, it would never have progressed beyond the amoeba which, after all, is the best adapted creature in the world—it has survived billions of years from the primeval ocean to the present day.
In this light, modern approaches to creating a stress-free environment seem not only unnecessary but even harmful.
Von Bertelanffy belonged to an age when scientists used to study not only their own little scoped part of science but science in general, philosophy, art, and life as a whole. He had his failings and moments of shameful inhumanity.2 But, academically, he was one of the finest of his age. It shows in his work.
Originally posted at hermitage.utsob.me.
Literature is anguish.
It is also the fourth wall of a comic panel. It is also the sky beyond the roof, a ship deck in a storm. It is a hammer that must put a blow right into our self-assurance. And, the Ta-Nehisi Coates I have read do just that.
About a year back, I met a middle-aged person. The now ongoing Palestine conflict has just started back then. That person believed that whatever was happening to civilian Palestinians was happening for good. He was an Islamophobe of particular brutality.
I know he was bullied for being an atheist in a Muslim-majority country; I know drug abuse also contributed to this bitterness. But, mostly, it was propaganda. It was a lack of critical thinking. It was the lack of knowledge— of human cruelty that found its outlet in power. Power makes everyone an oppressor without failure.
Ta-Nehisi Coates made a point of that. I can try, too. But, I know very well, being a minority in many axes myself, no one will understand, except the oppressed.
In the end, this book saddened me. Because I know humanity is beyond saving.
Originally posted at hermitage.utsob.me.
The course of knowledge is like the flow of some mighty river, which, passing through the rich lowlands, gathers into itself the contributions from every valley. Such a river may well be joined by a mountain stream, which, passing with difficulty along the barren highlands, flings itself into the greater river down some precipitous descent, exhibiting at the moment of its union the spectacle of the utmost beauty of which the river system is capable. And such a stream is no inapt symbol of a line of mathematical thought, which, passing through difficult and abstract regions, sacrifices for the sake of its crystalline clearness the richness that comes to the more concrete studies. Such a course may end fruitlessly, for it may never join the main course of observation and experiment. But, if it gains its way to the great stream of knowledge, it affords at the moment of its union the spectacle of the greatest intellectual beauty, and adds somewhat of force and mysterious capability to the onward current.If not anything else, this spirit (and the execution of it) is an excellent reason to write such a wonderful 32-page pamphlet with striking yet easily understandable ideas.
If you fail to find anything new in this book in regard to the fourth dimension, that is probably because this is one of those works that popularised those ideas.
As the name reveals, this book is a musing/speculation about the fourth dimension.
Hinton's four-dimensional space is an Euclidean one. This shouldn't be confused with the non-Euclidean four-dimensional space like the Minkowski's which was the basis of the Theory of Relativity. Hinton never mentioned *time* as the fourth dimension and it would've required a paradigm shift on Hinton's part. While it is not the *spacetime* we know now, it is quite an interesting system. ^a63817
I liked how— example by example— Hinton built a system of fourth-dimensional space in a few pages which is consistent— complete with physical properties and consciousness, sound in its structure and extremely thought-provoking.
Originally posted at hermitage.utsob.me.
Food for thought for sure, From Hell is a complex piece of work with many layers of human emotions, expressions, and delusions.
One thing I particularly like about Alan Moore is his all-pervading kindness to everyone he presents in his works, both villains and heroes, victims and criminals.
So, we see Sir William Gull— a genius, a murderer, deranged to many but sure of his superiority only found his true nature of derangement and inferiority in his visit to a higher plain.
There are some memorable panels and monologues that will keep me thinking for quite a while.
Although Moore used Hinton's fourth dimension as a central concept of this work, he— probably with his modern sense of four-dimensional space understood the fourth dimension as time, whereas Hinton's was an Euclidean one. However, he bridged that with modern spacetime and created such panels like the above.
A masterpiece!
Rating: 4.5
In its structure and the areas it covers, it is a peculiar book for sure. Like classical philosophical works, this is a book arching over several subjects and is quite technical in nature.
Firstly, I think, it has a fantastic chapter on how computer works. To understand the computer and its true power— this is a very good starting point.
This leads to the question of what the computer can't/shouldn't do for us, where we are better on our own. He stretched our common (often lethal) understanding and reliance on computers.
A seminal text of the Sufi literature. It influenced both thinkers and the writing styles of subsequent generations. As far as Sufi spiritualism is concerned, the content is timeless.
So, what is this book about? In Attar's words:
This book is all madness. / Reason is alien to these pages. / Not until the soul breathes in / the fragrance of its own lunacy / can it stop being a stranger to itself.
It is difficult to appreciate the accuracy of this statement without reading the book first.
Sufism is all about love. Unconditional, unfailing, love and submission. This brought the practitioners into broad daylight from a narrow tunnel of organised religion. Since they reject anything that is against love, they reject hatred and welcome even critical thinking to a certain extent.
The genius of Attar is manyfold. This is not a philosophical treaty. Philosophy was unimportant (mocked even) to Attar. What he wanted to convey was the journey of a Sufi (consisting of Fanā and Baqā) and its emotional import. He did it with very accessible parables. Some of them are even borderline heresy, but all of them are beautiful.
It is amazing how well this book conveys the deeper meanings of Sufism that many weighty discourses cannot do.
Originally posted at hermitage.utsob.me.
These days, photography feels like one of the most important vehicles to build [b:The Society of the Spectacle 381440 The Society of the Spectacle Guy Debord https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1370746722l/381440.SY75.jpg 371226] along with social media which is oversaturated by photographs.It was not always like this. Through Sontag's eyes, one can understand photography in quite a different way. To me, this book contains some ideas that may change how I look at photographs fundamentally.Sontag touched, in these insightful essays, some key points of photography. Most of them deal with photography's relation to art. In her view, photography (though denied by many proponents) is a modern art. It embodies modernism more than painting and poetry in permissiveness and ambiguity of aesthetics, subject matter, and expertise.She also explored the social side of photography quite a bit, especially how tourism, memory-making, etc fundamentally changed after the wider acceptance of photography.It is a pleasure to read. Sontag can express quite succinctly her point with a storyteller's captivating charm.
Not many intellectuals paid the price for their pacifism as dearly as Russell did. Once, he was a social pariah for this reason only. Yet he composed these lectures in the hope of talking some sense into the young minds of Europe.
A core axiom of these lectures is the idea that humans are intuitive and impulsive. If the impulses cannot run their courses creatively, then tend to be destructive. This, to me, feels like a partial truth, or a truth that is too simple for the complex world we live in.
Even if the axiom is partially correct, the reasoning following this axiom can at least reduce destruction if not eradicate it. This is why these lectures are still relevant.
There were some good poems in this collection. However, nothing compared to [b:The Book of Disquiet: The Complete Edition 40881621 The Book of Disquiet The Complete Edition Fernando Pessoa https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1591219012l/40881621.SX50.jpg 983806].This is what I have to say about the stylistic aspects of the volume in question. It should be taken with a fair amount of skepticism due to the fact that it is (a) a translation, and (b) a translation by a different translator.Pessoa's use of heteronyms is fascinating, to say the least. They have their distinct style, lifestyle, and even biographies. However, reading these poems from various times and signed by various heteronyms, converges to say something singular in nature:I'm not a materialist or a deist or anything else. I'm a man who one day opened the window and discovered this crucial thing: Nature exists. I saw that the trees, the rivers and the stones are things that truly exist. No one had ever thought about this.I don't pretend to be anything more than the greatest poet in the world. I made the greatest discovery worth making, next to which all other discoveries are games of stupid children. I noticed the Universe. The Greeks, with all their visual acuity, didn't do as much.Most of his poems in this collection, and arguably most he has written in his lifetime are about this materialism (or empiricism perhaps?). While The Book of Disquiet is all about one's inner life, and dreams, these poems are all about one's outer life, often in strong denial of an existence of an inner life.
This book gets its justification from the negative review it got from the journals. The self-inflicted blindness quantum physics community nurture every day, cannot be dispelled by one such tiny effort.
Even if these journals are right in some of their criticism, the central argument stands. Much of the defence for Copenhagen Interpretation is, in a nutshell, unscientific.
This year (2024) I have collected as many literary and cultural references I can find in this note.
To me, this is Alan Moor's greatest work. He is so clear, and so in command of the ideas he wanted to expose, I couldn't find a place where they got watered down which is so much common in comics.
Most of the characters in V for Vendetta are complex. Seldom there is a major character like Bishop Lilliman who is typical. So well-crafted the characters are, their inner struggles, and conflicts with the world out that they felt real, yet full of surprise. Moore has shown a mastery in psychology which I consider a hallmark of great fiction writers.
However, the characters are only backdrops here. Alan Moore used these characters to effectively convey some very elaborate ideas— freedom, anarchy, justice, integrity, etc.
So, when V started his vendetta, it was not only against some people. It is against the system, even against the lack of aesthetics that the system enforces (hence the theatrical nature of V).
Every book doesn't impress on the same place although we take it for granted that they impress upon our feelings. The impression of a book on me is often physical. Some books make my brain fuzzy, some are like deep wounds in my groin, and some are like empty little pockets in my chest. The Sea took my body and broke every bone of it, pulled every muscle.
Since it is a novel, the first question you may ask is, “What is the story?” Well, it doesn't matter. Stories happen all the time and every story is as old as time. Who, and most importantly, how the story is being told is what modern literature is concerned about. When Max, the story-teller here, a self-made man, often vain, mostly sensitive, an intellectual born and brought up in the lower segments of the society tells his story candidly, yet always trying to justify his actions, losses and laughs re-interpreted with the hindsight of a well-aged man, but not entirely coherent— that is not a story anymore. That is life. And life in its most raw form cannot be judged but only be accepted. This acceptance comes with a deep complex sensation, not love, not pity, not hope definitely, but like you're drowning, in the sea.
I held the belief that one perfect work is enough to give an artist the taste of immortality, after death if not while alive. The Book of Disquiet made me rethink my stance. Even an unfinished book, a jumble of notes rather, can do full justice to its name and can place the author among the best of the best.
So, what kind of book is it? It is NOT an autobiography. At least not in the sense we use this term. It is an autobiography of a Persona of Pessoa (a Persona is not only a character, but it is also a more intimate thing, an extension of Pessoa). Then also, it is not an autobiography as we know. It is, as aptly put in the preface, a biography without events.
Without events, but not without thoughts or feelings. Pessoa is a man of both the 19th and 20th centuries. Myths are just stories, gods are long dead. A modern man, thinking man could not believe in God anymore. Yet, nothing is there to replace God with. Morality, ethics, everything was in dire need of redefinition. This void, along with long-standing unanswered questions in philosophy, blended into a disquieting lament. Anguish, profound anguish, but not for happiness but freedom from even the need for happiness.
Most of the entries are introspective. Only a handful of them deals with the exterior and even in those entries exterior is only a backdrop. All of them are monologues, are streams of consciousness flowing naturally, beautifully. And it is disquieting. Disquieting to the point where you might question the life you lived by far, the reality as we know it, and all the values handed down to us.
