/lit/ - Literature

apology for poor english
when were you when bath man dies?
i was sat at home eating moldy bread when pierre ring

‘marat is kill’
‘no’

Marat's Sad

Prediction:

In the next 30 years neuroscientists, AI Researchers, and others will remove any doubt that there is scientific need for anything but the physical brain for consciousness to exist.

many philosophers of mind and many philosophers in general will ignore this for convenience sake and it will be considered one of the final nails in the coffin for general respect of metaphysics as a discipline.

Yo, /lit/, for my research paper in AP Lit (High school senior, yes, 18) We have to take two authors and write about them in what I assume is a compare/contrast format.

Any ideas who I should go for?

Someone clever called CS Lewis and Phillip Pullman

I was having an interesting discussion in a thread before it was deleted for some reason. Would like to continue the conversation if you're there, or just feel like jumping in if you find the conversation good.

[Previous Thread Discussing if Objective Truth exists]
[A]The question is irrelevant, as behaving as if there is objective truth (ie operating under empiricist assumptions) changes circumstances which may lead to new revelation that either affirms or refutes the primary question, while choosing not to operate under those assumptions will not yield any changes in life or the evolution of society and civilization, leading to perpetual stagnation and near certainty that the primary question will never be affirmed nor refuted.


[B]
>evolution
>stagnation

the way you're using these terms already assumes an objective direction for humanity

[A]Not objective direction, but certainly *some* direction that can serve to change paradigm and increase chances of the question even being answered (which are calculable in both circumstances)

[B]you're assuming that evolution is inherently desirable and "stagnation" is undesirable as justification for acting as if objective truth existed

[A]Yes, that's exactly what i'm doing because it is the sensible position to take (in my opinion)

"Stagnation" implies no further input, and a culture is left to answer the question in the framework of a perpetually similar circumstance. Is it unreasonable to state that this lowers the odds of discovering X compared to the alternative? Even if the odds in both cases are low?


[B]but this all still assumes there is something to be discovered at the end of this road that you've constructed

which you don't know

[A]I don't think it implies that, it implies that there is a *chance* such a could exist, and that heading down that road opens the questioner to that chance, regardless of size, being that it would be otherwise totally inaccessible.

The question is irrelevant, as behaving as if there is objective truth (ie operating under empiricist assumptions) changes circumstances which may lead to new revelation that either affirms or refutes the primary question, while choosing not to operate under those assumptions will not yield any changes in life or the evolution of society and civilization, leading to perpetual stagnation and near certainty that the primary question will never be affirmed nor refuted.

Lets discuss this, predictably Ulysses and War and Peace are on there, but I'm surprised people didn't zoom through Catch-22 and LotR

http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/497.The_Most_Begun_Read_but_Unfinished_Initiated_book_ever

Help distract OP from studying for the SATs tomorrow

Post what you consider to be the greatest prose you have ever read

moar

For a brief take on Modern Art and the theory behind it, Tom Wolfe's The Painted Word is good.

For a giant text, Gardner's Art through the Ages is recommended.

What's your favorite painting, /lit/?

Pic is related.

obligatory

>>1593587
Heh, Rococo is also known as Late Baroque, and moves into the Neoclassical which draws on the Renaissance revival of antiquity, which was part of the foundation of Baroque. I really love all these movements. Here, this is one of my favorite paintings. (I love the historical significance of it, but the use of negative space is also pretty brave considering conventions up to that point and David's other work.) Basically, everything is connected, either in a constructive or opposing way, and that's why a general overview course is important. I don't know what I want to specialize in yet. For a while I was very big on Dada and Surrealism, then I got into Baroque, then the New York school of Expressionism, and I even wrote a paper on outsider artists like Henry Darger and Aldolf Wolfli (which would be interesting to re-evaluate with a background in aesthetics) last semester. I've been all over, so I'm really not sure yet. I guess that's part of it. The three professors I have had specialized in contemporary art, photography (duh), and Italian art.