/lit/ - Literature

If your gf could become a polymath she wouldnt need her cuck bf to ask on 4chan

>Want to be a polymath
>Need help

She will never be one.

>>6635222
I know more about literature and philosophy than she does

Tell her to woman the fuck up and stop being a dilettante.

>Any books on a polymath program or something like that to help her?
>polymath program
>not a shill term for "self-help book" or "içnsecure corporate overachiever manual"

She doesn't need any program, she needs to keep practicing what she likes and read on whatever she's interested into. Keep helping her with philosophy by recommending books she hasn't read and engaging in philosophical discussion with her. That'll be more than enough.

>>6635222
>>6635228
>>6635219
Sorry to break it to you, OP. The age of the polymaths is long gone :^)

>2015
>Any chance at becoming a polymath

Polymaths are dead, she'll be a generalist and nothing more.

http://moreintelligentlife.co.uk/content/edward-carr/last-days-polymath

>>6635230
I do, she has come to the conclusion that scientism is a result of people being insecure about their knowledge of fields like philosophy, and as a way to marginalize dissent against power. I obviously need to get her into Foucault, eh?

Sounds like an exceptional, man-like woman.
The closest I can think of a polymath program is what they do in French "classes préparatoires". Look it up.

>>6635248
Thanks, she actually started teaching herself French when she was fourteen, so that should delight her.

why are you so desperate to keep yourself busy?

>>6635229
I'm sure you don't even know an iota about literature

>>6635239
Foucault is faggot

>>6635264
I think I know more than she does, but regardless she wants to work through the How to Read a Book list with me.

It's you, right?

They have what's called multi-disciplinarians. The significance of the so-called "polymath" isn't explainable is simple terms anymore.

>>6635273
>I think I know more than she does,
That's not saying much.

>>6635277
Knowledge is relative. All of us don't know shit about literature compared to people like Harold Bloom

>>6635219
>polymath
>jack of all trades, master of none
nobody likes a know-it-all

>>6635239
> I obviously need to get her into Foucault, eh?

That'd be nice, don't forget to buy a whip ans to absent-mindedly mention De Sade.

>>6635248
>>6635254
Former prépa fag here. In science at least it provides good base training, but the "polymath" thingy is more about the top crop being able to smartass their way into anything. It's a mix of adaptability, quick pattern recognition habits and solid culture backed by an ability to bullshit whenever you're not solid. Think more Engineer-Salesman-CEO shapeshifter than Da Vinci. Now that could still interest her, but as I said the "polymath" label is a bit misleading here.

>>6635282
She wants to be a master, not just a jack

The polymath is just the humanist vision of the perfect man. If she wants to be a polymath she should read the renaissance humanists so that she can get an idea of what it actually entails.

If she could made to understand the existence of God and that man is not an end unto himself, but is created to glorify and rejoice in God, she would give up this inordinate desire for natural perfections. What she is trying to do amounts to putting make-up on a pig. She is only beautifying her outer nature. She is cleaning the outside of the cup and leaving the inner part dirty. If she wants to be clean of heart and reach true perfection she will have to implore the Holy Ghost.

>>6635292
She has read several Renaissance thinkers, and was very influenced by them.

As I said, she's majoring in theology, I'm not sure where you're going with that.

OP sounds like he is exaggerating his retarded gf's capabilities

>>6635290
>master of all trades
she should start with immortality

>>6635299
Well, as she read Marlowe's Faust? Because that's where this quest of hers ultimately ends up, viz. in selling your soul to the devil for knowledge.

>>6635310
She graduated from high school at fifteen. She's decently smart

>>6635326
Interesting, I will tell her that

>>6635292
this post is an excellent example of why monotheistic religions have been intellectual poision for centuries

"so your gf is trying to follow all of these useful intellectual pursuits. Instead of trying to perfect her knowledge and understanding of the world she should just realize that she is speshul cuz of God and focus on that instead"

i know this is a trollpost but some people on this board ACTUALLY think this way

>>6635292
This hurts to read.

>>6635344
>Math
>Theology
>Useful

Almost had me

>>6635237
lol @ this meme. i see it literally everywhere. "le these days it takes teams of scientists rather than the lone genius burning the midnight oil" or "it takes a grad school education just to be able to start doing well in mathematics."

none of those points are relevant to the idea of being excellent at science, math, and literature. go nuts. anytime the collective begins to assure a limitation, fucking dedicate all of your energy to proving that limitation is bullshit.

To be a polymath requires a certain superficiality, a kind of childishness. The wisest natures like Solomon and Plato look not to understand a great variety of things, but only concentrate on the first principles, what is absolutely necessary, and then they inevitably arrive at the vanity of human knowledge. I don't think the wisest men of the ages would be impressed by modern industry and science. It involves a deep ignorance and neglect of man's final end in pursuit of some lesser ends. Polymathy is like a constant state of being a precocious child; very clever, but without wisdom.

"Enlightened people are not cultured,
Culture is not enlightenment."

"The follower of knowledge learns as much as he can every day;
The follower of the Way forgets as much as he can every day."

Tao de Ching.

>>6635369
I like you

there is no being a polymath w/o sprezzatura

>>6635344
These intellectual pursuits don't lead anywhere. They lead only to confusion and forgetfulness. The idea that man can perfect himself by knowledge and return to paradise through controlling nature is a doctrine passed around in secret societies for a while now, it's the ancient myth of Atlantis, a society ruled by mathematical knowledge, science. But Atlantis was baptized in water, as we know. The modern world is emphatically known as the New Atlantis (see Bacons New Atlantis, the blueprint for the modern. world or new world order). The old Atlantis was baptized in water but the new Atlantis will be baptized in fire.

>>6635386
>The modern world is emphatically known as the New Atlantis
The modern world is mystically* known as the New Atlantis.

>>6635369
this nigga knows what's up

anyway, good luck to your gf, her fight is a noble one. I hope she finishes all those majors.

>>6635219

She should learn to cook and have children instead. Even if she's tremendously intellectual she's better off passing her genes down to a number of male children rather than [futilely] trying anything scientific herself.

>>6635433
She would like to have children in the future, but she's only seventeen right now.

>>6635439
>she's only seventeen right now
she's going to have a deep existential crisis

>>6635449

>not dealing with your existential crisis phase in your early teens

pleb

>>6635453
I was too busy becoming a polymath

>>6635369

>the wisest natures

>all those who forgot being and never got post-modernism

dropped. There is no wisdom and there is no mistery in the world.

>>6635449

or mental illness

>>6635470

To add to the point, people who seek enlightenment doesn't understand what it is, they are mystified by it, in hypnosis. People who don't seek enlightnement or wisdom understand that it's just dettachment and devalueing of the flesh/world.

hegel would laugh

>>6635453
>Not spending ages 12-20 having an existential crisis

>>6635495

>spending all of your best years of masturbation worrying about death

Lmao what a terrible life to live.

>>6635517

>Not using masturbation to forget about death

It's like you've never masturbated profoundly before. It's pretty incredible.

>>6635449
She already had one a while back, that's why she decided to major in theology. Although she's still undecided about religion and God.

academics having their nose up their asses are hardly polymaths.

Spending mondays studying maths at the library the nose between the pages of a book and come back tuesdays to do the same thing with a theology book isn't exactly polymathy, sorry.

Being a polymath requires to be interested in vastly different activities, trades and fields altogether. All great polymaths have never been solely academic focused, they actually enjoyed being invested in activities that challenge the box they were educated in. They became artists, engineers, doctors, explorers, pilots, carpenters..

Do something with your hands, learn to sail a boat and celestial navigation, learn to sew like a master tailor, learn languages, do stand up comedy. Trying to master different fields really is hard. Staying in the academic sphere is easier than you might think in comparison. That being said, I really think people on the polymath path should ignore naysayers and stick with it.

wikipedia says Da Vinci was a "painter, sculptor, architect, musician, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist, and writer."
Note how his endeavors were spread over several fields of art , applied and pure science and practical hands on activities like medicine or botany.

>>6635553
Stop giving advice

>>6635344
You must be pretty neglectful of history to believes that monotheistic religions haven't encouraged intellectual pursuits in the past centuries. Who created the universities according to you ? You might make the (very speculative imo) argument that those would have developped without monotheistic religion anyway, but that still wouldn't be enough to claim that monotheistic religions hamper intellectual improvement.

>>6635530
>Although she's still undecided about religion and God.
Religion is real.
God is real.

Lol Op is a retarded 25 year old dating a pretentious 17 year old hahaha

>>6635597
Her entire family are hardcore atheists who consider religion to be a bane on humanity, so I don't know how far she'd go with that. But she does really find it interesting.

>>6635364
Good luck being the next mathematician to know all mathematics of his time. Iirc the last one was Poincaré, and he worked with considerably smaller material than what we have now.

The problem is not peole claiming that polymath in the old sense can't exist (that is pretty much a fact, there's little point in denying it). The problem is, why do we fixate so much on the idea of being a Renaissance polymath when it's mostly an a posteriori category that only applied to a few handfuls of exceptional people back then ? If I pretended I want to be found a Knight Order complete with swords and armor people would laugh at me, and for good reason.

There's a difference between being a renaissance polymath, having an extended culture informed from various sources, and being a professional, an artist or a scientist tht works with a variety of material. Each of those terms is different from the others, and it's perhaps worth considering those differences rather than latching onto the old "polymath" heroic figure.

>>6635600
I'm 22 m8

Have we found the uberwomensch?

>>6635219
there's too much math to be a polymath now. best she can hope for is a demimath, im afraid. the last polymath died before he could learn set theory, actually.

>>6635618
>tfw mini-math

It's not bad.

>>6635611
Fuck off, loser

>>6635618
>demimath

>>6635622
>mini-math

relative to the known. but to the unknown and unknowable? you're a potato-math.

>>6635612
Well she has a bust of Napoleon in her bedroom

>>6635668
That doesn't mean shit, you retard

>>6635668
she has a thing for manlets?
>manlet detected

>>6635668
I feel like you've mentioned your gf on 4chan before OP, specifically the bust of Napoleon.

>>6635708
N-no

>>6635712
I did, I came here for advice on how to woo her. I boned up a lot on philosophy and literature specifically for that reason.

How do you, personally, enter the sphere of certain topics without the necessary credentials, network, capital, etc? For some fields, there's a lower barrier to entry, like literature (albeit with the MFAifization of literary culture, that's a significant barrier) but with sciences and math it's difficult. How do you learn from, interact, exchange and influence people in fields like that? It's all well to just read a bunch of books and surf the Internet alone, but learning requires a social element if you want to have a dialogue with what you're learning and not just spend your life consuming information without producing anything (not that you need to, or do you?).

>>6635720
How does it feel to be only to namedrop writers because you're too retarded to formulate your own opinions on them?

>>6635720
So you successfully captured her?

Good job, lad. But if she's so smart, why hasn't she found out you're a fraud yet?

>>6635856
She's never dated before

>>6635873
If she can't see though your obvious pretensions then she's probably pretty pretentious herself.

>>6635645
In that respect I'm basically relying on my own personal insights. Kind of like an auto-maths, if you will.

>>6635888
No, she's hides her power level around just about everyone. She pretends to like YA around her friends, and talks about books she's never read.

>>6635668
That meme again.

>bust or gtfo

>>6635873
Do you appreciate that your life right now is pretty much an anime?

This >>6635905

I feel like you're making this all up, OP. Are you sure this is a woman?

>>6635905
If this thread is still up on Friday, I'll try to get a pic for you

>>6635906
No

>>6635918
Well if it was hormone treatment, it was well done

>>6635904
>She pretends to like YA around her friends, and talks about books she's never read.

That just makes her more pretentious.

>>6635925
hahahahhahahahhahahahahahahahahaha fuck it i'm done.

>>6635920
>No
crying shame tbh

I'm choosing to believe you, because life's more fun that way. Giving your thread a cheeky bump for the pic.

good luck

>>6635235
There are polymaths nowadays, but it's extremely rare.

>>6635597
>a potential cannot actualize itself
outdated

>ITT: OP brags about his genius underage grillfriend

Cool story broseph.

I notice in these threads it's always "my gf"who has these fucking ridiculous ideas. Not fooling anyone faggots

>implying anyone would have a gf if they can read a book

Let's face it, since the advent of wikipedia, is acquiring knowledge even a logical pursuit anymore?

>be me
>realize I have access to a disgusting amount of books, ideas, philosophies, information
>realize all generations before didn't have such quick, easy access to any of the tools necessary to be amazing, learned, pinnacles of wisdom and know-how
>shitpost on 4chan all day
>googling "is christiano ronaldo gay"
>watching Ancient Aliens on youtube

>>6635219
Your GF sounds based as fuck honestly. Good for you

>>6635219
>polymath program

Yeah, there are kits you can buy at Wal-Mart. Some even come with a free "Genius Starter Pak".

Shit, how embarrassing.

>>6636954
>embarrassing
Actually, there are kits you fucking asshole. Ever hear of a thing called Baby Einstein Company LLC?

Why do I bother with you plebs!

>>6635326


Faust sold his soul because he wanted to experience happiness. His scholarly pursuits weren't fulfilling.

>>6635326
In Goethe's Faust there is a character called Wagner who complains that if only he could understand everything in the encyclopedia, he would be the wisest man on earth. This is a parody of the superficial understanding of wisdom that is satisfied with the surface data of things and doesn't desire to probe into the inner mystery of things. Dr. Faust WAS a polymath but he leaves his university in disgust and derides his fellow doctors as silly and conceited men. This leads to his turning to the occult to inquire into the inner mystery of things.

>>6635712
>>6635720

Wait a fucking minute... I remember this too. But didn't she have a bust of Hegel, not Napoleon?

>>6636990
I HAVE, alas! Philosophy,
Medicine, Jurisprudence too,
And to my cost Theology,
With ardent labour, studied through.
And here I stand, with all my lore, 5
Poor fool, no wiser than before.
Magister, doctor styled, indeed,
Already these ten years I lead,
Up, down, across, and to and fro,
My pupils by the nose,—and learn, 10
That we in truth can nothing know!
That in my heart like fire doth burn.
’Tis true I’ve more cunning than all your dull tribe,
Magister and doctor, priest, parson, and scribe;
Scruple or doubt comes not to enthrall me, 15
Neither can devil nor hell now appal me—
Hence also my heart must all pleasure forego!
I may not pretend, aught rightly to know,
I may not pretend, through teaching, to find
A means to improve or convert mankind. 20
Then I have neither goods nor treasure,
No worldly honour, rank, or pleasure;
No dog in such fashion would longer live!
Therefore myself to magic I give,
In hope, through spirit-voice and might, 25
Secrets now veiled to bring to light,
That I no more, with aching brow,
Need speak of what I nothing know;
That I the force may recognise
That binds creation’s inmost energies; 30
Her vital powers, her embryo seeds survey,
And fling the trade in empty words away.

>>6635904
>No, she's hides her power level around just about everyone.
kek

>>6637001

And here I stand, with all my lore,
Poor fool, no wiser than before.

Always loved that line.

>>6637001
WAGNER

Still to watch on I had been well content,
Thus to converse so learnedly with you.
But as to-morrow will be Easter-day,
Some further questions grant, I pray;
With diligence to study still I fondly cling; 255
Already I know much, but would know everything. (Exit.)

FAUST (alone)

How him alone all hope abandons never,
To empty trash who clings, with zeal untired,
With greed for treasure gropes, and, joy-inspir’d,
Exults if earth-worms second his endeavour.

>>6637000
No, she read Hegel.

I have no advice but I wish her luck.

To become a master on both math and art today is huge task, the amount of material is a thousand times more than in renaissance.

Most of us on this board would be considered math geniuses back then.

Look to the musings of one Piero Scaruffi OP; perhaps the only modern thinker that I would call a true 'polymath'.

>>6637049
>tfw this might actually be true
also, bumping because OP might actually share genius-level breasts

>>6637058

We need to know what this platonic ideal of a woman looks like.

Nah she can't.
You can't even master all of mathematics nowadays. Even child prodigies like Terry Tao, who know a lot about all of mathematics, are only able to advance very specialized fields. It's just too much stuff.

But who cares. I think knowing a bit of everything and maybe mastering few things here and there is cool too.

>polymaths
>only one part maths to two parts waffly nonsense

The only way to be a polymath nowadays is to just be born with extremely rare talent at mathematics then use that to tear shit up in physics, logic and computer science as well.

Like Jon Von Neumann.
Your girlfriend's recipe will simply result in a hipster math and philosophy guy.

>>6637840
Do you know what board you're on? It's not /sci/

>>6635219
>My gf wants to become a polymath, since she thinks "intellectual specialization" has become "excessive" and "hampers a cross-disciplined" approach.
>math theology and art major
Heidegger's going to destroy her shit, man. Ease her in with the origins of art and lectures on Plato, then hit her with the turn and see if she becomes a zen nunnery's logic instructor or anheros

>>6637855
I'd expect any intelligent person to agree that the person most like Pascal or newton born in the 20th century is jon von Neumann.

He's the only person to get to the frontier in so many different areas and make significant progress in each of them.

>>6637886
You do realize that the idea of the Renaissance is about completing oneself as a person?

>>6637840
math can be worked through if you struggle with it

there is also a sense in which all that stuff you're talking about is pretty compact

you could probably get it all through a couple dozen books if you really worked through them (i'm doing something like that now)

other knowledge though. like history and literature and the arts is a matter of sheer bulk. there's no way to distill a book into one line. you have to sit through it all. so, really, the weight is on the side everything you didn't mention.

it's just that people look at math based stuff and assume it's much more complicated than it is. read one linear algebra book and you're ready for quantum mechanics. read that and you're ready for the standard model.

but you're never "done" with joyce no matter how many times you read him.

>>6637918
>it's just that people look at math based stuff and assume it's much more complicated than it is. read one linear algebra book and you're ready for quantum mechanics. read that and you're ready for the standard model
>this is what pop-science faggots actually believe

>>6637918
Except that one read through of a linear algebra or analysis book takes about five hundred hours to do properly. You can't really compare the two.

>>6637941
how do you think working physicists learned what they know?

>>6637946
yes you can. first of all the magnitude is not five hundred hours to, say, five hours. it's maybe more like fifty or twenty five. second of all we're talking about not just a little more but much, much more sheer knowledge. more sheer facts. in reality, it's probably endless, because you have multiple interpretations of each work, each text. only when your mind has access to all of that stuff will you be able to make strides in the humanities.

for the sciences, it's much more clear cut, and that's part of what makes them what they are. i'm not saying there's no subtlety but you can begin to work with them as they are much sooner.

don't make too much out of the modest claims i'm making. i'm not saying one is better than the other or anything.

>>6637918
About 1 in a billion or 1 in several billion would be capable of von Neumann's achievements.
I suspect the proportion of people who could achieve a high level of understanding of joyce while wading through history and literature is much higher.

Also in reading joyce you aren't actually achieving anything new. or creating anything. pascal and newton are remembered as polymaths because they made progress and achieved things, because they reached the frontier in several very different areas and progressed further significantly.

There were probably thousands of people living in the renaissance who had read and understood lots of books , appreciated music, learnt mathematics and science, but who gives a shit about them? the ones who are remembered as polymaths are the ones who actually achieved something and made progress beyond merely understanding a piece of fiction written by an author.

>>6637974
>how do you think working physicists learned what they know?
With years and years of experience?
You don't just learn mathematics, you get used to it after years of playing with it.
I agree that it's a much simpler realm, that of highly mathematical sciences, but to master them, it requires more than just putting definitions in your brain. You often have to create your own view of something to play with it when you need it, especially when your job is to come up with proofs.

>>6637976
I want to tell you not to be so pessimistic and to not fetishize your heroes too much. If you stick to a day-by-day program, I'm certain you will be able to know anything you want to know by the time you're 30.

>>6637974
The reason there's so much information in the humanities is because it's much easier to make progress in, not harder

>in reality, it's probably endless
You haven't got very far in mathematics have you?

>>6638002
you've missed the point.
understanding something that someone else has written for you to understand in a book isn't the same as discovering something and making progress at the frontier of understanding yourself. the former is much, much less of an achievement than the latter.

>There were probably thousands of people living in the renaissance who had read and understood lots of books , appreciated music, learnt mathematics and science, but who gives a shit about them? the ones who are remembered as polymaths are the ones who actually achieved something and made progress beyond merely understanding a piece of fiction written by an author.

>>6637993
we're talking about becoming a polymath who has the tools to make advancements in all fields

this isn't the same as someone who devotes all of their life to one subject

however, the more i study, the clearer it becomes that the vast majority of advancements and innovations is applying one thing developed for some purpose over here to something over there it hasn't been developed for

the appeal of knowing about a lot of stuff is the possibility to spot these interconnections -- not to gain the deepest possible understanding of all the nuances of one thing.

>>6638016
>You haven't got very far in mathematics have you?
what are you referring to?

>>6638025
you have to know things first to do things. understand my point first.

>>6638041
>you have to know things first to do things.
obviously.

There isn't any point in saying that in response to either of my posts >>6637840 or >>6637976 and it doesn't refute anything in those posts.

>>6638086
yeah it does because you're confusing being a polymath with being a good will hunting type genius

please don't get mad okay. i know you have a short temper

>>6638086
>>6638095
you two stop fighting NOW!!!

>>6638095
see
>>There were probably thousands of people living in the renaissance who had read and understood lots of books , appreciated music, learnt mathematics and science, but who gives a shit about them? the ones who are remembered as polymaths are the ones who actually achieved something and made progress beyond merely understanding a piece of fiction written by an author.

It sounds like you just want lower standards for yourself so you can call yourself a polymath.

>>6635219
She sounds pretentious. The whole reason specialization exists is because there is literally too much to know in modern mathematics. You MUST specialize if you intend to work at the frontiers of mathematics or natural science. Of course, if she's only pursuing this "polymath" thing so that she can feel superior for it, I'm sure she can have a understanding of the basics of the various areas of mathematics, science, literature, etc. that is good enough to impress others.

>>6638041
>what are you referring to
your understanding of infinity (and to a lesser extent probability)

Your girlfriend sounds quite retarded for someone who's supposed to be a genius.