Moby Dick

[Anonymous No.16515562]

>starts getting good on chapter 133
Give this one a miss if you haven't already read it. Do not sit through this trash. If you want more Moby and less Dick, read the Wikipedia plot synopsis up to the Delight gam and then read the last few chapters like a short story. God, what a shitty fucking book.

[Anonymous No.16516435]

If you start Moby Dick and you don't like the beginning, you're not going to like the rest.

[Anonymous No.16516445]

>>16515562
One of the best books ive ever read. It was a page-turner from beginning to end, even when "nothing" was happening. When I finished it, I wanted another 1000 pages.

[Anonymous No.16516699]

>>16515562
what's it about

[Anonymous No.16516709]

The encyclopedic chapters are clearly pleb filters.

[Anonymous No.16516715]

>>16516699
A man who wants to kill a fish, nothing more

[Anonymous No.16516719]

Call me Ishmael

[Anonymous No.16516720]

>>16516715
>a fish
*Whale

[Anonymous No.16516734]

>>16516715
damn it has like 600 pages, how long till i get to the action?

[Anonymous No.16516748]

>>16516709
>Writing a novel
>Suddenly switch to biology textbook
>Muh allegories
Bravo. /s

[Anonymous No.16516750]

>>16516720
>t.hasnt read Moby Dick

[Anonymous No.16516756]

>>16516734
Not exaggerating, Chapter 133

[Anonymous No.16516762]

>>16516750
Whales are not fish no matter what that retard says. I'll fucking fight anyone who says different.

[Anonymous No.16516812]

>>16516734
Its like Dragon Ball Z. Even when nothing is happening its still exciting and interesting.

[Anonymous No.16516864]

>>16516699
Kino

[Anonymous No.16516916]

>>16516812
>Dragon ball z
>Exciting and interesting
Manchild. Its not interesting even when something is happening.

[Anonymous No.16516923]

>>16516762
The word "fish" referred to whales long before autistic taxonomists started trying to impose their hobby on the english language.

[Anonymous No.16517139]

>>16515562
>Moby dick

>just wiki the plot


Filtered AF

[Anonymous No.16517231]

>>16516923
People were really fucking dumb in the past. The apple don't fall far from the tree with retards like you though.

[Anonymous No.16517254]

>>16517231
It'a fish. Quit being a faggot

[Anonymous No.16517453]

>>16515562
Will someone please tell me why the labour history of whaling keeps getting interrupted by shitty plot chapters?

[Anonymous No.16517459]

>>16515562
The only people who don't get Moby Dick are women and wannabe women.

[Anonymous No.16517486]

>>16517254
It's a fucking mammal you fucking idiot. Saying that whale are fish is like saying bats are birds. But go ahead and disagree, go around the world telling people you think whales are fish and see the contempt and condescension in the look which even the half-educated will give you.

[Anonymous No.16517580]

>>16517459
What's there to "get?" I wanted a book about some badass sailors killin' grillin' & chillin' on a quest to kill MOBY DICK's white ass. There's a reason this trash flopped when it came out. Nineteenth century CHADS had better shit to do than sit through a nerd lecture.

[Anonymous No.16517771]

>>16517459
The prose is brilliant but there’s no substance. I dropped it about 30% in because it got really boring. I’m not even talking about just the “encyclopaedic” chapters, I mean also the autistic expositions of the Pequod, all the crew members on it, the intricate details of their roles, their history, etc. I was reluctant to drop it because the first few chapters featured some of the best prose I’ve ever read, really vivid and enchanting. It seems like Melville was a great writer but a very poor storyteller.

[Anonymous No.16517938]

>>16517486
Spindle-shaped water creature with fins: all such animals were named fish by the protospeakers, unlike fake "fish" like seahorses. Mermaid is a half-fish, and it is to a man what whale is to a cow. Taxonomy is pointless, arbitrary, that's why they change it all the time.

[Anonymous No.16519087]

>>16515562
From the moment you read "I am Ishmael".

[Anonymous No.16519120]

>>16517486
It's more like saying that raspberries, mulberries, and blackberries are berries.

[Anonymous No.16519194]

>>16517771
Actually you’re just a fucking dumbass

[Anonymous No.16519939]

>>16519194
seconding this

[Anonymous No.16519952]

>>16515562
Don't sit through this trash??? Say that to my FUCKING face i'll knock you're ass clean out

[Anonymous No.16519963]

>>16519194
>>16519939
Not an argument

[Anonymous No.16520102]

>>16517459
you must have hit a nerve because he replied to you twice

[Anonymous No.16520170]

>>16517231
whale is short for whalefish you dumb fuck

[Anonymous No.16520240]

>>16516734
>>16515562
>muh action and plot
Why are redditors incapable of appreciating literature? Why can they not read past the most literal aspects of a book’s presentation even when the greater meaning is clear to see?
>>16517771
>moby-dick has no substance
>t.somebody who has never studied philosophy and likely does not have a functioning brain
Not all literature is just about storytelling in the most literal sense, the real “story” of Moby-Dick isn’t Ahab’s revenge on the whale, the real “story” is the narrator/Ishmael/Melville coming to understand the pluralistic and ultimately incomprehensible nature of God and reality.
>>16517459
Based and redpilled
>>16516748
>he can’t mix styles to illustrate a point
>he can’t see how the plurality of perspective is in fact core to the themes of Moby-Dick
NGMI

[Anonymous No.16520266]

>>16517231
>>16517486
You “whale is not a fish” retards got hard BTFO’d in one of the most recent Moby-Dick threads by a biologist who pointed out that “fish” is a phylogenetically meaningless term, if it is a real term, it can only be a morphological term for vertebrates of a certain shape that swim in the sea, which whales fit.

[Anonymous No.16520278]

>>16520240
>the real “story” is the narrator/Ishmael/Melville coming to understand the pluralistic and ultimately incomprehensible nature of God and reality.
i read somewhere that it is supposed to be a criticism of emerson's "self-reliance" too

[Anonymous No.16520326]

>>16520278
It does contain quite strong criticisms of many of the beliefs of writers of Melville’s time, in particular he criticises pantheism/transcendentalism; of which Emerson, Thoreau and Whitman were adherents.
There are many interpretations to be taken from Moby-Dick, it is one of the things which makes it so great

[Anonymous No.16520349]

>>16517486
Bats are basically birds when you think about it?

[Anonymous No.16521840]

>>16520278
I think part of the brilliance of it is it’s open-endedness and complex and layered themes.that, along with some of the greatest prose ever, memorable characters and a story that everyone knows, guarantees it will forever remain a highly acclaimed book and one of the pinnacles of literature

[Anonymous No.16521991]

>>16520266
I came back too late, but that faggot is retarded and so are you.
>>/lit/?task=search2&ghost=&search_text=&search_subject=Moby+Dick+Pt.+2&search_username=&search_tripcode=&search_email=&search_filename=&search_datefrom=&search_dateto=&search_op=all&search_del=dontcare&search_int=dontcare&search_ord=new&search_capcode=all&search_res=post&__cf_chl_jschl_tk__=1ebb09112946faa4dc12ab1b1bf5915d40662e96-1602024130-0-ARj_2lBQsWTCGF6PROREK7wFpkNV6yJAidf1xjTt8kDeMMyB1N2d-gr-35HZX2RtLWIZp4HGWy9h7qUSgUe86Rlvw44TJX1WBRhiIOD9iCb6aqbnhRy7xkrFP5WAC-wnV0Lk3FqouAx4eZutee9NNzBapLSHCcyIobJG0oYSjHRKzqtQgru7pTbh8PjwdQKI3GVCogg-gKDaSTuaZ7-gZP41E7BEKqyH0ri-AagiIbBi2z-pOZfAzFDNI-vVPFx-1w0qc6pCKjeZngUWX3XdmiXNDoW4MbqxUKxXGejB4TsCpnLeRRNg-NXdlJJybP8sPTEDM4F3415zz8AWYecNg0WXfzn-P97P1bQVOV2TQF-YBZ7bc8PAC87PWQcAuqM0gJ7KmMp7pjO7HqZzo3D3ITjhjOaO31iduxcOrrkqf-L7-FRRfO9PmomHPPoVL5P8PCOhdt3e3LNI00whnCtHn4cj7UlfD1S9rMSPJ7sGt1yqd7MYvyh0-DdN_forXpUSp7JKwLT8_N1yjndC7kXVVhus1ErKMuNwFVWLjaasR62GXJIcAWm1QQi48mv30sAFUzqO4o73Fd1DUcfxNX1kQg0kyCnOU9NvNI-azP2GLbXm882N5xwauXI3o8VxaQ3NMw

[Anonymous No.16522002]

>>16515562
No, it gets good on the first line.
>Call me Ishmael

[Anonymous No.16522018]

>>16521991
>no argument
Cope Linnaecuck, “fish” is a phylogenetically worthless unit, you could only say that whales aren’t fish if you were saying that they can’t be something that doesn’t exist.

[Anonymous No.16522038]

>>16515562
Hey, what's long and pink and lies at the bottom of the ocean?

[Anonymous No.16522083]

>>16520266
Fish is an evolutionary group, it just includes the tetrapods

[Anonymous No.16522092]

[Anonymous No.16522102]

>>16522083
This is why whales are fish, because fish as a monophyletic group would include all tetrapods.

[Anonymous No.16522109]

>>16522018
>“fish” is a phylogenetically worthless unit
Fish on the top right; not-fish below. It's that easy.

[Anonymous No.16522112]

>>16522038
Semen

[Anonymous No.16522118]

>>16522102
they're the most fishy of all fishes when you think about it, they evolved into land creatures and then said fuck that we're going back to being fish

[Anonymous No.16522122]

>>16522102
Fish is a paraphyletitic group, dimwit.

[Anonymous No.16522185]

>>16522109
That’s a paraphyletic group because most bony fish are more closely related to tetrapods than to sharks and lampreys. Paraphyletic groups are trash because they are extremely misleading about evolutionary history and you don’t know how to read a phylogenetic tree. What you suggest is hideously I biological and the only way to justify that grouping would be to not believe in evolution, but if you don’t believe in evolution then whales don’t share a common ancestor with other mammals and they’re sea-bound animals that swim using fins, and therefore they are fish in a creationist world. It was established in the previous thread that production of milk (or analogies using the same hormones), birth of live young and endothermy are shit for defining mammals because there are “fish” (by your definition) that secrete fatty tissues to feed their young using the hormone prolactin, there are “fish” that give birth to live young and even have a placental organ, and there are plenty of endothermic “fish”. Phylogeny is the only sensible way to biologically categorise life, if you want to do it your way on a restaurant menu that’s fine, but that’s not how biology works.

[Anonymous No.16522190]

>>16522122
Paraphyletic groups are an abomination and a holdover clinging to old groupings of species from before evolution and genetics were understood

[Anonymous No.16522203]

>a thread on Moby Dick devolves into people arguing over the classification of whales
Melville definitely would have been proud

[Anonymous No.16522211]

>>16522118
do darwinists really believe this?

[Anonymous No.16522236]

>>16522211
>take the Darwinian view of biologists: whales are fish or fish is a biologically meaningless term
>take the creationist view: God placed whales in the sea to swim with fins and all species are distinct from one another and so groupings other than species are arbitrary, therefore whales are as much fish as any other

[Anonymous No.16522243]

>>16522185
>if you want to do it your way...
Nigger, I'm not the one making this shit up. By every definition of the word, whales are not "fish." Don't bitch to me about it. You will continue to be wrong and stupid until the scientific community accepts that mammals can be fish. Protip: it's not gonna happen.

[Anonymous No.16522269]

>>16522236
based
>Whales in the sea God's voice obey

[Anonymous No.16522299]

>>16522190
>Imagine living underwater 30-90 years and not even having gills
The harpoon is a mercy for these pitiful animals.

[Anonymous No.16522385]

>>16522243
The scientific community will tell you that “fish” is a biologically meaningless term. Operating purely off etymology and what that definition is arbitrarily applied to with no physical or even conceptual basis is not scientific or rational. Your appeal to authority is empty because that community’s experts do not agree with you, they agree that paraphyletic groups are worthless because they mislead about evolutionary processes.
>>16522299
>fish are partially defined by breathing water using gills
So Lepidosireniforme lungfish aren’t fish either?

[Anonymous No.16522727]

>>16522385
>The scientific community will tell you that “fish” is a biologically meaningless term.
Nope. "Fish" describes a specific group of animals. In other words, "Fuck off, we're full." I can tell you from first hand experience that these "experts" you keep referring to do not spend time giving lectures about whales in courses like ichthyology, fisheries management, and fisheries techniques. Whales are discussed in marine biology and marine ecology, but fish experts talk do not give a fuck about these blubber filled losers. So, YOUR appeal to authority regarding fish being a useless term to the community's experts is a flat lie.
>So Lepidosireniforme lungfish aren’t fish either?
Lungfish, while still fish, need the harpoon too. Same with trash like syngnathidae and coelacanths. Really though, what else would they be except fish? Regarding whales, you have experts specializing in marine mammals and cetology. The same can't be said for one-off oddball species of fish. Even when you split freshwater from saltwater fish dumping off your shitty whales to marine fish experts is too broad a field of study. Keep your fucking whales to yourself.

[Anonymous No.16523079]

>>16522727
non-overlapping magisteria has nothing good to offer aside from giving inoffensive eggheads more job opportunities

[Anonymous No.16523146]

>>16523079
Just shut the fuck up. Your argument ran out of steam long ago.
>Whalefags eternally btfo the water.

[Anonymous No.16523168]

>people in this thread unironically saying that a whale is a fish because just saying “fish“ technically not actual taxonomy
by your fags logic pic related could be called a fish

[Anonymous No.16523176]

>>16523168
>mythological beasts

[Anonymous No.16523181]

>>16523146
You didn't see >>16519120

[Anonymous No.16523185]

Starting it tonight

[Anonymous No.16523234]

>>16523181
Whales are the marine equivalent of a dingleberry. Eat up faggot.

[Anonymous No.16525169]

>>16523168
Phylogenetically, this is also a fish, if “fish” is even a real thing, which it’s not.
>>16522727
A conventional lie used to maintain continuity with an ignorant past is not a substitute for truth you sickening sophist. Biologists will tell you that fish is not a real biological group: ray finned, lobe finned, and elasmobranchs are distinct real groups but not “fish” as a whole. Fish are not a real group, therefore a whale is as much a fish as any other if we insist that fish exist, a whale and a carp share more DNA and physiological similarity than a carp and a shark.
>whining about my appeal to authority when it’s entire point was to show yours for what it was
Pathetic.

[Anonymous No.16525182]

>>16517486
Actually, saying that “fish” is a biologically meaningful term would be like saying that bats birds and pterosaurs are all part of the same group because they’re vertebrates that can fly, only those groups are actually more similar to each other than sharks are to ray fins. Why is a paraphyletic group of fish ok and real, unless it also includes whales?

[Anonymous No.16525249]

>>16516762
go back to category theory

[Anonymous No.16526172]

bump for more bickering

[Anonymous No.16526182]

>>16526172
ENCYCLOPAEDIA ARE REALLY EPIC NOVELS MISTOLD.

[Anonymous No.16526242]

>>16523234
https://www.newsweek.com/dogs-getting-high-poop-1449042

>Dogs who have been on hiking trails or forests in Colorado are being brought in to see vets with a variety of symptoms. >Experts believe the dogs are ingesting poop left by campers and hikers who have ingested enough marijuana to give the dogs a contact high.

[Anonymous No.16526345]

>>16526182
This but unironically, the story of life on earth’s development from single cells to mankind is a truly compelling one.

[Anonymous No.16526351]

>>16526345
Did you think I was ironic?

[Anonymous No.16526649]

>>16526351
Yes because you put it in all caps

[Anonymous No.16527432]

>>16525169
>Biologists will tell you that fish is not a real biological group: ray finned, lobe finned, and elasmobranchs are distinct real groups but not “fish” as a whole.
>Dude trust me.
Ray finned FISH, Lobe finned FISH, Elasmobranchs (Sharks and Rays which are all *dramatic pause* cartilaginous FISH). The second you dumbfuck whales stepped out of the water and started evolving on land destroyed any credibility you had as a fish. Now you're just a some pathetic ball of fat rolling around the ocean gasping for breath because you don't even have gills. You're swimming around with bones that don't even make sense. You're a failure in the ocean and a failure on land. The only trick you have is to make yourself as fucking fat as possible so you don't get instantly destroyed by the fish CHADS that evolved to kill shit underwater as fast as possible. You had your shot to be a fish and you blew it out your blowhole. It's no wonder whalers were on a non-stop killing spree that nearly drove your retarded species to extinction.
>whining about my appeal to authority when it’s entire point was to show yours for what it was
>boo-hoo! Let me off the hook
You are still lying about BIOLOGISTS WILL TELL YOU. I swear by Davy Jones you and every one of your whale friends will see the harpoon by nightfall.

[Anonymous No.16527494]

>>16522727
if it spends 90% or more of its time in the water I calls it a sea creature, if it lives on land I calls it a land creature, if its an air living bastard I calls it an air creature.

[Anonymous No.16527683]

>>16516916
>t. fedora tipping faggot

[Anonymous No.16527688]

>>16517580
Wrong. In England they loved it. It was only dumbass Americans that couldn’t appreciate it because their underdeveloped brains couldn’t comprehend it. Or they just straight up copied the opinions the British had

[Anonymous No.16527724]

>>16527494
Fair enough. Perfectly acceptable examples of polyphyletic groups. No idea why these whalefags cannot accept that fish doesn't include mammals.

[Anonymous No.16527747]

>>16515562
it was boring as fuck and a pain to read. but for some reason it must be praised.
I think it's some kind of fetichism. people say they like it in order to look smart.
I made a thread some time ago discussing this and I only got a lot of rage. the only somehow valid answer I got was: the book is very well written in english. as I'm spanish and read a traduction, the book lost most of its charm

[Anonymous No.16527749]

>>16527688
Actually, it was trash on two continents. The Brits were pissed that the story was told from a "that perspective" because there was no epilogue to make sense of it.

[Anonymous No.16527761]

>>16527688
Actually, it was trash on two continents. The Brits were pissed that the story was told from "that perspective" because there was no epilogue to make sense of it.

[Anonymous No.16527801]

>>16517580
>I wanted a book about some badass sailors killin' grillin' & chillin
Helloooo reddit, go get a crunchyroll subscription

[Anonymous No.16527823]

>>16527724
Men are fish.

[Anonymous No.16527846]

Is there a more brainlet take than appealing to past authority?

[Anonymous No.16527919]

>nerds still seething over 170 year old banter
lmao, I bet you losers got mad at the whale penis chapter too.

[Anonymous No.16527979]

>>16527747
>im spanish
opinion discarded

[Anonymous No.16528065]

>>16517459
is it because it's a gay novel? I mean, i wasn't even 20 pages in and i had a massive gay boner just from reading.

[Anonymous No.16528085]

>>16527761
Then why were there so many positive reviews over there at the time?

[Anonymous No.16528099]

>>16527801
>Helloooo
You're going with him.

[Anonymous No.16528133]

>>16527823
Men are Reptiles.

[Anonymous No.16528240]

>>16528065
This but unironically
Tfw no Queequeg bf

[Anonymous No.16528740]

>>16528099
I put on some o's to get around the spam-filter, don't get all pissy now.

[Anonymous No.16528832]

Yall talk shit. Trying to read this shit the wrong way, its like yall watching The Godfather because you want something similar to Scarface

[Anonymous No.16529183]

>>16517771
maybe try Pierre, there's a bit more of a plot to it if that's your thing. same brilliant prose

[Anonymous No.16529342]

>>16525182
You have fish, then you branch off to tetrapods. If you want to group them together in a clade, they're vertebrates. It's the same reason you refer to humans as apes or simians, but NOT 'monkeys' since this term refers specifically to New and Old World monkeys. If you needed to refer to both monkeys and apes in a monophyletic group (clade) you would use the term 'simians.' Some idiots itt may walk up to a fishtank and expect to see monkeys and birds and bears swimming around. I expect to see a specific group of animals, fish.

[Anonymous No.16529349]

>>16529342
JAPANESE BIRD IS DEAD AND CANNOT COOK SPAGHETTI

[Anonymous No.16529385]

>>16516715
As I made this post yesterday, and just checked back now, I am pleased

[Anonymous No.16529404]

>>16529342
Do you keep whales in a whaletank, huh?

[Anonymous No.16529422]

>>16527724
>acceptable example
>paraphylogenies
They aren’t acceptable, they are the trash remnants of outdated taxonomy from before we discovered evolution and genetics
>>16529342
You can use paraphyletic groups, you’re still wrong as it ignores the real truth of the situation to give a reductive easy-to-digest perspective.
Were the scientific community progressed per discovery rather than per gravestone then we would’ve completely reworked the way we order taxonomy to fit evolutionary history rather than recognisable morphology.

[Anonymous No.16529563]

>>16527432
>fish
>CHADS
Pick one
>be a shark
>have never left the water
>should’ve evolved to always be top predator in the sea
>relatives moved onto land, they’re just pussies
>millions of years pass
>some of the now scaly land relatives are coming into the sea
>no big I’m still top predator
>they get bigger
>ohshit
>get replaced at the top of the food chain by a bunch of aquatic lizards
>meteor hits
>wipes out the big lizards
>survive the extinction through my small wimp species
>recover pretty well
>some of the other land-relatives are coming back in, these ones had fur before they came back
>know I can absolutely wreck them
>at first do pretty well
>then they start getting bigger
>nbd I can get bigger too, reach my max size but still only hunt the small whales because I’m too pussy to go after the biggest
>ice age hits
>whales all move north to cooler more nutrient rich water
>cucked by my own physiology
>have to be smaller again
>it’s ok I can recover when the whales come back
>the whales come back
>they are now literally the biggest animals that have ever lived, their name is literally synonymous with “big thing”
>w-well at least all the new small ones I can get r-right?
>turns out they’re way smarter than me and some polka dot looking faggots completely wreck me in ability to catch seals to the point where they can topple ecosystems by introducing themselves
>some new weird thing with fur only on part of its body keeps coming into the water
>haha easy target
>they only prey on the small sharks now
>time passes
>they get better at catching us
>they are literally driving some fish to extinction by genocide, including me
>some narrow eyed ones kill me so much just for my fins that the others feel bad at how hard I’m getting BTFO’d
>no longer the king, will probably be driven to extinction by a bunch of apes with nets
Humans will always be the chaddest animal, and whales are number 2 only to humans in the sea.

Oh the rare old whale, mid storm and gale,
In his ocean home will be
A giant in might, where might is right,
And King of the boundless sea.

[Anonymous No.16529580]

>>16529404
Personally I keep them in the trash where they belong, but I suppose the term you're looking for is 'aquarium.'

[Anonymous No.16529659]

>>16515562
You literally have to read the entire KJV before you read this book or you won't understand any of the references. Also, sometimes u won't understand it anyways because its just ishmael ranting to the heavens. I got filtered around the 3rd or 4th time he did that for an entire page

[Anonymous No.16529878]

>>16529659
You also need to be familiar with philosophers like Spinoza and Plato.

[Anonymous No.16529899]

>>16529659
Those are the best parts though

[Anonymous No.16529987]

>>16529422
How fucking dense are you? Do you honestly believe it's practical to refer to every animal from a hagfish to a peacock only as vertebrates? With 530 million years of evolution, it's practical to have a term that refers to- You know what, no. I'm not wasting one more second on your bullshit.
>Haha, fishy fish goes brrrrr

[Anonymous No.16530121]

>>16529563
>Do a flip faggot
Great WHITE kings would rather die in captivity than stop feasting on seals and tuna in the open ocean.

[Anonymous No.16530517]

>>16529987
Obviously they should be subdivided at actual branching points, keep tetrapods, but distinguish between ray fins, lobe fins, elasmobranchs, lampreys and hagfish, this keeps to monophyletic groups that actually reflect evolutionary history, it isn’t difficult to reorganise things in terms of actually real biology instead of human projections. Taxonomists already do this.
>it’s practical to have terms that refer to-
To gross morphology and lifestyle similarity? Hagfish and lampreys don’t have jaws, hagfish don’t even have vertebrae, they resemble worms as much as they do other vertebrates. The structural composition of a shark and a dolphin are far more alike than a shark and a hagfish (no surprise considering that the former two are more closely related)

[Anonymous No.16530547]

>>16530121
Chad cetaceans rape humans rather than just dying.
>be a shark
>literally be too stupid to avoid killing yourself in environmental change
>brain is miniscule and barely developed beyond being able to smell things
Lmao

[Anonymous No.16530659]

>>16517771
The prose is kino but that is NOT why it is so hugely regarded as a great classic. It's because it is so incredibly jam-packed with symbolism and meaning across the entire work.

[Anonymous No.16530706]

>>16529563
Yes.
>>16529404
Also, yes.
>>16527747
I remember the thread. You are still regarded.
>>16517771
Ooph, yikes. A meandered into the wrong thread. Moby Dick is the greatest prose poem ever constructed. A cunning usurping of Homer and a giggling-in-chains directed toward the Quakers. If you don't believe Melville's Dick is on the Top Ten: It's Red Hot! Chart then you are either delusional, stupid, or misinformed. Probably all three.
>>16527494
>>16527724
>>16522727
>>16522083
>>16520170
>>16517938
Whales are Fish. Also, humorlessly, Whales are Whales, and Fish are Fish. Who gives a shit? Categories keep you all attached to this illusory ecological sphere anyway.

[Anonymous No.16530923]

I want to carve a lance out of bone and murder cachalots from a whaleboat

[Anonymous No.16530942]

>>16530517
>Obviously they should be subdivided at actual branching points, keep tetrapods, but distinguish between ray fins, lobe fins, elasmobranchs, lampreys and hagfish, this keeps to monophyletic groups that actually reflect evolutionary history, it isn’t difficult to reorganise things in terms of actually real biology instead of human projections.
Good.
>Taxonomists already do this.
Golly gee, and all this time I thought my goldfish was a weird looking an eagle ray! Is it really so hard to grasp the concept that there are many subgroups of fish? Think of the spatial proximity of these animals to one another and their respective role in the food web. Think of discovering 250 unclassified new species per year or describing something you can't yet identify. Think of managing a specific habitat and how many different fishes will be affected. The broad term 'fish' has many practical uses... And nevermind 'fish,' we haven't even kicked the door off the hinges yet with the concept of a fishery.

[Anonymous No.16530966]

>>16530547
>Those massive olfactory bulbs being able to detect the smell of your bullshit through your monitor

[Anonymous No.16531002]

>>16515562
Everyone fell for the bait

[Anonymous No.16531014]

>>16531002
The bait is a myth. No one on this board is capable of authentic discussions. It was a springboard for dopamine. Don't fool yourself, kid.

[Anonymous No.16532568]

>>16530942
>Think of discovering 250 unclassified new species per year or describing something you can't yet identify
It’s not hard to distinguish between the 5 or 6 groups of tetrapods. A biologist isn’t likely to mistake a lamprey for a carp

[Anonymous No.16532629]

>>16530942
>practical use
This doesn’t define what something “is” though. Practically, biologists use species to measure ecological stability and biodiversity despite the fact that the concept of a species has been outdated in terms of what really exists for 150 years because the line is blurred so much by evolution, even Darwin commented on the inability to distinguish varieties from species.
“Fish” as you propose, a purely practical rather than truthful term, is so arbitrary that it doesn’t reflect the reality of the biological situation, pure predication on convention is the death of rationality
>fisheries
In fisheries, almost any animal life reared deed is a fish, it’s arbitrary because it’s about producing food, not ontological or biological truth. Vertebrate “fish” are distinguished from invertebrate shell”fish” by the term finfish in fisheries.

If someone ask the question: What IS a [thing]? And [thing] turns out to be an arbitrary acknowledgement of pattern recognised in humans in some ways but not others, then that is not a satisfying answer, you’ve essentially said that [thing] isn’t real at all and it’s pure human construction.

[Anonymous No.16534053]

>>16532629
>This doesn’t define what something “is” though.
In reference to its many subdivisions, a fish "is" an animal belonging to any subgroup of aquatic vertebrates not belonging to tetrapods.

[Anonymous No.16534072]

how is this bait still up?
Fuck off to reddit we want to discuss literature here

[Anonymous No.16534134]

>>16534072
This is what happens when you write about whales being fish. Next time read the source material, nigger.

[Anonymous No.16535495]

What about the sex scenes?

[Anonymous No.16536638]

>>16534053
That’s not the “is” under biology because it’s arbitrary, a totally human imposition on a far wider reality, it’s a definition reliant on (outdated) convention rather than an essential truth of those organisms. If something is that arbitrary on constructed, it isn’t anything at all.

[Anonymous No.16537057]

Bump

[Anonymous No.16537718]

>>16536638
Your argument is an meritless convoluted incoherent mess. You have proven yourself completely ignorant of the very premise of evolutionary taxonomy and demonstrated a position devoid of any and all rational scientific thought. Further, the fact that I bumped this thread from the bottom of Page 10 in conjunction with the timestamp of your post being newer than even the most recent posts on threads higher up on Pages 9 and 10 in the catalog is evidence enough to support that you Saged your own reply in an underhanded and juvenile attempt to get the last word and save face. Your post is the most pathetic and deplorable thing I have ever read on a 4chan blue board. You have lost. Gtfo and kys.

>Fish: 1 — Whales: 0
I fucking warned you that you were getting the harpoon.

[Anonymous No.16538805]

>>16515562
best prose ever written in English

[Anonymous No.16538826]

>>16537718
His argument is evolutionary, it's as objective as you can be. The way you're defining fish is just 'some things that swim lol'.

[Anonymous No.16539630]

>>16538826
>The way you're defining fish is just 'some things that swim lol'.
No, try:
>>16538826
>an animal belonging to any subgroup of aquatic vertebrates not belonging to tetrapods.
Name a single animal that meets this definition yet is not considered a fish.

Protip: u can't

[Anonymous No.16540080]

>>16515562
The beginning is the best part though. Ultra comfy.

[Anonymous No.16540110]

>>16516435
complete fucking bullshit. do not speak for 5 years

[Anonymous No.16540117]

>>16515562
>>16516748
>>16517580
>filtered by the greatest novel of all time

>>16520240
extremely based

[Anonymous No.16540332]

>>16515562
So what are the major themes

[Anonymous No.16540708]

>>16537718
>You have proven yourself completely ignorant of the very premise of evolutionary taxonomy
Massive projection, considering that your definition is evolutionarily arbitrary, being a recognition of trait and phenotype rather than relatedness and genotype.
“Fish” by your definition is a colloquialism, a commonality of language akin to calling invertebrates in the leaf litter all “bugs”, it fails to reflect the biological reality of those animals, it doesn’t recognise the complexity of the situation, it’s reductive for the sake of an easy definition.
>>16539630
Hagfish seem to be considered fish by you despite not having any vertebrae.
>an animal belonging to any subgroup of aquatic vertebrates not belonging to tetrapods.
On an evolutionary level, this is totally arbitrary, arbitrary definitions are untruthful sophistry. It’s an attempt to cling to Linnaean taxonomy, questionable in its time given belief in immutable species, but since the discovery of evolution it does nothing but mislead from biological truth.

[Anonymous No.16540723]

>>16540332
Biology and homosexuality.

[Anonymous No.16540750]

>>16540332
He can’t name the major themes because he skim read the book and so didn’t pick up on any of the obvious meanings. Moby-Dick is a good book for people to read both early and then again a little later in their exploration of literature: later because having a lot of background in the bible, epics, Shakespeare, and philosophy increases the book’s beauty; early because it’s easy to see some of the beauty and meaning without that background (comparisons will go over your head but much of Melville’s metaphor is easily explanatory from the book itself, like fast/loose fish), and so if someone gets filtered by it, it generally indicates that they don’t engage well with literature as an art form and mostly seek it as entertainment. Possible allowances for tithed languages though, i don’t know how well the book translates, and I’ve read books in other languages before that were butchered when transferred to English

[Anonymous No.16540755]

>>16540750
>tithed
*other
Teach me not to phonepost

[Anonymous No.16542004]

>>16540708
>the biological reality of those animals
They ALL share a common ancestor at the very first first vertebrate. "Fish" is the subphylum/clade Vertebrata minus the tetrapods.
>Hagfish
Originally, 'Craniata' was used to describe fish to include hagfish, but now it's thought they simply lost their spine through evolution. They are classified as vertebrate species. This is the same way a snake is classified as a tetrapod. All this and you didn't even answer the question because I asked for an animal NOT considered a fish.

>0/10; thanks for playing.

[Anonymous No.16543213]

>>16542004
>They ALL share a common ancestor at the very first first vertebrate. "Fish" is the subphylum/clade Vertebrata minus the tetrapods.
>it’s correct because it’s monophyletic
>n-no it doesn’t have to be monophyletic when I don’t want it to for tetrapods
Pathetic.
An arbitrary definition does not give what a thing IS. Fish is pure arbitrary by your account from mixing of definition, it isn’t biologically sound as a real biological unit, you could use fish as a descriptor for simplification but not to define what something really IS.
>unceasing smug avatar-fagging
I can smell the so¥

[Anonymous No.16543246]

>Pip’s ringed horizon began to expand around him miserably. By the merest chance the ship itself at last rescued him; but from that hour the little negro went about the deck an idiot; such, at least, they said he was. The sea had leeringly kept his finite body up, but drowned the infinite of his soul. Not drowned entirely, though. Rather carried down alive to wondrous depths, where strange shapes of the unwarped primal world glided to and fro before his passive eyes; and the miser-merman, Wisdom, revealed his hoarded heaps; and among the joyous, heartless, ever-juvenile eternities, Pip saw the multitudinous, God-omnipresent, coral insects, that out of the firmament of waters heaved the colossal orbs. He saw God’s foot upon the treadle of the loom, and spoke it; and therefore his shipmates called him mad. So man’s insanity is heaven’s sense; and wandering from all mortal reason, man comes at last to that celestial thought, which, to reason, is absurd and frantic; and weal or woe, feels then uncompromised, indifferent as his God.
What are the coral insects? Anyone have a concrete idea or is the unknowing of it just a part of the incomprehensibility of the divine that is the central point in this section?

[Anonymous No.16543286]

>As the boats now more closely surrounded him, the whole upper part of his form, with much of it that is ordinarily submerged, was plainly revealed. His eyes, or rather the places where his eyes had been, were beheld. As strange misgrown masses gather in the knot-holes of the noblest oaks when prostrate, so from the points which the whale's eyes had once occupied, now protruded blind bulbs, horribly pitiable to see. But pity there was none. For all his old age, and his one arm, and his blind eyes, he must die the death and be murdered, in order to light the gay bridals and other merry-makings of men, and also to illuminate the solemn churches that preach unconditional inoffensiveness by all to all.

[Anonymous No.16543502]

>>16516435
This.
And if you don't like the beginning, you should stick to stupid Japanese comics instead.

[Anonymous No.16543523]

>>16543246
>What are the coral insects?
A flight of imagination. Don't get hung up on them, just enjoy the imagery.

[Anonymous No.16543536]

>>16531002
You must be new here. OPs on /lit/ are always retards.

[Anonymous No.16544181]

>>16543213

[Anonymous No.16544321]

>>16543523
That does seem to correspond to the unknowability
>>16531002
There are people with OP’s attitude to literature and they do post here regularly, it very well might not be bait.

[Anonymous No.16544367]

ITT: hoes mad

[Anonymous No.16544376]

>>16544367
Sorry OP, you got BTFO by people who don’t get filtered by books that almost anyone can at least partially understand.

[Anonymous No.16544386]

>>16544376
Im not OP you fucking retard, besides thid thread is clearly about what is and isn't a fish

[Anonymous No.16544779]

>>16544386
My mistake, I’ll shut the firmament on my way out.

[Anonymous No.16544994]

>>16516720
Filtered

[Anonymous No.16545089]

It's got the best opening of any novel I've ever read, must give credit for that.