(no subject)

[jazzfish]

What the heck does Peter Jackson think he is playing at?: "Jackson knows his Tolkien mythos well enough to put an entire section of the appendix (about dwarf women) into Gimili's mouth -- but only as part of a build up to him taking a pratfall from a horse."

Søren Kierkegaard (note to self: learn how to represent the Danish letter 'thorn')thanks, Adam! is giving me a headache. "The self is a relation which relates to itself, or that in the relation which is its relating to itself" indeed. The upshot of The Sickness Unto Death appears to be that everyone is in despair (where 'despair' is defined as 'a lack of knowledge of self'), and only through God can we be freed from despair. Interesting diagnoses of despair of the finite (too much focus on material things, ergo no focus on the self) and the infinite (too much focus on Humanity as a whole, ergo no focus on the self), but I'm less impressed by despair of the possible (everything is possible, thus nothing is actualized, thus no focus on the self) and the necessary (a mechanistic worldview, ergo nothing has any effect on anything, ergo no focus on the self because what's the point?). The 'consciousness' aspects of despair look to me more interesting, though.

Yeah, I broke down and got a paid LJ account, to distinguish myself from the upwards of eight hundred free users bugging jproulx last time the free servers went down. Go me.

Comments

[skreidle.livejournal.com]

"The self is a relation which relates to itself, or that in the relation which is its relating to itself"

Well, hearing the author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance explaining how analysis of a structure is itself a structure, and attempting to show that reason and logic are invalid without using reason or logic, are.. interesting. Mind-bending.

Philosophy and such

[jazzfish]

I've actually never read Zen and the Art... lots of people in my english classes in high school were reading it, but I opted for something else each time. Not sure why, now.

Philosophy is interesting stuff, but much of it is dependent on what's come before. K, for instance, references GWF Hegel a lot. I can get through this because I know a bit about Hegel, but I can't help feeling I'm missing large parts of the book.

I can understand analysis being a structure in itself. Invalidating logic without using logic is a tricky proposition at best; it may be just a tool, but it's the one that Western humans are most comfortable with, and throwing it out means starting over again pre-Aristotle (or going East, which tends to get too spiritual too fast for most Westerners).

[nixve.livejournal.com]

I found that Kierkegaard is pretty cool in small doses. It also helped that my philosophy class included my friend Geoff who refers to him as K-dawg.

Congrats on becoming a paid memeber. I suppose I'd have more of a fit about the livejournal free servers going down if I wasn't busy directing my ire at Virtual Tech. (Who I swear, if they don't have our service back by tomorrow then I will take my sword and go beat them up)

[mrstickman.livejournal.com]

<< Soren Kierkegaard (note to self: learn how to represent the Danish letter 'thorn') >>

&#222; is Þ.
&#248; is ø.
I may not be useful for the philosophy stuff, but I make a handy geek at times.

Thorn...

[jazzfish]

Thanks muchly. (it was the 'null' that I was looking for.) What the heck is #222?

Re: Thorn...

[vond.livejournal.com]

I dunno, but it is really handy for virtually sticking your tongue out at people :Þ

Re: Thorn...

[mrstickman.livejournal.com]

Þ is listed on ASCII lookup charts as "thorn," but I searched around for that dude's name and realized you wanted ø, which is listed as "o slash." By the way &#216; is a capital Ø. And you can look up other characters at http://www.htmlhelp.com/reference/charset/.