What are you reading these days?

not one specific book, but which authors/poets/strains of thought/time periods/geographic regions/etc. have got you going and why? how did you come to the topic? what are you still looking to find in them?

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what the fuck makes you think I read, user?

Gothic literature: Frankenstein, The Phantom of the Opera, Dracula, The Monk, The Castle of Otranto.

I forgot to tell you the reason why I got into gothic literature. Last year I saw a documentary about gothic, and I got interested. I started with Frankenstein in february, and I want more; I'd like to read The Mysteries of Udolpho, The Last Man and the complete work of Poe.

>time periods/geographic regions
Spanish Conquest of Latin America.
The clash of civilizations, the technological disparity, the astonishment of natives, the settlement and sustenance of new cities in unexplored lands, especially the most vulnerable colonies like the South of Chile during its Arauco War. You get Spanish Conquistadors on the dozens with no resources struggling against hordes of tens of thousands of "barbarian" natives who slowly learn the European war techniques, copy ther strategies, steal their weapons, start a spy network, in a conflict that lasted over 400 years. The continuous feeling of being on the verge of extinction in those remote and small colonies who barely have any connection to the European metropolis, the feeling of despair and abandonment by settlers who don't even know how to read but are fervent believers of Christ. While the choleric natives see their people die of disease by the millions. My favorite conflict because of how authentically tragic and long it was.

i dont really understand what makes something 'gothic'

Mathematics. All periods interest me. Right now I’m reading Fibonacci. Once I finish his Liber Abaci and his Book of Squares I’ll be moving onward to more thought provoking treatises. I just wanted to read the book that introduced Arabic numerals into Europe

I’m trying to find Witelo’s Perspectiva. This is a document I would take much joy in reading. Alas, I cannot find it translated anywhere on the Internet. As such, I suppose I will be reading Roger Bacon’s Opus Majus if I can’t get my hands on ‘Perspectiva’.

Love love love the old mathematical documents. Love em.

I also like mathematical and non-mathematical economics (most people have a preference, I personally like a solid mixture). About to finish up Theory of Games by Von Neumann and move on to Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy by Schumpeter.

As far as other interests go, I am interested in older astronomy, and just contemporary astrology and astrophysics in general. I think space is interesting.

I love political science and sociology. I’ll be reading Jeremy Bentham after I’ve finished with Tocqueville.

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I’m :3

two things about the conquests that always interested me, aside from the amazing stories like cortez, are the inquisition in the new world and the possibility of large (tens of thousands of people) wooden/forgotten cities in the amazon basin. thoughts?

did you study math? is that stuff hard to read?

It all depends man. Some of it is more philosophical some of it isn’t. Sometimes I read pure philosophy sometimes I read it with a bit of logic.

I don’t know when it happened but sometime in the last year or so people started to make a very aggressive division between mathematics and science and philosophy. There is far too little time on this Earth to waste for hating, and to be honest with you it hurts the appreciation of some of these finer documents.

For instance, there are many times indeed where I could show you how my appreciation of different mathematical documents has helped my appreciation of, say, logic, or just the nature of thought in general.

To answer your question: no document is really ‘easy’ to read. Even Democracy In America, a work which is primarily literary, is being read with a careful pace so I don’t miss anything. You need to read, then put the book down and think for a little while. And I do this with philosophy and mathematics.

Perspectiva, this book I’m trying to get my hands on, is supposed to be a largely astronomical work with influences from Alhazen’s Optics. The Optics was a verrrry interesting document to simply study the mathematical proofs and set the book down and think about it for a little while. I like the study of Optics.

I think colleges these days are bullshit. I think if you really want to know how things work you should autodidact yourself, but autodidact WELL, not poorly. If you do it poorly you will fail easily.

Roger Bacon’s Opus Majus is supposed to be a little bit of everything: moral philosophy (which I love), mathematics, astronomy, physics.

Would really love to read Perspectiva though. I was particularly looking forward to that and Rene Descartes’ sprawling geometrical treatise, which I’m sure is extant, because colleges like MUH POPULAR NAMES.

any specific mathematical concepts you've found 'heuristically' useful in other areas of thought?

Infinitely many to list here.

Just recently while Liber Abaci I was struck with how interesting it is that solving for certain equations you cannot use algebra. That to solve for a certain value we are taught algebra is the only way. However with algebra I get one solution then using one of Fibonacci’s other four methods I get another.

I think it is the sign of indeterminacy within the equations (ie the equation is proportional and not definite). But it’s still interesting. :3

Specifically for philosophy though, Alhazen’s Optics can be metaphorically applied to perception. This is the reason I love treatises on Optics so much. I can take the findings there and apply them to how we perceive ideas in general.

So that the ‘image location’ of a spherical mirror is the perceived idea of a distorted philosophical lens, if you will. :3

And the other thing of course, Alhazen studied Aristotle so before you call me crazy, Book III literally hinges on the borderline between Aristotleian Metaphysics and technical Optics. Socrates is even mentioned, as an homage to Aristotle.

have you read goethe's shit on optics/color?

The playwright? :3

I read all over the place. I've gone through a bunch of Orwell, classic sci-fi, reactionary/righ-wing theory and lit, I always read history; right now military/Rome/40-60s America/Russia, current philosophical interest is aesthetics, religious stuff including mythology/the psychological structure behind it, so Jung, Campbell that sort of thing, the Greeks proper of course; so I'm finally reading Herodotus and the ancient plays. Propably going deeper into Tolstoy's work soon.

drop jung and campbell, pick up eliade, dumezil and bataille

Eliade and his history of religious ideas is on my list, Dumezil looks patrician I'll check him out, what would you have me read from Bataille?

theory of religion and the accursed share

I'm reading Pascal's thoughts because of the Pascal spammer.

Generally speaking I'm reading german lit because I'm half german but don't know shit about the language or culture or history or whatever.
Right now I'm reading pic related. As a leftist I don't have many opportunities to mock shithole countries, so it feels really good.

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do you speak german

No, reading translations only. I used to learn it and could probably read very slowly an easy book, using a dictionary all the time. Would be too much of a chore.

My reading list.

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to kill a mockingbird, 1983, animal farm, stephen king, catcher in the rye, harry potter