Open thread, July 23-29, 2013

David_Gerard

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

I think running this for a week worked quite well. Weekly, then? Someone has to remember each Monday.

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

I think running this for a week worked quite well. Weekly, then? Someone has to remember each Monday.

Just finished reading Neuropath by Scott Bakker. It deals with a radical vision of the reductionistic nature of consciousness, intentionality and personhood and now stands alongside Greg Egan's Permutation City and Diaspora as one of the most philosophically shocking books I have read.

I really don't recommend it to anyone who hasn't been very strongly innoculated against Existential Angst.

If Mitchell Porter has read it or is familiar with Bakker's ideas from other sources I'd be interested in hearing his thoughts, as the philsophy of Neuropath really challenges the credibility of any form of realism regarding qualia.

I get the description of Permutation City as shocking (I remember when a friend I lent the book to called me up in the middle of the day when he got to one of the wham sentences) but what in Diaspora was shocking?

2Risto_Saarelma13y

I might have missed something in Neuropath. What I got from it was mostly a technotriller plot using near-future brain surgery to give people creepier versions of the sorts of Oliver Sacks delusions people already get when they get brain damage. The possibility of doing this doesn't seem like a very radical thesis if you already take it as given that the brain runs on physics. I'd agree with the description of Permutation City as philosophically shocking, it had a very strange core idea in it that still wasn't obviously wrong.

4ArisKatsaris13y

Perhaps you would like to post this in the latest (July 2013) media thread? When I wonder what book to read next, I might look through the media threads, but not the open threads...

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