Some people you could read without having read from the beginning. Nietzsche, Descartes, Sartre. But if you're wanting to tackle guys like Berkeley, Heidegger, Kant or even newer guys like Saul Kripke you're going to want to go back and read Plato and read the guys from the analytic tradition like Bertrand Russle, Frege (even if he was kinda off about his ideas), Leibniz etc.

The problem is you're going encounter philosophers who use words like "idealism", "monad" and other words that may or may not seem familiar and often have different meanings than what you're used to them meaning. Reading, or at least having a good understanding of, the works these guys read to come up with those words is important.

If you're interested in philosophy I strongly recommend checking out the Partially Examined Life podcast. It's very informal, but very interesting discussions.

From Wikipedia:

Klosterman presents his essays as if they were tracks on a CD. Between each essay, or track, is an "interlude"—a short, entertaining blurb linking the essays. The following essays are included in Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs:

1. This Is Emo: Klosterman recounts "fake love" we are conditioned to pursue, and the false, unbalanced nature of When Harry Met Sally.

2. Billy Sim: Klosterman describes his experience with the reality-mimicking video game The Sims and how The Sims illustrates that "even eternally free people are enslaved by the process of living."

3. What Happens When People Stop Being Polite: The impacts of MTV's The Real World and how it led to the development of one-dimensional personalities.

4. Every Dog Must Have His Every Day, Every Drunk Must Have His Drink: An ode to Billy Joel, particularly the universality of his album Glass Houses.

5. Appetite for Replication: Klosterman interviews and spends a few days with the members of a Guns N' Roses tribute band, "Paradise City," and outlines the significance of tribute bands.

6. Ten Seconds to Love: An analysis of how American culture is upset with the unrealistic images of success it has created, as stemming from a discussion of the Pamela-Tommy sex tape.

7. George Will vs. Nick Hornby: A rant against soccer (particularly among youth), claiming it supports outcast culture.

8. 33: Klosterman explains how the 1980s rivalry between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Boston Celtics symbolizes all rivalries in life, including politics, religion, and race.

9. Porn: An explanation of how the Internet has proliferated the porn industry, as per the need of the presence of the amateur and celebrity in our lives.

10. The Lady or the Tiger: A brief history of the cereal industry, and how Kelloggs was begun as a religious company, but now is a microcosm for coolness. The "cocoa puffs" in the title comes from this essay.

11. Being Zack Morris: An analysis of Saved by the Bell and how "important things are inevitably cliché."

12. Sulking with Lisa Loeb on the Ice Planet Hoth: Why Star Wars is so overrated, and how it has come to represent basic morality.

13. The Awe-Inspiring Beauty of Tom Cruise's Shattered, Troll-like Face: A discussion of the question "What is reality?" as answered by movies such as Vanilla Sky, The Matrix, Memento, and Waking Life.

14. Toby over Moby: How the Dixie Chicks are the new Van Halen, as they are one of the only pop bands with musical quality, and how Van Halen's teenage boys have been replaced by the Dixie Chicks' teenage girls. Also how music taste is used to gauge coolness, and those who ignorantly say they like all kinds "except country" only say so to appear cool.

15. This is Zodiac Speaking: A description of three people Klosterman has interviewed who have known or met serial killers, and an exploration of "What does it mean to know a serial killer?"

16. All I Know Is What I Read in the Papers: Most of the media's bias is accidental, and stories are mainly developed by circumstance and by the interviewee who calls the journalist back first. Also how sports reporters hate sports, and how newspapers are designed for those who cannot read.

17. I, Rock Chump: Klosterman narrates his visit to the 2002 Pop Music Studies Conference by the Experience Music Project, and how it was largely an experience without rock and roll.

18. How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found: A commentary on the Left Behind Series and the lifestyle of Evangelical Christians. The chapter title refers to the book How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found by Doug Richmond and possibly the song How To Disappear Completely by Radiohead.

100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

I'm 90% sure guys who enjoy these videos are latent homosexuals. I do the dishes. I clean. Why? Because I'm a fucking adult. If you need to watch something called "manhood academy" here's a hint: you're doing it wrong.

It feeds into the "warriors, competition, badasses, woohoo, USA!, USA!" thing. I think it's a way for people to transpose those competitive feelings about sports into nationalism. Vaguely thinking about war as an international competition.

Then I think about higher dimensional beings that we only see partial aspects of. Like flatland. Or Douglas Adam's hyperintelligent pandimensional shades of the color blue. Or the H.P. Lovecraft quote

"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age."

Make an omelette with avocados and onions, then add a slice of tomato with salt and pepper. If you like greens a big ole side of collards is good too. Sometimes i squirt lime juice on the omelette.

Armchair theoretical physicist rarely know what they're talking about. It's the same people who espouse ESP and stuff based on quantum entanglement.

thank you

I agree with this. Whatever institution holds power--peaceful protests fit within their narrative. Only by causing instability or radical departures from the institutionalized system will change happen.

Just commenting to say I will be following along. Excited for the discussion, but I'll probably only join in at the end regardless if there are per-episode posts. Thanks for getting this going Difference.

Berkeleyian idealism is interesting. Basically that all of the world as we know it exists in our minds. That there is nothing outside of the mental realm. The idea that trees and rocks and stuff exist is an illusion.

Or you have Kantian idealism which essentially says the same thing that we only know things through our sense and that the "actual" real world is far different from the way our sense experience it. Maybe your experiences come from some ability to access the "real" real world.

If I'm off on my descriptions of these philosophies someone please jump in and inform me.

A lot of Hispanic cultures celebrate American holidays as a way to integrate into the culture here. I think that's really rad. My friend Carla actually made the front page of MTV.com for a 4th of July music video a couple of years ago. It highlighted Colombian families celebrating the 4th in a humorous, fun way.

I'm probably not being very PC or in line with the thought of younger millennials (i'm 28), but I think people should certainly be able to shoot off fireworks for celebration. The part about it being symbolic of war is bothersome, but in the modern age for most of us it's a quaint retrospective on our war for independence literally hundreds of years ago. That isn't to say anything about current conflicts or people with PTSD (my dad said fireworks remind him of mortars in vietnam which makes me very sad).

As for the environmental impact, it's probably no worse than any big holiday. We can't have that argument without talking about all the plastic cups and decorations from St. Patrick's day or Cinco de Mayo.

The dangers of people injuring themselves are on the people. We don't ban cars because people drive like idiots, we regulate them. Just like we should regulate fireworks to certain days and we don't sell fireworks to young people.

I think if we're talking about it being offensive to shoot off rockets in memory of a military victory from hundreds of years ago--that's just reaching a little too far. I think it's absurd to say we should ban them all together. There are plenty of holidays where fireworks can be used in a celebratory manner that has nothing to do with representing military conflict.

I hate to be that guy, but can someone give a TL;DR? I know this website encourages lengthy discussion, and I want to take part in that. I'm just not good with all the armchair theoretical physics stuff. I've read before that all the Schrodinger explanations that involve the cat being both alive and dead are bogus--that he even constructed the thought experiment to discredit those interpretations of quantum mechanics. Also, I've read that the multiverse theory itself--that there are an infinite number of universes, etc.--are also misunderstandings of the actual math behind quantum mechanics. Can someone with a degree weigh in here?

Slight aside, if I add some hashtags here like #quantumphysics #physics #math does that help the search functionality? I don't see people adding hashtags in individual posts. I could see how some posts might drop in quality if it was just a string of tags. How does this work? I'm new to hubski.

I mean...I don't get why not message someone if you want, don't if you don't? Why does there have to be a "norm". I mean...what is the point? I don't understand what changing things would actually solve. If you want to talk to someone talk to them. If not don't.

I disagree with all of this. The people attacking Pao are most likely bored teenagers jumping on a bandwagon. To bring neocon political ideology into it is a bit of a stretch. The neocon political movement is passe at this point anyway. Everything is running towards cultural liberalism and corporate cronyism. I don't think anyone wants a "war with china". That's crazy talk.

Also, what's wrong with shunning fatpeoplehate people or others who derive pleasure from insulting and ridiculing other people? Free speech or not it's juvenile and ignorant. If that's the extent of what you're doing with your free speech then you're making things way worse than Pao could by reigning in all the annoying teens that get off on hating other people.

I didn't want to put the reddit links in the text, but I didn't really know how to phrase exactly what I'm looking for. I like the idea of this site existing as a separate entity with separate content than reddit. The entire mentality here is different. I notice myself glancing at a post to see how many upvotes it had, then I stopped and wondered why I would even care. Why would that affect my perception of it? You don't realize how much group think affects your browsing experience on reddit until you come to a place like this without upvotes or ranking. You can decide if you like content based on your own opinions and feelings towards it.

This truly could set precedent for the new century.

That's a pretty wide scope for a book. I'd write a book about something else. Like a story about a hacker that gets caught up stealing information from megacorporations. Then in the background of the story you see the wealthy consolidating power and climate change happening. That'd be easier than writing a straight up story about wealthy consolidating power.

I don't even see how telepathy/twin-thought could be explained by quantum mechanics. I mean...I'm no physicist, but I don't see an explanation there. Electrons in two peoples brains are entangled so they think the same thoughts? That's not how your brain works. Everyone's neural patters are different. Flipping one electron's spin in one atom of one molecule of one neuron isn't going to make you suddenly read someone's mind. I think people aren't appreciating how complex this is.

thank you

Also, they may live for a long time and communicating one sentence could take years. They might perceive time differently.

Reminds me of Cowboy Junkies.

Wow, i haven't listened to this is so long.

I realize I'm quite early on this.

I don't deer hunt, but I'm from NW Florida. My older brother hunted. I can't really offer you much advice, but I will say enjoy it. I hope you're not just a trophy hunter. But being out in the woods is wonderful. It's like a zen thing. Once you are way out there and it's quiet you remember you are a part of nature.

https://hubski.com/primer

Did you miss the intro when you made your account? Go to the bottom of any hubski.com page and click "tutorial". It'll answer all your questions.

No reason to give the programmers more work for something so simple. It's already covered when you make your account, and the tutorial link is right there. I think if it needs to be any simpler it's not worth the time to code. It's already plain. Then again I really dislike overly simplified things. IMO people should be able to think and figure things out. It's a big problem in education today that people are becoming habituated to things be ultra simplified. Of course that's a personal belief. I just don't think in regards to hubski it would be worth the time to code. People are smart. They can figure out how to help themselves rather than create more work for other people.

be sure to share!

Can't really call Obama a lame duck. Pardoning drug offenders, helping legalize gay marriage, needed anti-discrimination laws.