Anathem notes
cook1bc: "Asamocra?" "Asynchronous, symmetrically anonymized, moderated open-cry repute auction. Don't even bother trying to parse that." Quote 8 hours, 53 minutes ago for Anathem
Heilemann: I'm not one for 'bricks', as they're often way longer than they can bear and rarely based on a premise that could bear their length anyway. But Anathem is one fine brick, I must admit. In fact, I think it ... Review 3 days, 21 hours ago for Anathem
mykola: This book blew my mind - it's a completely humbling experience to read it. It starts pretty slow and honestly comes across as a bit pretentious - lots of made up words, lots of complex philosophical conceits. What it evolves ... Review Comment 1 month ago for Anathem
Mr0grog: “Our opponent is an alien starship packed with nuclear bombs. We have a protractor.” Spoiler Quote 2 months ago for Anathem
korpios: Anathem is a philosophy primer masquerading as a speculative fiction novel — a damned good novel, mind you. While others have decried the heavy use of invented terminology, I found it to be invigorating; with so many parallels to our ... Review 2 months ago for Anathem
Heilemann: Really liking this more and more as I progress in it. Could it be that I will make it all the way to the end? Comment 2 months ago for Anathem
korpios: I decided to read the sample on my Kindle, and ... wow. Few books have ever sucked me in this quickly or completely. Comment 2 months, 2 weeks ago for Anathem
Heilemann: Considering that I never made it past p200 in Quicksilver (and thus still have the entire Baroque Cycle sitting unread on my shelf), I'm amazed I made it to p65 already. Cryptonomicon it ain't, but maybe it'll pick up. Comment 2 months, 4 weeks ago for Anathem
rossp: This sums up my current feelings about the book perfectly: http://xkcd.com/483/ (hover over image for some context :) Comment 3 months, 1 week ago for Anathem
rossp: Not really my cup of tea. I've put this down to work through a backlog of other books I've got at the moment; perhaps I'll check it out again sometime in the future. I've never quite enjoyed any sci-fi books, ... Comment 3 months, 1 week ago for Anathem
zellyn: Anyone else find the space maneuvering reminiscent of Ender's Game? Note 3 months, 2 weeks ago for Anathem
ubernostrum: Waiting to see how this turns out before I post any further annotations; I'm deep into spoiler territory now. Comment 3 months, 3 weeks ago for Anathem
ubernostrum: Arsibalt's explanation of "Sconic thought" is a decent enough summary of some of the problems explored by Kant in the Critique of Pure Reason, regarding both the fact that we cannot directly access knowledge concerning the world outside our heads, ... Comment 3 months, 3 weeks ago for Anathem
ubernostrum: Arsibalt's lecture here brings to mind philosophical debates about the metaphysics of propositions, namely whether they can be said to exist regardless of the tokens (words, symbols, etc.) used to express them. Which returns to the problem of universals, and ... Note 3 months, 3 weeks ago for Anathem
ubernostrum: Saunt Mandarast may be an analogue of Frank Drake, famous for his equation. Note 3 months, 3 weeks ago for Anathem
ubernostrum: And we get into spoiler territory again: this sort of thing has actually been theorized about, as part of the first and now-defunct Project Orion. Note 3 months, 3 weeks ago for Anathem
ubernostrum: Familiar ground; Stephenson is wandering near to a lot of material I covered when I was doing my thesis. Since I could talk for days about this stuff, I'll compensate by keeping my notes here extremely short. The arguments for ... Comment 3 months, 3 weeks ago for Anathem
ubernostrum: The many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics posits that there is essentially a huge number of "universes", one for each possible outcome of each collapse of each quantum waveform throughout history (more colloquially expressed as the idea that "everything which can ... Comment 3 months, 3 weeks ago for Anathem
ubernostrum: In the twentieth century, the branch known as philosophy of science became increasingly concerned with the problem of demarcation, separating things which were science from things which were not. Mainstream English-speaking philosophy picked up on this as well, and a ... Comment 3 months, 3 weeks ago for Anathem
ubernostrum: Logos strikes again, this time in a slightly more obvious form (the "action principle" Erasmas alludes to). Aristotle on causality may be helpful reading to see the underlying ideas. Comment 3 months, 3 weeks ago for Anathem
ubernostrum: The "calca" wherein Erasmas teaches Dath to cut the cake is reminiscent of the doubling-of-squares episode in Meno. Comment 3 months, 3 weeks ago for Anathem
ubernostrum: More Platonism at the dinner table, with hints of other ancient Greek schools; reading up on the concept of logos may prove a useful supplement. Comment 3 months, 3 weeks ago for Anathem
ubernostrum: Also, as a general note, it's worth pointing out that many of the references to times and ceremonies echo the traditional liturgical calendar used by the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Church, and various others; compare "Ordinal time" with [Ordinary ... Comment 3 months, 3 weeks ago for Anathem
ubernostrum: Though I don't think this is intended, the allusion to Deät and Hylaea's contradictory approaches to their father's ideas brings to mind Donald Davidson on "incommensurable conceptual schemes". Digging back a bit in history, the ever-popular term "world view" provides ... Comment 3 months, 3 weeks ago for Anathem
ubernostrum: We receive a quick refresher on the problem of universals. It seems that the Halikaarnians would be realists, while the Procians would be nominalists. Comment 3 months, 3 weeks ago for Anathem
ubernostrum: "[O]ne should not confuse the symbol with the thing symbolized" brings us straight back into the late nineteenth and early/mid-twentieth century. The line could have been lifted verbatim from Korzybski or any of his followers, and is best known in ... Comment 3 months, 3 weeks ago for Anathem
ubernostrum: With the explanation of the geometric origins of theoric thought, the recurring mention of "Saunt Cartas" now almost certainly refers to René Descartes, founder of modern philosophy and of the underpinnings of modern geometry. Compare "Cartasian Discipline" from the book ... Comment 3 months, 3 weeks ago for Anathem
ubernostrum: The Sack of Baz feels like an allegory for the fall of the Roman Empire, with the burning of its library presumably corresponding to the destruction of the Library at Alexandria, which began during the latter days of Roman rule. Comment 3 months, 3 weeks ago for Anathem
ubernostrum: The origins of "suvin" presumably draw upon the origins of names for some of the Greek philosophic schools; Aristotle and his students, for example, walked about the Lyceum of Athens as they talked and lectured, thus earning the name "peripatetic" ... Comment 3 months, 3 weeks ago for Anathem
ubernostrum: Veering back into Platonism; just as Socrates was the teacher of Plato, and was executed for his behavior in the markets and open spaces of Athens, Thelenes is presented as the teacher of Protas and apparently met a similar fate. Comment 3 months, 3 weeks ago for Anathem
ubernostrum: Adrakhones is Pythagoras, as indicated by both his theorem and the mention of numbers. Comment 3 months, 3 weeks ago for Anathem
ubernostrum: Marking this one as a spoiler because it might turn out to be important: From the outset, it's hard not to notice that the narrator/protagonist "Erasmas" has a name eerily similar to Erasmus, whose famed debates over free will (particularly ... Note 3 months, 3 weeks ago for Anathem
ubernostrum: The passage here with the light on the mountainside, and Erasmas' internal monologue concerning it, are mostly consistent with the earlier Platonist allegory but then seem to be shifting into much deeper territory: there are strong echoes of the notion ... Comment 3 months, 3 weeks ago for Anathem
ubernostrum: Thelenes is Socrates. Protas, in turn, is Plato and the "upsight" described here is the Theory of Forms expressed through a variation on the allegory of the cave. Comment 3 months, 3 weeks ago for Anathem
ubernostrum: Kefedokhles may refer to an analogue of Aristotle; the description of him as "smug and pedantic" fits. Comment 3 months, 3 weeks ago for Anathem
ubernostrum: Temnestra is clearly a thinly-veiled reference to Aristophanes, with "The Cloud-weaver" directly punning on his play "The Clouds". Taking this allegory and running with it, Thelenes becomes the analogue of Socrates, an analogy borne out by some of the earlier ... Comment 3 months, 3 weeks ago for Anathem
ubernostrum: The discussion of Proc's views reads like a highly-condensed history of early- to mid-twentieth century philosophy, which had a heavy focus on linguistic analysis and a search for the meaning -- if any -- behind the words we use, whether ... Comment 3 months, 3 weeks ago for Anathem
blazamos: My interest was sparked by a recent kottke.org post. Comment 4 months, 2 weeks ago for Anathem
