Readernaut

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