And it sticks. I mean, focus your attention in that little world of meanings and symbols long enough and you’ll tend to get stuck there.
But reality is infinitely larger than that little world. So to stay there, in that little world, to have your perspective altered like that all the time, is a bit unhealthy and insane.
But this is considered normal. Encouraged even.
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Reading this post was certainly toxic.
Thank you. This is the kind of maturity and insight that I have come to expect on Lemmy.
Abstract thinking is what differentiates humans from most animals.
Lots of animals can think abstractly.
What separates humans from animals is communication and tool use. Obviously other animals can, but none come close to humans in either category.
Books is a huge example of both. Humans don’t have to figure out complicated concepts each on our own. The Internet is that on steroids, someone on the other side of the planet can read this post the second I hit “reply”.
That exchange of information through tools is why we’re ordering Taco Bell thru Uber from the couch instead of still chasing animals till they pass out.
Whether or not that’s a good thing for us and the planet tho…
I think it is a certain perspective. A perspective that includes the option of abstract thought.
I graduated high school in 03, a few months/years into the “no child left behind” bullshit. The last week of school, meathead asks, out loud, “why do people read”.
Almost ten years later and that dude has never had a job longer than three months. This. This is why people read…
Edit: i had a friend in highschool who passed away a few years ago, so I only know his employment status from highschool, up to the funeral. Deleted Facebook soon after
I think was a Bill Hicks joke (as best i remeber it):
So I was at a waffle house reading a book and the waitress comes and asks me, “What are ya reading for?”
Not “What are you reading?” but actually asking why I’m reading.
I told her “So I dont end up as a fucking waitress at Waffle House!”“Well lookee here… Looks like we got ourselves a reader.”
What the fuck is going on here? Did I walk into a klan rally dressed in a Boy George costume?
God I wish that man was still with us.
Yes zing
I don’t want to alarm you, but we’re now 22 years past your graduation. “Almost ten years” and then some.
🤫
It’s really fucking scary that The Oregon Trail generation got the best education American public schools have provided, ever…
It was shitty then, but God awful before and after that brief window.
I knew my generation was smarter than everyone else!
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Okay but your last meal also changed your internal chemistry and probably changed your outlook too. It’s insane to believe you can remain unchanged by everything in life.
It’s ironic that I have an anecdote that I recently read that feels very fitting here.
Permutation City by Greg Egan. Post-human digital consciousness via uploaded brain-scan becomes possible, and there are interesting questions about how the “sense of self” is derived, and how much someone can change themselves before they are no longer the same person. There are many different characters that deal with a newfound immortality in different ways, and either embrace, or shun, the ability to change themselves at a whim to fit their needs or wants. It’s a very prominent part of the overall plot and is prevalent right up until the last sentence.
Also, separate from that, I have the exact opposite feeling as OP. When I’m reading a book, I feel like my world is expanded in new directions. I tend to see certain things from slightly different perspectives in the context of what I’m reading. I’ve been reading Greg Egan’s entire body of work (after reading Diaspora and absolutely fucking loving it), and some insight and thoughts I had about the book Quarantine actually pushed me to make positive changes in my life that have been really hugely impactful, and I don’t think I would have had the courage or drive to make them had I not been thinking about my life in such an abstract manner.
Permutation City blew my mind too. Such great ideas. Definitely in my top 10 faves.
Diaspora, and other Egan too, ya. But PC most of all. I’ve read it like 6 times. It’s got that proper scifi vibe. The walls of reality crumble.
(Btw, what was the meaning of the testicular spasm? Was it a metaphor?)
I think it was just an odd way of making him seem more human and normal. Also the fact that he doesn’t mention anything about it also happening in his previous lives leaves an interesting open question that could either lend credence or hinder his whole backstory… At least that’s how I interpreted it.
All in all, though… one of the less awkward and more impactful sex scenes in a science-y book, which is much better than the usual ones I remember because they’re terrible and awkward and don’t fit in with the surrounding plot lol
Here’s a story that explores similar ground.
Divided by Infinity
It’s in The Perseids and Other Stories By Robert Charles Wilson
Maybe it was a mark of his alienness. A fundamental human pleasure rendered painful. He was on his hundredth universe after all.
Honestly, that’s a weird take. Through reading i have learned about so many things i would never have the chance to experience in person. Having your perspective altered (i would say, expanded) by reading is essential for emotional and intellectual growth. The only thing you risk losing is ignorance.
Literally just imagining things in your head out of boredom does something similar, and that’s something that’s just gonna happen if you sit idle.
Brains need stimulation to develop and continue to function properly, as creatures with unusually powerful brains, humans benefit from, even need, quite a lot of such mental stimulation. There’s a reason we enjoy and put so much effort into entertaining ourselves, compared to most other animals. Working through imagined scenarios is no more unhealthy for us than exercising our muscles to keep them fit is.
Yes, reading is important and good. But here I am indicating a different aspect of it. Like many things in reality it has several aspects.
Words are maps to the terrain of experience/the universe. But the problem with words is that they define strict categories (you can cope with this by establishing a spectrum and not binary things: “not as reasonable”/“sillier than X”) and those who rely only on words and not their own eyes and reasoning will be confused and frustrated: reality was more complex, it required actual analysis and not just theorising based on others’ words, A didn’t lead to B because your premises only made sense semantically but not in reality.
In the analysis sure, words, thoughts and symbolic stuff are just little 2d cartoons. Obvious stuff. But in practice we treat them as God’s own titty, flowing with the milk of truth.
There is a willing suspension of disbelief going on there. Like, if I don’t pretend that your idea for the word “dog” is the same as mine, then the conversation just collapses. So I let my grasp on reality slide.
It kind of goes together with constructionism. Reality is what you perceive and it is proven to be a little different for every person. Colors are slightly different, sounds are different. So objective reality as such is not really a thing. By that logic writing it down and saying it were objective is kind of illogical.
But still, the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks. You for example would not be here if books didnt exist. Only through books is programming taught and the devs of lemmy and the fediverse are ample readers afaik.
I don’t deny the utility of the shared symbolic thing, be it the precise scientific engineeringly version or the rough common version. It is quite beside my point.
My point is the way of looking that reading involves and the habit that we fall into. That fixation upon the little screen in my head where symbols play. To narrow my attention to that screen permanently is a kind of chronic crouch, and to mistake that screen for reality is insane.
For the sufferer of this disease all of the senses dim while the screen grows brighter and brighter.
Why would you think that state is permanent? What do you do when you get to the end of a book or an article? Do you not ever stop reading to eat, sleep, or take a walk?
Well it does tend to stick. So if you repeat it within that sticking period then yes, it becomes the normal permanent mode. And memory of any alternative is lost.
But sure, not necessarily permanent.
I get your point but you’re taking the symptom for the disease.
Like every addiction (which this depicts imo), the system around it is the problem. The vast majority of people uses their devices massively to escape the bleak capitalfascist reality for some time.
We also have dismantled nearly all well working alternative systems under the disguise of “freedumb”.
You can trace back nearly every problem currently to that source. We need to get rid of it. Then the screen addiction goes too.
Whether you enter this state of “mental screen fixation” through personal preference or pressure from outside forces makes no difference in the state arrived at, surely.
Using your brain is good, Plesiohedron. Its good for it to simulate things, be curious.
Nothing is an unalloyed good. That’s reality for you.
We can discuss the good of reading and also the bad of it. Right?
