Steven Cartledge

Add friend
Sign in to Goodreads to learn more about Steven.


A Night of Seriou...
Rate this book
Clear rating

 
Void Star
Steven Cartledge is currently reading
by Zachary Mason (Goodreads Author)
bookshelves: currently-reading
Rate this book
Clear rating

 
Sleepless
Steven Cartledge is currently reading
bookshelves: currently-reading
Rate this book
Clear rating

 
See all 180 books that Steven is reading…
Book cover for The Swerve: How the World Became Modern
What human beings can and should do, he wrote, is to conquer their fears, accept the fact that they themselves and all the things they encounter are transitory, and embrace the beauty and the pleasure of the world.
Loading...
Rebecca Goldstein
“2. The Ontological Argument Nothing greater than God can be conceived (this is stipulated as part of the definition of “God”). It is greater to exist than not to exist. If we conceive of God as not existing, then we can conceive of something greater than God (from 2). To conceive of God as not existing is not to conceive of God (from 1 and 3). It is inconceivable that God not exist (from 4). God exists. This argument, first articulated by Saint Anselm (1033–1109), the Archbishop of Canterbury, is unlike any other, proceeding purely on the conceptual level. Everyone agrees that the mere existence of a concept does not entail that there are examples of that concept; after all, we can know what a unicorn is and at the same time say, “Unicorns don’t exist.” The claim of The Ontological Argument is that the concept of God is the one exception to this generalization. The very concept of God, when defined correctly, entails that there is something that satisfies that concept. Although most people suspect that there is something wrong with this argument, it’s not so easy to figure out what it is. FLAW: It was Immanuel Kant who pinpointed the fallacy in The Ontological Argument—it is to treat “existence” as a property, like “being fat” or “having ten fingers.” The Ontological Argument relies on a bit of wordplay, assuming that “existence” is just another property, but logically it is completely different. If you really could treat “existence” as just part of the definition of the concept of God, then you could just as easily build it into the definition of any other concept. We could, with the wave of our verbal magic wand, define a trunicorn as “a horse that (a) has a single horn on its head, and (b) exists.” So, if you think about a trunicorn, you’re thinking about something that must, by definition, exist; therefore, trunicorns exist. This is clearly absurd: we could use this line of reasoning to prove that any figment of our imagination exists.”
Rebecca Goldstein, 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction

Kurt Gödel
“The human mind is incapable of formulating (or mechanizing) all its mathematical intuitions, i.e., if it has succeeded in formulating some of them, this very fact yields new intuitive knowledge, e.g., the consistency of this formalism. This fact may be called the “incompletability” of mathematics. On the other hand, on the basis of what has been proved so far, it remains possible that there may exist (and even be empirically discoverable) a theorem proving machine which in fact is equivalent to mathematical intuition, but cannot be proved to be so, nor even be proved to yield only correct theorems of finitary number theory.”
Kurt Gödel

Marcus Aurelius
“Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together,but do so with all your heart.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Joseph Campbell
“If you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be.”
Joseph Campbell

China Miéville
“Palgolak was a god of knowledge. ... He was an amiable, pleasant deity, a sage whose existence was entirely devoted to the collection, categorization, and dissemination of information. ... Palgolak's library ... did not lend books, but it did allow readers in at any time of the day or night, and there were very, very few books it did not allow access to. The Palgolaki were proselytizers, holding that everything known by a worshipper was immediately known by Palgolak, which was why they were religiously charged to read voraciously. But their mission was only secondarily for the glory of Palgolak, and primarily for the glory of knowledge, which was why they were sworn to admit all who wished to enter into their library.”
China Mieville

42021 The Western Suburban Sci-Fi Book Club — 55 members — last activity Dec 18, 2024 08:49PM
A sci-fi book club for nerds, meeting monthly in western Chicagoland. Join us, and together we can rule the galaxy as father and son. You know, metaph ...more
220 Goodreads Librarians Group — 309659 members — last activity 0 minutes ago
Goodreads Librarians are volunteers who help ensure the accuracy of information about books and authors in the Goodreads' catalog. The Goodreads Libra ...more
76877 Miévillians — 255 members — last activity Aug 14, 2024 01:24AM
Club Miéville à la Goodreads. This is a club for people interested in discussing anything regarding the writer China Miéville; - his work, both fictio ...more
107682 Classic Science Fiction — 103 members — last activity Jul 27, 2021 11:07AM
Participate in a group that reads and discusses science fiction books from 1990 and earlier, or BI (before the internet). The ultimate melting pot for ...more
72899 International League of Super Reviewers — 60 members — last activity Aug 29, 2025 09:35AM
The International League of Super Reviewers is a group dedicated to defending the earth against alien menaces and super-villains by writing superior b ...more
More of Steven’s groups…
year in books
Joel
2,600 books | 1,651 friends

Rich Ro...
1,992 books | 124 friends

Suzanne
2,252 books | 153 friends

Tim OBrien
1,299 books | 13 friends

Univers...
2,038 books | 395 friends

Julie
3,360 books | 104 friends

Michele
1,151 books | 54 friends

Anne
2,132 books | 117 friends

More friends…


Polls voted on by Steven

Lists liked by Steven