Mark > Recent Status Updates

Just read chapters 3,4,5,6 straight through in one sitting (from 5am to 7am) that was fun! I miss doing that kind of thing. Last I remember doing that would be reading Fablehaven as a kid. Here, it's just the fun American-speak that makes it such an easy and enjoyable read-through. I don't think I've read multiple chapters in one sitting for many years, since diving into Classics only. This is a fun easy classic!

Wings by Yi Sang. Reminds me of depression. Interesting interior monologue.

Explores the scientific worldview (laws, inertia, explanation), method (Bayes, epistemology), metaphysics and physics (quantum field theory, the Core Theory), thermodynamics and emergence (chemistry and biology, Friston and Darwin), mind (physicalism vs dualism) and value (metaethics and ethics). So yeah: the big picture of contemporary science and our "default philosophical worldview"! I want a good overview so here

Easy-reading so far. Clear. Thinking of recommending to others.

Spinozistic Chapter 80. Climax. Dorothea's active thought and rational emotions (love, benevolence and what Eliot describes as "vivid sympathetic experience") outpower her grief and indignation, though they still somewhat remain but not in control of her. She yearns for Reason/Rightness to govern her being, asking herself the Socratic question, and experiences love of God/Nature, "part of that involuntary, palpit..."

Finished Part 7 (started Middlemarch in 1 January 2024), onwards to Part 8! Poor Bulstrode and Lydgate!

Such a good book! (Or maybe that's just the Ikea effect, but nah! It's such a good book!) 100 pages left 🥹

Awesome! Pg 582, on Bulstrode and his psy hology and cognitive dissonance is a real treat

Just finished chapter 58. HOTDAMN! What incredible writing! What nuance! How true to life and psychology and the human mind and condition it all is! THIS IS WHY LITERATURE IS AWESOME! This is why NOVELS ARE GREAT TYPES OF WORKS OF ART! To reread in the future after finishing Middlemarch!

Fun/boring-ish so far. But fun! But not much in the way of wisdom it seems. Or maybe it's just my ignorance.

Casaubon has died. Made me sad for some reason. Very relatable scholar. Cautionary tale of how not to live, and how easily a scholar-type like myself may slip into it by default if not careful.

My enjoyment of this masterpiece grows day by day!

So good so far! Little action and a lot of violations of "show don't tell" and yet, man, the psychological detail and insightfulness is second to none!

Delightful

Just finished Books I, II, III. Goddamn what a finale—this chapter 33 of book III, Mary disobeying and disrupting Featherstone's plan to burn the second will. I wonder why she does this and why he wants that. Tensest, most dramatic moment yet.