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Longest Running Thread EVER


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Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

One Book The Whole Universe: Plato's Timaeus Today

The much-anticipated volume of essays by philosophers,

classicists, physicists, and architects revealing the meaning and

assessing the impact of one of the most profound and

influential works of Western letters:

 

Plato's Timaeus

 

a work which comes as close as any to giving

a comprehensive account of life,

the universe, and everything!

 

Think of it like the "Hitchhiker's Guide" of the Classical Era. And one of the 2 physicists is Sir Anthony Leggett, winner, 2003 Nobel Prize for Physics.

 

So Timaeus is state of the art science from 400 BC and its sequel Critias which contains the expansive story of Atlantis would ergo be the first science fiction. Reading both would make you an "ancient geek". :D

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Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

Nope. The Republic' date=' yes.[/quote'] *clap* Congrats. I tried reading The Republic in high school about 20 years ago and couldn't get into it then -- I think it was the translation.

 

I'm currently and slowly reading a small collection of Plato's myths. I bought it to read The Cave myth and the Atlantis story and have branched out so to speak reading the others. last one read was two myths from the Symposium.

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Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

If it were important' date=' I'd do it. But in terms of duties to family and employer, it's not high enough on the enjoyability index to crowd its way up into the "Yeah, let's do this" regime.[/quote']

Agree. And as I said, not just you, but the far majority. I reckon I've lost count of the enterprises endevouring to get 20th century Western people to read the classics, Harvard Classics & Great Books Of The Western World being two notable ones.

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Re: Longest Running Thread EVER

 

I think it is because people have grown much less tolerant of the "Do this! It is for your own good, and the good of Civilization!" exhortation that was all too common in the 20th Century. All too often, no, it wasn't obviously good for anyone that you did it, except for the people doing the exhortation, either because they sold it, or because they were people who knew about it so they had the prestige of being the go-to people for something that everyone bowed to as Important.

 

In other words, they taught everyone something else entirely: Cynicism.

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