>:] circuitBeta

Socrates is going to court and runs into a buddy, Euthyphro, who is known to be knowledgeable about religion. Euthyphro says “What is dear to the gods is holy, and what is not dear to them is unholy” But Gods fight and what is dear to one is not for the other. Socrates suggest that the holy is loved by the gods because it is holy and it is not because they love it that it is holy. They go round in a circle of thought and end the conversation without an answer. Never the less its one of the better dialogs I have read.

More times than not the journey is where the fun is found. It is not where I end up that makes biking fun, its not where I die that is going to make my life worth living. I rather not reach the end, tease it till I’m too tired to push it any farther. Is that what is happening right now? Feeling a bit lazy and tired

I bought another Plato book to replace the one I lost, this one was half the cost and way better.

Introduction
This introduction was a lot more informative than the other book. Filled with facts about Plato and others, it was worth the time it took to read.

Apology
This dialog takes place in an Athens court room at the hearing of Socrates. Its the only one I have read so far that has a reference to Plato, he is in the court room observing the proceedings. Socrates tells his story/defense, it involves speaking to the gods through an oracle, Pythian Prophetess, of Delphi. They say he is the wisest man. He didn’t think it was true, and began a quest to find a man who is wiser so that he may logically refute what was said. In the process he makes enemies with politicians, poets, and artisans. He calls out those who claim to be wise and are not. He sees this to be the reason he has ended up in court. He then proceeds to say that wisdom is knowing that your wisdom is worthless and only god is wise. I am disappointed in the words, maybe I am not reading them the way I should, but its the message I see. (more…)

I received this book from a friend. In short it is about a young man, Christopher McCandless, who wants to live his life traveling but in the end his travels take him to an early demise. Unless maybe you believe in fate, then he died just when he was supposed too.

The book offered a view as to why different people may do some of the things McCandless did. Particularly interesting was the authors own account of climbing the Devil’s Thumb, a peak east of Petersberg Alaska. He does this climb alone and writes about how going solo brings higher highs and lower lows. Its easy to realate too, when in the company of others many things end up muffled.

At one point in the book McCandless encourages a friend to leave his sedentary life and live on the road. I began to think about how many people in this world I will never meet. Based on a few facts (income, residence, etc.) you could create a pretty good idea of who those people are and the places you may never go, how predictably sad. I need a shirt that I could wear on travel, something that says “Odds of Seeing Me Today: 1 in a Million” my way of making everyone else feel special. Of course I see myself every day. I need to sell the shirts so I can feel the good vibes.

I have never taken a class in Philosophy, nor read a book about the subject. I have my own ideas on how to live life and when it ends, but mashing those together with ideas from 2,500 years ago seems as though it would entertaining.

The book is not what I expected. I thought it would be like a text book, stating believed fact one after the other. Plato’s writings are in a format similar to a play, in that you read dialog between actors, and each dialog is short like an act.

Introduction
The book starts off with the editors introduction, which I found boring and as soon as the author suggest to stop reading the introduction and begin reading the dialogs I do so.

Protagoras
I begin with the first dialog which is named after one of the principal ‘actors’, Protagoras. It begins slow but then Socrates gets a groove on and weaves a logical net of relationships between virtues, emotions, and similar concepts. My head starts thinking about how it would be cool to map/model this into software for the purpose of viewing these relations and poking at them in a simulated environment. I will have to do that at a later time though. (more…)

I read a review for this book in a local paper, The Entertainer, and it sounded interesting. I couldn’t find the book here but did find it in a store named Boarders, in Maryland @ the Montgomery Mall. I remember the girl who directed me to the book, she looked to be impressing a boy with her art work of clothing designs, I remember because I was impressed as well.

The book is about a boy’s (Ronald L. Mallett) dream to make a time machine. A dream that has taken the author to the heights of science in pursuit of seeing his father again. At times it was difficult to read, because of the emotional links I found between the story and myself. As with many things, science is made of building blocks. What I saw was those blocks were not used exclusively to build new theories, some of those same blocks were instrumental in finding his wife, and healing his pain. Similar blocks can be found in you and I, when reading a book, meeting a friend, or smiling at a stranger. Its these shared blocks of knowledge that connects us to one another. If we couldn’t share these words there would be no meaning for you and no connection for us.

Knowledge connect thoughts and people, thoughts and people are not so different. After all you probably already have an idea of who I am, a concept of what I might say and do, you have a little me encapsulated in thought running around in your head. Good luck controlling that one.

Through out the book I was amazed, and pondered over how far people can go, how far I have come, and how short my measure. It left me wanting more. I thought of reading about things related to my work, but I wanted to know more of things I knew nothing about, Mr. Mallett wrote that he took an interest in philosophy. I then decided that I would go check out the philosophy section at Barnes & Noble to find my next book.