/lit/ - Literature

>>20625002
>Your brain is a machine of chemicals that follow biologically encoded instructions
for (You)

>>19486341
but you were against postmodernism? now you are skeptic of metanarratives which claimed possession of truth. so what's it going to be?

>>18651265
>muh chemicals

How the hell did modern novel writing quality drop so bad? I’m re-reading a fanfiction that I found saved in my favorites from like 2011. Unfortunately, it’s writing is better than any of the “new releases” I checked out from the library this year. Is there any saving modern literature? Will there ever be another Nabokov are are we doomed to YA for the rest of eternity?

Which book will help me decide which one is the right metaphysical view?

>>17617156

How would one go about widening their vocabulary? I understand that the suggested way is to search up words as they appear in your reading if you don't understand them, but I find it jarring to swap back and forth between phone and book. What have you done to expand your vocabulary?

Which philosophers or writers have made interesting but secular/religiously unaffiliated arguments on the subject of idealism versus materialism, mind-body dualism, the possibility of an afterlife and other such things?
Lately I can't stop thinking about this. As I understand, the main materalist arguments are
>nothing can be perceived outside of the physical
>there is no indication of any kind, let alone proof, of anything existing beyond the physical, thus the soul and by extension the afterlife probably do not exist
Are there counterarguments to this? Is the likelihood of physicalism being wrong extremely low?

>>14663438
My request was badly worded because to ask for a "refutation" of materialism presupposes an argument constructed from observing the material world. I'm looking for alternative points of view, but I don't know where to start. Which authors have produced interesting works on mind-body dualism?

Does this ever bother anyone? Since I first developed a cursory interest in philosophy as a boy, I can always remember refusing to address certain topics knowing that they would destroy me and keep me from living a happy life. Philosophy has delivered nothing to me but more questions, though try as I might, I am never able to avoid them as I would have liked.

What I'm wondering, then, is if it's at all typical to see the thousands of texts and ideas and wonder if one isn't simply "missing something?" If one will always be "missing something," and so unable to say with any definity whether they are any closer to comprehensive truth than they were before.

>>10517301
If you need him to give a precise definition you probably don't have the capacity to appreciate a good book anyway.

>>10305332
aspergers

>>9719882
How do any of our systems operate mostly unquestioned? They undergo heavy questioning not just day to day, but throughout history every revolution is born from questioning status quo. I'm willing to acknowledge that a singular individual is not always capable of completely changing his environment, but if you're a healthy individual in a first world country you have a pretty large amount of power to.

>believing in in individual selves acting collectively is just some naive trust in democracy that has long since been disproven.

citation needed

>>9458768
>SFF
Really?
Listen, science fiction/fantasy was a joke in the 1960's but they have REALLY proven how much the genre sucks in recent years.
Want to read the *cough* "story* that won a Nebula and was Hugo nominated?
Google the title 'if you were a dinosaur my love' and read the free prose. It'll take 50 seconds, tops

First off, it reads like something a retarded 12 year old would sneer at.
Second, How The Fuck is that SFF?
Third - award winning SFF. That POS was considered one of the absolute *BEST* science fiction/fantasy short stories written that year!
At this point I think the sales copy from the back of Star Wars action figure box is better than most published SFF

Who is your role model from the world of literature?not only that, but what qualities are you fags looking for in a role model?

ITT we state a current philosophical or life issue we are facing. Anons then recommend a book to help us overcome or reframe the issue.

>>7555224
I can't experience many things that I'm still capable of believing in.

Just because you haven't had any revelatory experience doesn't give you the authority to discount the experiences of others.

You still haven't answered my question about how your conception of God disallows evil to exist independently of God.

>>6804773
meme related

Fucked if I know