/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.10847254]

>We are so oft so sure that how we feel at any moment is how the world really is: when we are confident and pleased we are sure the world is good; when we have been cut down or live in such loneliness we feel we see the underlying face of life, the true nature of being that we so arrogantly believed we could avoid before; when we are disheartened in ourselves we say: 'of course I failed, who did I think I was... I'm no artist, just a vain fool'. And yet neither joy nor sorrow is the bedrock of existence, any more than this earth is the bedrock of the universe. Rather, our feelings are like the planets, moons, star systems: together in a shared space, they attract each other is subtle ways, yet are so displaced from one another that standing on the surface of a planet we are lucky to even glimpse a far-off star, let alone smell the scents of its planets and bathe in the atmospheres of their moons. And so even into the modern day art keeps its original purpose: to describe those distant lands, and all their forgotten splendours.

Can mathematicians write good prose?

[Anonymous No.10847332]

>>10847254
who wrote this?

[Anonymous No.10847363]

>>10847332
take a guess

[Anonymous No.10847676]

>>10847332
it was C. O. Rollary, little known number theorist

[Anonymous No.10847695]

Definitely not.

[Anonymous No.10847912]

>>10847695
this is fine like red wine

[Anonymous No.10847925]

>>10847254
A common idea, Spinoza was complaining about this shit 350 years ago. His prose isn't that engaging, and a bit pretentious, I almost stopped reading at
>We are so oft so sure

But on the whole it is not without merit. This line is at least a somewhat original comparison
>And yet neither joy nor sorrow is the bedrock of existence, any more than this earth is the bedrock of the universe

[poetry No.10848361]

>>10847254
https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/topper/topper17.htm

one of the best proses mixing poetry and mathematics of all time.

[poetry No.10848414]

>>10848361
with quotes such as referring to force-particles working the hyper-dimensional "nightshift"

[Anonymous No.10849449]

>>10848361
nice

[Anonymous No.10849694]

rarely, but yes

[Anonymous No.10849760]

>>10847254
Damn I wish I could rock a beard like this

[Anonymous No.10849775]

>>10847254
what the fuck does this mean?

>Reality isn't how you're feeling
>Your feelings are like a galaxy???

[Anonymous No.10849917]

>>10849775
t. brainlet

[Anonymous No.10849956]

>>10849775
He's saying that our perception of reality is reliant upon our emotions. If you get a promotion at work and meet a beautiful woman later on the same day, you think "All is well, and this world is a place of love and beauty." However, if you got fired and later on in the same day came home to find your girlfriend had moved out of your apartment, you would think "Fuck this gay earth. This life only delivers suffering, even moreso to those who deserve it the least."

Then the solar system thing is just a metaphor, albeit not a great one. He's just saying that, for example, if you feel depressed because of the latter situation, then you could never imagine or recall how the former situation would feel, because your current state prevents it. Same goes for vice versa.

[Anonymous No.10850764]

>>10849956
it's a dece metaphor, since feelings cluster together, and it's easier to go from distressed to depressed then distressed to euphoric, for example

>>10849760
why not?

[Anonymous No.10850910]

Mathematical-Empirical writing always has an eerie tone. Not so much "robot-like" but zombie-like, small awkward things that hint at the writer not being fully conscious. Spooky.

[Anonymous No.10852205]

>>10847254
rollin

[Anonymous No.10852216]

yes, but never poetry

[Anonymous No.10852300]

Borges refers to himself as a mathematician in his literature many later mathematicians refer to Borges in theirs, so yes.

The Fractal Nature of Geometry is a good example of how the literary and mathematical can mix beautifully.

>>10852216
It would be redundant for a mathematician to write poetry.

[Anonymous No.10852857]

>>10852300
>It would be redundant for a mathematician to write poetry
explain yourself

[Anonymous No.10852865]

>>10852857
It must've been a typo. I'm certain it was supposed to be "It would be redundant to write poetry"

[Anonymous No.10853392]

>>10850910
Why do people who waste their lives allpwing other men to think for them and reading fictional stories like they were children, have such a chip on their shoulder about STEM?
Do you just struggle to accept your natural inferiority?

[Anonymous No.10853397]

>>10853392
because they post autistic memes like apu and write with unbelievable vulgarity. also STEM is completely amoral, if we didn't constantly nag at them they'd have gassed half the human race and detonated nukes for fun every 4th of July. We'd have rivers of arsenic, mercury and lead flowing across streets and there'd be a mutant race of sex slave eunach retards kept in pens at each lab.

[Anonymous No.10853494]

>>10852857

[Anonymous No.10853510]

>>10853494
I'm actually laughing, thank you

[Anonymous No.10853625]

>>10850764
Bad beard genetics I guess. My grand dad is from Iraq though so may be it will come later.

[Anonymous No.10853650]

>>10853397
>doesnt consume lead and mercury on a daily basis thanks to stemfags
>bitches about stemfags

[Anonymous No.10853688]

>>10847254
>The following story is true. There was a little boy, and his father said, “Do try to be like other people. Don’t frown.” And he tried and tried, but could not. So his father beat him with a strap; and then he was eaten up by lions.

>Reader, if young, take warning by his sad life and death. For though it may be an honor to be different from other people, if Carlyle’s dictum about the thirty million be still true, yet other people do not like it. So, if you are different, you had better hide it, and pretend to be solemn and wooden-headed. Until you make your fortune. For most wooden-headed people worship money; and, really, I do not see what else they can do. In particular, if you are going to write a book, remember the wooden-headed. So be rigorous; that will cover a multitude of sins. And do not frown.

—Oliver Heaviside, Electromagnetic Theory

The people who truly uplift human wisdom are almost always well balanced in terms of passion, spiritedness, appreciation of beauty and cool analytical ability. I tend to ascribe less merit to a scientist or mathematician who is not a decent prosaist

[Anonymous No.10853699]

>>10853688
after rereading the strength of this intro to a book doesn't jump out as amazing prose unless you recognize it in the context of Heaviside following it up with a revolutionary description of electromagnetism that created the modern world

[Anonymous No.10853717]

>>10853650
>dumps chemicals into every body of water on Earth
>spreads selection theory into social sciences so tindr can happen
>commodifies human life
>tests diseases on people that had no prevalence in the population just for fun
>want to make sex slaves are not allowed because of moralizing humanities nerds
>write like fucking subhumans, only get castigated by humanities nerds
>fat, ugly, smelly, glasses, bad fashion sense, everything they make is ugly
>destroyed media and literature with sci-fi nonsense
>plastic is inside of the wildlife
>mental illness skyrocketing in all major technological nations
>homosex is now a legitimate life strategy
>BC is in the water supply and is causing premature aging and cancer
>cancers emerging in every taxa due to pollutants and horrible STEM diet
>dysgenic breeding due to STEM niggers letting everyone survive
>population decline in all major ecosystems
>pollution steadily climbing
>atmosphere becoming irreparably damaged
>climate change extinction event looming, will we all die from bone acidosis, from tidal waves or from oil wars? who knows? STEM fags don't care
you people are pure fucking evil, you should be kept subjugated beneath rulers and philosophers always, you and the capitalists have absolutely no place deciding what exists, what is correct, what is moral. You cannot be trusted, look what the Chinese are doing with biotech and industry. I want you to understand I really hope you feel guilty for what's happening to our world right now, every single ugly bug nerd is culpable for the decline of mankind and organic life.

[Anonymous No.10853727]

>>10853717
>spreads selection theory into social sciences so tindr can happen
remind me, again, how these two are related?

[Anonymous No.10853729]

>>10853727
you're a big guy, you got into a decent school why not just do the leg work amirite STEMnerd?

[Anonymous No.10853737]

>>10853729
it was a serious question, I'm interested in knowing why you said that. My tone miscommunicated sarcasm, mostly because everyone on this board is always hostile with eachother. I don't have a humanities or STEM degree, I didn't even graduate college

[Anonymous No.10853758]

>>10853729
>>10853737
also I'm not the guy you were talking to. Just wanted you to elaborate on how selection theory >> social science >> dating apps works

[Anonymous No.10853768]

>>10853717
>blaming faggots on STEM
>blaming your (government and business) misuse of beneficial technologies on STEM
>nerd stereotype
Opinion discarded, subhuman.

[Anonymous No.10853794]

>>10853768
I work as a skilled tradesman (construction) at CalTech, I have worked with the cream of American STEM daily for years, and I can say unequivocally that the majority of high-achieving, top-tier STEM students and graduates are singleminded bugmen whose worldview is heavily skewed toward twisting knobs and exerting leverage on biological/physical/social systems and the systems they're raised within promote/reward segmentation and atomization of the human soul. The highest achievers within a given department at CalTech have always spent more time in their life immersed in their subject at cost of all other intellectual pursuits. The more of these people you meet the more obvious it becomes

[Anonymous No.10853799]

>>10853717
That's Bacon's fault

[Anonymous No.10854057]

>>10853794
>"unequivocally that the majority of high-achieving, top-tier STEM students and graduates are singleminded bugmen whose worldview is heavily skewed toward twisting knobs and exerting leverage on biological/physical/social systems and the systems they're raised within promote/reward segmentation and atomization of the human soul. The highest achievers within a given department at CalTech have always spent more time in their life immersed in their subject at cost of all other intellectual pursuits. The more of these people you meet the more obvious it becomes"
>He grumbles to himself as he paints the finish on CalTech's new dorm room, discretely spitting in the dirt after some professor of distinction has passed

[Anonymous No.10854110]

>>10854057
I’m not him but it’s true. And it’s not just a problem in the sciences. Modern academia promotes overspecialization to an unhealthy degree to the great detriment of valuable, vibrant thinking.

[Anonymous No.10854135]

>>10854110
>>10853794
>>10853717
The ideally, truly cleaned-up Human, about whom all of the literary artists nowadays seemingly want to write, is a robot. Any Robot, let us note, can be rendered as brilliant, as shiny, as rationalized, and as streamlined, with “clean lines,” as is desired, as well as most perfectly elegant, according to the tastes of the day. The Robot is destined to become the centerpiece of the Palace of Discovery… It is he who is the end-all and be-all of so much civilizing “rationalistic” effort…admirably Naturalistic and objective (the Robot occasionally becomes intoxicated, however! the sole human trait of the Robot at this time)… Ever since the Renaissance there has been this tendency to work with everincreasing enthusiasm towards the advent of the Kingdom of the Sciences and the Social robot. The most reductionist…the most objective of languages is the journalistically perfect one to fill in as the objective language of the Robot… We are already there… It’s no longer necessary to maintain a soul in opposition to the reality of death, in order to express oneself humanistically… And how many volumes! how many aspects! how many facets! and what a lot of publicity! …any sort of robotic jabber whatever can be a triumph! We are already there…

...


In order to win-over the taste and the admiration of the most stultified crowds, of spectators, of the most muddle-headed electors, of the stupidest drinkers of twaddle, of the most frenetic slack-jawed dupes of Progress, the item to be introduced must be even stupider and more reprehensible than any up ’til then. This species of science-worshipping, materialistic, “Cozy Corner” cretin has proliferated, pullulated since the Renaissance… They would kill themselves for the Palace of Discovery.

[Anonymous No.10854138]

>>10854135
Is this pasta?

[Anonymous No.10854143]

>>10852300
Poetry isn't just about elegance. I have yet to see any theorems sporting the rock hard veiny dick of a Whitman.

[Anonymous No.10854160]

>>10854138
Louis-Ferdinand Céline.

[Anonymous No.10854162]

>>10854160
So it is pasta

[Anonymous No.10854169]

>>10854162
imported French pasta

[Anonymous No.10854201]

>>10854057
I'm not saying that they are useless people, but they have fragmentary worldviews and are often startlingly ignorant of the world outside their bubble of expertise. It's a matter of necessity in the highly derived world of modern academia. The reality is that all STEM fields have cultivated a level of complexity as to be completely impenetrable save for by years upon years of study, and the individuals who are selected for this task from the American herd of public school attendees have by necessity undergone years of careful societal conditioning in feedback loops with hard work to achieve the elevated roles in a hierarchy. And these are just the department chairs I'm talking about. These guys are usually exceptional people who are decent and somewhat balanced people despite their maniacal striving. The lower rungs of the totem pole are on average populated by lesser intellects who compensate with even greater degrees of singleminded focus on their specialized role in the machine that is their university department. Their bookshelves are filled with complex technical texts on their favorite subject and one 3-inch thick Selected Works of Karl Marx