And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-brow’d Homer ruled as his demesne;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He star’d at the Pacific—and all his men
Look’d at each other with a wild surmise—
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.
Deep reading — the kind that you engage in when you get lost in the syntax and imagery and the long, convoluted sentences of a really meaty book — is a special sort of exercise that creates a new part of the brain that did not exist at birth.
“It’s semi-miraculous, really,” said Dr. Wolf, the director of the Center for Reading and Language Research at Tufts University. “We don’t have genes for reading. It’s an activity we invented, and by doing it, we show that our brain has the capacity to go beyond itself, to take all these circuits that were created for oral language or vision, and do something entirely different with them — deduction, critical analysis, imagination, contemplation.”
Welcome to the Gödel, Escher, Bach, Tumblr reading group! We’d love to have you read along with us - you can sign up right here.
I’m reading Gödel, Escher, Bach at the rate of one chapter a week with a couple friends here at St. John’s, and with this online reading group. Now is a great time to read this fantastic book.
| Céline: | Have you ever spent some time in Eastern Europe? |
| Jesse: | Eastern? No, no... |
| Céline: | No? I, uh, remember as a teenager I went to Warsaw, when it was still a strict communist regime. Which I don't approve of at all. |
| Jesse: | (Sarcastically.) Oh yeah, sure you don't... |
| Céline: | No, I don’t. |
| Jesse: | No, I'm just kidding! |
| Céline: | But, anyway, something about being there was very interesting, I found. After a couple of weeks, something changed in me. The city was quite gloomy and gray and...but, after a while, my brain seemed clearer. I was writing a lot more in my journal, ideas I had never thought of before. |
| Jesse: | Communist ideas? |
| Céline: | Listen, I'm not... |
| Jesse: | I'm sorry, I can't...Go on! |
| Céline: | I'll send you to a Gulag! No...but it took me a while to figure out why it felt, you know, so different. And then, one day, as I was walking through the Jewish cemetery, I don't know why, but it occurred to me there, I realized that I had spent the last two weeks away from most of my habits. TV was in a language I didn't understand. There was nothing to buy, no advertisements anywhere. So, all I've been doing was...walk around, think, and write. My brain felt like it was at rest, free from the consuming frenzy. And I have to say, it was almost like a natural high. I felt so peaceful inside, no...strange urge to be somewhere else, to shop...Maybe it could have seemed like boredom at first, but it quickly became very, very soulful. It's interesting, you know? |
1) Language is one attempt at creating a tool to convey ideas- in many ways it is our best attempt, although music and painting and other arts can often convey an idea in ways that words cannot.
2) Human ideas are composed not only the facts or conclusions of their originators, but also their memories and emotions.
3) Language as we know it is only able to convey an imitation of the original idea to its receiver. During the reception of ideas, receivers add a layer of subjectivity to their own ideas, memories and emotions.
4) Words of any language are useful (and often beautiful) imitations of the perfect language.
5) The perfect language would convey not only the original idea in fact and conclusion, but also the relevant memories and emotions of the originators. Furthermore, it would allow the receiver to receive not only the parts and whole of the idea, but to allow for the same layer of subjectivity as well as interaction and synthesis. There must be clear boundaries between these layers in the receiver’s mind.
6) The perfect language will be found to be made not of words, but of pure, undiluted ideas; therefore it will be less of a language and more of a method.
7) This method for recording, transferring and receiving ideas in a perfect way will be either mechanical or divine.
A public update about Autodidactism 2010, discussing my fundraising progress and other goodies about the project. If you pledge, you get access to all of these updates, public and private.
I grew up in a Unitarian Universalist church- it was interesting to revisit and re-educate myself about UU ideals.
Autodidactism (from the Greek αὐτοδίδακτος, meaning self-taught) “is self-education or self-directed learning. An autodidact is a mostly self-taught person, as opposed to learning in a school setting or from a full-time tutor or mentor. Autodidacts might spend their time reading either in solitude or in public spaces such as at libraries or via educative websites. They may or may not have designed a plan for their course of study. They may or may not engage a network of experts for guidance.” [Wikipedia]
I would like to spend my summer break reading books, learning about and trying things I am interested in. If I raise at least $1,400, I will do these things in addition to writing and self-publishing a book composed of essays written over the course of the summer. The money will go towards my college education.
Flexibility is an important element for any autodidactic pursuit, but I do have a starting point. I maintain a list of books that I would like to read on Goodreads (http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/543548…. I am studying the Great Books at St. John’s, so I would like to supplement that knowledge with more modern works of non-fiction and literature. Some general areas that I am interested in studying this summer include psychology, linguistics, education, Eastern religions and philosophy, mathematics and science, and history.
As far as the experiential part of my summer, I have a few projects I will investigate and probably try: polyphasic sleep, Vipassana meditation, new exercise routines, learning languages such as Esperanto and Latin, attempting programming, etc.
I will self-publish the book on Lulu.com, a print-on-demand self-publishing company.
Thank you in advance for your generous support! I’m very excited about this project and with your help, I can achieve something that will not only be formative and educational, but I will also have a tangible final product, my book.
