In the twenty-second and twenty-third chapters of The Science of Discworld<\/i>, now I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m thinking of privatives, and my brain hurts. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Discworld<\/i>.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
Oh god MY MIND. So, this is one of those concepts that feels more philosophical than scientific, but! Let me truly open this by pointing out that I correctly guessed that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153dark\u00e2\u20ac\u009d doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have a speed because it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the absence<\/i> of light.<\/i> This was literally the only thing I felt knowledgable on in the entirety of chapter twenty-two, but that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s okay. This was a learning experience! I am absolutely<\/i> the sort of person who would have guessed that burning a log would cause it to weigh less than when it started, so I was very impressed by what I read here. EASILY IMPRESSED MARK.<\/p>\n
Or, maybe it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just a lot of fun to be reading a book that is so actively challenging me to rethink things on a consistent basis. Like, the whole bit about reification is not <\/i>something I think I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve given any serious thought to. I appreciated that the text made a distinction between the ways that reification held different meanings, though. Debt feels very<\/i> real to me, given that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been mostly \u00e2\u20ac\u0153in\u00e2\u20ac\u009d it for the entirety of my adult life. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an absurd thing to think about, though, because it isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t real in any sense beyond this arbitrary economic system that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve propped up and supported. I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t go out and touch my debt or destroy it or move it somewhere else. (Though it certainly has been commodified, and that<\/i> is a creepy thought. It reminds me of the conversations we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been having over on mark Watches re: Person of Interest<\/i> and the buying\/selling of information.) Yet it has a very real affect on me as a person, from my physical and mental state to my ability to do certain things in life. Most of the friends I have these days own property and have mortgages, and that is not even remotely on my radar. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153real\u00e2\u20ac\u009d function of debt!<\/p>\n
But I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think the authors were trying to say that this is all meaningless, because we, as humans, routinely assign meanings to all sorts of things. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nothing inherently wrong with that! Nor is it unfair to point out that not having money is a negative thing in our society. As they say:<\/p>\n
Air isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t important if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got it, only if you haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t; the same goes for money.<\/p>\n
We really do<\/i> live in a world that is of our own making, and sometimes, that world affects other people, too. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s still a cause and effect that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s at play here, and the Discworld chapter is a great way for us to understand the parallel that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s unfolding. The wizards live in one world but are making<\/i> a world, too, and they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re trying to shape it in ways that mimic their own. What are the ramifications of that? Well, in this case, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s life<\/i>. A primitive, simplistic form of it, and I thought it was hilarious that this wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153life\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that the wizards wanted. But this world of their own making \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a metaphorical phrase turned literal here \u00e2\u20ac\u201c had unforeseen consequences.<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Do you think, on reflection, that it might not have been a good idea to miniaturize his image in Roundworld?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Ridcully.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I mean\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m glad you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re now<\/i> thinking of what this means, but perhaps this line of questioning would have been earlier??? Oh, well, this is the wizards we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re talking about. They routinely act first and then ponder the result of that act eons later. So\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re totally going to try to interact with the blobs next, right? RIGHT?<\/p>\n http:\/\/youtu.be\/8bC9IWoExnA?a<\/p>\n Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n – My YA contemporary debut, ANGER IS A GIFT<\/a>, is now available for pre-order!\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong>If you’d like to stay up-to-date on all announcements regarding my books, sign up for my newsletter<\/a>! DO IT.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the twenty-second and twenty-third chapters of The Science of Discworld, now I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m thinking of privatives, and my brain hurts. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read Discworld.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[451],"tags":[463,248,532],"class_list":["post-4347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discworld","tag-mark-reads-discworld","tag-terry-pratchett","tag-the-science-of-discworld"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4347\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}