| I learned something today, A new phrase: Ding an Sich. This is, as you might have guessed, german in origins and its admittedly simplistic appearance belies, what is to me, a fairly complex idea. Could any of you german speakers tell me the literal translation? When I first encountered this peculiar beast it was lounging about in the shade of a great piece of prose from the mind of Dan Simmons in his book Hyperion. (In case you haven't noticed I've reverted to Sci-fi) I didn't think much of it, inferring (mistakenly) it's nature from it's surroundings. What a suprise when it began to haunt me! My dear friend Dictionaria Merriam-Webster was confounded and I was forced to toss the dice and invade the web (We are mad spiders, indeed). A search for Ding an Sich yielded interesting results... some of which I may post here in a bit. It turns out, though, that the best clues so far come from the bowels of philosophy. Ding an sich is defined as follows: thing-in-itself. Which is, in turn, defined thusly: (blatant rip) An object as it is (or would be) independently of our awareness of it; the noumenon. As Kant showed, we cannot know things-in-themselves but can only postulate their nature from what we know about observable phenomena. Curiouser and curiouser. Who knew science-fiction could yield such fruits? (Rhetorical question. Please lower your hands.) It would seem, then, that the topical question, at least, has been answered. However, deeper and more classical questions have arisen. Not being a student of philosophy I risk covering a lot of well-trodden earth here. The first question I would ask is can the ding an sich even exist? In fact, does anything exist independent of the observer? Perhaps a silly question, granted, but it is an interesting line of mental-masturbation. Second question: if the ding an sich does exist then is there anyway to think about it without spoiling it's nature? I think not. Such speculation is, in my mind, peripheral observation. The only real result of this diversion (other than an increase in my knowledge of the world of philosophy) is a renewed desire to be in a position to learn such things on a daily basis. There are too many neat concepts or expressions of concepts that are slipping by me. I'll stop blathering now. I'm sure you've had enough amateur philosophy. :) Incidentally, professional philosophers scare me. Headache central. Some stuff Today's guest musical recommendation is from Chris. He writes: Music pick o' the day: _Heroes_ by David Bowie. Got it for $5 Saturday. 1978 must have been a banner year for Brian Eno, since he put out _Music for Airports_, _Q: Are We Not Men? A:We Are Devo!_ by Devo. _Fear of Music_ by Talking Heads, and both _Low_ and _Heroes_ by Bowie that year. All them platters is classic in my book. I can vouch for this one. Great stuff. My own musical selection would have to be Laurie Anderson's _Big Science_. I had forgotten about her until, out of the blue, a couple of friends asked me if I have any of her stuff. Being the slave to music that I am I couldn't pass up something that both AG and Trent (two trusted musical influences) had mentioned in one week. It occurred to me, after a listen, that this all sounded vaguely familiar. Particularly Oh Superman. Great stuff. Anyone listened to her newer albums? How are they? Perl is cool. I wrote about 40 lines of code that is the beginning of an IRC bot. Neat stuff. Turnip! "In touch with the ground, I'm on the hunt, I'm after you. Smell like I sound, I'm lost in a crowd and I'm hungry like the wolf. Straddle the line in discord and rhyme, I'm on the hunt I'm after you. Mouth is alive, with juices like wine and I'm hungry like the wolf..." As always, if this sparks you or you want to share something with me, please do so. |