What's Your Intellectual Pleasure?

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Discussion Overview

The thread invites participants to share their current intellectual pleasures, encompassing a wide range of interests from literature and music to historical topics and personal hobbies. The discussion is informal and exploratory, focusing on individual preferences and experiences rather than a specific academic or technical issue.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Conceptual clarification

Main Points Raised

  • Some participants mention specific books they are reading, such as "Poetics" by Aristotle and "Flatland" by Edwin A. Abbott.
  • Others express enjoyment in various forms of media, including audio lectures on human language and music composition.
  • Several participants share interests in ancient history and express their enjoyment of the History Channel, while others critique its content.
  • Some participants discuss their engagement with ghost shows and paranormal theories, highlighting both entertainment value and skepticism about the validity of presented claims.
  • One participant shares a unique intellectual pleasure in creating board games with an artistic approach.
  • Another participant enjoys studying road maps and planning travel itineraries, emphasizing a preference for scenic routes over faster ones.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants express a variety of personal interests without a clear consensus. While some share similar tastes, such as a love for ancient history or ghost shows, there is no agreement on the quality or validity of the content discussed, particularly regarding the History Channel and paranormal investigations.

Contextual Notes

Participants' contributions reflect personal preferences and subjective experiences, with no definitive conclusions or resolutions regarding the topics discussed.

Willowz
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Name your intellectual pleasure. Ex. at the moment I am listening to Zimerman play Schubert.

Name yours! :smile:
 
Science news on Phys.org
I'm currently reading Poetics, by Aristotle.
 
I'm soon drawn back to The Center Cannot Hold by Elyn R. Saks. It's her autobiography including her experience at Yale Law and Oxford, living with schizophrenia yet becoming a Law Dean at USC.
 
Ah, the all too frequently unrewarding search for a decent conversation on PF!
 
Intellectual pleasure? Ummm.. chess, go, scrabble, cryptograms, ect
Am I doing it right?
 
Jersey Shore.

Just kidding, I buy audio lectures on different topics. Right now I'm listening to the story of human language.
 
KingNothing said:
Jersey Shore.

Just kidding, I buy audio lectures on different topics. Right now I'm listening to the story of human language.
By McWhorter?
 
Willowz said:
Name your intellectual pleasure. Ex. at the moment I am listening to Zimerman play Schubert.

Name yours! :smile:

I'm currently reading "Flatland, A Romance of Many Dimensions" by Edwin A. Abbott.

Flatland kind of reminds me of politics. I'm a cube trying to explain a different world to a flatlander.
 
  • #10
I make my own boardgames. I try to apply the most artistic approach to the design of play above all else, which makes for some unusual and fascinating games.
 
  • #11
SixNein said:
Flatland kind of reminds me of politics. I'm a cube trying to explain a different world to a flatlander.

Or vice versa! The whole point is that you don't know what your reference is! Maybe you're a cube trying to explain politics to a hypercube. You'll get that same baffled look either way.

Anyway, my intellectual pleasure is music composition. Sometimes I sit in front of FL Studio and just write for hours.
 
  • #12
I listen to the Shipping Forecast on Radio 4 at 00:48 every morning.
 
  • #13
I love ancient history.
 
  • #14
Evo said:
I love ancient history.

OMG! ME TOOO! I loooove the History Channel.

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  • #15
FlexGunship said:
OMG! ME TOOO! I loooove the History Channel.

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:frown:
 
  • #16
Used to be listening to the unintentional comedy spewed by radio moscow back in the 1980s but now it's maybe listening to Bear McReary soundtracks and listening to the airport and the dyno of a nearby speed shop where I work...when I'm not there working.

I watch this once a day which let's me ponder both music and amazing intellectual creativity.

 
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  • #17
Evo said:
:frown:

Aww, Evo! I feel awful, now... Well, in the spirit of ancient cultures, you can invoke Hammurabi's Lex Talionis.

I love the Apollo space program and collect memorabilia, books, documentaries, and autographs. You can dishonor that in the same way that the History Channel has dishonored your ancient history. Or maybe something about the ISS or Space Shuttle? Have at it!

[PLAIN]http://theaffordablewebhost.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/funny-pictures-cat-trains-to-go-into-outer-space.jpg
 
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  • #18
Oh nooo... It's Vampire Day on the History Channel.

(Love the kitty)
 
  • #19
Evo said:
(Love the kitty)

(I know... I picked it just for you. :blushing:)
 
  • #20
FlexGunship said:
OMG! ME TOOO! I loooove the History Channel.

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Admit it; you love this stuff.
 
  • #21
I use all of my intellectual energy for work these days. But since I now get paid to do what used to be play, work is pleasure.
 
  • #22
Ivan Seeking said:
Admit it; you love this stuff.

Personally, my guilty pleasure are the ghost shows. I like that guy, Zak, that suffers from steroid-induced brain-rot on Ghost Adventures. And, of course, Ghost Hunters with Jay and Grant! But, yes, I can say I've watched almost every episode of that Garbage (capital "G") on the History Channel.

You can't have a strong opinion about the validity of the evidence if you're not well versed in it. I also own nine or ten versions of the Bible and a few copies of the Koran for similar reasons.

Ivan Seeking said:
I use all of my intellectual energy for work these days. But since I now get paid to do what used to be play, work is pleasure.

You get paid to poke fun at twenty-somethings on this forum now?
 
  • #23
FlexGunship said:
Personally, my guilty pleasure are the ghost shows. I like that guy, Zak, that suffers from steroid-induced brain-rot on Ghost Adventures. And, of course, Ghost Hunters with Jay and Grant! But, yes, I can say I've watched almost every episode of that Garbage (capital "G") on the History Channel.

You can't have a strong opinion about the validity of the evidence if you're not well versed in it. I also own nine or ten versions of the Bible and a few copies of the Koran for similar reasons.

Aliens, UFOs, ghosts, ESP, all that stuff - I feel much the same way but also enjoy the rare, legitimate mystery. I watch more for the 1:10000 rather than the other 9999. But I can only take so much before my head explodes. The biggest problem is that for every interesting new story or mystery, there are fifty new shows. So they all tend to go for the ridiculist to fill time.

Jay and Grant and their fast and loose "theories" kill me.
 
  • #24
FlexGunship said:
You get paid to poke fun at twenty-somethings on this forum now?

No, that's my civic duty.
 
  • #25
Ivan Seeking said:
Jay and Grant and their fast and loose "theories" kill me.

I remember the episode where they invented the idea of a "residual haunt" as opposed to an "active haunt." They even went so far as to say the phrase: "we have this theory that..."

Then, about a season later they said: "it's a common theory among paranormal investigators that there are basically two types of hauntings: the residual and the active."
 
  • #26
FlexGunship said:
I remember the episode where they invented the idea of a "residual haunt" as opposed to an "active haunt." They even went so far as to say the phrase: "we have this theory that..."

Then, about a season later they said: "it's a common theory among paranormal investigators that there are basically two types of hauntings: the residual and the active."

The thing is, while they do legitimately debunk a lot of stuff, the debunkings are often just as much hooey as their theories. For example, all of the stuff about EM and how it affects people - you weren't being watched by a ghost, you were just too close to the space heater elements and they were affecting your mind! :smile:
 
  • #27
I would like to name my intellectual pleasure Basil. Or perhaps Herbert. Something old-fashioned, makes you look intelligent.
 
  • #28
qspeechc said:
I would like to name my intellectual pleasure Basil. Or perhaps Herbert. Something old-fashioned, makes you look intelligent.
Ahahahaha! Smithers.
 
  • #29
Keanu Reeves :shy:
 
  • #30
FlexGunship said:
I remember the episode where they invented the idea of a "residual haunt" as opposed to an "active haunt." They even went so far as to say the phrase: "we have this theory that..."

Then, about a season later they said: "it's a common theory among paranormal investigators that there are basically two types of hauntings: the residual and the active."

It is an idea that has been around for at least twenty years.
 

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