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The Adam Buxton Podcast

Started by Phil_A, September 18, 2015, 09:46:13 PM

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PlanktonSideburns

Quote from: phantom_power on October 08, 2019, 10:46:51 PM
It sort of sounds like spiritualism for people that are too scientific to allow themselves to believe such a thing

worst of both worlds then: youve lost all credibility with the robin incels, but youve chosen to beileive a boring, unimaginative concept, imagine if rocks were sentient? ok ive imagined it, and im already bored by it. God making some bloke kill his son for a laugh, or baby krishna throttling a wind god to death:



now thats a proper belief system!


phantom_power

If rocks were sentient they would get fucking bored, sitting there all day doing nothing, not being able to move or express themselves. It sounds like a belief for nihilists

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

QuoteSympathetic proof of hylozoism: imagine a stone lying on a beach, undisturbed for fifty years; impossible to think that, walking by, we could pick it up and throw it into the sea, and that it could feel nothing...
That's so stupid it's almost impressive.

Bennett Brauer

Probably be grateful for being thrown out of the way of stone-stacking twats if anything.

beanheadmcginty

Quote from: Bennett Brauer on October 09, 2019, 11:42:09 AM
Probably be grateful for being thrown out of the way of stone-stacking twats if anything.

Richard Herring?

popcorn

I did appreciate Pullman's point that "it's like a jungle sometimes / it makes me wonder how I keep from going under" is a mixed metaphor though. That's the sort of perfectly sane and interesting observation that gets you downvoted on Reddit.

Bennett Brauer

Quote from: beanheadmcginty on October 09, 2019, 03:54:53 PM
Richard Herring?

Ha! ALL OF THEM. I don't care if the tossers building them feel centred and healed as a result, they're a fucking eyesore.

Namaste.

phantom_power

Quote from: popcorn on October 09, 2019, 04:00:09 PM
I did appreciate Pullman's point that "it's like a jungle sometimes / it makes me wonder how I keep from going under" is a mixed metaphor though. That's the sort of perfectly sane and interesting observation that gets you downvoted on Reddit.

It's a fucking simile

Twed


popcorn

Quote from: phantom_power on October 09, 2019, 04:12:38 PM
It's a fucking simile

WELL TECHNICALLY the "like a jungle" is a simile and "gong under" is a metaphor. Which makes them even more mixed up really.

Twit 2

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on October 09, 2019, 10:27:49 AM
That's so stupid it's almost impressive.

The school of thought it's talking about (hylozoism) or the aphorism itself as a piece of writing?

Quote from: phantom_power on October 09, 2019, 04:12:38 PM
It's a fucking simile

Simile is a type of metaphor.



Twit 2

Quote from: phantom_power on October 10, 2019, 08:18:57 AM
Citation needed

Quote from: wiki on metaphorMetaphor also denotes rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via association, comparison or resemblance (e.g., antithesis, hyperbole, metonymy and simile, which are all types of metaphor).

You'd have to be an extreme pedant to insist that not to be the case and be reduced to arguing about etymology as opposed to usage. E.g from the wiki on simile:

QuoteSimiles differ from metaphors by highlighting the similarities between two things through the use of words such as "like" and "as", while metaphors create an implicit comparison (i.e. saying something "is" something else). This distinction is evident in the etymology of the words: simile derives from the Latin word similis ("similar, like"), while metaphor derives from the Greek word metapherein ("to transfer").

I'd say almost all metaphors used in the kind of figurative language of poetry and literary fiction are identical to simile, only with a like/as. It's totally implied. Eg (as there's been so much discussion of the film lately):

Your hair is winter fire
Your hair is like winter fire

Both function the same, with it being only a matter of taste and style whether to include the like. You can't say the two are different by using the argument that in the 2nd the author wants to say her hair is merely like winter fire and the 1st her hair actually is winter fire, because of course the writer is still saying the hair is like winter fire in the 1st; neither author nor reader believe there are damp smouldering twigs on top of her head.

The whole point of metaphor is to compare two things, for one thing to stand in for the other, for there to be a tenor and a vehicle. This is what you're doing with a simile too, just with like/as.

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

I quite liked the Pullman episode, it was like having afternoon tea with an avuncular Oxford don.

Pebbles aren't sentient, though, Phil. Talking absolute bollocks there, mate.

marquis_de_sad

I must've been focused on something else when he mentioned sentient rocks. Anyone got a timestamp handy?

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

Quote from: marquis_de_sad on October 10, 2019, 06:53:09 PM
I must've been focused on something else when he mentioned sentient rocks. Anyone got a timestamp handy?

It occurs during the first ten minutes of their chat, when they were out for a walk with Pullman's dogs.

marquis_de_sad

Quote from: Ballad of Ballard Berkley on October 10, 2019, 07:04:55 PM
It occurs during the first ten minutes of their chat, when they were out for a walk with Pullman's dogs.

Thanks, it starts around the 13 minute mark.

phantom_power

Quote from: Twit 2 on October 10, 2019, 06:36:44 PM
FAKE NEWS QUOTE FROM WIKIPEDIA

The page I looked at doesn't have the (which are all types of metaphor) bit, and even the simile page says "similes differ from metaphors". How can something that is something differ from that something? Huh? Thus I win. End of discussion. No returns back

Twit 2

Got it from another site quoting the wiki, which has probably been re-written since. Doesn't matter, as I stand by the points it's making. Take away the wiki bits and I still don't think you can really argue with the bits I wrote anyway. But this is all a bit off topic so I will also say no more. Cheers.

popcorn

We're not on Reddit but we still managed to vote it down

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

A simile is a type of metaphor in much the same way that a pebble is sentient.

Twit 2

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on October 10, 2019, 09:30:46 PM
A simile is a type of metaphor in much the same way that a pebble is sentient.

Back on thread a bit more since Pullman was talking about it in the episode:

Quote from: Twit 2 on October 08, 2019, 10:08:09 PM
Quote

Sympathetic proof of hylozoism: imagine a stone lying on a beach, undisturbed for fifty years; impossible to think that, walking by, we could pick it up and throw it into the sea, and that it could feel nothing...

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on October 09, 2019, 10:27:49 AM
That's so stupid it's almost impressive.

Quote from: Twit 2 on October 09, 2019, 06:39:18 PM
The school of thought it's talking about (hylozoism) or the aphorism itself as a piece of writing?

I assume your problem, then, is the former of the above? I think the aphorism itself is great, as I assume the point it's making is more about us than the stone: ie, "How odd that we, as a collection of cells, have experiences and a stone doesn't." This passage invites us to consider our consciousness/existential state (the 'hard problem of consciousness') by setting it up in vibration against its alternative. As a deliberately personal and subjective mode, the aphorism is well-suited to pose this kind of thing, as opposed to answering it or coming down on any side.

Sony Walkman Prophecies

Quote from: popcorn on October 08, 2019, 10:13:09 PM
Pullman called it panpsychism I think (maybe?). According to the (crap, uncited) Wikipedia page: "Nevertheless, hylozoism remains logically distinct both from early forms of animism, which personify nature, and from panpsychism, which attributes some form of consciousness or sensation to all matter."

In any case it sounds like an extraordinary claim for someone who otherwise seems quite scientifically minded, as evidenced by his writing. Hard not to wonder if he isn't drawn to the "everything is conscious" because it so closely resembles the dust idea in his novels.

Can't see why his being a panpsychist would automatically contradict his supposed commitment to science. There's nothing to say neural matter exclusively gives rise to consciousness (some scientists and philosophers believe machines can be conscious), and it could in fact turn out that any networked system is capable of consciousness, which could include anything from solar systems to crystal lattices.

I say that as someone who wrote a dissertation on panpsychism at uni. I've not heard the interview.

chveik

if you're interested in hylozoism, you should read D'Alembert's Dream by Diderot. it's pretty interesting

popcorn

Quote from: Sony Walkman Prophecies on October 10, 2019, 10:16:56 PM
Can't see why his being a panpsychist would automatically contradict his supposed commitment to science.

It's the kind of thing that sounded like it could come from a place of rationality or a demented spiritualism. I'd hope it was more of the former but Pullman didn't really give any account of himself so it just sounded weird.


phantom_power

Quote from: popcorn on October 11, 2019, 01:57:55 AM
Never heard this before: Adam's Bowie documentary from 2013.

It is fucking brilliant. I used to listen to is on a weekly basis

lankyguy95

New one up with Emily Dean. I think I've heard her say a lot of the same stuff before but it's a decent chat.

selectivememory

Says at the end of that podcast that he's putting out two with Chris Morris next week.