What are you investigating right now?

[israfel]

trying to find out if , or how much and why the fairytales and bed time stories i read or heard as a child affecting my adult life .

 

[Anthile]

trying to find out if , or how much and why the fairytales and bed time stories i read or heard as a child affecting my adult life .

Oh, I read a lot about fairy tales and myths. Fact is, that even fairy tales for kids are nothing but morality tales and include most of the (narrative) archetypes.
Of course they are way more blatant than what we call more mature stories; fairy tales and myths are storytelling in its purest form.

 

[Inappropriate Behavior]

trying to find out if , or how much and why the fairytales and bed time stories i read or heard as a child affecting my adult life .

Reading the fairy tales as they were originally written (not the watered down version modern day children get) is pretty interesting. Some of them have rather brutal outcomes.

 

[israfel]

Fact is, that even fairy tales for kids are nothing but morality tales and include most of the (narrative) archetypes

thats true but i always remember my self feeling pity and sympathy for the bad guy because i could always guess how the story would end for him/her, and that troubles me a lot these days.

 

[israfel]

Some of them have rather brutal outcomes.

all of them!!

 

[beastie]

I avoided reading fairytales to my daughter. I didnt want her to think that kissing a frog would create a prince or that if she waited her knight in shining armour would come and save her.
Im currently looking into my relationship with my parents (I can remember back to 6 months of age) and trying to piece together my responses to things that drive me crazy and why I have a HUGE need to do everything perfectly.
Needless to say I have a constant headache...

 

[ridingwithscissors]

Right now I'm working on improving at the ancient chinese board game Go. I'm reading some books in .pdf format.

On a sidenote, if anyone wants lessons in Go, I'd be happy to provide! It's simple to learn, but there's always more to learn. It's a game very geared towards INTPs.
http://senseis.xmp.net/?WhatIsGo

I'm also obsessed with Go at the moment (still not particularly good at it though), and would recommend it to any of you.

I've also become more deeply interested in Buddhism. Eastern religions are quite appealing to me, because they seem to be based more on philosophical thought than myths and legends.

first post for me here in aaaaages

 

[RubberDucky451]

Universal currency symbol

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency_(typography)

Or just strange typographic characters.

 

[antedox]

Primarily, I'm researching the fact that we are entering a new age of literature. We are currently post-Postmodernism, but we haven't entered into the new era deeply enough to define what it is.

On top of that I'm also studying the effects economic globalization is having on language, specifically English, and how new words are sneaking into the vernacular. It's fascinating to see how the up and coming superpowers of China and India are effecting the whole world's language use.

On top of THAT, I'm studying what's next for philosophy. I'm afraid for those of us on the up and up in philosophical thought, that the whole thing has run its course. After Heidegger's phenomenological ideology crashed and burned and Post-Structuralism derailed, philosophy has since been kind of meandering and looking for new purpose. I see lots of parallels between this and my primary studies. I guess we'll see how it pans out in the next 2-3 years or so.

 

[jsibley1]

Sadly, I have nothing to obsess over at the moment. I read a book a few days ago in two days... highlighting the words like a madman. Now that I finished that... I've been going to birthday parties, work, and then last night I went out with a girl. The latter experience proved to myself that I am no extrovert. We are both introverts hardcore... but I talked and talked for hours probably because of anxiety. I ended up sleeping for 10 hours when I normally sleep for only 7 hours. Heh.

One thing I have been spending a lot of my mental energy on is trying to figure out what I am going to do with my life. It consumes most of my mental processes and, sadly, I don't get very far... but I can't stop thinking until I resolve it in a satisfactory way. I want to go back to school but, at the same time, I have debts to pay and I fear that going back to school is just an excuse to postpone the "real world" for another two years. But, I have zero focus (thank you, P) so I don't know how to make any use of the degree I have now. Joining the Air Force is starting to look appealing because that can help me find a focus and they can train me to do whatever... something that a real world business isn't likely to do in the same way. The problem is... to pay off debts I have to become an officer because going in as an E1 or E2 doesn't pay enough. Plus, as an officer, I can make better use of my knowledge. I don't have much to demonstrate my leadership qualities to be selected as an officer... so, I guess my plan is this: I can go back to school now, join the AFROTC, and get in as an officer there.

 

[Zero]

Postmodernism. Taking a break to read a classic. I need to look at Postmoderism within medium. Trying to keep up with the intersex stuff, found a few newer books on campus. I haven't got to reading them or anything yet. For a little bit I was somewhat getting into mythology. I think that's going to turn into a long term one.

 

[Cassandra]

Oh, I figured that out a while ago. The truth is, that all socks are actually cosmic beings that materialized on Earth to fight in a tournament to determine who becomes their new god. They use optical illusions to trick humans into thinking that socks are man-made and then they wear them on their feet. In fact, socks are parasites that suck blood from your feet.
Socks appear usually in identical pairs but don't be fooled, they are completely amoral and don't even shrink from fratricide. Although there seem to be always new socks it is clear that in the end there can only be one.
However, except from the whole sucking blood thing they are oblivious to humans but now after I found out their terrible secret they... seem... to look different at me.

Thank you for enlightening me!

However, I now fear my socks.

I'm studying what's next for philosophy. I'm afraid for those of us on the up and up in philosophical thought, that the whole thing has run its course. After Heidegger's phenomenological ideology crashed and burned and Post-Structuralism derailed, philosophy has since been kind of meandering and looking for new purpose. I see lots of parallels between this and my primary studies. I guess we'll see how it pans out in the next 2-3 years or so.

I understand what you're saying. I've thought about this as well...what's next? What large issue is there in philosophy that we have not thought of?

It either means things are about to get reaaaaly boring, or we will enter a new epoch of thought radically different from the current mode of thinking, so different that we cannot even predict it currently.

A similar thing is going on in art. There are few new art movements, and those that occur are really clear re-hashings of past styles.

 

[jsibley1]

Ok, I found something to investigate now... I went to the bookstore, like I always do to fill my time. I bought the book Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy by Bertrad Russell.

Hopefully I can have it finished in two days...

...and I got my trusty highlighter

 

[Berkeley]

I actually just got really into picking locks. Locks are really easy, but the feeling you get when you open something diliberately meant to keep you out is pretty cool.

 

[Kuu]

I understand what you're saying. I've thought about this as well...what's next? What large issue is there in philosophy that we have not thought of?

It either means things are about to get reaaaaly boring, or we will enter a new epoch of thought radically different from the current mode of thinking, so different that we cannot even predict it currently.

A similar thing is going on in art. There are few new art movements, and those that occur are really clear re-hashings of past styles.

Oh definitely. I've pondered about this too, excessively to be honest. Actually, this is what drove me OFF from pursuing philosophy on an academic level (I once considered a philosophy major). It seems like we've reached a dead end. I think the next steps for human understanding are not in philosophy, but in science. Maybe we're gonna start seeing some answers to some of our old questions... and only once we've reached that new level, will we be able to visualize the next philosophical frontiers. Of course, that's wishful thinking. Maybe we have reached a dead end, that's all there is to it, and to dwell in it is pointless, as is everything .

I'm not so concerned about "art"... I think the concept itself is ill defined... and so the end of "art" is actually an opportunity for a new concept to arise in its ashes.


I'm currently investigating... nothing. Too fucking busy. It is slowly killing me.

 

[shoeless]

i'm looking into out of body experiences/"astral projection" as well as buddhism and other spiritual topics.

a lot of it (at least the OOB book i'm reading) is from a scientific perspective, but from someone who has actually had an OOB before, so that's pretty cool.

i just want to know more about this stuff. i used to dismiss it as garbage, but you know what... it's interesting, and it came from somewhere. i want to know where. and why. i love my why's.

anyway.

 

[sadprofessor909]

I'm looking into the Mandelbrot set and the many worlds interpretation.

 

[Nicholas A. A. E.]

I can't really answer this as my investigations are extremely short-term. I get on jags and they're intense and I forget to eat, but even if my learnings are interrupted, I rarely find the enthusiasm to pick up where I left off the next day.

 

[Anthile]

Portuguese cheese.

 

[antedox]

i'm looking into out of body experiences/"astral projection" as well as buddhism and other spiritual topics.

a lot of it (at least the OOB book i'm reading) is from a scientific perspective, but from someone who has actually had an OOB before, so that's pretty cool.

i just want to know more about this stuff. i used to dismiss it as garbage, but you know what... it's interesting, and it came from somewhere. i want to know where. and why. i love my why's.

anyway.

OoBEs are amazing. I've read several books on the topic, and I'll say the one that helped me the most was "Adventures Beyond the Body" by William Buhlman. I'm still not certain precisely what is occurring during an OoBE, but the experience itself is exhilarating and like nothing I've ever experienced.

 

[bananaphallus]

I actually just got really into picking locks. Locks are really easy, but the feeling you get when you open something diliberately meant to keep you out is pretty cool.

Are you familiar with Marc Weber Tobias?

 

[shoeless]

...heheheh. i just realized i said "OOB" in that post.

oob. ooooob.

*OBE!!


anyway, i have reason to believe i had an OBE once when i was really young... it terrified me at the time cause i had no idea what was going on, and it didn't go far, but reading about this stuff now, i realize a lot of the preliminary stuff... the "tunnel" feeling, everything seeming stretched out/distorted but i was still conscious, and it happening while i was very ill... it matches up a lot with what the author in the book i'm reading described.

pretty interesting shit. i'd love to have a real, active OBE though. sighhhh.

 

[Waterstiller]

These days I've been looking into syncretism and how to integrate it into an active process instead of a reactive one based on necessity.

Libertarian socialism, forms of minarchy, and panarchism.

My dreams. I have a dream calender that I fill in every morning with keywords from dreams. I've been trying to work on visualization in my waking hours by reliving dreams, replaying my days at the end of them, remembering old homes/neighborhoods/places and trying to walk through them, and imagining future scenarios. Out-of-body-experiences seem related to this and I should probably check out that that William Buhlman book.

 

[Anling]

I was just researching tisanes.

 

[transformers]

This is a good thread

I'm researching muscle anatomy and neuroscience, the link between the physical body and consciousness. Fascinating stuff.

A little while ago I was researching England's political history.

 

[ckm]

I'm doing a course based on a book I got for my birthday: "The Artist's Way: A Path To Higher Spirituality". It's twelve weeks long and the "biggest" part of it is getting up about half an hour (it's more like 45 minutes for me) early every day and writing three A4 pages longhand. On anything. Stream-of-consciousness. I might get half way through a sentence and suddenly I'll remember a dream I had the previous night, so I write about that. It lasts 12 weeks - every week I read a chapter on a certain theme relating to creativity and do the recommended tasks.

Another book I got for my birthday: "The Definitive Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock". "Rock" is used in the broadest context imaginable: Eminem, Aretha Franklin, ABBA and Michael Jackson are all key artists. It analyses each decade (starting with the fifties, going all the way up to the noughties) in terms of influences, sounds, key artists and then an A-Z guide of numerous other influential artists, going into some detail on each. There is an introductory section that deals with roots, primarily the two ingredients that fused into Rock'n'Roll: Country and Blues. I intend on working through the whole book, looking up each artists' key tracks in the process.

I'm also investigating the validity of the MBTI online.

 

[Xel]

As you can tell by my avatar, have recently been reading the works of HP Lovecraft. I have read The Call of Cthulhu and I'm reading The Shadow Over Innsmouth. It is quite good, usually I'm not a fan of horror.

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.