OT: The Good Book: What are you reading right now?

[Kriss E]

Do you have morals and ethics classes in highschool in Quebec? I would've killed for a philosophy class.

Moral used to be the alternative to religion class...How ironic...
Ethics wasnt around in my school.

Human behavior...communication...nutrition...should be part of the curriculum nowadays, along with making physical ed a daily class.

 

[Habs Icing]

Major Barbara..... by GBS. In my 20s I read everything printed by Shaw. Now I decided to re-read them. I always liked his prefaces as much as his plays.

 

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

Right now I'm reading two books.

Star wars - Thrawn Alliances
Black Widow - Forever Red

Both books are great, but Thrawn Alliances is soooooo good.

Zhan knows how to write Thrawn.

Just started Forever red, but it's really good. Looking forward to read some more.

 

[Pompeius Magnus]

Right now I'm reading two books.

Star wars - Thrawn Alliances
Black Widow - Forever Red

Both books are great, but Thrawn Alliances is soooooo good.

Zhan knows how to write Thrawn.

Just started Forever red, but it's really good. Looking forward to read some more.

Wait, Timothy Zahn wrote more Thrawn stuff after the trilogy ? I read those as a teenager in the mid nineties, that was pretty good stuff. I was actually hoping they'd make that the official follow up to Jedi back in the day, they pretty much read like screenplays.

 

[Andrei79]

They're like sonnets of information.



Do you have morals and ethics classes in highschool in Quebec? I would've killed for a philosophy class.

I had one in secondary IV, but it was school specific. Our class went through a variety of subjects and authors ranging from Aristotle, Kant to Freud. We had class debates and individual presentations on ethical subjects of our choosing. It was the best class I ever attended and, in retrospect, shaped my career path.

 

[Lshap]

I had one in secondary IV, but it was school specific. Our class went through a variety of subjects and authors ranging from Aristotle, Kant to Freud. We had class debates and individual presentations on ethical subjects of our choosing. It was the best class I ever attended and, in retrospect, shaped my career path.

This actually sounds very cool. It would probably be a great adult-ed course as well.

 

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

Wait, Timothy Zahn wrote more Thrawn stuff after the trilogy ? I read those as a teenager in the mid nineties, that was pretty good stuff. I was actually hoping they'd make that the official follow up to Jedi back in the day, they pretty much read like screenplays.

Actually that was Timothy's plan from the get go, to get that trilogy to film however Lucas allowed the novel to be written but never agreed to have the Thrawn trilogy be a sequel to the original movie trilogy since Lucas already had the prequel and sequel trilogies drafted.

When Disney bought Star Wars, they basically retconned all the Star Wars expanded Universe novels printed since 1990. The all became basically decanoned... including Zahn's Thrawn trilogy.

Then Disney started plucking from the now retconned SWEU characters and they introduced Thrawn in the Star Wars animated series this making Thrawn canon again.

Disney then tapped Timothy Zahn to write up a new Thrawn Trilogy with a new origin.

1st novel is called Star Wars: Thrawn and focuses on his new origin and ascension to Grand admiral.

The 2nd novel is called Alliances and focus on 1) Thrawns 1st meeting with Anakin during the clone wars and 2) Thrawn and Vaders mission today where they partner up at Palpatines orders.

And the last novel is not out yet and will apparently lead to Thrawns falling out with Palpatine and "banishment" to the outer regions during the events of a new hope through return of the jedi thus closing out the trilogy and kind of turning it into a prequel of his original trilogy.

Check them out. Really fun reads man!

 

[NotProkofievian]

I had one in secondary IV, but it was school specific. Our class went through a variety of subjects and authors ranging from Aristotle, Kant to Freud. We had class debates and individual presentations on ethical subjects of our choosing. It was the best class I ever attended and, in retrospect, shaped my career path.

That sounds amazing. There was nothing like that where I grew up. The only good courses available at my highschool were science and math, and here I am in STEM. Which is a bit of a pity as I do love the written word, and my field places 0 value on it. It sounds a bit like I'm lamenting an absence of sophistry in my field, but it would be nice if argumentation still had a bit of a place. One of my happiest moments was when a reviewer asked me to comment on ''some of the implications'' of my research. Easiest 2 paragraphs I ever wrote, when the rest of the paper was like pulling teeth lol.

 

[Grate n Colorful Oz]

Right now I'm reading two books.

Star wars - Thrawn Alliances
Black Widow - Forever Red

Both books are great, but Thrawn Alliances is soooooo good.

Zhan knows how to write Thrawn.

Just started Forever red, but it's really good. Looking forward to read some more.

I prefer the Dark Empire trilogy by Tom Veitch

 

[Grate n Colorful Oz]

I read a lot of scientific literature treating of the human mind and I never heard of the term behavioral neurobiology and extremely rarely of the term behavioral biology. I feel we may get lost in semantics in what we are referring to, biology implies studying in evolutionary adaptions terms in order to deeply understand the function of the different parts and their interactions and behavioral implies the observable manifestation of our psychology, I believe when I am referring to evolutionary psychology I closely referring to the term behavioral biology you are referring to. I have read the Handbooks of Evolutionary Psychology which incorporates in his study of the human mind everything from social psychology, developmental psychology, sociology, anthropology, ethology of related species, evolutionary biology, genetics, and neuroscience. It aspires to be an all-encompassing scientific field in his explanation of human behaviors. There seems to be a great deal of overlaps between the two terms we are speaking of with each other incorporating the other in his broad scientific perspective.

To me, you are naive if you believe that we know plenty enough from a neurological standpoint not to be largely speculative when explaining human behavioral phenotypes from that scientific perspective. I still stand to everything I just said, explaining human behaviors by only using neurological information would be severely limiting; it greatly relies on other scientific fields to fill in the gaps and to orient how to interpret neurological data. On his own, it offers very little. The speculative part is far from gone. We do not understand the brain as an organ very well, I wouldn't trust any neuroscientist that believe otherwise. There is much more than consciousness and volition that is yet to be understood, by the way, evolutionary reasoning has already a lot to offer in the explanation consciousness serving an adaptive function, on the flip side, it is unsurprising that the different sorts of brain imagery have very little to offer.

Following that train of thought, (if you try to isolate evolutionary psychology from neuroscience discoveries from one another,) I believe that evolutionary psychology field is moving way faster than the neuroscientific field because of the number of scientific studies providing data on phenotypic expressions that have been being exponentially increasing in the last decades, the gradually increasing social acceptance of his theories (previous reticence due to conflicting religious ideologies subsiding), the increase of evolutionary psychologists and above all, not being as limited by the limitation of technological tools.

I still have difficulty seeing how epigenetics can be usefully incorporated at the level of human behavioral study as of right now (I can see the value when we would have the scientific knowledge and tools to better interpret that information on that level).

The fact you haven't heard much of behavioral biology might mean you'd better dive into it instead of finding reasons not to.

I can tell you that you're missing two big pieces. Do what you want with it. If you are truly pragmatic in your approach, you just can't brush off both epigenetics and neurobiology.

 

[Grate n Colorful Oz]

This actually sounds very cool. It would probably be a great adult-ed course as well.

Behavioral bio?

 

[Harry Kakalovich]

Believe or not after having becoming an addict of Game of Thrones the TV show along with buying a ton of GoT stuff and the DVDs and re-watching them a hundred times, I just started reading the books. Got them all on e-bay a few weeks ago.

These are huge books and this task seems like an uphill battle. My interest in reading books is a lot based of mystery and so far it's been hard to get into cause I know a lot about the characters and the stories. But it's been fascinating seeing the differences. Like the most crying one being Joffrey as so far book Joffrey doesn't seem as bad as show Joffrey. It is as if the makers of the show wanted to paint him as a clear monster(esp. with the casting as book Joffrey look like a beautiful Prince) . The whole scene with the butcher boy and Joffrey and Arya is different here, it's far less crazy and Joffrey doesn't come off as bad. Sansa is a point of view character here and she comes off better than on the show too.

Another character that is different from the show is Renly. I always thought he was a bore on the show but on the book for one thing he has long black hair and he's pretty dashing. He is hilarious too. When they have the mini trial on Arya for attacking Joffrey, upon Arya telling her story of how Joffrey got punked, Renly is laughing so hard as to falling on the floor that it pisses off Robert and Renly is ordered to leave. I don't know why they changed him on the show. But you get why Brienne would fall for him.

On the opposite end of Joffrey, the Hound is much worse in the books! lol He didn't just ran down the butcher boy, seems like the kid was broken in half.

I haven't watched the shows but I've read the first 4 books. The 3rd one is really good. I'd like to read the 5th but they can take a while to get into sometimes.

 

[Harry Kakalovich]

The fact you haven't heard much of behavioral biology might mean you'd better dive into it instead of finding reasons not to.

I can tell you that you're missing two big pieces. Do what you want with it. If you are truly pragmatic in your approach, you just can't brush off both epigenetics and neurobiology.

You have me interested.

 

[Grand Admiral Thrawn]

I prefer the Dark Empire trilogy by Tom Veitch

A great read as well, but a Thrawn trilogy it is not.

 

[Kimota]

I prefer the Dark Empire trilogy by Tom Veitch

I've read a few stuff from Tom Veitch. Great writer.

 

[Grate n Colorful Oz]

I've read a few stuff from Tom Veitch. Great writer.

Ive only read SW books from him. As he done anything else?

 

[Grate n Colorful Oz]

You have me interested.

Good!

 

[Kimota]

Ive only read SW books from him. As he done anything else?

My favorite work of his a three-issues mini-series called "Clash" that he did in the early 90s. It turns the super-hero concept upside down, going with the approach of what would happen if someone gained God-like powers. It is pretty realistic and a lot of stuff has been done with the subject matter in comics and movies since like Unbreakable, Hancock, Chronicles but this was the first time I had seen something similar. There was Watchmen but this was more about politics and it was subtle when Clash is more about power and what it can do, it is more visceral.

 

[ProspectsFanatic]

The fact you haven't heard much of behavioral biology might mean you'd better dive into it instead of finding reasons not to.

I can tell you that you're missing two big pieces. Do what you want with it. If you are truly pragmatic in your approach, you just can't brush off both epigenetics and neurobiology.

I wanted to ask you one, when I searched quickly through google I only found old books with little to no reviews. I am very open about learning anything I am ill-informed about, particularly if it relates to psychology in some form, I don't have any allegiance to any discipline, I am only seeking the truth, it happens I found evolutionary psychology robust in uncovering a lot of it. I am already familiar with some of the neurobiology literature, I have some in my reading list too. As I said, I still can't conceptualize how epigenetics can be translated in behavioral terms for the time being, if you can prove me otherwise, I would be open reading more about it, I'll admit that things purely at the molecular level do not really interest me.

 

[Grate n Colorful Oz]

I wanted to ask you one, when I searched quickly through google I only found old books with little to no reviews. I am very open about learning anything I am ill-informed about, particularly if it relates to psychology in some form, I don't have any allegiance to any discipline, I am only seeking the truth, it happens I found evolutionary psychology robust in uncovering a lot of it. I am already familiar with some of the neurobiology literature, I have some in my reading list too. As I said, I still can't conceptualize how epigenetics can be translated in behavioral terms for the time being, if you can prove me otherwise, I would be open reading more about it, I'll admit that things purely at the molecular level do not really interest me.

One example as related to behavior, a powerful one. We have plenty of data on the effects of stress in the womb. High stresses will modify genetic expressions (epigenetic effects) to a myriad of genes and neurobiological processes (especially related to the ANS, major motivaton/reward pathways and to fear/agression) setting basal levels of activation to a state that will lead to misadaptation/insult/deregulation in both biology and behavioral expressions. These are highly important to know in preventive medicine, related to mental health issues and public health issues, related to many of our societal problems. Epidemiological data, biological data studies and neurobiological studies all align together perfectly. There's very little speculation about this anymore, ever since both epigenetics and neurobiology brought the major missing pieces of understanding.


Maybe it has to do with how we were differently brought up. Really early on in my journey, I stumbled unto chaos theory by chance. I borrowed James Gleick's Chaos from my mother's business partner's library in my early 20's, fascinated by the mandelbrot set fractals on the cover. I think this book, more than any other, helped me understand the importance of never leaving a stone unturned. The more complex the system, the more layers you need to account for. The higher the complexity, less manoeuvre there is for reductionism. And that's mainly the problem of the fields that have attempted to lead the behavioral sciences, especially anthropology and psychology, which is why I find it really odd how you harp on the speculative part of neurobiology, when both the formers, when it comes to behavior, are repleet with behavioral interpretations and even higher speculation. Neurobiology and epigenetics are actually helping those disciplines to remove many of the false interpretations they had come up with. Just need to take a look at present day research on empathy versus the interpretations of sociality that existed before, the old dogmatic interpretations of altruism and emotional intelligence (which psychology is extremely late on). Psychology is still seeing emotional intelligence through mostly only the prefrontal cortex and emotion regulation. Neurobiology has shown this to be a grave error as it is only part of the story. Don't wanna dwell too much into this, but it's an example of what field is influencing the other fields right now.

10 years ago, I discovered primatologist, endocrinologist and neurobiologist, Robert M Sapolsky, who is today one of the leading figures in behavioral biology. I had goosebumps when I realized the providence of where my path had lead me (trying to understand human nature) when later on, I started watching his Bio intro course at Standford on youtube and he explains the two mandatory readings for his course; Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers, which was his primer on the neurobio of stress, first book I had read from him, and the other one was Gleick's Chaos. Sapolsky stresses how you need to account for all layers of explanation when it comes to human behavior.

I think it is essential to your understanding. I didn't simply read Sapolsky though, but i always mention him, because he's probably the best and most complete reference when it comes to human behavior. He's also an excellent orator, bar none.

Hope it helps

Oh... and my second favorite primatologist (incidently since you mentioned Sapiens) who is also redefining how we interpret our past relating to our confounding and common ancestry with Bonobos, not just the chimps, Franz De Waal. I think his work on the origins of morality are exceedingly important in our understanding of our behavioral past.

 

[Pompeius Magnus]

My favorite work of his a three-issues mini-series called "Clash" that he did in the early 90s. It turns the super-hero concept upside down, going with the approach of what would happen if someone gained God-like powers. It is pretty realistic and a lot of stuff has been done with the subject matter in comics and movies since like Unbreakable, Hancock, Chronicles but this was the first time I had seen something similar. There was Watchmen but this was more about politics and it was subtle when Clash is more about power and what it can do, it is more visceral.

Alan Moore definitely took a very cynical, pessimistic approach to his take on that concept. In his own words, it was a very cynical time in England when he wrote it , with Thatcher and all, so it kind of permeated into his work. V for Vendetta was very much the same in that aspect . Those were written by a man who felt the world was headed in a very bad direction.

 

[Mario le Magnifique]

I'm reading Altered Carbon (I've finished tome 1, starting tome 2), this is the books of the Netflix's series, a very underrated author and a complex, surreal, sci-fi, violent story.

 

[overlords]

Alan Moore definitely took a very cynical, pessimistic approach to his take on that concept. In his own words, it was a very cynical time in England when he wrote it , with Thatcher and all, so it kind of permeated into his work. V for Vendetta was very much the same in that aspect . Those were written by a man who felt the world was headed in a very bad direction.

Anytime Alan Moore is brought up I can't help but bring up Warren Ellis' impression of him:

 

[TennisMenace]

Now that I have recently retired from practicing law and teaching, I am now exclusively reading just that......the good book....the Holy Bible!

It has been a moving and eye-opening experience reading and studying all the OT prophets like Ezekiel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, Daniel, Joel, etc. Wow, very illuminating. I have usually avoided reading these guys, preferring to read Genesis, Proverbs, and the Psalms instead, so I’m catching up for all that lost time. Reading these guys makes understanding both comings of Jesus Christ (1st and 2nd) much clearer.

 

[NORiculous]

Reading “ Le maitre des illusions “ de Donna Tartt.

I have french version.

Story is ok, although nothing special I still am enjoying it, but the writing is fantastic. Its like an explosion of amazing beauty.