On Ancestry

The beginning of Murchie's chapter on human interconnection made the peculiar claim that no one on earth is less related than fiftieth cousins. I'm not sure about his reasoning. Mathematically, he walks through his thought process, conservatively assuming only two offspring per couple. But I think he fundamentally misses some things. It seems to me that I could not be so related to many of the people in Asia for example, or to Eskimos, whose populations diverged on the order of twenty thousand years ago. He also makes the claim that based on probability, everyone who lived before 700 AD is my ancestor. This too, I find outlandish. I do not see how any Korean, for example, could be in my family tree - that population diverged from the European population much too early.  

This does bring up an interesting thought though. If it were possible to trace back my ancestry, I wonder how many it would encompass. As a European mutt (Lithuanian/Russian on one side, and unknown Western European on the other), I'm sure my line would include any interesting characters. I wonder if one day genetic testing would allow for digital reconstruction of lineages, based solely on genes and gene markers. I tend to think it couldn't be 100% accurate but would probably be quite informative. 

I finished Sellars' Stoicism reader. The last chapter was on the proliferation of Stoic thought from antiquity to modern day. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Spinoza was perhaps the only philosopher to identify himself as a Stoic since Marcus Aurelius. I added Erasmus and a modern commentary on Stoicism by Lawrence Becker. 

Portuguese has stagnated recently. I feel I need to mix things up a bit - I simply don't have the time that I did for Russian to just sit down and endlessly practice vocabulary. 

Back to Stoicism

Well, I finished Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Frankly, I'm glad. There wasn't anything comment-worthy over the last few nights of reading, and now I can move on to bigger and better things. The editor thoughtfully included some critical reviews of Nietzsche in the back of the book - I'm comforted with how many others also agree that there are better philosophers out there. It is not that Nietzsche doesn't have good ideas, it's just that I think his presentation is ineffective.

I ordered six new books , two of which should arrive as early as tomorrow, so I can start on them after I get through Descartes, which has been waiting patiently on my nightstand. I ordered Schopenhauer's Essays, Kant's Critique of Practical Reason, Spinoza's Theologico-Political Treatise, all 4 volumes of The Discourses by Epictetus, and a commentary on stoicism. I am quite looking forward to getting back to stoicism - the commentary will perhaps be the first that I pick up.

As I continue to learn Portuguese, though already and perhaps unfortunately I am focusing more on vocabulary and grammar, I am vexed by the thought that I didn't pay Russian enough attention. Perhaps I could develop it more - but do I really have time for two languages? I am barely making progress in Portuguese. At the moment I think all I can try for is to pay a little closer attention to the Russian I expose myself to everyday. If only I had learned to listen, it would be so much easier to maintain...

Moderation is but Mediocrity

"They have become small and are becoming smaller - but that is due to their doctrine of happiness and virtue. For they are modest even in virtue - because they want comfort. But only a modest virtue is compatible with comfort." - Nietzsche


Murchie's book is not strictly philosophy. Not in the airy, ethics and logic sense. But philosophy used to also include metaphysics - the study of what things are. And that is this book in a nutshell. A broad overview, at least in the first two chapters, of life on Earth in all its forms. It's the type of book I could give to a child and say 'This is all you need to know about the natural sciences.' So while it may not be modern philosophy, it is valuable.

Portuguese is going well tambem. 200 known words so far, and I'm trying to spend a greater amount of time with listening and speaking than I did with Russian. Hopefully that will help gel my understanding as well as my motivation to continue studying it. I was unsuccessful in finding a good Portuguese equivalent of RIA Novosti's twitter feed - a simple 300 post per week newsfeed. The closest I found was oGlobo, but that was about 3000 posts per week. I'll have to find a substitute.

Thus Wrote Nietzsche

Well, I did start reading Nietzsche again. And I have to say, Thus Spoke Zarathustra is better than I expected. There is much of value in the book, and perhaps I will read more by Nietzsche after this.

The Prologue, basically just the first chapter of the book, is certainly thought-provoking. The Ubermensch (umlaut over the U) are the end-goal of humanity, it seems. Though we will never reach it. Humanity will instead become content with being content; happy with the artifical happiness of removing pain from life. I think this is true. True when Nietzsche wrote it, and even truer now. Though I did not tie the two together a priori, I read The Time Machine last night, or rather, reread. The Eloi are perfect examples of the alternative to the Ubermensch. They live with no aspirations or goals, only ambivalently as cattle for the Morloks. In a figurative sense, can many people today be said to be all that much different? As I read today, Nietzsche supports inequality and war as a method of spurring development and progress towards the Ubermensch. This is certainly unconventional, but I would say it is the only way. As H.G. Wells wrote in explaining the Eloi, humanity only adapts and progresses when confronted with something that our instincts and habits cannot overcome. If all the world were equal and provided for, equal in a philosophical sense, then I can see why the impetus for progress would vanish. 

After the Prologue, the book is written in small, two-page 'speeches' given by Zarathustra to no one in particular. I read two today that stood out. First, pity is a great cause of shame and vengefulness. Accepting kindness and giving kindness results in a sort of moral inequality, which is not rectified as easily as exchanging money or services. I am not sure pity lead to the death of God, as Nietzsche puts it, but I can agree that pity itself is destructive. The other lesson was that virtue is quite hard to identify. Not only is virtue unrewardable and unpunishable, but more importantly everyone has their own concept of it. In accordance with Nietzsche's disdain for dogma, he doesn't give a good definition of 'virtue', at least not in the Aurelian sense. I'm afraid he wouldn't much care for stoicism.

After On Certainty will come The Seven Mysteries of Life, by Guy Murchie. It's an impressively large 650ish page tome, though dust-free. It's somewhat of a hybrid of natural science and philosophy - it looks complex but also very readable and digestible.