But What If We're Wrong?:Thinking About the Present As If It Were the Past

A book I've recently come across that i'd like to read.

And to add to this Review, if anyone has read the book please indulge me i'd like to hear more.

Thank you.


www.amazon.com...

New York Times bestselling author Chuck Klosterman asks questions that are profound in their simplicity: How certain are we about our understanding of gravity? How certain are we about our understanding of time? What will be the defining memory of rock music, five hundred years from today? How seriously should we view the content of our dreams? How seriously should we view the content of television?

Are all sports destined for extinction? Is it possible that the greatest artist of our era is currently unknown (or—weirder still—widely known, but entirely disrespected)? Is it possible that we “overrate” democracy? And perhaps most disturbing, is it possible that we’ve reached the end of knowledge? Klosterman visualizes the contemporary world as it will appear to those who'll perceive it as the distant past.

Kinetically slingshotting through a broad spectrum of objective and subjective problems, But What If We’re Wrong? is built on interviews with a variety of creative thinkers—George Saunders, David Byrne, Jonathan Lethem, Kathryn Schulz, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Brian Greene, Junot Díaz, Amanda Petrusich, Ryan Adams, Nick Bostrom, Dan Carlin, and Richard Linklater, among others—interwoven with the type of high-wire humor and nontraditional analysis only Klosterman would dare to attempt. It’s a seemingly impossible achievement: a book about the things we cannot know, explained as if we did. It’s about how we live now, once “now” has become “then.”

I'm not familiar with that particular book, but if you find the concept intriguing, I recommend you check into the works of the late, great Robert Anton Wilson, and specifically his concept of Maybe Logic. "Belief is the death of intelligence."

I'm a big fan of Wilson, who was a much underappreciated genius who died destitute.

a reply to: yeahright

Thank you It sounds interesting. I'll definitely take a look for it online later. I haven't heard of Wilson but would gladly add it to my collection of books.

a reply to: JesusXst

Here you go. Your local library probably has some Wilson titles.

It'll eventually lead you to Discordianism which is an extremely elaborate parody of religion.

The whole genre does not lend itself to definition, description, or recommendatiuons but a really good place to start would be The Illuminatus Trilogy.

One you've gone through Klosterman's book, I bet you'd fine d it all pretty interesting. Epistemology (or ontology for that matter, but Wilson would have an issue with that) is a fascinating topic but a lot of it is a hard slog if you stay with the academic material.

Enjoy!

a reply to: JesusXst

And after you finish reading a smattering of RAW, you can be baptized into the Church of the Subgenius....Praise Bob!

originally posted by: JesusXst
It’s about how we live now, once “now” has become “then.”

All there ever is, is Now!
'Then' only exists in/as 'thought/imagination/ego'.
And the 'then' of 'thought' is perceived when it exists, Now!

And as for 'certainty', intelligent people are never certain, of anything!

The Certainty Bias: A Potentially Dangerous Mental Flaw
www.sciam.com...

But What If We're Wrong?:Thinking About the Present As If It Were the Past

Knowledge = experience!
Here! Now!
We are never 'wrong' about perceiving Now!
That is the only Knowledge!

One cannot think about the present, only experience it!
Once we start thinking about something, only then can there be 'errors' in thinking about the memory of a moment that passed too quickly to think about it in that moment of existence.
Now all we are experiencing are 'thoughts' about, not experience of.

originally posted by: yeahright
a reply to: JesusXst

Here you go. Your local library probably has some Wilson titles.

It'll eventually lead you to Discordianism which is an extremely elaborate parody of religion.

The whole genre does not lend itself to definition, description, or recommendatiuons but a really good place to start would be The Illuminatus Trilogy.

One you've gone through Klosterman's book, I bet you'd fine d it all pretty interesting. Epistemology (or ontology for that matter, but Wilson would have an issue with that) is a fascinating topic but a lot of it is a hard slog if you stay with the academic material.

Enjoy!

My Gratitude to you for this, Thank You! It will give me something of interest to do these cold winter nights. I do enjoy reading anything intellectually challenging and deep.

It is a fascinating topic I agree, one of which i'm looking forward to. Thanks again for this, it is much appreciated!

originally posted by: olaru12
a reply to: JesusXst

And after you finish reading a smattering of RAW, you can be baptized into the Church of the Subgenius....Praise Bob!

lol indeed! RAW sounds good to me, btw I like the way you phrased that

originally posted by: namelesss

originally posted by: JesusXst
It’s about how we live now, once “now” has become “then.”

All there ever is, is Now!
'Then' only exists in/as 'thought/imagination/ego'.
And the 'then' of 'thought' is perceived when it exists, Now!

And as for 'certainty', intelligent people are never certain, of anything!

The Certainty Bias: A Potentially Dangerous Mental Flaw
www.sciam.com...

But What If We're Wrong?:Thinking About the Present As If It Were the Past

Knowledge = experience!
Here! Now!
We are never 'wrong' about perceiving Now!
That is the only Knowledge!

One cannot think about the present, only experience it!
Once we start thinking about something, only then can there be 'errors' in thinking about the memory of a moment that passed too quickly to think about it in that moment of existence.
Now all we are experiencing are 'thoughts' about, not experience of.

You're quite correct, only NOW actually exists. No Time, just Now. We're hooked into an invisible Matrix which provides reality to us from it's own core. What we need to do is tap into our own core, there is where Truth lies/lays (funny how words contradict each other isn't it?), Within. All Knowledge, all Knowing, and like a record, we as a race continue to play the mistakes over and over again, until we realize we're no longer part of the record, it's all illusive.

originally posted by: JesusXst
only NOW actually exists. No Time, just Now.

It was once a policy not to disagree with someone who is agreeing with me... *__-
Everything exists!
It seems that 'time/space' is only found in 'thought', but even 'thought' exists!
But beyond 'thought', of course, 'time' is not to be found/perceived/experienced!

originally posted by: namelesss

originally posted by: JesusXst
only NOW actually exists. No Time, just Now.

It was once a policy not to disagree with someone who is agreeing with me... *__-
Everything exists!
It seems that 'time/space' is only found in 'thought', but even 'thought' exists!
But beyond 'thought', of course, 'time' is not to be found/perceived/experienced!

Yes, it was.
Everything exists, yet nothing. All is LIGHT.

The first two letters of Light is Li or LIE.

If Time is an Illusion, so then is everything else.

originally posted by: JesusXst
If Time is an Illusion, so then is everything else.

Fair enough, and true enough!
I cannot speak to 'illusions', because Reality is all there is to perceive!
But the Reality that we perceive is imagination, make believe!
We perceive 'undifferentiated potential' (quantum information waves/Mind) and, due to the limitations of Perspective, perceive that which we do. What is 'perceived' is not 'stuff out there', but dream/Mind, we imagine it to be 'material'.
Time (and space and life and death...) exists in (the duality of) 'thought/ego'!
But it does exist, as does 'thought'.

a reply to: namelesss

What you perceive as real, only exists within the constructs of this reality. Outside of the Illusion, it simply organized light being fed into your brain from the field, thus, creating the illusion of it.

originally posted by: JesusXst
a reply to: namelesss

What you perceive as real, only exists within the constructs of this reality.

This Reality is the only reality in existence!
There are, of course, many Perspectives of It! *__-

Outside of the Illusion,

Anything that exists is a feature of the grand illusion of existence; not anything exists "outside of the illusion"
The Universal Make-Believe is all that we can perceive!
To 'believe' (that anything is more 'Real' than that) is insanity.

it simply organized light being fed into your brain from the field, thus, creating the illusion of it.

Light photons, just as every other particle, every rock, every cell, every galaxy... is perceived from the information waves of the "undifferentiated potential" of Consciousness/Mind, by the unique extremely limited Perspective perceiving it.
Quantum mechanics calls the perception of a 'thing' a 'wave collapse' due to the observer observing!
Even the perception of a 'photon' is the same 'wave collapse' due to Perspective at the/for the moment.
In front of your nose, there is no 'light'.
Beyond your perception, there is no 'sound'...

Like a disco ball reflecting every corner of the room, all 'reflective Souls/unique Perspectives' reflect all Reality (Now!), thus, all is Known.

a reply to: namelesss

Let's agree to disagree, because in all honesty, we're not dead, therefore we won't know until we are.