Leibniz wasn’t just a careerist. Spinoza has a huge issue where his substance punts on how it maintains its direction in its mildly opaque phase space. Conatus is a cheat code for describing processual units in a block universe.
At least monads were honest that if a dynamical system is to achieve the perfection of god, we may as well assume it to be built in from the start.
It is a shame both thinkers weren’t alive in the late 20th century, as complexity theory and emergence would have given them at least some room to move.
Enjoyed it! Especially interrogating the word moat from different angles. And I like your personal perspective, particularly your takes on what makes castles good versus shitty.
Very fun read and apropos for our book club :) I wonder though if moats and castles are the best metaphor for intellectual inquiry? A younger me definitely loved such combative metaphors. Now I tend to think of tending, pruning, watering, and planting ideas...
Glad you bring that up, I agree. Framing our thinking into metaphors of attack and defense in itself feels like a dated attitude, both uninteresting and ineffective. Making fun of moats seems like the only relevant divergent intellectual move to me at the moment.
Excellent essay. I guess intellectual castles that don’t defend anything are slow, structural rearguard actions from a retreating intellectual tides. You don’t want to capitulate immediately while pragmatic value hasn’t changed sides.
I first misread “scrambling to get by is a human necessity.” as “crumbling to get by…” which also works… I agree with you that building castles and moats is worth it. In a way it’s to signal that you are still playing. Sometimes in the infinite game has slow bits and it’s important to wave and say I’m here.
Leibniz wasn’t just a careerist. Spinoza has a huge issue where his substance punts on how it maintains its direction in its mildly opaque phase space. Conatus is a cheat code for describing processual units in a block universe.
At least monads were honest that if a dynamical system is to achieve the perfection of god, we may as well assume it to be built in from the start.
It is a shame both thinkers weren’t alive in the late 20th century, as complexity theory and emergence would have given them at least some room to move.
Enjoyed it! Especially interrogating the word moat from different angles. And I like your personal perspective, particularly your takes on what makes castles good versus shitty.
Also I dunno why and when substack does it but I am digging substack's tooling auf deutsch like "auch in Notes teilen"
Haha, this is weird! I promise there is no Germanizing prompt injection hidden in the piece
Very fun read and apropos for our book club :) I wonder though if moats and castles are the best metaphor for intellectual inquiry? A younger me definitely loved such combative metaphors. Now I tend to think of tending, pruning, watering, and planting ideas...
Glad you bring that up, I agree. Framing our thinking into metaphors of attack and defense in itself feels like a dated attitude, both uninteresting and ineffective. Making fun of moats seems like the only relevant divergent intellectual move to me at the moment.
Excellent essay. I guess intellectual castles that don’t defend anything are slow, structural rearguard actions from a retreating intellectual tides. You don’t want to capitulate immediately while pragmatic value hasn’t changed sides.
Thanks, means a lot! Thats a good way to put it. Inertia and decreasing momentum still can create a lot of complexity though, like a double pendulum
I first misread “scrambling to get by is a human necessity.” as “crumbling to get by…” which also works… I agree with you that building castles and moats is worth it. In a way it’s to signal that you are still playing. Sometimes in the infinite game has slow bits and it’s important to wave and say I’m here.