Re: It is not just Physics that Should be Hard in Hard SF

On Tue, 22 Oct 2024 02:09:43 -0000 (UTC), Don <g@crcomp.net> wrote:

Scott Dorsey wrote:

Don wrote:

Allow me to atone. Replace "Francophilia" with "Frenchness." As in
Poirot's clear and logical mind demonstrates his Frenchness. Regard
Poirot's Francophilia a regretable mistake made in haste to appease
the almighty alliteration.

>
But he isn't French.  He's one of those deepfrying sorts.

>
Agreed. He isn't French. He doesn't want to be French. Yet he cogitates
with a French mindset. From a neologistical perspective, is
"Francophrenic" fit for purpose in this case?

If you say so.

I don't think a culture that proclaims Liberte! Egalite! Fraternite!
and then discriminates against a specific religion and refuses to
recognize as French anyone who doesn't /look/ French has a mindset
worth having.

Poirot clearly does have a mindset worth having. But then, he's
Belgian.

Addendum:
>
In retrospect, rigorous ratiocination requires recognition of two types
of thought: verbal and visual. Is French art intrinsically recognizable
as such?
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>
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   Humans rely on at least two modes of thought: verbal (inner
   speech) and visual (imagery). Are these modes independent,
   or does engaging in one entail engaging in the other?
>
   <https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5448978/>
>
>
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    The power of picturing thoughts
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    Visual images often intrude on verbal thinking, study says,
    suggesting that pondering with images may be hardwired
>
<https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/05/visual-images-often-intrude-on-verbal-thinking-study-says/>
>
>
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ObSF (first posted in 2020):
>
Beware the Hieronymus Bosch
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   "Be careful what you wish for, lest it come true!"
>
   "Be careful what you think, because your thoughts run your life."
>
   "To sleep, perchance to Dream; aye, there's the rub,
   For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come,"
>
Suppose God delivers the afterlife you crave. For instance, if you don't
believe in an afterlife, then your afterlife is nihility itself. You get
nonexistence because you want it.
   An afterlife qualifies as posthuman on a most personal level. All of
which brings us to BABYLON SISTERS AND OTHER POSTHUMANS (di filippo).
Or, more specifically, to a short story in the di filippo collection
called "a short course in art appreciation."
   In the story, a peptidergic pill induces a physiological, perceptual
change in users. They experience a different "perceptiverse" based upon
the pill ingested. A Dali pill delivers a Dali environment. A Vermeer
pill provides a Vermeer perceptiverse, and so on. As art aficionado
Alena enthuses:
>
   "By taking this new neurotropin we'll be enabled to see not
   /like/ Rembrandt, but as if /inhabiting/ Rembrandt's canvases!"
>
There's a hitch, of course. A hitch to provide story tension.
>
Note: This thread's title is not a spoiler. Bosch isn't in the story.

You might want to see /The Stendhal Syndrome/, in which the
protaganist literally enters great works of art. No drugs required.

Warning: this is a Dario Argento film and very violent. It is "Not
Rated" and, in this case, that is probably because they saw no point
in paying for an NC-17 rating.
--
"Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"