Review: The Grand Design

September 16, 2010
James Skemp

The following is a review of The Grand Design, written by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow. Who's the audience? While interesting, the lack of a defined audience makes this book an extremely difficult read. Having read A Brief History of Time I was looking for something with a similar feel to it. Instead the book starts out geared towards anyone with the desire to really read and understand it, then seems to leave most of that audience towards the wayside - seemingly right around when the science gets a little iffy - and then finishes geared back towards the larger audience.

June 17, 2010
James Skemp

I submit the following as a postulate: Given knowledge of the present state of affairs, we can know the future, but not the past. Of the latter we can only make guesses and assumptions, albeit educated ones, but cannot know with certainity that they were the case. Given that two vehicles are heading towards each other at speed, and neither will be able to stop in time, we can know that they will hit each other and cause a certain amount of damage, knowing the speeds they're going, the integrity of the vehicles, and etcetera.

May 31, 2010
James Skemp

The Dover Edition of The World as Will and Representation: Volume I, translated by E.F.J. Payne, suffers from a sparse table of contents, covering only the starting pages of the four books and the appendix (the index being contained in the second volume). To remedy this, I've presented below an expanded table of contents for this work. Expanded Table of Contents for Volume I Translator's Introduction (v - xi) Preface to the First Edition (xii - xvii) Preface to the Second Edition (xviii - xxvii) Preface to the Third Edition (xxviii) Selected Bibliography (xxix - xxx) Contents, Volume I (xxxi) First Book: The World as Representation.

October 17, 2009
James Skemp

To those who cannot travel outside the normal flow of time, it matters not whether time travel is possible, for they would be unable to determine if the past had changed (assuming it even possible). This thought came to me a moment ago, as I was about to watch the eighth episode of Cosmos.

August 14, 2009
James Skemp

Image for a moment two sheets of paper. On the first we have a design of a Web page. On the second we have the code (all of it) needed to generate that page. If we were to overlap the sheets of paper, so that the design covered the code, let us imagine that the overlapping sheet's background would turn transparent. With this in mind, we could overlap the two sheets of paper equally, with the right side of the design's sheet overlapping the left side of the code's sheet.

June 29, 2009
James Skemp

There's a difference between self control and killing something off. Self control is when you hunger for something, but say no. Killing something off is when you no longer hunger for something. The former is a near-constant struggle, depending upon how often the hunger makes itself known, while the latter is, once the desire is killed, relatively easy, except perhaps during moments of rememberence. Trying to remember what it was like to have a hunger/desire of a particular sort, can be, at times, more painful than the desire itself.

May 27, 2009
James Skemp

The following article will contain spoilers of Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead. If you wish to read the book without my bias, do so before reading this article. As with the previous parts, it seems that Ayn Rand has written the final part of The Fountainhead with two people as the focus of the part. Howard Roark is associated with this part, but Gail Wynand is obviously the secondary character. Yet, Ellsworth's speech to Keating, which gives us a glimpse into what Ayn Rand fears, clarifies his character for us.

May 25, 2009
James Skemp

The following article will contain spoilers of Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead. If you wish to read the book without my bias, do so before reading this article. Having finished Part 3 of The Fountainhead in less than a day, the whole should be fairly fresh in my memory. Yet, I have a hard time putting a second name to this part, to go along with Gail Wynand's, and as I did for my thoughts on part 2.

May 24, 2009
James Skemp

In part 1 of this series I wrote about the first part of Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead. Having now finished part 2, I can write on it. The following will contain spoilers. I highly recommend you do not continue if you wish to read The Fountainhead with fresh eyes. The second part of The Fountainhead is devoted to Ellsworth M. Toohey, as the subtitle suggests. This further introduces a character we had met in part one, but gives us the chance to get to know him further.

May 19, 2009
James Skemp

I've known of Ayn Rand for quite a number of years. The first time I can remember her being talked about was by a fellow philosophy student, approximately one year ahead of me, who was a rather big fan of her work. At least one professor got into arguments with this student, as she'd bring up Rand's approach. In 2002 and 2003 I read We the Living and Anthem, and enjoyed them well enough.

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Review: The Grand Design

Postulate: Given the present, the future can be known, but the past only guessed

Expanded Table of Contents for The World as Will and Representation: Volume I (Dover Edition)

A Brief Thought on Time Travel

Thoughts on objects and their underlying structure

On Self Control

Thoughts on Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead: Part 4

Thoughts on Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead: Part 3

Thoughts on Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead: Part 2

Thoughts on Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead: Part 1

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