The things you learn by reading…
These blew my mind today.
From Lincoln President-Elect: Abraham Lincoln and the Great Secession Winter 1860-1861
: It was considered unseemly to campaign for yourself during Lincoln’s days. Others could campaign for you but if it seemed like you wanted to be President too badly, the people didn’t vote for you. So in the crucial months before the Southern states left, Lincoln didn’t even make speeches, travel, and campaign very much at all. There was a cone of silence for everyone.
Come to think of it, can we reinstate this practice?
From The Making of a Philosopher
: In talking about the mind/body problem (essentially that our minds, thoughts, and consciousness do not match up exactly to the physicality of our brains), Colin McGinn suggests that the connection may be beyond our ability to figure it out. It is beyond our perceptions, our reality. It is beyond our mental capability because that is constrained to our actualities.
There are certain ideas for which we simply cannot think to its actual truth. Wow.
Of course I know that there are issues for which it seems like there is no final answer, but I never really considered that certain close-to-truth explanations may be impossibilities.
And here, it seems, regardless of our delusions of grander, is the real difference between God and Man.
Tags: Books, What I Learned // Comments Off
