Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Night Thoughts

Night Thoughts

Fred, Van Oystaeyen

Paperback

Philosophy

ISBN13: 9798613111282
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Feb 12 2020
Pages: 616
Weight: 1.96
Height: 1.37 Width: 5.98 Depth: 9.02
Language: English
The book is a diary of thoughts over a period of 8 years by a professional mathematician presenting his views on life, society, philosophy, but also some memories, poetry and witty short memes. Author has traveled over the world and integrates his experiences in about 800 short idea flashes and 68 somewhat longer essays. He draws some original points of view from his scientific work, his original philosophical points of view stem from some original space-time model he published about in scientific journals and that yields original new ideas about fundamental questions on humanity, society and life, yet the presentation is accessible for all readers . But the book is not only about opinions and philosophy, it is also an intimate meeting with the author, opening up his sensitive and emotional side.You will find some travel impressions, for example about Papua NG, a protest song about an illegal Jesus, sad poems about victims of war, deep insights about our cognitive structure and the abstract world and how that influences our reality, funny one liners with non-trivial meaning, new ideas about religion, honest and even emotional analyses of the political evolution in the world calling things what they are without euphemisms, some original ideas in evolution theory as well as didactic remarks about the learning process and how that appears in all observations processes. The book is a roller-coaster of emotions mixed with up-to-date scientific facts, poetic feelings and deep social involvement, the style is to the point because in the first part the aim is to present content in a compact way going for the essential information, catching the essence in a few alinea or even in a few lines. All ideas are numbered and in the index theme words are listed and then mentioning some numbers of the ideas where those topics are contained, so you can read the book by topic following the threads set out in the index, not page by page.In fact one of the aims of this book is to interest you in thinking for yourself about the important aspects of life. This is not a book you are supposed to read in a few evenings, no, rather read a number of short ideas and some related longer essay, then you can be sure it will motivate you to think about some of the texts, the author does not want you to agree with him, his viewpoints are often original, he wants you to conclude by yourself and if you do not agree look for good arguments, so that in some sense you will be thinking together as in a discussion.The ideas are roughly in chronological order and you can detect how some theories of the author developed from the beginning in a short idea flash, also at places you will rediscover some events which were in the news in the past decade. There are a few sections which are more technical and reading them may not be too easy, there is for example one section where the space-time model is related to quantum mechanics, but it is not really assuming a lot of pre-knowledge but reading that may require some motivation, you may view that as a challenge. To make up for that one section there are letters to Christ and the granddaughters, some story about Adam and Eve and why they decided not to eat pork, and some funny story about how the author almost drowned while punting a boat on the Cam during some pic-nick outing in Cambridge. Perhaps the book may best be described as a puzzle-version of the author which gradually tells you who he is when you get closer to the finishing of the composition

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