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I. “Ludwig Wittgenstein gave away his inheritance to the rich. He reasoned that money corrupts, so it was best to give it to those already corrupted.”
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II. “Mammals both produce milk and have hair. Therefore, a coconut is a mammal.”
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Welcome to my philosophy website!
In essence, it’s a collection of my favorite things ― the treasures ― from everything I’ve ever learned.
These are things I find especially beautiful or interesting or insightful, or that I really like for other reasons that are almost impossible to explain. Some are things I never ever would’ve thought of myself, and others are things I already kind of half knew that were suddenly made much clearer. Some I thought were profound from the moment I read them, and others I didn’t appreciate until years later. Many of these ideas have been highly influential in my life and helped make me the person I am today. If I were a professor ― which I’ve always kind of wanted to be ― these would be the things I’d most want to teach.
The content consists almost entirely of other people’s ideas, with a few of my own notes mixed in, which I’ve designated with this green-colored text.
I’d like to specially thank Vikram, Tom, Noah, Nikolai, Andrew, Igor, William, my mom and dad, Professor Norman, and especially my brother, Pannenkoek, for all of the wonderful feedback and support.
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III. “We frequently must choose between simplicity and comprehensiveness, and even between different kinds of simplicity.”
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IV. “They say you spend your whole life rewriting the first poem you ever loved.”
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Citations
I. Apostolos Doxiadis & Christos Papadimitriou II. (original source unknown)
III. Quine IV. (original source unknown) ✰. Polina Yakovleva
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Homepage Image Credits
- Introduction: The Flammarion Engraving
- Raymond Smullyan: (original artist unknown)
- Hierarchies…: Earth to Universe by Donato Giancola
- Games: my piece
- Miscellaneous: my piece
- Psychology: (original artist unknown)
- Traditional Philosophy: The School of Athens by Raphael
- Unexplainable…: The Infinite Recognition by Magritte
- Psych II: (artist unknown) from Random House Ency.
- The Anthropic Principle II: Drawing Hands by Escher
- W. James: Wallpaper in the Nursery by Polina Yakovleva
- Eponymous Laws: (artist unknown)
- Ambiance: No Hurry by Frode Nyboe
- Human Nature…: Death and Life by Gustav Klimt
- G.E.B.: cover art of Gödel, Escher, Bach
- G.E.B. II: alternative cover art of Gödel, Escher, Bach
- Pleasures…: A Tune Off the Top of My Head by DeAmicis
- Mathematics: (common knowledge)
- Pannen’s Time Logic: Melting Watch by Salvador Dali
- G.E.B. III: Order and Chaos by Escher
- Math II: my piece, made from ~Empetrisor’s graph
- G.E.B. Finale: (original artist unknown)
- Final Page: Hjalmar Wåhlin
- Physics: Jupiter’s South Pole from nasa.gov
- Bertrand Russell: (artist unknown)
- The Anthropic…: Hand with Reflecting Sphere by Escher
- Sillily: from Wikipedia’s Glottal Stop article
- Why is there…: River of Dreams by Kenneth Jensen
- Fallacies…: The Treachery of Images by Magritte
- Dennett…: Rick Friedman’s photo for theguardian.com
- Misc. II: Friendship, my concept, drawn by ~Pharaoh
- Nietzsche: Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog by C. Friedrich
- Bertrand Russell II: Somewhere by Polina Yakovleva
- Wittgenstein: from the cartoon The Weekenders
