1374 ratings (2.65 avg)
941 reviews
more photos (1)

Frank

https://www.goodreads.com/the_contented_reader

Frank’s Bookshelves

to-read‎ (169)
currently-reading‎ (1)
read‎ (1359)
unfinished‎ (29)
under-consideration‎ (21)
abandoned‎ (12)
literature‎ (672)
non-fiction‎ (636)

usa‎ (232)
social-science‎ (224)
english‎ (212)
light-reading‎ (158)
german‎ (121)
classic‎ (117)
math-science‎ (117)
philosophy‎ (117)

drama‎ (100)
cognitive-science‎ (72)
short-stories‎ (72)
hps‎ (64)
yiddishkeit‎ (58)
art-poetry‎ (54)
biography‎ (51)
latin-america‎ (43)

india‎ (40)
russian‎ (40)
historical-fiction‎ (32)
french‎ (31)
business‎ (22)
religion‎ (17)
not-in-possession‎ (5)

Stats | More…

Frank is Currently Reading

Frank is currently reading

What Is Health?: Allostasis and the Evolution of Human Design (Mit Press)

by Peter Sterling

bookshelves: math-science, non-fiction, currently-reading

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Dec 19, 2025 11:55AM

“In the 1950s, at the very beginning of the integration process, Raymond Aron wrote that “the European idea is empty, it has neither the transcendence of messianic ideologies nor the immanence of concrete patriotism.” Aron was half right. The idea of Europe did not evoke emotional commitment. It did not stir people’s hearts as nations sometimes had done. It was not something for which many would have been willing to give their lives. But the European idea was not empty—or rather, it only seemed empty when compared to the traditional idea of the nation. The European idea was full, not of national enthusiasm and patriotic passion, but of a widespread commitment to escape the destructive antagonisms of the past..”
― James J. Sheehan

tags: europe, history, politics

0 likes

“We are in the habit of visualizing .. the history of science as a steady, cumulative process,.. where each epoch adds some new item of knowledge to the legacy of the past, making the temple of science grow brick by brick to ever greater height.. In fact, .. the philosophy of nature evolved by occasional leaps and bounds alternating with delusional pursuits, culs-de-sac, regressions, periods of blindness and amnesia. The great discoveries .. were sometimes the unexpected by-products of a chase after quite different hares. At other times, the process of discovery consisted merely in the cleaning away of the rubbish that blocked the path, or in the rearranging of existing items of knowledge in a different pattern.. Europe knew less geometry in the fifteenth century than in Archimedes' time.”
― Arthur Koestler, The Sleepwalkers: A History of Man's Changing Vision of the Universe

2 likes

“It would indeed seem more expedient to treat the history of thought in terms borrowed from biology..(, with) "evolution" .. a wasteful, fumbling process characterized by sudden mutations of unknown cause, by the slow grinding of selection, and by the dead-ends of overspecialization and rigid inadaptability.. New ideas are thrown up spontaneously like mutations; the vast majority of them are useless crank theories, the equivalent of biological freaks without survival-value. There is a constant struggle for survival between competing theories in every branch of the history of thought. The process of "natural selection", too, has its equivalent in mental evolution: among the multitude of new concepts which emerge only those survive which are well adapted to the period's intellectual milieu. A new theoretical concept will live or die according to whether it can come to terms with this environment..”
― Arthur Koestler, The Sleepwalkers: A History of Man's Changing Vision of the Universe

tags: philosophy-of-science

1 likes

“..It is apparent that the mere knowledge that a man was either a camp guard or a prisoner tells us almost nothing. Human kindness can be found in all groups, even those which as a whole it would be easy to condemn. The boundaries between groups overlapped and we must not try to simplify matters by saying that these men were angels and those were devils...
From all this we may learn that there are two races of men in this world, but only these two—the “race” of the decent man and the “race” of the indecent man. Both are found everywhere; they penetrate into all groups of society. No group consists entirely of decent or indecent people. In this sense, no group is of “pure race”
― Viktor Frankl

tags: humanity

1 likes

“In the beginning, everything was void, and J. H. W. H. Conway began to create numbers. Conway said, "Let there be two rules which bring forth all numbers large and small. This shall be the first rule: Every number corresponds to two sets of previously created numbers, such that no member of the left set is greater than or equal to any member of the right set. And the second rule shall be this: One number is less than or equal to another number if and only if no member of the first number's left set is greater than or equal to the second number, and no member of the second number's right set is less than or equal to the first number." And Conway examined these two rules he had made, and behold! They were very good.
…
And Conway said, "Let the numbers be added to each other in this wise: The left set of the sum of two numbers shall be the sums of all left parts of each number with the other; and in like manner the right set shall be from the right parts, each according to its kind." Conway proved that every number plus zero is unchanged, and he saw that addition was good. And the evening and the morning were the third day. And Conway said, "Let the negative of a number have as its sets the negatives of the number's opposite sets; and let subtraction be addition of the negative." And it was so. Conway proved that subtraction was the inverse of addition, and this was very good. And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

And Conway said to the numbers, "Be fruitful and multiply. Let part of one number be multiplied by another and added to the product of the first number by part of the other, and let the product of the parts be subtracted. This shall be done in all possible ways, yielding a number in the left set of the product when the parts are of the same kind, but in the right set when they are of opposite kinds." Conway proved that every number times one is unchanged. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

And behold! When the numbers had been created for infinitely many days, the universe itself appeared. And the evening and the morning were N day.

And Conway looked over all the rules he had made for numbers, and saw that they were very, very good.”
― Donald Moses Knuth

tags: mathematics

0 likes

More of Frank’s quotes…