Switching gears... Asimov beckons!

Patternism wasn't worth it: I was right I should go back to people who actually know something about phil.mind, and I'll have plenty of chances of doing that in september. Doomsday stuff wasn't worth it, either. Too much statistics to really appreciate the core of the argument, and studying Bayes just for this isn't worth it.

So, assailed by boredom and with not enough FINA World Championships to watch, I attacked the first stack of printed pages I could find that didn't look like it would suck: Asimov's Foundation series. I'd tried reading it many times before, 10+ years ago, prompted by my father who's a huge buff and re-reads the whole series almost yearly. I had been bored stiff with it. I did love the interactive adventure books based on it, though. Now it's finally starting to look interesting. I mean, a story about predicting the mass destiny of the galaxy based on mathematical inference and psychological profiling? Sign me up! Still appalled at the form, but at least there's not much character development, which is what really bothers me with fiction after all. I'm definitely a philosopher-first when it comes to a story. (I will write a note some time to justify my absolute hatred of fiction vs. poetry and nonfiction, because it's not as simple as "stick to the facts and F the rest").

On a side note, I'm... no, no side notes. New post tomorrow. Not much to say right now anyway.

PS: for days now I've given up on Mark Bauerlein's The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future, and I should write a review asap. It's the best-among-the-worst books I've read all year. Very interesting stuff that turned out to be little more than, well... a mindfuck! Go figure.