What have been the most worthwhile threads on the forums?
The thread on thread quality ran out of puff just as the content reached one of its periodic lows.
Let's put the issue this way: Most threads are poor quality. But a very few - maybe one in fifty - are worthwhile. And one in a few hundred is excellent.
In the last few weeks only Plato's Phaedo reached a reasonable standard.
It might be interesting to flip the usual question. So here's a follow on for you:
What have been the most worthwhile threads on the forums?
Link to them, with a reason.
Let's put the issue this way: Most threads are poor quality. But a very few - maybe one in fifty - are worthwhile. And one in a few hundred is excellent.
In the last few weeks only Plato's Phaedo reached a reasonable standard.
It might be interesting to flip the usual question. So here's a follow on for you:
What have been the most worthwhile threads on the forums?
Link to them, with a reason.
Comments (22)
Quoting praxis
I liked the reading groups.
Works fine.
Gremlins.
I am not sure what your purpose is. Is it to try to improve the quality of the threads or, if you believe that if the majority are of such poor quality is it about discouraging people from creating them. I don't see the purpose of simply naming the threads which people see as working unless it is with a view to looking at why they work and others don't.
Also, I think that part of the reason why some threads work and some don't depends partly on who picks them up initially, rather simply the topic, or the introduction. Of course, it does involve the question, but sometimes, a question arises from someone entirely new, with no introduction and it sails. However, I realise that you are talking about quality, which is probably different from popularity, but there is probably some kind of overlap.
I am not saying that your discussion is not worthwhile but I think that it needs to be about how we can improve, I believe, rather about trying to rank certain ones as quality, or naming and shaming other ones. I am aware that you are trying to do it positively by looking at ones that are quality, framing it positively. However, I don't think I am able to create links to threads on my phone.
Just pick a thread and tell us why it was interesting. Is that too hard?
I think that one that stands out for me was probably about two months ago, the one on 'The Limitation(s) of Language' and that was probably because at the time it stood out in my point of view as having debate which was not repetition from so many of the others.
Obviously, the threads/posts I identify are the ones that have meant the most to me personally.
First - Beautiful Things. Sorry, it's one I started. I was surprised, more than surprised, at how much this one meant to me. A lot of other people I liked and respected contributed. I still go back from time to time to look at all the things people chose.
On the transition from non-life to life started by @javra three years ago. In that thread, @apokrisis recommended "Life's Ratchet," a book that changed the way I see life, science, and reality.
I don't remember the thread. In it @StreetlightX wrote some posts about how genes interact to express as traits. Again, it changed the way I think about how the world works - how complex processes interact to lead to unified systems.
I find most of western philosophy hard to take seriously sometimes. Needlessly complex, but unclear. In several threads, I was moved by how these guys - Kant, Schopenhaur, you know, those guys, had made big impacts on people's lives in very personal ways. I remember a couple of discussions with TimeLine in particular.
I've always liked @fdrake's posts about science and statistics. He can really cut through the crap.
I like @Wayfarer's posts. He and I seem to be trying to walk the same tightrope between science and inner experience. He definitely leaves me behind sometimes. A bit too...spiritual. That's not right. I'm not sure of the right word.
I do love my My favorite verses from the Tao Te Ching. It's slowed way down now, but I still plan to keep it chugging along.
An attempt to clarify my thoughts about metaphysics. Another of mine. In it, @tim wood steered me toward Collinwood's "An Essay on Metaphysics," which really has helped me with my understanding.
The quality of threads will usually be found wanting, because after we have read a thread we really liked and found worthwhile, interesting, life changing, earth shattering and so on, the next thread will probably seem tedious by comparison, It's much the same with fruit. East a slice of the perfect melon or the perfect peach, and the rest is going to seem second rate.
One could rate all of the pieces of melon in a season from heavenly delicious to just plain hell, but unless one has a personal food taster who diverts all but the most exquisites pears, pomegranates, and persimmons, one is probably going to eat the third and second rate melons anyway. They cost too much to just throw out.
I am a little unclear when you say about poor quality threads you are talking about the threads simply in terms of the topic and the introduction. The reason why I say that is when I look at some which seem to start off well by the initial writer, when I look through the rest of the thread, some read much better than others. So, when I think about thread quality it is not simply the start but consistency of the posts within it. I also feel that some of the best discussions I had involved thread topics started by others, which did not start particularly well, but when they developed with certain people's contributions they became outstanding. But, I won't name those threads because the individuals who wrote them may read what I am writing and take offence, thinking that I am criticising their initial thread beginnings.
You neglected to share the reasons you like Plato's Phaedo so much.
Hey Banno, sorry if this breaks the rules you had in mind, but I remember one specific antinatilism thread where @unenlightened and @schopenhauer1 were arguing.
It got to the point were unenlightened said something like "you are wrong to disagree". I have never laughed so much on a public forum of any kind.
Just to see someone post that phrase was just spectacular. Maybe that thread in general was more of the same AN bs argument but, it was extremely funny.
Not this one, it seems.
Like shelves full of great (& not so great) books in the private library of an eccentric scholar"s inherited, old, seaside villa: Currently Reading.