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For posterity: I think anyone really interested in these ideas of remembrance would enjoy reading Marcel Proust's "In Search of Lost Time". It's very long, but
by mashygpig 4y ago
For posterity: I think anyone really interested in these ideas of remembrance would enjoy reading Marcel Proust's "In Search of Lost Time". It's very long, but I genuinely believe the length contributes meaningfully to helping you appreciate the weight of the insights portrayed in it. Basically I think the length helps you feel the passage of time better in a way that could not be truncated.
I think think the digital age is rendering Proust's key insight, that we associate memories with physical places/sensations, obsolete due to the inherent lack of physicality for our brains to work with. Recent work[1] in psychology/philosophy seems to be backing up Proust's observations more concretely, and it makes me wonder if projects like Dynamicland [2] will become more mainstream as we recognize the value of physical interaction in how we think.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embodied_cognition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embodied_cognition
[2] https://dynamicland.org/ https://dynamicland.org/
- mynameishere 4y agoIn case anyone actually attempts to dive into that work, a fair warning should be made that it is almost unfathomably dull.
- mashygpig 4y agoTo each their own. Frankly, I found a lot of solace in the dullness. Life is primarily comprised of dull moments and reading Proust helped me find more appreciation of the banality of life. I only ever felt it was truly a slog in the Guermantes Way when some dinner parties would run about a hundred pages long.