User:Dan Polansky

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cs-N Tento uživatel je rodilý mluvčí češtiny.
en-3 This user has advanced knowledge of English.
de-2 Dieser Benutzer beherrscht Deutsch auf fortgeschrittenem Niveau.
sk-1 Tento užívateľ má základné znalosti slovenčiny.
ru-1 Этот участник владеет русским языком на начальном уровне.
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Dan Polansky is described in more detail at Meta:User:Dan Polansky. He is trained in computer science, earned money as a programmer and software engineer, and loves real philosophy and stubborn independent attempt to think clearly. He spent an inordinate time documenting mainly Czech vocabulary in the English Wiktionary, a job truly for a harmless drudge rather than a philosopher proper, but maybe it is like painting a hedge in The Karate Kid, an activity preparatory for philosophy in some sense.

All subpages are visible in a full list.

Why Wikiversity[edit | edit source]

Wikiversity has fewer rules than Wikipedia, so one can do what makes sense rather than what meets some unnecessarily narrow rules:

  • If one wants to trace every single sentence to a source, one can.
  • If one prefers itemized bullet points (discouraged on Wikipedia, which favors paragraphs), one can.
  • If one has a paragraph of original deliberation not tracing to sources, one can have it.
  • If one wants to include more material than would be encyclopedic, one can, including various interesting lists, nested lists, tables, etc.
  • If one dislikes having one's text mercilessly modified by anyone who comes along, whether anonymous IP editors and qualitatively unidentified editors (no education, job experience, age or other similar identification), one has the option of writing and editing one's own article.

In general, all the narrow-minded people that edit other wiki projects are conspicuously lacking in Wikiversity, so far. (They may yet arrive.)

Originality[edit | edit source]

The contributions of Dan Polansky are original in the sense of author law: they are original formulations, original sequences of words that form phrases, clauses and sentences. By contrast, the ideas expressed in the formulations are often unoriginal, stemming from one of the books that Dan Polansky has read and that are identified below, or from a YouTube video such as a debate. Some ideas stem from face-to-face interactions with people, including relatives, friends, colleagues and teachers. The original contribution of Dan Polansky as for ideas is for the historians to identify.

Created pages[edit | edit source]

Selected created pages, whether articles or debates (see also xtools report):

Books in library[edit | edit source]

Selected philosophical books in Dan Polansky's library, in physical form:

  • Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Pirsig
  • Lila by Pirsig
  • Guidebook to Guidebook to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by DiSanto and Steele
  • Gödel, Escher, Bach by Hofstadter
  • Metamagical Themas by Hofstadter
  • Alles Leben ist Problemlösen by Popper (in German)
  • The Open Society and Its Enemies by Popper (volume 1: The Spell of Plato; volume 2: Hegel and Marx)
  • Conjectures and Refutations by Popper
  • Proofs and Refutations by Lakatos
  • The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Kuhn
  • Word and Object by Quine
  • Čtyři důvody pro zrušení televize by Mander, in Czech; original title: Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television
  • In the Absence of the Sacred by Mander
  • Meaning and Necessity by Kripke
  • Mind Children by Moravec (arguably a book with a strong philosophical component)
  • How the Mind Works by Pinker (although primarily a work of evolutionary psychology, there is a strong philosophical component)
  • Darwin's Dangerous Idea by Dennett
  • Cultural Software by Balkin
  • Out of Control by Kelly
  • Cybernetics by Wiener
  • What is Life by Schrödinger
  • Zen in the Art of Archery by Herrigel
  • A New Introduction to Modal Logic by Hughes and Cresswell
  • Moral Calculations by Mérö
  • Against Method by Feyerabend (largely nonsense)
  • The Conquest of Happiness by Russell
  • What Do You Say After You Say Hello by Berne (officially a work of psychology, but seems philosophical enough)
  • Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes by Gould
  • Dialogue Concerning the two Chief World Systems by Galilei
  • The Purpose of Life by Cameron
  • The Greeks by Kitto
  • The Value of Science by Poincaré
  • The Society of Mind by Minsky
  • A přesto říci životu ano by Frankl, in Czech (the English title: Man's Search for Meaning)
  • Sociology, 6th edition, by Calhoun et al.
  • Cybernetics by Wiener -- arguably philosophical
  • Introduction to Cybernetics by Ashby -- arguably philosophical
  • Saturnin by Jirotka -- a Czech comic novel that is arguably somewhat philosophical
  • Only the Paranoid Survive by Grove -- only read, but not in my personal library
  • Analytische Theorien der Metaphen[1] by Mácha (Candidate English title: Analytical theories of metaphor.
  • Steps to an Ecology of Mind by Bateson
  • Selfish Gene by Dawkins
  • Snad ti nedělají starosti cizí názory by Feynmann, in Czech (the English title: "What Do You Care What Other People Think?")
  • To snad nemyslíte vážně, pane Feynmanne! by Feynmann, in Czech (the English title: Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!)
  • O povaze fyzikálních zákonů by Feynmann, in Czech (the English title: The Character of Physical Law)
  • Programátorské poklesky by Kopeček and Kučera, in Czech -- has many philosophically interesting quotations

Philosophers who would appear to be properly classified as pseudo-philosophers: Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Jaspers, Heidegger, Foucault, etc. Kant is perhaps somewhat unfairly on the list, but someone who claims that lying is strictly prohibited in all circumstances and that the knowledge of Newton's laws is a priori (pre-empirical) thereby creates an unfavorable impression. As for Foucault, I have read The Order of Things in Czech (Slova a věci) and I could not tell what in the world he was talking about, like what problems he was trying to address and what solutions he offered; it was "not even wrong", as they say.

Dictionaries:

  • Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary, with a beautiful middle section showing a picture dictionary
  • Penguin Thesaurus, a synonym dictionary
  • Czech Etymological Dictionary by Rejzek

However, I use online dictionaries much more than those above.

Self-help and other non-philosophical books:

  • The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Covey
  • Living the 7 Habits by Covey
  • How to Stop Worrying and Start Living by Carnegie -- some bad ideas, but also many good ideas
  • How to Win Friends and Influence People by Carnegie -- some bad ideas, but also many good ideas
  • Your Erroneous Zones by Dyer

Tolkien, arguably somewhat philosophical:

  • The Hobbit, in Czech
  • The Lord of the Rings, in Czech (read in English long time ago when I was a teenager and at that point, it was a hard reading)
  • Silmarillion, in Czech

Books read[edit | edit source]

Selected books read that have philosophical, scientific or similar impact, other than those in Books in library section:

  • Economics by Samuelson and Nordhaus
  • The C++ Programming Language, 3rd edition, by Stroustrup, showing Stroustrup to be a great thinker
  • Usability Engineering by Nielsen

Online authoritative text resources[edit | edit source]

Online authoritative text resources that I used during my philosophical and other investigations:

YouTube videos[edit | edit source]

Some ideas stem from YouTube debates viewed or other videos:

Debaters:

  • Christopher Hitchens, the ultimate debater
  • Richard Dawkins
  • Steven Pinker

Films/movies[edit | edit source]

Films/movies rich in intellectual ideas and fun, from which possibly some ideas are being drawn:

  • 12 Angry Men (1957 film) - shows the idea that a lone opposer stubbornly trying to think clearly and carefully examine the strength of the reasoning and evidence can turn the sides of supports and opposes around
  • The Boss of it All (Direktøren for det hele, Danish), including the ultimate Gambini, with whom the film starts and ends, staring the spectacular Jens Albinus, and in some frames also the amazing director Lars von Trier (although many of his films are a bit too drastic)
  • District 9, e.g. the funny name MNU: Multi-National United or the like, the ultimate evil über-corporate, and the incredibly funny main character Wikus van de Merwe, who is a cowardly and nasty little officer or something, an entity many of us have in our psyche
  • Adam's Apples (Adams Æbler, Danish), e.g. the funny quasi-corporate manager doing an analog of performance goal setting and über-positive thinker (Christopher, go to the father's office) Ivan; Ivan is also an ultimate provocateur in his "is this a good looking man; is it your father", when referring to a picture of Hitler in Adam's (the nazi's) room; Ivan is played by the great Mads Mikkelsen, and other actors are also excellent
  • Box of Moonlight, somewhat reminiscent of Pirsig's contrast between classic and romantic, featuring a very responsible engineer and family man Al Fountain and a hippie or worse Kid, featuring the great John Turturro and Sam Rockwell

Frequently viewed pages[edit | edit source]

The following report shows most often viewed pages created by me:

Policies and guidelines[edit | edit source]

See User:Dan Polansky/Policies and guidelines

About Wikiversity[edit | edit source]

See User:Dan Polansky/About Wikiversity

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