Lesson 2: The Glory of Limitations
Discord was smiling. Not because school was finally last over and his students were impressed, but because he received the news from Twilight that Professor Forethought’s cold could put him out of commission for several days. His head swirled with ideas for tomorrow’s lesson.
Out in the hallways of the school, the ex-Chaos Lord floated on the backs of flies made from books. Students passing by looked up from below and saw the flapping pages that buzzed overhead while Discord looked at a scroll of his lesson plans.
“What to do next…?” He hummed and muttered in thought as he used his alter as a pen. “I’ve already made them question reality, how to critically think… Made my last lesson to top the best-rated charts. That was unexpected but nevertheless, a plus...” He crossed off a few lines from the scroll before asking himself. “But what do I tackle next? There’s plenty of things out there for sure, only… What would appeal to them? What kind of philosophy would they want?”
As he was pondering over this problem, his ears picked up a few familiar voices. Drawing closer, he recognized them as two of his students; Yona and Silverstream. He would have passed by if it weren’t for a hook that nabbed at his ear. “I wish I was smarter.” The young Hippogriff said to her.
“Don’t feel bad.” Yona collided her. “Hippogriff will pass test. Silverstream will pass pony school. Best not to put self down.”
“I’m not, it’s just I’m worried, that’s all. What if I’m not smart enough?”
This caught Discord’s interest. He stopped before the intersection where he plucked off his ear, let it grow legs, and watched it crawl over towards the source of his curiosity.
“So what?” Yona questioned. “Yona no speak like pony, yet Yona able to be good in class.”
“I know. But I’m not like you or the other students here. I’ll just have to make the most of it, even if everycreature else is smarter than me.”
“That not true. You do good in classes.”
“But don’t you think that the teachers might pity me? I’m being asked to remember all these things, but I’m going to forget something, even if I read the same book all night. I’m doing my best, but what if it’s not enough?”
“What has gotten Silverstream like this?”
A calming breath later, she answered. “Remember the quizzes we did in Twilight’s class? Well, I couldn’t help but look at the scores you guys got. I found out that I got the lowest score out of all of you.”
“Really? How much?”
“Out of a hundred… seventy-three.”
There was a hard silence.
“Here,” her friend patted her on the back. “Come study with Yona. Maybe Yona can help.”
“Okay.” Her friend replied, but her cheery tone seemed to be dampened.
When Discords ears returned to him, they informed him of the situation. Reattaching them, the draconequus’ mind had already sent gears spinning and sparks flying. A new lesson was forming from the muses he’d overheard.
The next day, Sandbar, Gallus, Yona, Silverstream, Ocellus and Smolder were making their way to Philosophy class. The only pony in the group asked if anyone knew what they’re going to be learning that day, to which, Ocellus took out her copy of the syllabus.
“Looks like we’re talking about somepony named Plato. But to be honest, I do hope that Mr. Discord is teaching today.”
The others agreed.
“I can’t see anyone else doing it better.” Smolder said, “After all, he’s the only guy out there who could explain to us why any of this matters. If the Looney Toon is here, then I’m willing to hear what he has to say about some dead guy.”
Before they could get near the door of their classroom, Discord walked right through the door while whistling Tchaicoltsky, and walked past them. He paused to realized they weren’t following him. “Aren’t any of you coming?” He asked before walking away again.
Although confused, his students did catch up to him. “So what are we doing today?” Silverstream asked. “Are we going on a field trip?”
“Nope.” Discord answered with a chirp. “I don’t feel like being in that room today. We’re going outside.”
“But where?” Sandbar inquired.
“Just into town, but don’t worry, this is part of today’s lesson... I know what I’m doing because I’m just making this up as I go.”
Smolder raised an eyebrow. “What does going outside have to do with Plato?”
“I’m not teaching Plato today.”
Twelve eyes blinked. “Say what?” Ocellus asked, knowing that was the question on everycreature’s minds.
“Hey, my hour to teach, my rules - or lack thereof. Now come on, keep moving, the front door is that way.”
Curious to see where this was going, they followed Discord out the front doors of the school, around Twilight’s castle and into Ponyville itself. “Today I’m going to hopscotch a couple centuries ahead to babble on about a Philosopher that was born a couple decades prior to Haycartes. A witty, Reneighsance Essayist known as Esprit de Pointu, Seigneur de Montaigne, or commonly known as Sharp Spirit, Lord of Montaigne.”
“Why are we learning about him?” Ocellus questioned as she looked through her syllabus. “There’s no one under that name in our-”
“I’m not that surprised, to be honest.” Discord interrupted. “After all, in the Philosophical world, philosophers don’t like Sharp Spirit all that much. Not because his essays were written poorly, but because what he taught made other philosophers feel like he was insulting their intelligence. In reality, he’s the only philosopher in history to give everyone a good slap across the face and teach us about humility. Not only for ourselves but towards those who are arrogant because they think their knowledge is unlimited.”
Smolder raised her claws. “So who is this guy anyway? His name sounds Prench to me.”
“You’re right. He was born and raised in Reneighsance Prance, was a mayor of a town twice over, a lawyer, a Lord and friend to the King at the time.” With a wave of his tail, an aged oil painting unraveled from thin air. The image was of a bald, white unicorn who had a dark mustache, a tall laced ruff that wrapped around his neck, and a silky overcoat of red and white.
“This is Sharp Spirit in his later years, as you can probably tell by his shiny head. At this point, you might think (and reasonably so) that there’s no point in me talking about him as none of you are royalty, lawyers or balding. Yet, what makes him stand out in Philosophy is that he is much more relatable than you think.”
Gallus raised an eyebrow, “How so?”
“In his collection of essays, he noticed in his time that philosophy books tend to leave behind an edited version of what experience is like, so he decided to bring those aspects in. Which brings to the three areas that he talked about: insecurity of one’s body, insecurity about being judged by others, and the insecurity of one’s own intelligence. Follow me, I’ll show you what he’s talking about.” To which, Discord’s toe carved out a black hole in the ground in which he jumped right through.
His student’s looked in to see the sky and their teacher bidding them follow. One by one they jumped in, only to fall on their faces on the other side. Getting back up, they found themselves at one end of Professor Applejack’s farm.
“I should probably have said dive in head first.” Discord said. “It helps when you land on your appendages.”
“You’re telling us that now?” Smolder deadpan.
With a shrug, Discord waved at them to follow. “Before I go any further, I want you all to think back to those times when you felt that, for whatever reason, that you missed the mark on something. Like when you feel bad so you compare yourself to others. My question for all of you is why do you feel that way?”
His students turned to one another. “Because… they’re better than us?” Smolder answered but there was uncertainty in her voice.
“Close enough.” Their teacher floated around them as they headed towards the farm. “Sharp said that it’s because we accept the wrong kind of role models; the ones that seem better than us in every regard - from how they look, to sounding smarter than us. They don’t give any hint as to what they’re really like which leads to self-hatred when we can’t reach their standards. This is why his essays are full of everyday things. It’s to show that he’s no more different than anyone else. He talks about his bowel movements or how he accidently bites the side of his cheek. It may sound like nothing, but he really shows that he too is ordinary.”
“Why talk about ordinary things?” Yona asked.
“It’s because up until Sharp Spirit came along, most Philosophers tended to think that having a mind alone would make us happy just because it gives us the ability to reason. This is all well and good, even helpful in an argument. Yet, Sharp pointed it out that we have problems because we have minds. And the first way that affects us, is with our bodies.”
Their teacher stopped when he reached a pig pen, and he lay on the white fencing. “Let’s face it, everyone here at one point in their lives had the thought of how nobody likes us because we are too short or too tall; too fat or skinny; that our breath stinks or that our plumbing is too small. Boys, I’m looking at you.”
Gallus and Sandbar looked away, their faces painted in embarrassment.
“Even Sharp, whenever he attended the royal court, he knew ponies that were outright ashamed of their own bodies. He once knew of a noble that committed suicide after releasing a series of loud farts, or a lady that was so embarrassed at chewing food that she insisted to eat behind a curtain. And this reason is obvious. It’s not just in philosophy but in normal life. Nobody mentions anything about our bodies because we think it’s taboo to do so. As a result, we feel ashamed for things as natural as urinating.”
“Mr. Discord!” Smolder objected both sharply and embarrassingly. “You shouldn’t say things like that!”
“But it’s true, and you’ve just proved my point. If anything, Sharp reminds us that all of us are partly animals, including myself. After all, as he puts it, (and this is a real quote): ‘Kings and Philosophers shit, and so do Ladies.’" This unexpected swearing got the entire class laughing, "To prove this, take a look at these pigs and see what they have in common with us.”
All six of his students approached the fencing to look at the pigs that either lay in the mud or salvaged any scraps of food.
“They’re kinda adorable,” Silverstream commented.
“Yeah, but smelly.” Sandbar pointed out as he plugged his nose.
“How are they comfortable lying in their own… filth?” Smolder wondered. “If anything, how come they’re not completely disgusted?”
“Why should they care?” Yona questioned. “Pigs not shy with anything. Pig can be big as hut and other pigs don’t care.”
“But they are kinda like us.” Ocellus pointed out. “They like to eat and sleep, not to mention be lazy when they want to. Yes, they’re dirty, but aren’t we all?”
“I’ll give them this.” Gallus said, “To be able to sit in the mud all day and not care about what anyone thinks is gotta be something worth admiring.”
“Sharp Spirit would have agreed with you there.” Their teacher nodded. “He often said that the farm animals tend to surpass us in wisdom because they are at home with their own bodies. For they don’t have any of the embarrassments or shyness or even the shames that we’re prone to.”
“That’s a little bit demeaning, don’t you think?” Gallus frowned. “To say that these animals are better than us.”
“Not really. More like a reminder to be more comfortable with the bodies we have. That like them, we should accept our bodies with grace and have a sense of humor. I mean, if animals were like us then these pigs won’t be in the mud, and they’d be behaving like this.”
A snap of his talons caused a commotion among the pigs. The swine stood up on their hind legs, screaming as they tried to brush the mud off. In front of the student’s, they showed shame by trying to cover themselves, hide and avoiding all eye contact. Another snap and the pigs looked at each other before they flopped into the mud once more.
“So what you’re saying,” Sandbar stated, “is that we shouldn’t be ashamed of our own bodies?”
“More like the best way around this is to redefine what we think is normal and accept the fact that we can’t be perfect in every way and that’s okay. Now let us move on.” To this, Discord dug his talons into the air and tore open a portal, once again, bidding his students to follow.
This time, all six gazed in wonderment for their new location. Not one of them had an idea where they’d stepped into for they were very certain that it wasn’t anywhere on Equus. Here trees coughed out purple clouds. Cats as big as castles moved about on fourteen legs while carrying multicolored cockroach passengers. The air smelled like bronze and tasted like Beethooven’s Fifth. In front of them, nothing. Behind them, everything. From shirts selling bananas to birds canoeing through the hairy grass.
At this point, Silverstream raised her claws. “Mr. Discord, are we dead?”
“This is not the afterlife, that’s two doors down on the left. No. This is where I’m from.”
Yona couldn’t believe it. “This teacher’s home?”
“No, of course not.” He said before a house drifted over their heads upside down. “That’s my home. Now if you’re done gawking, let’s get back to the lesson.” His students were still at awe at what they were seeing, so Discord snapped his lion’s paw to turn their heads in his direction. “As I was saying. Sharp also pointed out that having intelligence isn’t just a big problem in how we see ourselves, but it also makes us prone to arrogance. If you stay in one place long enough, you think you know what counts as normal. So when you do go outside of that norm, you impose the same ideals towards others. Granted, every society in history had its own idea what is considered normal, such as what to eat, say or wear. That if you stray from this in some way, then you’d be considered weird.”
“Like this place for instance?” Smolder deadpanned.
Discord smirked, “What’s the matter, feeling uncomfortable already?”
“I don’t even know what I’m looking at.” Ocellus stated.
Their teacher folded his arms. “Well I don’t know about you, but it seems like such a lovely day. I don’t know what you’re objecting to.”
“But this isn’t normal!” Sandbar exclaimed.
“Of course not. You lot tend to divide the world between what is normal and Abby-normal. It doesn’t matter much when it’s just a change in scenery that’s at stake. Why, in all of our species’ histories, we tended to behave horrifically to those who don’t share one’s customs. In which blood-soaked wars were fought over because we rationalized what is normal and what isn’t, persecuting those that didn’t fit. Believe me, I know this from personal experience, being the source of many abnormalities myself.”
Clearing his voice, he asked his students what they should do when encountering the prejudice of others.
“Well, what could anyone do?” Ocellus asked, “Take us Changelings for instance. Even though we’ve changed for the better, there’s still those out there that aren’t used to us.”
“It could be a personal thing.” Gallus suggested, “After all, how can anyone that’s prejudiced know any better if they weren’t…what do you ponies say? ‘Walking around in their horseshoes?’ I mean, I didn’t even know what Equestria was like until I got here. Made me realize how crappy Griffonstone really is.”
“That right there,” Discord waved, “is the very solution that Sharp Spirit prescribed: go traveling. Be it physically going over there or traveling by our minds, he said that we ought to explore the diversities of this wide world to see what is considered normal someplace else. Of course, you’ll always encounter prejudice no matter where you go, but just the act of traveling lessens the grip between any one prejudice.”
“Like traveling broadens the mind or something?” Smolder inquired.
“More than that. It would help you to see clearly how oppressive your mind really is. Don’t get me wrong, Sharp Spirit wasn’t by any means an early multiculturalist. He wasn’t suggesting that all cultures are as good as the next one, but rather he was criticizing how those in his time saw what was considered good or bad was based on habit rather than reason. Now, on to our final topic for discussion.”
Another portal opened, and this time the students found themselves in a much more normal setting. They walked into an open courtyard of what looked like a university where students much older then they were walked about the campus.
“This next bit is the main reason why our guy Sharp is so hated among universities like this, to the point of banishing his ideas altogether. But at the same time, all of you should be able to easily relate to him in regard to what he has to say about scholars in ‘well respected’ places like this university here. That, like his point on travel, the mind also tends to become arrogant despite the limits of our brains, because we study years taking tests and attending classes from schools very much like this one. Many would feel rather down in thinking that we’re not as clever as these ponies that you see here.”
“Where we go now?” Yona asked as she looked about her.
“This is Canterlot University. Home to supposedly the smartest ponies in Equestria.”
“Supposedly?” Sandbar questioned. “But this is the highest sought after college in the country! Even Princess Twilight went here.”
“True, but you must understand that from Sharp’s point of view, he sees it rather differently. Even now, society doesn’t consider you clever unless you get a college degree. While it could be helpful in getting a job, he doubts that going through all the trouble to make you arrogant would count as wise. If anything, he saved his most savage words on the matter. To him, most university graduates were, in his own words despite the gowns and certificates, ‘A bunch of blockheads.’”
This drove his students into shocked laughter. “Wait, really?” Silverstream asked, just as surprised as her friends.
“Don’t get me wrong, he doesn’t mean that getting a degree is useless or not worth the effort to get one. He was simply saying that what we see outwardly as intelligence in a setting like this is often different from the real wisdom and intelligence. He even said, ‘In practice, thousands of little mares in their villages have lived more gentle, calmer and more constant lives than the professors at a university.’ If anything, all Sharp was seeking was students who had wisdom. What does he mean by that? Just someone who had humility, modesty, and accepted the limits of their own knowledge.”
“So it’s like you said about yesterday.” Ocellus pointed it out, “What you said about wisdom is really what you do with what you know and experience.”
“Exactly! The wise don’t need to know everything, for they accept that some things are out of control and that’s okay. While he didn’t suggest that all knowledge is useless, he just noticed that students who graduate from such schools are not any wiser or happier than those who didn’t. He put it best: ‘If a stallion were wise, he would measure the true worth of anything by its usefulness and appropriateness to his life.’ Even now he’s right, whereas other philosopher professors would drivel on about other things that, while interesting, aren’t exactly helpful to anyone if they don’t know what to do with it.”
Gallus clapped his talons. “You’re preaching to the choir, brother!”
“In fact, since we are here, how about we put it to the test with these well-educated students about us?” Their teacher looked around at the clusters of groups that, by now had taken notice of them. “Let’s see… eenie, meenie, miney, you.” He pointed to a stallion with thick glasses on, in which he approached him. “Excuse us, how long have you been here?”
He looked around and asked. “Who me? Uh... Well, I'm in my final semester here."
"Do you consider yourself a well-educated pony?"
Nodding, he responds, "Oh yes, I have good grades so far.”
“Great! We were wondering if you could answer a few questions.”
"Sure, I got time. What kind of questions?"
"Oh, just some wisdom questions is all. Think you'd handle a few?" He nodded. “Right… What is justice?”
The college student blinked, taking a hesitant moment to process the question. “Uh…” They looked at one another perplexed. "Is this a trick question?"
"If it was, I would have said, 'Got ya!' This is a straightforward question. What is justice?"
"Uh..." he scratched his head. "I'm not a police officer."
"Okay, next question. How can you tell when someone is either infatuated or in love with you?"
He stared at him, "I'm not entirely sure what you mean. Like if they tell you up front or...?"
"Let's go with up front."
Again he paused. "I guess they would say something first."
"Okay, and one more question-"
"You know, I've got a class to go to and I don't see why you're asking these questions."
"But it's just one more."
"Then talk to someone else, I do have to go." Without saying goodbye, he trotted off.
Discord picked another student. "Hey there, mind answering some questions?"
"Go ask somepony else," was what he got before walking away from him.
He did so as he floated over to a couple of students by a tree. "Hi, can I ask for one of your opinions on something?"
They said that he could, "What do you think makes a good parent?"
“You know, it's funny you should mention it!” One of them said as he pulled out a small pie chart from his saddle bag. “I just finished making this chart in my social science class in which compares all sort of parents and what made them-”
“I didn’t ask for a chart.” Discord pointed out. “I’m asking you about it.”
“But the chart says-”
“It’s an easy question to answer. What is a good parent?”
He blinked. “But the chart says-”
“You don’t have an answer of your own, do you?”
“The chart says-"
Discord interrupted him by snapping his paw, thereby making the chart vanish, sending the stallion into a panic. He returned back to his students. “See what I mean?”
They nodded, and the ex-Chaotic Lord tore another portal open, this time back into the hallways of their school. “The idea that should be taken from Sharp Spirit is that academic qualifications, while helpful, are not the sole nor the chief sign of intelligence. There are in fact ways to be clever that schools don’t recognize, just as there are many ways of being stupid.”
Discord then turned his attention towards Silverstream and said. “If there is ever a time in which you feel that you can’t measure up, then try to imagine someone like say… Twilight on the toilet and remember this: ‘Even on the highest thrones, we are seated, still, upon our plots.’”
After his students laughed at this, Discord added with a smile on his face. “So never let a school intimidate you from studying your own mind before everyone else’s. Just remember, ‘We are richer than we think, each one of us.’”
Before he could ask if his students have any questions, the school bell rang. While he dismissed his students, all of them left him except for the hippogriff.
“Mr. Discord?”
“Hm?”
“I just wanna say, thank you.”
Although he knew why he put on the mask of confusion as he tilted his head. “For what?”
“For this lesson. I was having a bad day yesterday, all this pressure on passing and all. But now, I think it’s going to get better from here, knowing that reading all those books won’t make me smart.”
“You know, just for that, you deserve one last quote from Sharp. While he was a brilliant scholar, even he admits: ‘I’m not prepared to bash my brains out for anything, not even for learning’s sake, however precious it may be. From books, all I seek is to give myself pleasure by an honorable pastime. If I come across some difficult passages in my reading, I don’t bite my hooves over them. After making a charge or two, I let them be. If one book tires me, I just take up another.’ In other words, if reading makes you want to put a power drill to your head, always take time to do read or do something fun to keep your sanity.”
“I will. Thank you so much, Mr. Discord.”
After Silverstream left, her teacher smiled as he prepared to repeat his lesson for the next class.
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once again great job on this
Discord, never change.
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And this is just the beginning.
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a-man brother
I love it when people use characters to teach
Dude. Thanks for teaching me about this guy! No one I know in psych is talking about him. Really helps a lot with my own worldview, even if it's not part of any test.
Holy shit this was amazing. Discord's a great teacher. :)
Great chapter. It even reassured my own worries about the future like Silverstream, being a high school student. Can't wait for the next one!
Hmmm, I like this, this pleases me greatly! Now... I know I suggested Silver Linings, what about plain Morals?
"You can only save one: Princess Celestia or one of your friends?"
I have to research this philosopher.
Very nice. Discord is helping Silverstream overcome her insecurities while still being...himself. Nice characterization of Discord.
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Hmm... No promises but I'll see what I could do.
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that would be awesome. and maybe discord could be a permanent teacher after this because he tends to have a different view on things other wouldn't have.
Ohhh... I hope he gets to Hofstadter and Dennett. Being introduced to Gödel, Escher, Bach, An Eternal Golden Braid was a huge factor in pulling me out of the apathetic, chronically depressed wreck I was in Highschool. It really should be required reading for HS graduation or College Entrance.
Of course, The Matrix was really big around that time, and Jean Baudrillard was lamenting all the popular misunderstandings of his ideas.
I was plowing through Neuromancer and Ghost in the Shell instead.
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To which, I'll point you to this blog of mine to clarify.
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P.S. Do keep in mind that I don't want to turn this thing into a novel with a thousand chapters. I just want to keep the number of chapters to a minimum if I can.
Oh lord, it’s a school full of them!
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really make you think, after all, if one was grown up with the wild and never become what we are today are we no better then animals.
after all, people were left out in the wild as kids and were resh with animals and act like them in almost every way.
So now it leaves up to from nature versus nurture
love this, io hope he gets to show video games too because they also show philosophical too.
And he makes good points, after all, a person that knows how to feed himself and grow food is no smarter then a guys that type on his computer all the time.
Schools are really just a way to improve your skill set
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15 years ago Stephen Spielberg remarked that "I think the real indicator that games have become a storytelling art form will be when somebody confesses that they cried at level 17." (Note that was years after such poignant, tearjerking moments as Link and Saria saying goodbye on the bridge, Aeris getting skewered and Celes jumping off the cliff).
Now, with Doki Doki Literature Club, videogames have shot past storytelling art forms, straight into horrifying postmodernism.
(Speaking of Spielberg, actual nerds and gamers and '80s kids haven't been too kind towards Ready Player One. I never read the book or saw the movie, so I can't comment on that. Now Serial Experiments Lain and Sword Art Online, on the other hand...)
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not only that now we got philosophical of life and how to live it.
like Stardew Valley talk about that life of the city is draining and we are happier if we lived a simple life as a farmer or a fisher ma, but its the people around us that make life worth living at times.
To the idea of the environmental impact of ff7 and how we have to be careful of the world, we live in.
To the self of fighting a hopeless battle or to not hurt a single soul in the game of undertale
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Not just a school mostly its a life full of them really.
I’ve been enjoying this story for the most part, but you did something in this chapter that bothered me: you used a straw man of sorts with the college students.
There is certainly a difference between being wise and being educated, but there is also a difference between being educated and being pompous. Most students, especially those who are in good academic standing, will not outright answer “yes” when asked if they think that they are smart. There are multiple reasons for this. One reason is that it would sound conceited to answer that way; another is that such a question is almost invariably some sort of trap.
There are, of course, plenty of people who act that way, but people like that don’t tend to walk around in large, homogeneous groups—the odds are that at least one “nerd” in that crowd would feel uncomfortable with the answers of their peers.
Beyond that, the question Discord asks is a naked trick question, and most of these people would realize that. They would not desperately search for some kind of chart to reference. At worst, they would say something rude or give a poorly-thought-out answer, but the response they give in the story is sheer nonsense.
Also, at the college level, nobody—especially not a top student—should be inclined to look at a pie chart for a full answer to that sort of question. Pie charts are, at best, useful as infographics—if you have no conscience or you don’t know better, you might use a pie chart to support an argument, but it would require a serious lapse in judgment for anyone to attempt to use one to build a standpoint. A smart intellectual (hah) knows the importance of context—in particular, most problem-solving methods break down outside of a certain domain, and the domain of any approach that uses a pie chart is going to be very small. These nerds have somehow managed academic success without learning this lesson, which should be nearly impossible.
That detail aside, the question is clearly philosophical and opinion-based in nature, so even an intellectual braggart probably wouldn’t use any sort of reference material on the spot, let alone dubious pie-chart statistics, to answer the question in such a casual context.
There is also the sticking point of different definitions of wisdom; the arguments, as you present them, lean on the idea of wisdom being a concrete and obvious concept—in particular, any thinking that isn’t tied to living a good life seems to be classified as foolishness. While this might even be a good way to think of wisdom, it is not necessarily the only one—but the way you’ve phrased things insinuates that everything else is pretty worthless. The point I think you were trying to make mostly pertained to humility, but the way you handled the cynicism concerning academia threw it off. Rather than stopping at “higher education does not imply greater cleverness,” you swung all the way to “higher education mostly just makes you arrogant.” You tried not to do that, but character behavior speaks more loudly than verbal disclaimers. At the end of the day, any part of philosophy involving value judgments is subjective (which does not make it less useful or valuable, at least in my mind, but I find it sort of dishonest to paint such things as immediate and absolute truths in a story designed to teach philosophy accessibly).
Aside from those things, I do like this story, and I look forward to reading the rest.
Wanted to say I loved this chapter, and I love what a good teacher discord is and how much he cares about his students :)
With that said, I found a few typos
pity me
a purple cloud
made me realize
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I just read the blurb for EGB, and decided to buy a copy. Thanks for putting me on to it.
On the story, this is becoming one of my all-time favoutites, though I do agree with Not a Brony that the university bit was rather strawmanish. But this is Equestria, where personalities tend to be more drawn in primary colours. All the same, I'm trying to think of ways this could have been handled better.
Don't let this minor nitpick stop you, I'm thoroughly enjoying this.
I love discord as a philosophy teacher. It fits him so well, and it’s something rewarding for him to to do during his free time
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I'll see if I can fix the university bit when I get home.
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Discord is my math teacher. I hope to be like him one day.
I kinda wish Philosophy was taught like Discord does, make it fun to actually learn and think about. It's kinda a shame that, in my experience in college philosophy, most students fall asleep. Most colleges sidestep this issue by getting fun philosophy teachers, which to me is a solution, but not a permanent one.
This seems to be a problem with most schools today: They don't make learning fun.
LOVE IT!
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P.S. Wait until I get to Kierkegaard about subjectivity.
P.P.S. I just went over and extended the chapter a little and yes, I have read your comment. This time I gave the chart joke a little more context.
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derpicdn.net/img/2013/11/26/482525/large.png
It's pronounced soor-en or Sir-in, depending on whether Danish or Norwegian. He was Danish.
So, what would Twilight think about this lesson, I wonder?
This is very fascinating and awesome. If I had to suggest a Philosopher, maybe Immanuel Kant?
I loved this lesson so much i did some of my own research pulling up 2 quotes for myself By Michel De Montaigne to put on my wall to keep i n mind
One i already resonate with "Everyone rushed elsewhere and into the future Because No One Wants To face ones Own Inner Self"
ANd One I wish To BEtter Affect MY Life "a Man WHo Fears SUffering IS Already SUuffering From What He Fears"
..... Dear God, a Nostalgia Critic Reference. Discord has made me smile this day. x3
(sorry for the poor quality, I didn't wanna unload the whole episode on ya'll.)
"No really, I did the assignment and drew up the chart, but Discord stole it! You gotta believe me!"
Polling a large group of parents and collecting their parenting styles in a chart to compare their effectiveness isn't foolish or stupid, and doesn't result in not having an opinion of your own. Rather, it will provide the foundation for an opinion that is actually worth something, as opposed to guessing or picking a well worn cliche. That last student was the wisest person in the entire chapter because they went out and looked at the world before determining how it worked.
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The way I see it, the pony with the chart was presented as foolish not because he gathered data but because of what he didn't do with it. He didn't say "After studying the data represented by this graph I've come to believe x is the most successful parenting method." His reply was "the graph says this" not "the graph taught me this". The graph was just an assignment and his concern (most likely) is what grade his data gathering and presenting skills will bring him.
Oh, Discord. I love you.
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I actually had a pretty great Philosophy teacher. He made it very clear at the beginning that we were not there to memorize things, but to learn how to think. That was the only goal, and studying other philosophers was only a means to that end.
Also, he was a great guy in general.
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His real name, is Michel de Montaigne.
*sees chapter title* when considering limitations and philosophy, my mind always jumps to the Turing test-no, not the one involving robots, the other Turing test, a hypothetical program meant to to check if other programs will halt in a finite number of steps-
and it turns out you *can't* create this hypothetical program, because there's funadamental mathematical limits to knowledge, regardless of how good a computer you've got.
Oh, and there's also the incompleteness theorem.
The way he dismissed the guy with the chart is pretty reprehensible. Just because it's on a chart does not discount it from being an answer he arrived at by his own thinking. He might not be good at putting things into words, or maybe the answer should not be oversimplified.
And making decisions based on data is arguably, the wisest thing you can do
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"More as a reminder to be more comfortable about being with the bodies we have."
How would Discord have responded to the question "Are you comfortable in your body as it is?"
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Simple: "Yes I am! Mine is the pinnacle of perfection, including the love rails."
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Two points here:
First, if the guy DID have such determined beliefs, he would not be referring to the chart as one would a Bible... instead, he'd say that his findings have been represented by the chart, cementing that the chart came from his thoughts rather than the other way around.
Second, charts fall under the umbrella of statistics, and as the saying goes, "there's three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics". Just as interpretations can be wrong in languages, so too can they be wrong when making non-numeric decisions based on numeric results.
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It was a reference to the Nostalgia Critic. The Cat in the Hat episode if I remember correctly.
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Lorax, actually. Close enough.
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Both videos count.