삶의 재미 삶의 재미

Tor Norretranders, The User Illusion: Cutting Consciousness Down to Size (Danish 1991, Translation 1998) If such a simple act as moving a finger starts in the brain a whole second before the muscle activity, when do we consciously decide to initiate the act? [Kornhuber and Deecke's 1965 experiments] (p 215) If the brain started sometime before I decided to move my finger, do I possess free will?..

Daniel Dennett, From Bacteria to Bach and Back : The Evolution of Minds (2017) Human consciousness is unlike all other varieties of animal consciousness in that it is a product in large part of cultural evolution, which installs a bounty of words and many other thinking tools in our brains, creating thereby a cognitive architecture unlike the "bottom-up" minds of animals. By s..

새로 나오는 책들 중에도 읽고 싶은 책이 꼭 있기 마련이다. 도서관에서 빌려다 읽는 것으로 만족할 책도 있고 그럴 수 없는 책도 있다. 아무튼 여전히 책을 사게 된다. 읽고 있는 책들에 새로 읽을 책들이 더해지니 식탁에도 소파에도 커피테이블에도 책이 쌓인다. 책장들은 꽉 차있고 책..

"From her point of view, does it make any difference whether she dies Thursday instead of Saturday? What right has anybody to tell her she can't spend her last hours roller-skating, if that's what she wants?" (p 308) "You do have a chance. Even if it's only ten percent, even if it's only five, why not take it? Are you so tired of living? Are you so tired of us?" For a longtime they looked at eac..

Anne Carson, Float (2016) Anne Carson 의 책에서 그녀의 짧은 에세이 "Merry Christmas from Hegel" 을 읽는다. It was the year my brother died. I lived up north and had few friends or they all went away. Christmas Day I was sitting in my armchair, reading something about Hegel. 그녀가 성탄절에 헤겔에 관한 글을 읽고 있었듯 이 금빛 가을날 나..

덴버대 법대 라운지의 카페에서 샌드위치로 점심을 먹으며, 조금 전 캠퍼스의 The Book Stack 에서 2불에 산, Stegner 의 소설 Crossing to Safety 를 읽기 시작한다. 본문에 앞선 두세 페이지부터 느긋이 즐긴다. Robert Frost 의 시구로 맺는다. I could give all to Time except -- except What I myself have held. But why dec..

"Because my grandfather was a man who couldn't forget," I said. "Forget or forgive." "He sound like a hard man." "On the contrary, he was soft. People imposed on him. Grandmother always said he was too trusting. Actually he never expected much of people, and so he wasn't upset if they turned out to be shysters or cheaters or crooks. But s few people he trusted absolutely. It w..

주말에 읽은 R. O. Kwon 의 데뷰 소설 "The Incendiaries" (2018) 도 얼마 전에 읽은 Weike Wang 의 데뷰 소설 "Chemistry" (2017) 도 다 빨리 읽히는 소설들이고 재밌게 읽었는데도, 그 시간이 아까운 생각이 든다. 요새 읽은, 두 책 합친 분량의, Wallace Stegner 의 소설 "Angle of Repose" (1971) 와는, 그리고 얼마 전에..

Willa Cather, A Lost Lady (1923) There were philosophical works in the collection, but he did no more than open and glance at them. He had no curiosity about what men had thought; but about what they had felt and lived, he had a great deal. 소설의 한 구절이다. 삼촌의 책장에 꽉 찬 책들을 읽기 시작한 닐(Niel)은 문학 책들에 빠져든다. 반이 조..

"오늘날 The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire 를 어떻게 읽느냐구? 최근 다섯 달 동안 대강 하루 20페이지꼴로 이른 아침에 읽었지. 다 읽고 나니 아쉬웠다는 게 그 책에 대한 나의 가장 큰 찬사지." 그러면서 Joseph Epstein 이 들려준 Edward Gibbon 과 그의 3300-페이지 역사 책 이야기 중에서 몇 구절만 옮긴다. More than two centuries after Gibbon wrote it, the entertainment value of his history is as great as it was when it appeared in three volumes between 1776 and 1788, its sta..