Sorry for the autistic subject title.
I have heard that art and architecture in the Eastern Roman Empire somewhat stagnated, turning into
>Rectangle
>Arches
>Rectangle
>Arches
>Golden rectangle
>Maybe a dome
And that when the Ottomans came and conquered it, combined with their own, Persian, and Moorish designers, engineers and architects, really breathed in new life in respect to the architectural scene in what is now known as Istanbul.
Any info on this?
namefagging for duration of the thread for practical purposes
>>667637
Now I don;t know much about the ins and outs of Islam, but I noticed a decrease in quality, focus on aesthetics, and workmanship in their designs since 1700.
Shooting out some speculations here, feel free to shoot down which is wrong
>1. Cohesion
As Islam was relatively new, it still has novel peoples, lands, and styles to conquer and incorporate as their own, from Persia, to North Africa, to Asia Minor to the Iberian. As lifestyles and interested were increasingly directed by edicts at the top, variation and innovation soon died.
>2. Religiosity
In Islam, iirc, art for the sake of art is shunned as it detracts from the glory of Allah, but in olden days people had less issue with using art to shine a light (in the dark tunnel that is the mortal world) toward Allah, as a form of worship to him, knowing that it pales in comparison to his magnificence but it's the best the people of the day can amount to.
That's not to say Islam wasn't always violent in some fashion, but it was a different degree than the stagnation of exprssion assumed by Wahabis- who are relatively new on the scene- or to a lesser degree in the Shiite sphere, (after the Iranian Revolution).
It may be also to due with the increasing depth, scope, and importance placed on interpretative works such as the hadith. Islam went from consulting religious texts as they pertained to theological matters, to turning everything into a theological matter which in turn needed a religious text to interpret how to interact with it in accordance to the Qu Ran. (A similar thing happened with Orthodox Jews and the Talmud.)
Lastly, in terms of enforcement, I don't think the Muslim rulers of wayback were as intolerant of different religions, new ideas, interpretations, and straying from the consensus interpretation as they are today.
>>667662
I can't exactly go to the KSA today and start painting colorful murals, build modernist buildings, and go half-naked.
>3. Practicality
Much like how classical sculpture was funded through long-term patronage of the rich elite, and popes and rulers could commission great buildings and works of art through a very controlled means of gaining revenue on one end, and a geyser of spending for pet projects on the other, that wouldn't fly today, as people would riot against their religious and political leaders for doing so, people would prefer mass produced items and components
So to did Muslim nations entering the modern world embrace utilitarianism, keep a more niggardly eye on the flow of funds inside their religious and state institutions, and simply don't have the interest time and money for such patronage.
>inb4 turkroaches giv bajk constantinopl
You can't have a proper discussion here about Balkans, Eastern Europe or Ottomans due to Slavic and Turkic shitposters.
were women just disgusting back then or what? were they all fat , hairy, and smelly?
>>667605
Most of them are like that even today
sort of, but it gets greatly exaggerated
there definitely at least existed beautiful women who bathed regularly
Neo-paganism is good if you want a beta male equivalent of a harem following and worshipping you. Emphasis in neo.
Why in the fuck did Europeans need so many torture devices? What was it with Europeans and their love of senseless violence?
>>667550
Why don't you go ask ISIS, seeing as how they've switched places with 15th century Europe for the time being.
>Medieval-Torture-Instruments
>includes the fucking iron maiden
I can see why people on /his/ like to shit on the Renaissance and Early Modern period so much, because it has such a better reputation than the Medieval period yet a lot of the shit that gets dumped in the 'myth-that-Medieval-Europe-was-horrible' pile deserves to be dumped in the Renaissance/Early Modern pile, even though I love both periods.
Possibly the most cruelest period of European history apart from the 20th century would have to be the 16th and 17th centuries, when there was real torture, real witch hunts, and real violence against civilian populations.
The Hundred Years War and the Plague were bad, but not quite so swift and concentratedly violent as the 30 Years War, French Wars of Religion, and German Peasants War.
Anyway, they were primarily violent because there were a lot of malicious people amongst a dense population that was greatly polarized by secular and nonsecular issues.
>>667550
Waterboarding hadn't been developed.
Torture was primarily about either
a) Showing the implements (which got results)
or
b) Public demonstrations
In the case of b) why not be theatrical?
What is the nature of the unobserved world? In what way does it exist?
So what I mean is does it exist in some physical form? Or perhaps it just exists as a sort of function of language ('the engine under the hood' relates to discourse, right?)? Or does it exists as a sort of expectation of one thinks they will experience (such as the expectation of seeing a cup when you open the cupboard)? Or it just doesn't exist at all (what forest?!)?
The unobserved world is things like the forest when nobody is around. What exist in cupboards, beyond walls, under the hood, under the ground, behind your head, behind the moon, etc. Does the edible part of the banana pre-exist it being revealed through peeling? And if so, in what way does it exist? Does it look yellow before it is revealed through peeling the skin?
It always exists because God always watches over it.
No one has ever refuted Berkeley and no one ever will. Move along nothing to see here.
>What is the nature of the unobserved world?
We don't know
What is "human nature"?
>>666866
A thought-terminating cliche.
>>666866
A sign that you've done no reading before posting.
>>666866
To worship God.
What if China at it's peak continually expanded it's borders in a southern direction conquering all of SE Asia and established colonies in Australia?
I don't really see why they could not have achieved this given their population, superiority to everyone within the region and their maritime prowess.
cultural limitations
China only tried to conquer similar cultures
that is they have already accepted chinese culture in bureaucracy (koreans vietnamese etc)
beyond that they never tried and never thought they needed to as long as they paid proper tribute
That isn't really the Chinese mindset.
You're talking about a very insular, ordnung kind of people.
Besides, controlling China itself was such a difficult administrative and political task that Chinese governments routinely fail at it.
>>666818
>I don't really see why they could not have achieved this given their population, superiority to everyone within the region and their maritime prowess.
Because throughout most of Chinese history, you've seen what are basically colonization efforts in what we think of as china today. I mean, look at it, geographically, China is fucking huge. And the Han people really only originally were a group around the Yellow River. It took ages and ages to really sinoify (is that the right word?) all the way down that coastal plain, and to this day you have vibrantly distinct regional cultures that are distinct from the Han main, like the Cantonese.
So /his/, does anybody know any good books on the Inca civilization??? I really don't care about Spain's arrival. I'm more interested in their culture, religions, and their daily life.
>Also, general North/South American Native Empire/tribe information
Machu Picchu, Unveiling the Mystery of the Incas
The Incas and their Ancestors: The Archaeology of Peru
Obligatory thread music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2PW0XS7thU
>>666986
>not this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8oSeGFOs-M
An introduction to Individual Philosophy, by means of the spoken or written word, is an interpretation, a particular human being according to the particular experience of that being.
A speaker or writer makes a particular interpretation born of his particular experience, translating that experience into words as best he can.
The listener or reader makes a particular interpretation of the original interpretation according to his particular experience.
At the level of sensory perceived objects, those particular interpretations, for the purpose of communication in the sensorily perceived world, apparently coincide.
Hence, when the word "bread" is used, two persons speaking the same acquired language, visualize a similar object. At this level, with variable efficiency, the human being, as a sensorily perceived object, functions in relation to all other objects in the sensorily perceived world. But, at a level other than that of the sensorily perceived world, there can be no certainty that interpretations do coincide.
For example, when the word "Consciousness" is used it is not possible for one person to convey to another exactly what he (inwardly) experiences as consciousness. Each must realise for himself what such a word means in his own experience. One can give another bread; one cannot give another consciousness.
One person cannot tell another what consciousness is because of the limitations of spoken and written word. The impossibility arises from the fact that, in order to describe an abstract experience, abstract words have to be used (abstract here meaning that which is other than sebsirily perceived or described in terms of senoriliy perceived world). And how could it be possible to define the abstract words needed in order to define the abstract?
Consciousness cannot be defined nor described because it does not have the properties and limitations of a sensorily perceived object . It is not possible to describe what consciousness is. All confusion in philosophy and religion is due one adopting the interpretation of another, forgetting the interpretation of another, forgetting that every experience of the indefinable and indescribable cannot be conveyed by the spoken and written word.
The fact that the forms of religion and philosophy are only interpretations tends to be forgotten; the maintenance, propagation and destruction of interpretations becomes an end itself.
The purpose of religion and philosophy is not to persuade or manipulate one to believe in another's interpretation and assertion, but to guide each one to observe and interpret his own experience; to liberate him, in fact, from the interpretation of others. Their purpose is not to include belief but to liberate from false belief.
The failure of religion and philosophy is that they become a substitute, deflecting a man from his responsibility, responsibility here being the ability to respond, the ability to observe and answer to his own experience.
For example, it is possible for a man to say: I believe in God. But only he can know what he means by the statement, He certainly cannot tell another what it means to him as an experience.
If someone asks: Do you believe in God? the appropriate answer must be: First you tell me what you mean by God'' And if one asks another to believe in his interpretation or assertion of the indescribable. For one cannot truthfully believe,be free, in the interpretations or assertion of another, If he truststhat another's interpretation or assertion is reliable evidence of the indefinable, he is deluded.
He must convince himself through his own experience.
For, at the level of bread', there are other people; at the level of consciousness', there are no other people. There are many loaves of bread and many people; but how many consciousnesses are there ?
At a level other than that of the senorily perceived world one person cannot be said truthfully to comprehend the experience of another. Two person cannot be in the same place simultaneously.
Particular speaks to particular. a part to a part; the individual, that which cannot be divided, cannot speak to another because He is One and Alone, All-One.
Can one person do another's dying for him? It is not possible for me to convince you' that you do not die; but it is possible that He does not die.
There is limitations in any philosophical interpretation/ The interpreter is limited in that he must use words in an attempt to define and describe and the receiver then has to make an interpretation of that interpretation, attempting to understand what the originator means.
There is therefore need for cation. The speaker or author and the listener or reader must be constantly mindful of his insuperable limitation. Each must exercise discipline, that of always being a disciple, one who needs to learn.
The speaker or written must use words with care, realizing that he cannot describe the Truth, only attempt to guide by demonstrating the un-true or false; and the listener or reader must neither accept nor reject any proposal until he has put it honestly to the test of his own experience, experience being that which reveals itself in any given moment
For it is not until a man begins to observe his own experience, free from indiscriminately acquired assumptions, that he can realize what is undeniable.
Words lead the mind into ignorance; they also have the power to demonstrate that ignorance. The mins led out of ingnorance dis-covers Truth.
In beggining was the Word. The Truth is before the beginning that which speaks the word in the first place.
Ultimately, a person can only discover what is undeniable through observation of his own experience, each person's experience telling him precisely what he needs to know. And this is not possible whilst the mind is occupied with beliefs adopted, assumptions made and opinions formed indiscriminately which is to say, adopted, made and formed unquestioningly without the exercise of reason.
Philosophy might be described as the examination of belief, for what a man believes in his philosophy. Every man is a philosopher in that every sane (healthy) man cines ti believe in something and what a man believes is the truth for him.To believe in something is to have faith in it or to trust it as seeming constant or reliable.
A philosopher is essentially the beliefs under which a man conducts himself since his beliefs usually rule and regulate his actions.
There are those who learn the interpretations of others, compare and contrast the interpretations of others and postulate their own interpretations without reference to their own experience. They thereby confine philosophy to a heretical study which has no practical significance.
And there are those who develop haphazard personal philosophies born of their varied experiences in the sensorily perceived world. These personal philosophies, crude and limited though they may be, serve the conduct of their day to day activities.
I've thought linguistics is really interesting for a long time. I know some basic concepts and I've taken foreign language classes before but I kind of want to dive deeper. I got a book on it once as a gift but it was super dry and way over my head. Does anyone have suggestions for how start learning about it?
pic unrelated
bump for interest
>>666042
"The Mother Tongue" by Bill Bryson isn't exactly a linguistics book, but it introduces a lot of the basic concepts without getting technical. It's by no means even a real linguistics book, but it is a very entertaining and not-dry read.
Be warned, though. "Pure" linguistics isn't super history-based. It has a lot to do with biology, psychology, and sociology, as well as an analytical view of language itself.
If you're looking for a textbook, "Language Files", published by The Ohio State University is pretty good and covers a ton of material, but doesn't cost a lot. My university uses it for a bunch of classes in the 100-300 level.
>>667295
>"The Mother Tongue" by Bill Bryson isn't exactly a linguistics book, but it introduces a lot of the basic concepts without getting technical. It's by no means even a real linguistics book, but it is a very entertaining and not-dry read.
thanks
>Be warned, though. "Pure" linguistics isn't super history-based. It has a lot to do with biology, psychology, and sociology, as well as an analytical view of language itself.
I know, I figured this was the board for it since languages fell under the humanities when I took college
>If you're looking for a textbook, "Language Files", published by The Ohio State University is pretty good and covers a ton of material, but doesn't cost a lot. My university uses it for a bunch of classes in the 100-300 level.
thanks again
What's your opinion on the Swedish Empire?
Was it's decline all for the best?
I'm a swede myself, so I'm biased as fuck, but I would like to hear your opinion
>>665901
The Swedes had an empire?
I like Swedish girls, does that count?
Post armor
>>665218
Post armour is pike and shot.
Any onion suits?
>>665233
Cute
Also, what the hell is this thing? Was this actually used?
post God-tier Gods
>>664868
looks like an ass
Do psychedelics have a real place in religion?
Or is it all just a crock of shit.
420noskope religion endorses it.
>>664815
That depends entirely on the religion.
Some religions, especially in the pre-European Western hemisphere, employed a variety of mind-altering substances in their rituals for their "spirit quests" and so forth.
So yes, they have had a real place in more than a few religions in the past.
The place where everyone fucks up with psychedelics is when you start looking to them as the end result instead of as tools to shake you out of your comfort zone and make you reexamine old ground. When you start analyzing them in and of themselves, they are as so many people believe, "a crock of shit". This is also why their biggest advocates are so annoying, and most of the time they're wrong.
Think of it this way: Neil Armstrong was famously quoted for saying, "It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small."
Now, obviously this is an experience he had of how anyone can blot out the moon and make themselves feel big, and when he got up there he did the same to the earth and felt the gravity of his accomplishment and a re-framing of how we are all so interconnected and yet we don't act that way. Now imagine a bunch of people going up to the moon in 200 years and going DUDE THUMBS LMAO
You missed the entire point you dumb fucks.
He didn't need to keep going up there and blotting out the earth for kicks. It was an insight he took with him for the rest of his life. Cultures that partake in psychedelics normally have good rules that outline how to maximize functionality out of them, such as
>do them rarely
>approach them respectfully
>follow a ritual or tradition that will help you put into context what you're feeling, seeing and experiencing.
How did the French manage to lose the Algerian war?
>>664521
way to brutal in their methods that the populace couldn't support it
>>664521
They're French
>>664521
Guerrilla warfare and growing international/domestic condemnation
Hey /his/torians.
Some of you are weird and misguided, but I just want to say thanks for being the best board around. You're not pretentious like /lit/ and you succinctly and effectively btfo /pol/ every time they appear.
It's nice to have a board with reasonable discussions.
>>663948
Glad to have you friend.
>>663948
Yeah I don't really contribute much, but I like reading everything.
>>663948
Yeah. Was getting real tired of /pol/'s shit, desu. Before it was /pol/, /k/ and /lit/, in that order. Now it's /his/ all the way. Thanks guys
![Medieval-Torture-Instruments[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/zkkZgVd.jpg "Medieval-Torture-Instruments[1]")
