This Book will Make you Think / Alain Stephen

This Book will Make you Think

by Alain Stephen

self-help

copyright 2013

read in December 2016/January 2017

rated 9/10: really, really good

This book will make me think? Absolutely! It's brilliant! Even typing the title has made me think. A sort of leftover state of analytical thinking:

First, I wrote, "This Book will make you Think". Then I changed it to, "This Book will Make you Think". See the difference? It's the first letter of "make". In my second attempt, I made it a capital M. So what?

With the lower case m in make, the emphasis of the book title is, "Think". Use a capital M and the emphasis shifts, to "Make". From Think to Make. From freedom of thought to enforced analytical effort. Amazing!

Also, ridiculous.

No matter how I type -- or analyse -- the book title, this book is about Thinking. A dipping into the thinking -- the great ideas -- of a few millennia of philosophers. Thought-provoking. And amazing.

Way back, for example, Greek philosophers were thinking about the structure of things. They came to the conclusion that matter can be neither created nor destroyed. You think that's new? These ancient Greeks came to that conclusion just by thinking deeply. Despite the prevalent beliefs in myth and magical creation.

But that left them with a conundrum. If matter cannot be created -- how does a plant grow? A plant seems to be creating new matter as it grows. So Democritus (and others) imagined "atoms". An infinite number of tiny things, linking, unlinking, relinking, to build all the stuff that we can see and touch.

Democritus could not see, feel, manipulate these "atoms". Instead, he used logic, imagination and thinking, to describe a possible explanation for what he could see. And that explanation is still good (though needing refinement) today. Thousands of years later.

That's a physical example. Most of the book is about, well, the meaning of life. Clearly written, easy to follow. And it definitely makes me think.

"Religion ... is the opium of the people." Yes, we've all heard variations of that one. Communism and some religions use the principal, offering their religion (or social change) as a drug to make life of "the masses" more bearable. Because that's what Marx meant: People suffer, religion helps them to dull the pain of the suffering.

Isms and religions offer themselves as opium to the people. The way Marx saw it, if you remove the suffering and oppression, the people will no longer need the opium. A positive view, warped in its implementation.

There are also more immediately applicable ideas. I use Hegelian dialectic. (If I understand it correctly.) Now, I know that it's not just me, a philosopher described and supported the method. I also know -- thanks to this book -- that he described it in very unclear fashion. Being a great thinker does not guarantee being a great communicator :-)

The title of this book is absolutely correct: it did make me Think.

I've dipped into it over a couple of months. Enjoyed every dip. I would like to keep dipping... but I Think that I may also look at other books and readings on philosophy and thinking.

Fascinating. And very, very, thought-provoking.

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Dr Nick Lethbridge / Consulting Dexitroboper
Agamedes Consulting / Problems ? Solved
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​What I do on my holidays: see http://notdotdeaddotyet.blogspot.com.au/​

"Some people have trouble making friends because they build fences rather than bridges." … on a cafe wall