What is Reddit's opinion of
The Great Courses?
From 3.5 billion Reddit comments
100 reviews of this app found across Reddit:
You live in Green Bay? I took his Intro to Greece and Intro to Roman history classes back in 1999/2000. Two of the best classes I ever took.
He's also got some stuff on The Great Courses that's interesting to listen to as well. I got them via Audible when I had a yearly subscription, so it was more affordable than those TGC prices..
When I went to college I had to write papers, research, collect data and evidence, and argue my stances.
Is this going to just be basically YouTube videos you pay for?
If so, there is already this
Please check out The Other Side of History: Daily Life in the Ancient World by Professor Robert Garland. It’s my favorite audiobook and goes into incredible detail about what we know life to be like for ‘everyone else’ from the pre-historic era through ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, and Celtic Britain.
It’s seriously my favorite thing on Audible.
If you’re serious about this, go to your local library and start borrowing from the “great courses” series. They have everything on the classical world. Hey are so wonderful and include:
—classical music (which is an umbrella for medieval renaissance, classical (about 1750-1850, off my head), romantic, impressionist, serialist, minimalism, world Music as the internet opens the world of composers [i didn’t mention jazz, though it’s a journey all its own]) —art history (goes through same time line) —philosophy, —rhetoric and reason (you’d be surprised how very important rhetoric in Greek through now has become, and the teacher is a very interesting person)
I would start with music. It’s a great intro to all the time periods and the reasons behind them.
Also - because I had my masters in music history - I encourage you to try this method rather than read a book. You don’t get the same sound layout. I gave this method a try just to refresh, and it a great job , for free at the library🤗
I’ll leave you with a treat. There’s a Spanish tune - “Folles de Espagna.” It’s maybe 16 measures long. That’s maybe 16 pulses, or 8 pulses depending how quickly they are going. This medieval consort led by unsung virtuoso Jordi Savall is one of the hidden gems under the umbrella of “classical,” but is not classical be any means. It’s from 300 year before. So begins your education:)
I hope it inspires you!
I get it. No worries. There are many different versions. This one which is but one of the standard version.
My sources are as follows:
A) My buddy and customer at a Miami Beach pub I used to work at who was from Iraq, a professor at the University of Miami (at the time); veteran of the Iran-Iraq war as a medic; student of Sufism and Islamic "Satanism." He liked to drink a few India Pale Ales while walking his German Sheppard, and would ask me to play Ry Cooder's version of "A Meeting By The River," when he got extra sauced.
B) A primary text of an undergraduate course at Northwestern University on Midevial Christian Mysticism. Specifically: Anselm of Canturbury's, "Cur Deus Homo," (Why God Became Man). "A Scholastic Miscellany: Anselm to Ockham." Ed. & Trans. Fairweather, Eugene R. The Westminster Press. Philadelphia. 1956. pp. 100-183. Print.
There's a part in it where it discusses the creation of Angles, then of Man and the subsequent "War In Heaven."
C) And lastly, "Lost Christianities: Christian Scriptures and the Battles over Authentication," put out by The Teaching Company, here: https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/lost-christianities-christian-scriptures-and-the-battles-over-authentication.html
And, I was thinking, specifically about the parts discussing Gnosticism whe I wrote the post.
It's just one version, and I'll agree there are more within any particular Judeo-Christian tradition as well as diversity of cannonical stories about Lucifer/Satan across the tradion.
One of the stories paints Lucifer as an "evil" character who has a point.
Not arguing a point here. Totally in agreement with you. Just answering the question of what sources I was drawing from.
✌
I hope not but as an amateur student of Civil War history the conditions are eerily prescient. As Mark Twain famously said, “history does not repeat itself but if often rhymes” Try listening to Great Courses American Civil War and see if you agree. Lots of PA libraries have this for free with Overdrive/Libby.
Here’s a really good CBT self-help course: https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/cognitive-behavioral-therapy-for-daily-life .
It’s not free, but it’s not too, too expensive. Learning CBT concepts from this course might help you in choosing the right therapist.
I agree that intro level textbooks are a good place to start! And publishers like to update books to make money alll the time, so an older edition of a textbook is not necessarily going to be out dated.
Also, I wanted to recomend The Great Courses many of which I have heard are on Audible. Many of them are written by professors, and are really just quality material!
I would suggest you spend some money or if you're too poor, go to a library(a building that hold books) to listen to this audio course Great Ancient Civilizations of Asia Minor. It would make you sound less ignorant next time you sneer with your lack of knowledge.
It doesn't really matter if Camus rejected the label. Academics have placed him within the existentialist tradition, which maybe you disagree with, but to me it seem to fit. Sure, "the myth of sisyphus" is absurdist, but plenty of his other works are not, and I wouldn't call The Stranger absurdist.
Robert Solomon even kicks off his great lecture series on existentialism (No Excuses: Existentialism and the Meaning of Life) with five lectures about Camus.
Edit: I don’t think absurdism and existentialism are mutually exclusive.
I'd highly recommend Play Ball! from the Great Courses and Take Me Out To The Ballgame: A History Of Baseball In America from Modern Scholar.
Robert Greenberg's How to Listen to and Understand Opera is a good place to start. If you aren't already a subscriber, you can sign up for a free trial with Audible and listen to the audio book for free.
You could also watch the lectures for free via a free trial of Great Courses Plus.
Excellent list!
If you are really into this stuff, check out The Great Courses History section.
You can watch for sales, they have streaming / DVD / CD available. The courses on Egypt, South America, MesoAmerica, The Vikings, Rome, and others are great. (I also recommend them on other subjects).
Peripheral awareness ftw. For most of us, both in work and recreational activities, we typically do tasks that require focused awareness, (anything from most jobs to tv, books, and video games), so we have been conditioned to rely on that much more often than peripheral awareness, but our bodies were designed to take a vast field of stimuli and do complex analysis independent of what we are focused on, often manifesting in a gut feeling. That patch of tan colored grass in the distance that may or may not have moved was just as, if not more, important than the fruits were dangling from a nearby tree.
If you the kind of person who reads about close encounters with serial killers, a common thread among survivors is that they had a gut sense that something was off, even though they couldn't consciously think of any reason for it. Their conscious mind was focusing on the signs that the killer knew how to hide while the peripheral awareness was picking up all kinds of red flags and screaming to be heard, but all too often we ignore this crucial part of our brain.
Note: I picked up these terms (and the lion metaphor) from a TTC course taught by Harvard Psychology Professor Ron Siegel, but in looking for a source that was available for free, I found that they are not in common use, so googling "peripheral and tunnel awareness" may not give you anything worthwhile. If you instead search for something like "the science of intuition", you'll get much better results, but I like the terminology I initially used so I am sticking with it.
Compiling that video playlist seems like an awful lot of work.
You likely know of Khan Academy. Why not start there?
The Great Courses, though it does cost money, has an elementary course.
And why not head to a bookstore? You can find something to your likings. For example, Naked Statistics by Charles Wheelan is popular. And there's always the "For Dummies" series. One advantage of a book is that it will make sure you don't miss anything vitally important.
Here are two textbooks, which can be purchased used: Statistics Unplugged by Sally Caldwell (very basic, used by psychology students, conversationalist approach but doesn't mention p values) and Probability and Statistics (more advanced, make sure you remember your calculus).
I was in the same position as you and I ,too, had to learn it all on my own. A great starting point is a series of lectures called, Theory of Evolution: a history of controversy, that should be found in your local library. It does a great job of setting up how the theory came together and the basic evidence for it. Next, I would move onto some of Dawkins' books like, "Climbing Mount Improbable", though I have heard that he has other ones that are better written. After that it comes down to which questions you want answered, and looking for those more specific books. Beware of youtube simply because there is so much hogwash out there that "sounds legitimate" but really isn't.
I would end with saying that Carl Sagan's book, The Demon-Haunted World, Science as a candle in the dark, was really explosive to how I interacted with the world in general and how I could re-view the "science" of my upbringing. This book will also work as a handbook for any searching that you might do online when looking for solid scientific sources.
Good luck and have fun!
I'm POSITIVE he came up in this series. Note* the prices here are friggin` bonkers. I swear I pay either nothing or next to nothing for The Great Courses (which is good because a lot of it isn't worth anything) on youtube.tv. the professor that hosts it is pretty good, too.
Yes, CBT is primarily developed for the treatment of depression but there are a lot of forms of it that can help with both depression and anxiety,I am sorry that your brother emotionally abused you, it's a shit hole to have mental illness and live with your family, I think if you can afford a therapist it will really help, and if you can't get a good one, there a lot of books related to CBT out there. This book is also available in audible.
For example: https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/cognitive-behavioral-therapy-techniques-for-retraining-your-brain.html
I haven't had a mid-life crisis but I definitely had a multi-year existential crisis after my mom died. I dealt with it in part by studying philosophy. I find that it helps to spend some time thinking about questions that we often compartmentalize and ignore, until they come out of their own accord, and at the worst time. And it especially helps seeing how other, very smart, people have thought about them. Especially because some of them dedicated decades to developing their thoughts. People like Plato, Aristotle, the stoics, Thomas Aquinas, Hobbes, John Stuart Mill, David Hume, Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heiddiger, Sartre.
It can be hard to get into reading primary texts but there are some really nice popularizations, and especially in audiobook format. I went through a bunch of courses from https://www.thegreatcourses.com These are usually taught by university Profs and worked really well for me. There's also this free podcast - http://thepanpsycast.com/panpsycast2/
I'd recommend History of Ancient Egypt from The Great Courses.
https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/history-of-ancient-egypt.html
I got it cheaper from Audible and really enjoyed it. A course that covers all of Egypt's history in broad strokes in around 24 hours (48 lectures).
I didn't have one. I was listening to a bunch of online courses during my commute, one of them was on Hellenistic Philosophy, and I was immediately fascinated by Stoicism. Stoicism has helped me deal with crises since then (bereavement, job loss) but there was no crisis that started my interest.
I recommend taking America's Founding Fathers by The Great Courses.
Laws and statutes were already being pushed or on the books in a number of states to disincentivize or regulate away slave ownership in a scheduled manner. Slavery was hotly debated during the convention.
Do you know why it was not called "the constitutional convention" at the time? Because they absolutely had no mandate to be there drafting an entirely new constitution. They were there simply to amend the Articles of Confederation. Beyond slavery, there were a number of problems with the way the new colonies had set things up and they were there to address those issues.
That they went ahead anyway and created the document we have today is a historical milestone for the human race. Basically everyone agreed, no matter how they felt about slavery itself, that it was wholly untennable to address it right then and there. The civil war started less than 100 years later. Now consider the context of the wider world, and the history of the human race.
This article not only misses the history, but in doing so, feeds the passerby a reason to further feed the trope-ish meme about the "founding fathers" being racist white dudes when they were quite the varied bunch. When you listen to their arguments and speeches that much is clear. It's articles like this that mis-frame things like slave representation only being 3/5ths as being evidence of the racist homogeny even though this was actually an anti-slavery provision.
It's poisoning the well for clicks and virtue signals.
Take some of the TTC "Great Courses"
Get the ones by college professors when they go on sale for @ $50.
You're not missing anything from an "Actual" college class except students complaining about tuition and professors complaining about their salary.
https://www.thegreatcourses.com/category/history.html?CFM=mega_menu
It's literally the exact same thing as a college course. The profs all just use their syllabus. One of my friends did one years ago.
I know you asked for a book, but I highly recommend the series "The Story of Human Language" by John McWhorter. It's more or less corresponds to what you'd get in a Linguistics 101 course, without being overly academic. As far as I know, it's also available on Audible and on the Great Courses Plus subscription service.
I have a "Great Courses" sub... what's the Nietzsche one called?
About 2/3 through "Redefining Reality" myself. Good stuff.
I don't think you will find exactly what you are looking for (it is a bit too broad), but I would recommend looking through the catalog of The Great Courses. They are audio lecture series typically at an undergraduate level and I have found them to generally be very enjoyable.
Hey. Maybe this video will help you choose math field to make progress (it's map of mathematics): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmJ-4B-mS-Y
I think some universities share their courses for free, so research that. Here you have MIT: https://ocw.mit.edu
Next search through Great Courses Library. Maybe you will find something useful here. https://www.thegreatcourses.com
Also, I heard about www.brilliant.org - site/app where you learn through solving actual problems and puzzles. Good luck! =]
The Great Courses / Teaching Company (same company different name) has a lot of in depth lectures on the subject, all pretty much arranged in 30-45 minute chunks.
US History, (Audible link, just to be clear that is 42 hrs for 1 credit ... you can find more manageable courses, usually about 8hrs.)
They are on Audible and most libraries.
You should definitely read this article:
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/03/the-intellectual-we-deserve
Peterson is not your usual right wing conservative. He is charismatic, looks presentable, has that calm demeanor, and knows how to argue.
Because of this, he can easily get away with saying lots of dumb things that can be easily discredited. But because he knows the dirty tricks on winning arguments, he makes their opponents look stupid.
Besides, most of his opponents don't have enough time to do a detailed deconstruction of his shtick, so our guy now basically gets more credibility and growth with little barriers. Skeptics, people who study philosophy usually discredit him with a few litmus tests and move on.
I recommend you listen to this course. One reason why we have guys like this catapult to fame like this is because most people don't engage in critical thinking.
Time to start speed reading!
Also invest in the great courses audio lecture series on the Republic. The lecturer is a political philosopher so is more interested in the outwards political aspects of the Republic.
For a somewhat left of field reading of the Republic there are several episodes of The Secret History of Western Esotericism Podcast which (academically) discusses possible esoteric and symbolic interpretations to be made in Plato and the Republic, over the course of multiple episodes, starting here.
Audio lectures by the name of The Teaching Classes : No Excuses - Existentialism and Meaning of Life. Series of about 25 half hour lectures covering 5 eminent existentialists (Camus, Kirkegaard, Nietzsche, Husserl and Sartre) along with a few authors that tilted that way, Dostoevsky, Hesse and Kafka.
I hear these half hour lectures while jogging every morning and they are brilliant enough that I feel like jogging more than I can so that I can hear more.
Next in line is Sapiens (on audible, got 3 free months courtesy Google Pay's ongoing game). Ek aadmi ek din mein kitni hi jogging karega...
History of Ancient Egypt, great courses lecture series by Bob Brier. It was amazing and it is what got me interested in Egypt.
https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/history-of-ancient-egypt.html
I listened to it on audible.
Most European languages are part of the Indo-European language family. There are notable exceptions, like Basque which is a language isolate, and the Uralic languages (Finno-Ugric + Samoyedic). But ~~this~~the Indo-European language family is huge and varied and it includes Indo-Iranian languages like Hindi and Farsi as well as all Greek, Germanic, Romance, Slavic, Celtic languages. It is not impossible to find similarities between Sanskrit (sort of the Latin of India) and Danish probably, but I personally am far from an expert on this. There are all sorts of words in Germanic languages that share their root with Hindi/Sanskrit/Farsi words.
At some point there was likely a Proto-Indo European language from which all languages in the family developed. We have no evidence from sources in this language, but it is instead reconstructed by linguists from current and historic Indo-European languages for which we do have primary resources.
Edit: If you're interested in this topic there is a great lecture series bij The Great Courses called The Story of Human Language. You can probably get it for free when you take an Audible subscription and cancel after buying the course with the 1 credit you get with the trial.
>her evidence amounts to oral history and tradition.
Aside from Chapter 6 of the dissertation, which reviews archaeological, fossil, and DNA evidence of pre-Columbian horses in the Americas.
I'm not saying the case is airtight, but I think it is strong enough to keep an open mind and hope that future research is done with less bias.
The same can be said for pre-Columbian contact between the Americas and other cultures...one Mesoamerican scholar (Edwin Barnhart, PhD in these lectures) says it is "heresy" to suggest there was contact between Mesoamerican people and Phoenicians, and yet there are some threads of evidence to suggest it.
I agree that a strictly literal interpretation is problematic, but in my view that's not the same as challenging what is "known" about life in the americas and looking for plausible settings for the Book of Mormon events.
This is not a EBS of both sides. However, I felt you may find interest in a deep in depth comparison by a professor. Available as an individual course or also available with their subscription service which does give you a trial month so you can watch the full piece free technically.
https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/english-grammar-boot-camp.html
Imo this is the best single course on the basics of english. She discusses not only what is being done, but also why it is being done and how it could be different. It is--for a grammar course--playful.
You'll never look at English the same way again.
https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/english-grammar-boot-camp.html
It comes with a pdf book if you dont want to watch all 20 hours of video. Completing the course will make sure you dont miss anything obvious.
Is this your field? I’m going off this course I listened to: https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/lost-worlds-of-south-america.html
The prof absolutely disputes the method of migration.
I may be misremembering which site is 30,000 years old, however.
It really depends what you want to do. That being said, as a foundation I think having a solid grasp of world history is critical, followed by a basic working knowledge of economics. From there, work yourself up to more advanced topics like game theory.
For a specific recommendation, I just recently finished John R Hale's brilliant 12 hour lecture series on the Greek and Persian wars. Absolutely amazing stuff.
https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/greek-and-persian-wars.html
I would start with this Great Courses lecture series: Practical Philosophy - The Greco-Roman Moralists, https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/practical-philosophy-the-greco-roman-moralists.html
It has history, summaries of teachings and some analysis of modern applications of the thinking. You can get it as part of the subscription to the great courses, or of you have an audible subscription. I got the audiobook and loved it. Would highly recommend it to this community especially you don't have time to track down every book on this sub's side bar.
How's your calc? If it's not that great, and your committed to being a physicist, The Great Courses Understanding Calculus 1 and 2 are an educational resource I get on my internet knees and beg you to check out.
It's an odd format, but The Great Courses has an audio course called "Masters of War: History's Greatest Strategic Thinkers". Lectures 13-15 cover Mahan and Corbett, and then compare the two's ideas together. The lecturer, Dr. Wilson, makes the same comparison to Jomini and Clausewitz. You may enjoy it as further research.
The History and Archaeology of the Bible
It's 1 of the "great courses" and I think is available on amazon, it can be purchased from the below site I believe anyway
https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/the-history-and-archaeology-of-the-bible
Eh, was just on my mind because I was recently watching this:
https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/ancient-civilizations-of-north-america
Wait, that was downvoted? Is the ancient history of Knox County really disliked? Okay…
I highly recommend the Great Courses class on The Historical Jesus for a thorough examination of the issues/evidence for Jesus. Does not address the comparison to Arthur, however. I get access to The Great Courses through my local library for free
Covering many of the already-made suggestions, plus hours more info, https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/king-arthur-history-and-legend this lady is great. Very smart and gives a great lecture. She also does The Black Death course, by the by.
*you can get it on Prime or Roku channel for a lot less than 300 bucks
I just finished watching Great Courses Plus 24-lecture series about Apocalypse. The lecturer is a professor at a seminary. He covers the idea of the apocalypse from Judaism to the current day. When he gets to the Book of Revelation (lecture 4), he claims the author was addressing issues Christians faced at the time the book was written. He explains what those issues were: persecution, assimilation, complacency. Later lectures explain interpretations made by later Christians up to the modern day. The video version shows a few historical pictures, lists points and displays words, names, etc. This is helpful, but not vital. The video doesn't show cornball, dramatic animations of disasters and armegedon. I thought the lecturer did a great job.
https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/apocalypse-controversies-and-meaning-in-western-history
I recommend the Great Courses course: 'Great Philosophical Debates: Free Will and Determinism'.
Here is a link to the version on their website:
https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/great-philosophical-debates-free-will-and-determinism
You can also get it on Audible! That is how I listened to it. :)
Yeah. It’s sad because it’s so interesting. I don’t get why we don’t teach it. Even just a general outline.
They taught me that all of North America north of the Aztecs were just hunter gatherer groups, which is wrong! There were civilizations building pyramids, domesticating crops, having trade networks that spanned Mexico to Canada (and Mexico even to South America).
There is a really good “Great Courses” lecture series I learned so much from: https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/ancient-civilizations-of-north-america.html
(But sadly they can be expensive.)
I also really liked the book 1491 by Charles Mann on the subject.
the Great Courses has a class on The Historical Jesus (Bart D. Ehrmann), which I think is excellent. I get free access to these through my public library.
Many libraries offer a subscription to Kanopy. Some of those libraries also pay extra so you can watch the great courses. That means with a library card you can watch professional lecture series online for free.
This means you can watch professional teachers on lecture series for free.
These are the ones you might have access to: https://www.thegreatcourses.com/search/Math
If you library doesn’t offer the service you can always borrow the library card of someone else.
Great Courses exist, but they're quite expensive as video lectures. I picked up a handful of audiobook versions during an Audible sale and found them insightful and easy to follow. Best part for me is the audiobooks come with a PDF of the lectures so you can read along or take notes. I got three books for under US $90, totaling about 40 hours of content.
https://www.thegreatcourses.com/
I would check your library and see if Kanopy is available with your card. The courses are streaming on there for free with my library card. If not they are available through the website above. I think it's a subscription type situation.
You can learn this stuff easily with the right training. This course is amazing. It is very comprehensive and the professor is top-notch. His other courses are also great, but this is the starting point.
Expensive course, but, you know, find it on your pirating source of choice. I'd link to it, but I don't know the rules about that, so I wont.
It's certainly available on The Pirate Bay. The user "dohduhdah" has a lot of courses on there.
This course is amazing. It is very comprehensive and the professor is top-notch. His other courses are also great, but this is the starting point.
Expensive course, but, you know, find it on your pirating source of choice. I'd link to it, but I don't know the rules about that, so I wont.
It's certainly available on The Pirate Bay. The user "dohduhdah" has a lot of courses on there.
While OP may be a troll, and I agree it's pretty obvious, it would be an interesting and useful discussion.
OP: I'd like to recommend The Foundations of Western Civilization, produced by The Teaching Company. It's a Notre Dame course that provides a fascinating look into the origins of Western ideals, including the religious/spiritual.
I think you have to pay a lot more to get the video streaming from their website. You could try contacting Great Courses directly to ask for clarification. https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/thermodynamics-four-laws-that-move-the-universe.html
No problem! If you're interested in learning more about this aspect, you might want to check out Hans-Friedrich Mueller's recently released course about ancient religion. It's well-informed and thought provoking, without being overly dry.
Check out the courses by Edwin Barnhart of which I really enjoyed these two:
Ancient Civilizations of North America
Maya to Aztec Ancient Mesoamerica Revealed
Then, I liked McWhorter's The Story of Human Language - probably the most surprising course I've taken. (Helps if you like language, I guess.)
https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/between-the-rivers-the-history-of-ancient-mesopotamia.html
I do not remember exactly where the quote in the lectures was, but since it is in regards to Shulgi, I would check the section on the Ur III dynasty.
Tape, lol. Cute. Yeah, most books have an audiobook version. There's a bunch on YouTube if you want to try them out before buying. I've been doing the audiobook thing at work for a decade, it's the only way I want to work. I recommend the Audible app, it's free for the first month then it automatically charges you about $10 a month if you don't cancel. This is a good course to get for free from Audible. https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/practical-philosophy-the-greco-roman-moralists.html
> I took this course among others : https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/nature-of-earth-an-introduction-to-geology.html
i mean, like a real geology class?
> No, I mean sedimentary rock.
pumice and pyroclastic flows are igneous.
No problem. All of these topics fall under the heading of "discrete mathematics". If you enjoy learning from videos, I HIGHLY recommend this video series from The Great Courses: https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/discrete-mathematics.html
It costs $35 to download, but I promise you that is a great bargain. It's extremely well-produced. It includes many concepts that are useful for board game designers.
I'm really happy to hear that! You know what helped change everything for me was a lecture series on evolutionary psychology. They were talking about OCD's place in evolution (an anxiety disorder). People who had OCD in the early days of humanity were the only people looking out for the future of their tribes. Worrying was literally their job. That trait is largely unnecessary in today's society but still exists in the people who descended from the original tribal planners.
FWIW, I heard the same thing in this audio course. https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/americas-in-the-revolutionary-era.html
Irony being, French monarchy aids our revolution -> goes bankrupt -> tax hike to raise money -> your revolution.
(It’s not my subject. I defer to you.)
Great list, thank you for all the effort. Please consider adding this Great Courses lecture series "Practical Philosophy: The Greco-Roman Moralists"
It goes through the history of scepticism, into epicurianism and stoicism. Here is the link to the course: https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/practical-philosophy-the-greco-roman-moralists.html
He is incredibly smart. I listened to the great courses lectures off audible from him and I was so impressed. He is a Creole expert and has so much information and knowledge to share. I would sit in my car until i had to literally run into work to clock in because i was so in aw of what ibwas learning. The best part about listening to his lectures was that he would just start speaking in every language he was talking about and it blew my mind. Here is a link to the lectures.
https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/story-of-human-language.html
The first one, decades ago, for general reading was by William Dement, one of the great researchers in the area - Some Must Watch While Some Must Sleep.
More recently, Dreamland: Adventures in the Strange Science of Sleep' by David K. Randall is terrific. Very engaging and hitting all the high points. The part where is covers the genesis of DARPA's interest is fascinating and eye opening.
The Fresh Air podcast I linked to is very good.
Over at the Great Courses there is Secrets of Sleep Science: From Dreams to Disorders with Professor H. Craig Heller, Ph.D. Get it while it is on sale for $35!!!!!! Well worth the $$.
That ought to get you started. One for history, one for the general reader and one REALLY challenging overview.
I've been reading on this subject for decades what with my chronic sleep problems. I'm sleeping 4 or 5 hours now which is, for me, a blessing. Unfortunately, I have no schedule at all although what there is of it seems to be more of the up all night, sleep during the day variety.
I'm TRYING to stop all meds as there is more and more evidence that even OTCs like benadryl and doxylamine may encourage dementia later in life. I stay away from prescription now.
I watch lectures published by the https://www.thegreatcourses.com
I have watched dozens of college level classes on climatology, chemistry, astronomy, philosophy, history, etc. My favorite courses so far have been the history of science and the philosophy of science.
You see what I’m talking about? This makes perfect sense!
1490 is very impressive, btw.
This is a total shot in the dark. Total spitball here, based on my courses I listen to for fun. I stress that I’m not an expert. But: Medievalists all know like 5-10 languages. The steppe guy was a historian, but his linguistics knowledge was vast.
Here’s his profile on TTC. I imagine his university email is out there somewhere. You could email him. It’s not like emailing a math prof with a math question. If you were to email him, you’d undoubtedly be giving him something new and interesting, which few human beings would be able to comment on. I would really encourage you to ask for his help.
+1. I was going to recommend this as well, lots of interesting history and language basics in it too. But probably not what he's looking for. TGC does do something he'd like.
How to Prove It is a great introduction to proof-based mathematics. It covers some logic, set theory, number theory, etc. All the good stuff to get you started.
If you're more of a audio-video learner, I recommend Prove It from The Great Courses. The instructor Bruce Edwards is truly excellent.
This is just a general comment about steppe peoples, but this course from Dr. Kenneth Harl is a really good primer (all of his courses--especially the Viking one--are good). You can also find Great Courses (lectures only) on Audible for much cheaper.
Bart Ehrman did a Great Courses lecture series called History of the Bible: The Making of the New Testament Canon. You can access the lectures for free on archive.org, but the Great Courses site has more info!
disclaimer: Many criticize Ehrman for his non-devotional approach to Christian history.
An excellent beginner's intro to Python is this https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/how-to-program-computer-science-concepts-and-python-exercises.html
Be sure to download the errata for this video course.
I've done many Great Courses, but the one that stands out for me was "The Story of Human Language" by John McWhorter. 18 hours 15 minutes.
Why? Many reasons, but the most important is that it made me understand how people are related, not just by ancestry, but by language family. The course is fascinating on so many levels and for reasons you won't expect.
https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/story-of-human-language.html
YouTube
Thread on the same topic from r/learnprogramming
At most difficult, it would come down to buying a textbook and following along with a course recorded on YouTube. That way you could do homework problems in the same (or related) chapter.
edit: If you get stuck on a particular problem, check out r/askmath or r/learnmath. I found those subreddits in the sidebar of r/math.
I'm just finishing up a fantastic lecture series called "Philosophy of Mind: Brains, Consciousness, and Thinking Machines" from The Great Courses, about this very subject: https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/philosophy-of-mind-brains-consciousness-and-thinking-machines.html
Looks like it's on sale right now, but I got my audiobook listening copy from my local library as a digital download.
> I think our education system would substantially benefit from some study of psychology.
Holy hell, and here I thought your first comment on the subject would be the highlight of Reddit comments for this evening. Thank you yet again.
I am like you in this regard. It's rather baffling to me that there's not a hint of this in our normal education. I think people and society would benefit immensely from education on the fallibility of our brains.
For anyone even remotely interested in learning about unconscious biases and the fallibility of our brains I can wholeheartedly recommend a series of Lectures by Professor Steven Novella.
Your Deceptive Mind: A Scientific Guide to Critical Thinking Skills
Check out “Great Courses”. Audible worked with the Teaching Company and the Smithsonian to collect lectures from pretty all the major academic subjects. They have a section for literature that has lectures about “the classics” but more specially about great works in various genres or notable authors. I’m not sure how cheap you can find them for, but I think their worth it.
This may not be what you are looking for, but I've taken a couple of classes from Great Courses. They are not cheap, but I've been very pleased with the music history courses I've taken. I have not taken any of the math courses. They have a couple of courses on formal logic and proofs.
La verdad es que no lo leí pero "El fin del trabajo" es bastante famoso.
Pero más actual, cuando hoy se habla de "Universal Income" va por ese lado.
Ahora pensando en como yo llegué a las opiniones que tengo hoy creo que empecé por acá:
https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/thinking-about-capitalism.html
También hay una versión libro. Que no he leído.
The Great Courses are all very high quality lectures. They go our of their way to find college professors who really know what they are talking about.
While I have found them all to be entertaining, they go into a lot of depth. Where the old History channel would spend an hour or two, they spend 6 to 18 hours on the topic.
The subscription site is video only, but you can also buy the lectures (video or audio-only) from https://www.thegreatcourses.com. All courses have 100% money back guarantee, but of the dozen courses I bought only one was bad enough to return. And if you ever lose or damage a CD/DVD, they'll replace it free of charge as long as its still in print.
Don't buy a course unless it is on sale; the price difference is 70% or more. Then again, with the new subscription service being so cheap I don't know why anyone would want to buy the lectures.
https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/building-great-sentences-exploring-the-writer-s-craft
The book (by Brooks Landon) I mentioned in my reply is the companion course to this. It's a fantastic course.
Yuss sir definitely. Critical thinking necessary, especially in this disinformation and misinformation age.
The part of Egypt they mostly likely were in was the Delta region which is an extremely wet region and we don't have many records from that region in general since it was much more humid. The records we do have are typically from the southern regions that were much dryer. It says Mud Bricks in Exodus so it would make sense for it to be delta. Not saying it proves anything cause there still is very little but there's reasonable doubt for why there wouldn't be good record of the Hebrews. Along with the Egyptians being notorious for erasing embarrassing moments from their historical records.
Theres a fantastic lecture series from Great Courses on Ancient Egypt! https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/history-of-ancient-egypt
> The Great Courses
I've loved every single one of the Robert Greenberg ones I've listened to. He is just so enthusiastic and manages to explain everything in dummytalk that I can follow.
This one is a brilliant place to start for anyone who wants to learn about classical music. And why you shouldnt call it classical music.
Take an online course https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/joy-of-science
They have this on a monthly subscription service for about $10/mo. You asked for a free cookie and get a lifetime supply of gourmet food.
Thank you! That sounds right up my alley. I've actually been looking for something on the Ancient World.
>Which Great Courses series did you watch?
This was the first series I listened to (I listened through Audible, but I see that there are also videos): https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/early-middle-ages
If you like that, there are two more: on the High Middle Ages and the Late Middle Ages. I found the first one to be the best!
im not native english speaker, but i live in us for something like 20 years, anyways my native is super rusty, my english will never be ideal. i enjoy speaking my native language but is actually more difficult for me. but hey for some my english won’t be pure enough ever. and that’s where crazy lives. i went thru this couple months ago https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/story-of-human-language makes you realize how pretentious people are about languages.
I wondered that because the confusing word 'paradigm' used with 'Kuhn' was the reason I listened to an audiobook on the flaws of scientific method.
After checking your comment history and being convinced that you are the real deal, not an eloquent bot, I have a genuine doubt that I hope you clarify. I have tried to google it but I haven't met with success.
What did Wittgenstein mean by the quote:
>Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of our language.
Is he saying that language, if used imprecisely, can delude us but philosophy helps us avoid the trap?
But doing philosophy also requires some language, right? You can't use math to philosophize. That "by means of" phrase is confusing.
You could buy him a class on something like The Great Courses. There are some fairly inexpensive ones. In the same vein, but for free, you could look for virtual (since going online they've been all ages) Astronomy on Tap events and make an evening of it.
This is my favorite course on the Earth's history. Wait till it goes on sale, which it does several times a year. I think it's $60 when it's on sale and worth every penny. You can also get his book, The Story of Earth.
Alexa Donne did a video for this.
My son who is an aspiring author likes watches the videos from The Great Courses.
https://www.thegreatcourses.com/
He has so far watched:
Writing Great Fiction
How to Write Best selling Fiction
Writing Great Essays
Ok, I'll try again but attempt to be more helpful this time. I found this series of lectures to be life-changing when I found myself thinking in ways similar to what I perceive in your comments. It seems like you have an inquisitive mind but are falling into a few common traps that you can learn to think around.
It's not just called Turkey, it is Turkey and it is as Turkish as it gets.
It has had Ottoman Turks and Seljuks for many centuries, during and before that it was Romans, during and before that Greeks and Hellenistic Greeks, during and before that Persians, during and before that Hittites-Phrygians-Lydians, during and before that Assyrians-Akkadians and it goes further. This area was civilised extremely early and written records don't extend that far.
And these are just the main players, there's a ton of other interjections like Jews, Mongols, Crusaders, Arabs, Norsemen, Slavs etc.
There's an excellent great course on the history of this peninsula called Great Ancient Civilizations of Asia Minor.
We adopted a rescue Aussie a few months back, and by far the best resource for us has been Dog Training 101 from Great Courses. I really appreciate that it's evidence-based and also very practical.
As someone who was raised on Christian science, my advice is two things.
Let's start with how to grasp what is or isn't science with the book by Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. This book has changed so many minds it should be listed on the sidebar.
Next, the series that worked for me was "Theory of Evolution: A History of Controversy". I found it for free at my local library so don't think you have to pay for it. It isn't a hard science conversation, but more of a timeline of thought and the evolution of that thought for the past few thousand years. Provides a thought provoking set of lectures. Be careful though because I know it made me angrier and angrier the more I learned and realized how much I had been lied to.
Lastly, I would go to the local library and talk to a librarian. They can understand exactly where you are in your thinking and then prescribe a great book. Dawkins has a wide variety of books for different science levels so give him a go.
This one form the teaching company: Will to power
https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/will-to-power-the-philosophy-of-friedrich-nietzsche.html
Thank you for being polite. So often I end up getting a lot of hate from folks when I point these things out.
This is a good place to begin; a Jewish Rabbi/scholar has an open course on the development of the Old Testament.
Rabbi Professor at Yale Discusses development of Old Testament
This course is especially interesting, though you would need to take a subscription to the Great Courses in order to watch the videos. Great Courses Lecture Series Nag Hammadi texts
I would also recommend reading Gnosis by Dan Merkur to get a good idea of mystical practices by different groups across time. It’s more tangential to the topic of development of Catholicism, but since you seem open minded I think you might appreciate the study of mysticism and it’s relation to religious teachings across time and space.
Aside from these sources, I don’t have more handy references. I’ve been reading on these topics for years now and it’s become rather difficult to remember everything I’ve read. The best approach that I can recommend is to read history books, read the works of the major doctors of the church, and read the Bible without religious expectations, especially the gospels that present Jesus and his words. That last one is difficult, I admit, because we are all, for the most part, carrying prejudices about what the Bible says. What really helped me is to read the books and try to put it into my own words. Once I started doing that I was amazed at how... fiery... Jesus is.