Did you understand every sentence in the book, "In It Together"? If not, what part did you first not understand?

[Scott]

'We fight together not merely as evolutionarily programmed robot-like sympathetic social humans desperately seeking to avoid pain, discomfort, and death.' (losing it. looking to next sentence for clarification)
'Granted, those qualities of our human nature do certainly play a role in our deeper and more spiritual war.' (lost. end of paragraph)

We fight together not merely as humans but as... what? (this is a cliffhanger in my mind lol any guidance welcome)

Hi, Anna,

I think you are misreading a "but" in there. There is no 'but' in that sentence.

To make the sentence more clear, you can take out the phrase "evolutionarily programmed robot-like".

Then the sections reads as follows:

'The common struggle this book will show goes much deeper.

We fight together not merely as sympathetic social humans desperately seeking to avoid pain, discomfort, and death. Granted, those qualities of our human nature do certainly play a role in our deeper and more spiritual war.

Nonetheless, in addition to our [shared] bodily human fight against pain, death, and discomfort, we also fight for something. Something deeper, something more fundamental, something one can call spiritual.

Is that more clear?


In any case, I have just now updated my version of manuscript slightly to make the above changes so that it will be more readable and understandable in future edition. So thank you for bringing this to my attention!

[Scott]

Hello
I was re-reading and realized I did not understand this part completely, the first time through; thank you.

That is not a reference to some kind of philosophical metaphysical dualism. Rather, the truths in this book are agreeable to metaphysical dualists and monists alike. One could even argue that the differences between most forms of dualism and monism are merely semantics. In fact, some philosophers argue that all philosophy is just word games.

Regardless, those are not arguments for this book. Rather, this duality is a conceptual duality, not a metaphysical duality.

You are not the only one!

An earlier poster already asked about that, and so I explained what I meant by in more detail in this reply.

I'll also make a note to add some clarification to that paragraph in a future edition of the book.

[Jack King 2]

This is the first for me

For those of us who find ourselves on the luckier side of this “tale of two cities”, starving children epitomize a much larger They. It is the They that suffer most.

[Sugar Rush]

First, I do not consider myself a philosopher although I do enjoy reading the philosophical positions of different people. So, while I understood the book mostly because of the simple English employed most times, I had to pause to wonder if what I feel the author means may be the same thing with what the author actually meant. Understanding as it was was not my issue.

[Scott]

For those of us who find ourselves on the luckier side of this “tale of two cities”, starving children epitomize a much larger They. It is the They that suffer most.

This would be an alternative way of saying it:

For the roughly 50% of us who are wealthier than most other humans, starving children epitomize those who find themselves in the bottom 50%.

In yet other words, children who slowly and painfully starve to death are an epitomizing example of the 50% of humans on this planet who suffer more than average.

Does that help clarify what I meant?

[Chinemezu Okafor]

I really enjoyed this book. I saw the world in a whole new light. As regards understanding every sentence in this book, I believe I did understand them. But the way I understood them might be different from the way other readers out there perceive them.

[ahassan_96]

I can only describe this book in one word, inspiring! Honestly, there wasn't a single part of this book that came to me as a misunderstanding. The author tried to put everything into perspective by relating to actual experiences we often come across. This is one of the best philosophical books I've read, and I feel uplifted to be part of the experience.