82: The Wrath of Achilles: The Iliad Made You Think

“Like the generations of leaves, the lives of mortal men. Now the wind scatters the old leaves across the earth, now the living timber bursts with the new buds and spring comes round again. And so with men: as one generation comes to life, another dies away.”
Welcome back to another episode of Made You Think! In this episode, Neil, Nat, and Adil continue with the next book on their Great Books Project: The Iliad by Homer. This book explores the themes of fate, gods, and the glory of war. Listen along as we dive in to the stories of the Trojan War centering around the greatest warrior, Achilles.
We cover a wide range of topics including:
The consequences of Achilles' rage and wrath Bicameral mind and the development of consciousness How war and battles were depicted at this point in time  What differentiates us from animals? Why gaining new experiences can expand your viewpoints And much more. Please enjoy, and make sure to follow Nat, Neil, and Adil on Twitter and share your thoughts on the episode.
Links from the Episode:
Mentioned in the show:
Episode 81: The Book of Exodus (0:28) Episode 80: The Book of Genesis (0:39) Riverside (1:18) Clubhouse (1:40) Twitter Held Discussions for $4 Billion Takeover of Clubhouse (2:05) Nat Chat episode featuring Neil (13:21) Bicameral Mentality (26:20) Achilles and Patroclus (55:49)  Nat’s Ethics notes (59:36) Godfather movie (1:09:28) Books Mentioned:
The Pioneers (5:16) The Peloponnesian War (12:13) Prometheus Bound (14:26) The Odyssey (26:16) The Mahabharata (38:21) The Qur'an (56:20) (Book Episode) The Epic of Gilgamesh (57:56) (Book Episode) Infinite Jest (1:06:30) (Book Episode 1) (Book Episode 2) (Nat’s Book Notes) East of Eden (1:09:07) (Nat's Book Notes) The Three-Body Problem (1:10:16) (Nat's Book Notes) Atlas Shrugged (1:12:27) (Book Episode) (Nat's Book Notes) People Mentioned:
David McCullough (5:16)  James Patterson (8:34) Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson (45:04) Jason Momoa (45:18) Russell Crowe (45:33) Brad Pitt (45:50) Tom Hiddleston (46:00) Vladimir Putin (49:57) Joe Biden (50:02) Nassim Taleb (1:06:16) Show Topics:
(6:08) In today's episode, we're discussing The Iliad by Homer, written around 8th century BC. We’ve moved forward ~500-1000 years from where we started on our book list. Make sure to check out our Great Books List and follow along with us as we put out new episodes every 3 weeks!
(11:00) Homer included a lot of data on the ships back then, and The Iliad stores that historical information. There’s some element of using stories to record historical information.
(13:16) Reading about history makes you reflect on the accuracy of the narrative as it could have been written to serve the story they would most like to portray. As we read more of these books written in the same era, we may see some of the same historical events happening and spoken about in different ways, similar to how news outlets report the same events or world issues in much different ways.
(16:29) Very rarely does everyone objectively agree that something or someone is good or bad. Most conflicts will have people on both sides of the coin who have different backgrounds, values, and opinions.
(19:47) These gods are depicted as very human-like, and they do not closely resemble gods in the way that we typically think about gods. They are imperfect, and they also get urges and emotions just like we do.
(21:18) The stories of Achilles and the consequences of rage. Not only does he lose his bride, but also his best friend. On top of that, he loses his honor and dignity. As the story ends, it’s all about how he regains that honor and dignity and is able to move on from his mistakes.
(26:20) Bicameral mind: Humans back then were lacking what we call consciousness today. They heard and obeyed demands they heard in their minds from what they identified as gods. They didn’t hear their own mind as their own thoughts and urges, but rather as gods telling them to do