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Ask HN: What's a book that fundamentally altered your mental models

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Re: Ask HN: What's a book that fundamentally altered your mental models

#31

Post by kelseyfrog »

The Social Construction of Reality[1][2] provided me a method of examining the things that I assumed where obviously true and describes the process by which human ideas are transformed from beliefs into real tangible objects and natural truths. It forever changed the way I look at claims of human behavior framed as universal laws and my ears pearl up whenever I hear phrases like reality, truth, and nature used to justify personal beliefs.

1. Berger, Peter L., and Thomas Luckmann. The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. Penguin Books, 1991.

2. https://amstudugm.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/s...

Re: Ask HN: What's a book that fundamentally altered your mental models

#32

Post by mikert89 »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #31

The Social Construction of Reality[1][2] provided me a method of examining the things that I assumed where obviously true and describes the process by which human ideas are transformed from beliefs into real tangible objects and natural truths. It forever changed the way I look at claims of human behavior framed as universal laws and my ears pearl up whenever I hear phrases like reality, truth, and nature used to jus…

I read this book too young, and it ultimately dismantled a lot of beliefs I had, which ended up being a net negative effect on my life. Sometimes you shouldnt look behind the curtain

Re: Ask HN: What's a book that fundamentally altered your mental models

#33

Post by kelseyfrog »

mikert89 wrote: post #32
kelseyfrog wrote: post #31

The Social Construction of Reality[1][2] provided me a method of examining the things that I assumed where obviously true and describes the process by which human ideas are transformed from beliefs into real tangible objects and natural truths. It forever changed the way I look at claims of human behavior framed as universal laws and my ears pearl up whenever I hear phrases like reality, truth, and nature used to jus…

I read this book too young, and it ultimately dismantled a lot of beliefs I had, which ended up being a net negative effect on my life. Sometimes you shouldnt look behind the curtain

I read it at 36. How old were you when you read it?

I'm sorry. It sounds like it fundamentally altered your perspective but that's not necessarily a good thing. How have you lived after reading it? I'm genuinely curious and hope you're willing to share.

Re: Ask HN: What's a book that fundamentally altered your mental models

#35

Post by chuankl »

Probability Theory: The Logic of Science by ET Jaynes was the book that made statistics and probability theory finally make sense to me. Before reading this book, I was already familiar with Bayesian probability, having finished (among other books) The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver, but Jaynes took everything to a whole new level. Probability is not an objective measure of likelihood—it is a subjective measure of incomplete information. This seems like a small shift in perspective, but it is much more profound than that, and you have to read the book to understand it.

The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement by Eliyahu M Goldratt opened my eyes to process optimization. It is nominally about process optimization in a manufacturing plant, but so many of the lessons can be applied to other domains, such as software development. (And also about life in general, how to think about what matters and what doesn't.) It is a bit dated now; for example The Principles of Product Development Flow offers a much more systematic treatment of the topic. But I think The Goal remains the best intro to process and systems thinking.

Re: Ask HN: What's a book that fundamentally altered your mental models

#38

Post by leobg »

dmitrygr wrote: post #13

Atlas Shrugged. Downvote at will, but I’ll die on this hill. It has some issues, sure, but it should be mandatory reading.

+1

And Nietzsche. What is basically what Rand’s novels were based on. Too bad she fell for the “Will to Power” hoax.

Re: Ask HN: What's a book that fundamentally altered your mental models

#39

Post by rzerowan »

hyperdimension wrote: post #28
rzerowan wrote: post #9

Watership Down by Richard Adams

Is it that good? I quite liked The Plague Dogs. He writes with a nice flowery style.

Yeah its a must recommend from me , worldbuilding is very immersive and the characters are A+. Havent read Plague Dogs - will put it on my List. Ta
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