Ask HN: Which books have made you introspect? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Which books have made you introspect?

#301

Post by sesteel » Fri, May 11, 2018, 6:37 PM UTC

Balgair wrote: post #259

sesteel wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Godel, Escher, Bach changed my entire world view.

How so? I read it, and though very good with the logic/math, I wasn't as moved. I'd love to know more about your journey. Edit: For me 'Information' by Glieck was very good, as it summed up the logical 'journey of man' as a struggle to refine signal to noise. When interpreting math/logic as such, I was floored and a lot of things made more sense to me.

I read it while in college. It put me into a mental space where I was considering recursion on a universal scale for the first time. I'd never considered, previously, how recursive processes construct everything I see and experience, including my own consciousness. It was the most beautiful idea I'd ever come across and satisfied my need to answer how we came to be.

Re: Ask HN: Which books have made you introspect?

#302

Post by emodendroket » Fri, May 11, 2018, 6:39 PM UTC

cdoxsey wrote: post #266

WhompingWindows wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're a practicing Christian, I don't know many, can you indulge my curiosity? Do you believe in the literal truth of the bible, creationism, the big bang? I am a scientist and I doubt I'd ever be convinced to follow a religion whose followers believe in some stories and myths that are essentially anti-scientific. I don't mean to be harsh or barbed, I'm just saying I'd view the book as a mythological artifact from 2…

Also not the poster, but I'll put in my 2 cents. I believe in inerrancy, which sometimes means literalism, but sometimes doesn't, because it comes down to intent. The Bible isn't a science textbook, so there's room for allegory and hyperbole, but it can only go so far, so some issues, like "was there a real Adam and Eve", or "was there a flood that wiped out all of humanity except Noah and friends" would, in my view,…

I have a much more liberal style, I suppose. I don't really look at Adam and Eve or the Flood as stories which are literally historical events. A question for you: the Bible contains multiple, divergent descriptions of the same events in places (or at least that's how I would see them). How do you reconcile these? Or is that not a problem for the framework you're describing?

Re: Ask HN: Which books have made you introspect?

#303

Post by elcapitan » Fri, May 11, 2018, 6:46 PM UTC

jimhefferon wrote: post #271

elcapitan wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting - those are the books that the "Master and Commander" movie is based on. I liked that movie, is it close to the books?

I enjoyed the movie a great deal I thought it was as true to the series as was realistic for a hollywood enterprise. But I don't think a person would get much sense of the books from the movie, just as a person would not get all that much sense of an Austen from a hollywood version. (BTW, that's why I suggest the second book in the series for a first try. It is much more like the rest of the series than the first boo…

Thanks!

Re: Ask HN: Which books have made you introspect?

#304

Post by dfsegoat » Fri, May 11, 2018, 6:48 PM UTC

sarabande wrote: post #251

zuzuleinen wrote: post #12

I highly recommend 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos. This book gave me the courage to take responsibility in my life and start working towards things which are important for myself. As the author once said, you don't get not to pay a price, you only get what price to pay. It actually gave me the courage to leave Berlin and go back to my country(Romania) which even though is more poor and low in quality of publ…

This book was not worth the hype for me; I read the whole thing, but regret purchasing it. - It sorely needed an editor. Echoing other's sentiments, it could have been - It used a gratuitous amount of Bible quotes, which 1. weren't necessary to make his point, 2. were often referenced as if they were data, and how people actually behave, rather than anecdotes/fiction I got suckered into to buying the book because the…

I won't lie: My first reaction was to say "This is BS" to a lot of what JP writes and talks about - particularly biblical references as an atheist.

But then I realized much of what he is saying is true - and it personally hits my ego in such a way that the reaction is pretty much revulsion/dismissal.

Can it be written more concisely? Probably. But he is an academic afterall...

FWIW: If you enjoy his lecture style / cadence - try his Audiobook version. I would likely have a tough time with reading his book - but the audiobook format delivers like his youtube lectures, which IMO are very well done.

Re: Ask HN: Which books have made you introspect?

#305

Post by edanm » Fri, May 11, 2018, 6:55 PM UTC

gringoDan wrote: post #165

+1 to whoever mentioned Seneca's On the Shortness of Life, or any of the Stoic writings. The Old Man and the Sea. People either love or hate this book, but it had a profound impact on me. The Moral Animal, by Robert Wright. Made me consider how much of human behavior can be explained through evolutionary biology. The Truth, by Neil Strauss. Incredibly vulnerable memoir that will make you reflect on your own relations…

> The Old Man and the Sea.

Could you share how this impacted you? I'm one of the people on whom this book fell flat.

Re: Ask HN: Which books have made you introspect?

#306

Post by JoshMnem » Fri, May 11, 2018, 7:04 PM UTC

zuzuleinen wrote: post #291

JoshMnem wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This[1] is worth reading. "Jordan Peterson's popularity is the sign of a deeply impoverished political and intellectual landscape" [1] https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/03/the-intellectual-we-d...

I'm sorry but the first paragraph is very unfair and not true in my opinion. You can figure out for yourself, watch this debate and tell me if Peterson is the type of person described in the article. https://youtu.be/FmH7JUeVQb8 I promise I'll read your full article beyond the first paragraph :)

I recommend reading the whole article.

Things are busy at work today, but I'll check it out when I have some time. If you could point me to a shorter clip within the almost 2 hours video, I will be more likely to look at it.

Re: Ask HN: Which books have made you introspect?

#307

Post by brickmort » Fri, May 11, 2018, 7:05 PM UTC

aik wrote: post #295

pulkitsh1234 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some reason I am repulsive towards 'self-help' books. I always have a feeling that you just cannot sum up all the things to be "happy" or "content" or whatever in one book. I have seen numerous people who read inspirational quotes/books but the act the opposite way. I feel it is very difficult to change how the internals of a person work, reading a book will definitely push you in the right direction, motivate yo…

If I read a 300 page book and it has even just one sentence that somehow speaks to me and makes me introspect or reconsider or change some mental model I have, I absolutely find it with while. Sometimes the one encounter is enough to cause change (though sometimes it takes a while for my brain to change/adapt), and sometimes it takes multiple encounters with the idea. IMO any book can be categorized as "self-help" -…

This is how I feel about this book (12 Rules for Life). I was actually just thinking about his 'Tell The Truth' chapter just last night. It's such a simple concept, but if you find yourself lying, even to yourself, you find that ultimately it snowballs into a worse problem in the future. Even if this is all I got out of the book (which it isn't) it's absolutely worth the read.

Re: Ask HN: Which books have made you introspect?

#308

Post by russnewcomer » Fri, May 11, 2018, 7:09 PM UTC

WhompingWindows wrote: post #200

emodendroket wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I went from being curious to read it for the reasons you mentioned to being a practicing Christian. I just ended up finding it a compelling sort of moral system to think about the universe, I suppose. It took getting to the New Testament before I thought of it as anything more than a curiosity, though. There are definitely parts that are a slog, especially in the Old Testament, and just picking it up and readin…

You're a practicing Christian, I don't know many, can you indulge my curiosity? Do you believe in the literal truth of the bible, creationism, the big bang? I am a scientist and I doubt I'd ever be convinced to follow a religion whose followers believe in some stories and myths that are essentially anti-scientific. I don't mean to be harsh or barbed, I'm just saying I'd view the book as a mythological artifact from 2…

Obviously, there are many different ways to view the Bible and Christianity. As another practicing Christian, I'd say that the most important thing to understand that the Bible is about the revelation of Jesus, and the book is through and through about revealing his nature, character, and way of interacting with the world. If you talk to or read most orthodox theologians (and by this I mean, not 'church leaders' but those who study and write about belief and doctrine and are generally accepted as largely non-heretical), you'll find a surprisingly wide view of the 'literal' nature of scripture, but a significant agreement on the essential nature of the teachings of Jesus.

The moral side of the Bible is a side affect of growing closer to, and following the teachings of, Jesus.

I'd also say that one of the things that non-fundamentalist Christians have done particularly poorly in popular culture in the last 30 years is discuss how the Bible we have was written to a different culture than ours, and taking it 'literally' means stripping it from much of the intended meaning. You asked about creationism and the big bang, here's a book you could possibly be interested in, by a scholar of Genesis, discussing how the text of Genesis is not intended as a scientific document. It's called The Lost World of Genesis One, by John Walton (https://www.amazon.com/Lost-World-Genesis-One-Cosmology/dp/0...).

Re: Ask HN: Which books have made you introspect?

#309

Post by edanm » Fri, May 11, 2018, 7:10 PM UTC

gorbachev wrote: post #216

Principles by Ray Dalio. I worked, somewhat briefly and largely unsuccessfully, at Bridgewater Associates several years ago and while I strongly disagree with the utopian description of BW as a bastion of egoless radical transparency and all the great things that are supposed to come out of that sort of an environment, the book and the principles behind it are really enlightening. I do honestly think if all workplace…

I'd love to hear more about your time at Bridgewater Associates, if you can share. (Principles is one of my favorite books.)

Re: Ask HN: Which books have made you introspect?

#310

Post by zuzuleinen » Fri, May 11, 2018, 7:13 PM UTC

JoshMnem wrote: post #306

zuzuleinen wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry but the first paragraph is very unfair and not true in my opinion. You can figure out for yourself, watch this debate and tell me if Peterson is the type of person described in the article. https://youtu.be/FmH7JUeVQb8 I promise I'll read your full article beyond the first paragraph :)

I recommend reading the whole article. Things are busy at work today, but I'll check it out when I have some time. If you could point me to a shorter clip within the almost 2 hours video, I will be more likely to look at it.

You can watch anytime at least the first 20 minutes. I just wanted to give a counter example to the first paragraph of the article which describe him like an opaque person who doesn't listen. I particularly like this debate because it shows he can have a decent conversation with a well known atheist and he actually listens to him. That's why I find the first paragraph really off which makes me having some doubts about the whole article. But I will read it nevertheless.