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Ask HN: What book changed your life?

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Re: Ask HN: What book changed your life?

#371
post #360
post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Strangly, Neal Stephenson's " Cryptonomicon" ... The idea that something so profoundly good can exist for people like us, convinced me to read only very high quality literature of all kinds and sci-fi of only the highest kind. Also made me give up watching TV/web series to a large degree. I don’t compromise with the quality of entertainment that I consume anymore. I consume only the best and most desired things. I…

Sorry, the author is George Leonard. My bad. "Best", and "most desired" mean- I am not going to compromise with my choices for what is considered by others as worthy. I will only consume what I want- what things best fit me- choice wise, genre wise, level wise, and so on.

Thanks for sharing your approach. Good luck in your efforts.

Re: Ask HN: What book changed your life?

#372

None, seriously. Sorry for not giving any inspiration. I have only read technical books like Static/Dynamics mechanics, TCP/IP, Material Science, mostly engineering stuff etc. Because I wouldn't want much reading about someone else's opinion or view of truth. People may find they are useful for learning broad spectrum of perspective, but I find that they all fall into limited set of views that I never be surprised to…

Just finished taking a shower, I came up with a book that made significant impact on my life. When I was in high school, I saw my close friend carrying a robotic book around since he was into robotic competition, it woke me up from just singing some rap songs. I was like .. I had to get into something cool in sci-math field, then that day I was in computer class that taught Microsoft Office stuff and save work in floppy disk. At that time I just know programming exists but had no idea how it actually works. I reached out teacher and asked "please teach me programming", he said like .. nah getting good at Office stuff I taught you first. That's fair but I wanted to be as cool as my (robotic) friend. I went to a book shop, picked up a "Programming C" book and also bought "Turbo C++" CD. That is the moment I know what major I was going to get into at university.

So the book that actually probably changed life quite significantly is my friend's robotic book that I didn't read.

Re: Ask HN: What book changed your life?

#373

First and foremost: The Bible. Not the watered down "everybody goes to heaven" theology that most people subscribe to, but rather an evidence based approach that uses the Bible to interpret itself as it was designed to do. Secondarily, this book saved my life in the sense that it helped me understand my depression, a clinical depression so deep that my psychologist had never seen such a thing previously: Get Out of Y…

The "only thing" worth reading from the The Bible are the "Wisdom Books". Robert Alter's translation The Wisdom Books: Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes: A Translation with Commentary is pretty good.

Re: Ask HN: What book changed your life?

#374

Non-violent Communication, by Marshall Rosenberg. It taught me so much about how to empathize with someone and genuinely listen to what they're saying. It's a bunch of very straightforward advice that I would never have gotten to on my own and which is _really_ hard to put into practice, but so worth it when you do.

This one changed my life also. The diverse personalities and foreign cultures we all experience as "other" can be confusing--and for me, seemed to have no core theory that could broadly guide my interactions with people. Non-violent Communication helped me to understand there is a shared underpinning to the experience of being human--that emotions are fundamental, and that there are some universal human needs. From t…

Very well put. Thanks for sharing your experience!

Re: Ask HN: What book changed your life?

#375
post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nihilism then?”. The Bible unabashedly says “yes, if you don’t have God” I am not trying to argue theology here, just giving another perspective. I was raised an an observant Catholic household, and I went every week from ages 5-19 and missed only a few times due to illness. But I never believed, I just don't have a spiritual bone in my body. None of what you quoted from Solomon about the impermanence of our materi…

None of what you quoted from Solomon about the impermanence of our material acquisitions sounds profound -- it seems obvious. Of course, the answer is always obvious when you've been provided it beforehand. You state that as-if you somehow shipped from the womb knowing wisdom, when in fact that implicit knowledge you take for granted has been lived and transferred by your ancestors and most certainly derived from you…

Let me ask some questions. Do you think Solomon was the first person to realize this, did he come up with this de novo? Or, perhaps, he was also a product of his cultural environment. Is it possible that he has been lionized by the hagiography that surrounds him to make it seem as if nobody had ever had such moral insights until he came along? Do you think it is likely or unlikely that cultures which don't have any Abrahamic tradition have also arrived at the same conclusions?

More importantly, whatever contributions Solomon's wisdom has had on our culture, there are thousands of other competing (and often contradicting) ideas in the milieu. Even if Solomon was the author of the wisdom ascribed to him, it isn't obvious to me that those ideas are at the center of our culture or at the forefront of everyone's thoughts, and so it isn't "obvious [that it has] been provided beforehand."

I can pinpoint when I had my own epiphany. Probably like many people on HN, I did quite well in school. I took standardized tests every year starting in grade 1 and a few weeks later I'd receive a breakdown of what percentile I scored in math, vocabulary, reading, etc, and a combined score. I wouldn't say I had an ego about it, but it was planted in my mind that I was smart and would grow up and do great things: maybe I'd invent something amazing, or discover some deep scientific principle.

Early in high school I had the thought: no matter what I do, it is unlikely that I'll ever be as famous as, say, US President John Tyler, and nobody gives a damn about him. In fact, very few people achieve lasting fame, eg Jesus or Buddha or Isaac Newton. Heck, I don't give a moment's thought about my great grandparents. Each of us is just a ripple in a pond, and as the diameter of our ripple gets larger, its amplitude shrinks. Conceptually, the effects last forever, but only in the most diffuse, indirect manner. Thus my goal became not to do something great that would impress everyone, but to focus on making a positive difference to the people nearest me in space and time; everything else that ripples out of that is gravy.

Why tell this story? Because culturally I had been programmed, and I still see it in full force, that fame and influence are desirable goals. Look at how many people try to become influencers on social media, or do the dumbest things on youtube or tiktok to get eyes to look at them. Yet despite that programming, that thought really changed my life philosophy. Just a realization to a sheltered 14 or 15 year old, so I'm sure there are many people who have had similar thoughts.

Re: Ask HN: What book changed your life?

#376

Debt: The First 5000 Years It’s difficult for me to put in words the influence the book had and continues to have on me. QED by Richard Feynman is a close second. It pulled a veil off from my eyes, made me really understand what science is all about.

QED +1. Legendary book, changed the way I look at the world forever.

Re: Ask HN: What book changed your life?

#377

Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid Introduced me to the beauty of logic and its limits. Also gave me solid mathematical thinking foundations. Pro tip: Try listening to Bach while you read about Bach.

This. This book is so much more than math. It's about using multidisciplinary approach to tackle a series of deep philosophical problems. The math-inclined crowd here unsurprisingly sees inspiration from the math perspective (which is a perfectly fine and valid view), but there's also a lot of ideas from art (Escher), music (Bach), and classic philosophy (both from Western and Eastern traditions!), not to mention as a book written in the 1970s, it is (AFAICT) well-informed in the a state of art theory of computation and bioinformatics.

The sheer breadth and depth of understanding from the author blew my mind away. I suspect my attitude towards cross-disciplinary learning was probably reinforced by reading the book.

Re: Ask HN: What book changed your life?

#378
post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kingkiller moves the fantasy fiction genre past its LOTR-esque roots. Every word is a joy to read. I haven't read anything else that brings as big a smile on my face. Kingkiller's literary qualities are head and shoulders above anything in fantasy fiction. Every word, every metaphor and every description is chosen with care, so as to convey the exact emotion that the author wants you to feel. I hope the final book co…

I found Rothfuss comically bad as a writer and Kingkiller #1 nothing more than superficial wish fulfillment aimed at teens that were bullied at school. Not that Sanderson is much better.

I have routinely seen this opinion, and I liken it to saying that Shawshank Redemption is a prison escape story.

In KKC, the reader is an observer, where the main character unreliably narrates their journey in 1st person to someone else as the young MC would have perceived it. The POV is central how you perceive the story. KKC never clicks if taken at face value. Kvothe is portrayed as a clumsy prodigy every step of the way. From the way he projects his insecurities onto his female counterpart to the chasm between how he perceives himself and how others perceive him. Young Kvothe is a mess, and old Kvothe knows it.

I can't imagine any serious reader who'd put themselves in Kvothe's shoes. KKC is not a hero story. The reader is actively discouraged against taking Kvothe's self-image as truth. His life is a disaster. Kvothe is closer to Forrest Gump or Icarus, than a Mary Sue.

IMO, it is unfair to criticize it from outside of the context that it exists in. "KKC is not grimdark enough for my liking", is stylistic preference. It isn't a shortcoming of the book that same way that "Queen's lyrics are too simple" is not a shortcoming of Queen.

Re: Ask HN: What book changed your life?

#379

Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid Introduced me to the beauty of logic and its limits. Also gave me solid mathematical thinking foundations. Pro tip: Try listening to Bach while you read about Bach.

I think what you get out of this book really depends on where you are intellectually when you approach it. I read this book decades ago while in college and it helped me conceptualize a recursive universe; thus, how complexity comes from simplicity. It was a mind blowing experience where I wasn't able to sleep for days as my mind raced to make sense of it all.

Ultimately, the ideas I formulated while reading this book set the foundation for my understanding of the universe in general. It gave me a mental model that has served me well for over 20 years and freed my mind to wonder about other things.

Re: Ask HN: What book changed your life?

#380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m so excited by this comment. 1) As gp said, the historical grammatical hermeneutic is the way to go for interpretation. And 2) the book of Ecclesiastes is definitely a beautiful way to stay grounded. Just the mere fact that Solomon, the author, had access to everything his age could offer and still ended up writing Ecclesiastes Ch 11 is mind blowing. Everything passes away. This world, your legacy, your wealth, me…

> Nihilism then?”. The Bible unabashedly says “yes, if you don’t have God” I am not trying to argue theology here, just giving another perspective. I was raised an an observant Catholic household, and I went every week from ages 5-19 and missed only a few times due to illness. But I never believed, I just don't have a spiritual bone in my body. None of what you quoted from Solomon about the impermanence of our materi…

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