The origins of virtue by Matt Ridley. A good follow up to the selfish gene. Changed my thinking regarding altruism.
Ask HN: What's a book that fundamentally altered your mental models
41–50 of 54 posts
Re: Ask HN: What's a book that fundamentally altered your mental models
#42Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding by David Hume
Multiple books from both the Torah, and Old and New Testaments of various versions of the Bible
Gomorra by Roberto Saviano
Re: Ask HN: What's a book that fundamentally altered your mental models
#43Probability 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…
The Goal was such a fun read, the solution is always evident in hindsight but I found myself having small "aha" moments over and over.
Re: Ask HN: What's a book that fundamentally altered your mental models
#44Made to Stick by Chip & Dan Heath, and Influence by Cialdini are classics for a reason. Influence in particular made it shockingly clear how our environment shapes not only our decision process, but our personality.
Re: Ask HN: What's a book that fundamentally altered your mental models
#45The Demon-Haunted World, by Sagan.
I read it during a journey that ended up leading me out of religion. That book showed me so clearly how strange it is to believe in supernatural events.
Re: Ask HN: What's a book that fundamentally altered your mental models
#46Six thinking hats, taught me how to structure my thoughts by wearing multiple hats where hats are perspective
Re: Ask HN: What's a book that fundamentally altered your mental models
#47The Bible. Through it, I see the connection from the fall of man, the redemption of the cross and the future return of the King to restore all things. I also see connection from wisdom shared 2-3 thousand years ago through the Psalms and Proverbs. This has rewired my understanding of how ancient men and women were pretty awesome and got me over chronological snobbery.
Re: Ask HN: What's a book that fundamentally altered your mental models
#48Selfish Gene, of course. There is no self. We are but pre-programmed propagation vectors.
I'd say similar stuff, maybe The Moral Animal more for me, how things like morality also come from evolution.
Also the Singularity stuff though I'm not sure how to pick an individual book - maybe Singularity Is Near by Kurzweil and Robot by Moravec. About the future after we get past the propagation vector stuff.
Re: Ask HN: What's a book that fundamentally altered your mental models
#49Atlas Shrugged. Downvote at will, but I’ll die on this hill. It has some issues, sure, but it should be mandatory reading.
Atlas Shrugged is a bit of a slog, but the ideas are brilliant.
Re: Ask HN: What's a book that fundamentally altered your mental models
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I read it when I was 15/16, along with "beyond good and evil" by nietzsche. I grew up in a religious house hold, and it really brought alot of things into question. Mostly lead to a many year long existential crisis. I also felt isolated from my peers, as I was reading these books and supporting secondary academic texts. My day to day thought process was "different". I did fall into something I would consider to be like mental masochism, where I actively tried to stretch (or tear down) my psychology and understanding using these texts.
I am now actually 36, and I don't know that deep philosophy, while some of it true, actually had a positive impact on my life.