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Ask HN: Mind bending books to read and never be the same as before?

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Re: Ask HN: Mind bending books to read and never be the same as before?

#651

Post by minhazm423 »

a_bonobo wrote: post #170
a_bonobo wrote: post #140

Social philosophy/psychology, or cultural anthropology, is mind-bending to me. Erich Fromm's The Sane Society - on how society impacts people's mental health, and how to build towards a sane society Fromm's The Art Of Loving - an analysis of different kinds of loves, trying to dispel pop culture's lies about love, and love is actually hard work Ernest Becker's The Denial of Death - on how not our fear, but our comple…

Oh if you can, try looking for similar recommendation threads from communities completely alien to you - law enforcement forums, midwife communities, car mechanics, biologists. HN is very insular in its interests as you can see with many posts here repeating. Midwives' recommended books probably have a higher chance of truly bending your mind into novel directions.

Any good examples of “foreign interest” forums?

Re: Ask HN: Mind bending books to read and never be the same as before?

#652

Post by bloodorange »

abecedarius wrote: post #499
gdubs wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s another great book on Zen called “Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind”. I think what Persig is getting at is “non-judgmental observation”. The ability to look at things with no ego involved, like an absolute beginner — so that you’re mind is open to the solutions that naturally present themselves. Both of these books had a big influence on Phil Jackson — the Bulls basketball coach. His interpretation was to not “force”…

https://www.mit.edu/~xela/tao.html > Prince Wang's programmer was coding software. His fingers danced upon the keyboard. The program compiled without an error message, and the program ran like a gentle wind. "Excellent!" the Prince exclaimed. "Your technique is faultless!" "Technique?" said the programmer, turning from his terminal. "What I follow is Tao -- beyond all techniques! When I first began to program, I woul…

Another legend said something similar in another field: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhvBTy28VJM

Re: Ask HN: Mind bending books to read and never be the same as before?

#653

Post by cloogshicer »

a_bonobo wrote: post #140

Social philosophy/psychology, or cultural anthropology, is mind-bending to me. Erich Fromm's The Sane Society - on how society impacts people's mental health, and how to build towards a sane society Fromm's The Art Of Loving - an analysis of different kinds of loves, trying to dispel pop culture's lies about love, and love is actually hard work Ernest Becker's The Denial of Death - on how not our fear, but our comple…

These are excellent recommendations! Will check out the ones you mentioned that I haven't read yet. Thanks for posting!

Re: Ask HN: Mind bending books to read and never be the same as before?

#654

Post by ebcode »

syndacks wrote: post #182

Discipline and Punish by Michel Foucault fundamentally changed the way I look at things like school and work. Essentially, they're systems of discipline and control masquerading as something very different. Skip all the Malcom Gladwell crap and read some real philosophy. It's hard but rewarding.

I would recommend Madness and Civilization from the same author, in a similar vein. Similar to prisons, society needs hospitals to house the sick, so that the "sane" ones have somewhere they can point to and say, "Those are the sick ones, over there". It's a good argument on distancing one's self from the other, in order to maintain a feeling of superiority.

Re: Ask HN: Mind bending books to read and never be the same as before?

#655

Post by 323454 »

bemmu wrote: post #100

"Permutation City" by Greg Egan is mind-bending in a way similar to The Matrix, except taken up a few notches. Explores the consequences of consciousness being just a pattern. Would it continue if the pattern is paused? Seems yes, since we survive being unconscious. So we move in space and time, but still consciousness feels continuous. What if you pause it, destroy it, recreate it somewhere else. Would it not contin…

I loved the concept in permutation city of simulating your own mind out of order, but I think it would only be possible if we can show that consciousness is a pure function. If consciousness isn't pure and therefore depends on some internal state, then simulating out of order isn't possible because you need to go through all the intermediate states to get the right output.

Re: Ask HN: Mind bending books to read and never be the same as before?

#656

Post by JoeAltmaier »

pftburger wrote: post #487
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, cute, but does it mean anything? Of course the wind moved the flag. Are they all ignorant of physics? No of course not. Its some metaphysical plug about relationships or something. One of those 'one hand clapping' things. I guess the point is to get you to stop overanalyzing. Which I'm doing. But no, I didn't get my mind blown by monks in semantic circles. I guess I'm not ready to be enlightened.

There is no wind there is no flag there are no monks only your mind. Its really not just semantics. Skip the Buddhism and go read Andy Clark's Surfing Uncertainty. Its humorously written, its current science and it'll blow your mind ;)

I thought I understood what 'semantics' meant; that statement makes zero sense with my understanding.

Re: Ask HN: Mind bending books to read and never be the same as before?

#657

Post by whtrbt »

NoodleIncident wrote: post #539
farnsworth wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's either this or another Greg Egan book that has simulated people reprogramming their own consciousness. Changing their thought processes, personal motivations, and memories. I think he goes into some depth on how they can do that safely and what the implications are. One character programs himself to be obsessed with carpentry and spends lifetimes of subjective simulated time trying to craft the perfect table, bu…

Diaspora includes a few examples of this as well. Mathematical discoveries can only be made in the "mines", and people install these mods to make them better at mining, after working through some of the beginner steps unaltered to see if they'd like it. There's also a mod that explicitly prevents you from ever uninstalling it; I don't remember what else it even did, it seemed to spread like a slow virus through the a…

Was it forgetting - memories fading?

Re: Ask HN: Mind bending books to read and never be the same as before?

#658

Post by whtrbt »

farnsworth wrote: post #488
bemmu wrote: post #100

"Permutation City" by Greg Egan is mind-bending in a way similar to The Matrix, except taken up a few notches. Explores the consequences of consciousness being just a pattern. Would it continue if the pattern is paused? Seems yes, since we survive being unconscious. So we move in space and time, but still consciousness feels continuous. What if you pause it, destroy it, recreate it somewhere else. Would it not contin…

It's either this or another Greg Egan book that has simulated people reprogramming their own consciousness. Changing their thought processes, personal motivations, and memories. I think he goes into some depth on how they can do that safely and what the implications are. One character programs himself to be obsessed with carpentry and spends lifetimes of subjective simulated time trying to craft the perfect table, bu…

If it's Permutation City, the character also becomes an entomologist and a skyscraper abseiler for similarly extended periods.

Re: Ask HN: Mind bending books to read and never be the same as before?

#659

Post by grosswait »

For me, The Origin of Consciousness by Julian Jaynes. It has really caused me to look at the world through a new lens. While the book is Jaynes' idea, the evidence he provides is fascinating as are some of the competing views that have originated from this book.

Re: Ask HN: Mind bending books to read and never be the same as before?

#660

Post by yesenadam »

johny115 wrote: post #636
bemmu wrote: post #100

"Permutation City" by Greg Egan is mind-bending in a way similar to The Matrix, except taken up a few notches. Explores the consequences of consciousness being just a pattern. Would it continue if the pattern is paused? Seems yes, since we survive being unconscious. So we move in space and time, but still consciousness feels continuous. What if you pause it, destroy it, recreate it somewhere else. Would it not contin…

Long time ago I read some idea (probably on reddit) from some guy, that was quite similar to this. The idea being is that essentially you can't die. There is no death. If universe is infinitely large and also it keeps restarting itself with big bang and some universe death all over. Then at some point. Right after you die, something exactly as you will be reborn somewhere else. Even if it takes unimaginable amount of…

Not sure how that can be described as not dying, but it sounds like this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_return

"Eternal return (also known as eternal recurrence) is a theory that the universe and all existence and energy has been recurring, and will continue to recur, in a self-similar form an infinite number of times across infinite time or space.

The theory is found in Indian philosophy and in ancient Egypt as well as Judaic wisdom literature (Ecclesiastes) and was subsequently taken up by the Pythagoreans and Stoics [and] Nietzsche..."

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