Ask HN: What are the most thought-provoking books that you have read? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What are the most thought-provoking books that you have read?

#11

Post by thescribe » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 6:41 PM UTC

jseliger wrote: post #2

I can't choose one, but I'd cite: * Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind , for explaining so much personally and culturally so concisely. * Everything on this list: http://jakeseliger.com/2010/03/22/influential-books-on-me-th... . * The Lord of the Rings , for its combination of story, interior drama, and (underrated) political economy. * Blindsight by Peter Watts. * Heart of Darkness by Conrad, who seems more prophet…

I was about to add Blindsight to my own list, but you beat me to it. I think it's the best book with the worst synopsis on the jacket.

Re: Ask HN: What are the most thought-provoking books that you have read?

#12

Post by olau » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 7:13 PM UTC

My field is CS. Clearly undergraduate-level biology books. For instance, try a book on zoology. The multicellular organism is amazing. Think of yourself - a big blob of cooperating cells, each a little complex wonder in itself, originating from just a single self-organizing/self-building cell. And it has all evolved by itself!

Re: Ask HN: What are the most thought-provoking books that you have read?

#13

Post by Udik » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 7:40 PM UTC

My two cents:

The selfish gene by Richard Dawkins - makes you look at living beings as software, and at the world as an immense optimization algorithm.

Permutation City by Greg Egan - the perfectly rational idea that the mind is computable is rife with apparently unsolvable paradoxes.

Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter. Maths, logic, patterns, artificial intelligence, beauty, art and self-referentiality.

Re: Ask HN: What are the most thought-provoking books that you have read?

#14

Post by mindcrime » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 8:31 PM UTC

I'm sure there are many, but a few that jump to mind, in no particular order, and spanning both fiction and non-fiction:

The Selfish Gene - Dawkins

A New Kind of Science - Wolfram

The Singularity is Near - Kurzweil

Gödel, Escher, Bach - Hofstadter

Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies - Hofstadter

Atlas Shrugged - Rand

The Fountainhead - Rand

Nineteen Eighty-Four - Orwell

The Trouble With Physics - Lee Smolin

Time Reborn - Lee Smolin

Ambient Findability - Peter Morville

Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software - Steven Johnson

Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age - Duncan Watts

Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means for Business, Science, and Everyday Life - Albert-laszlo Barabasi

Artificial Life - Steven Levy

The Four Steps To The Epiphany - Steve Blank

The World is Flat - Thomas Friedman

not a book, but the various writings of Douglas Engelbart - http://www.dougengelbart.org/library/library.html

Glasshouse - Charles Stross

Permutation City - Greg Egan

Neuromancer - William Gibson

The Shockwave Rider - John Brunner

The Society of Mind - Marvin Minsky

The Origin of Wealth: The Radical Remaking of Economics and What it Means for Business and Society - Eric Beinhocker

The Black Swan - Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Fooled By Randomness - Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Re: Ask HN: What are the most thought-provoking books that you have read?

#15

Post by mindcrime » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 8:42 PM UTC

Udik wrote: post #13

My two cents: The selfish gene by Richard Dawkins - makes you look at living beings as software, and at the world as an immense optimization algorithm. Permutation City by Greg Egan - the perfectly rational idea that the mind is computable is rife with apparently unsolvable paradoxes. Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter. Maths, logic, patterns, artificial intelligence, beauty, art and self-referentiality.

I think we've swapped notes on a similar thread before, so we may have already talked about this, but let me say that if you liked Permutation City by Egan, you may also like Glasshouse by Charles Stross.

I also "second the motion" in regards to both The Selfish Gene and *Gödel, Escher, Bach".

Re: Ask HN: What are the most thought-provoking books that you have read?

#16

Post by zafka » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 8:43 PM UTC

Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance Godel Escher Bach Time enough for love - Heinlein Illusions -Richard Bach A wrinkle in time Stranger from the depths Sidartha and all the other books by Hess Zen MInd Beginners mind MOre to come

Books by Bradbury Books by asimov

Just starting Antifragile and it might make the list

Re: Ask HN: What are the most thought-provoking books that you have read?

#17

Post by mindcrime » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 8:47 PM UTC

jseliger wrote: post #2

I can't choose one, but I'd cite: * Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind , for explaining so much personally and culturally so concisely. * Everything on this list: http://jakeseliger.com/2010/03/22/influential-books-on-me-th... . * The Lord of the Rings , for its combination of story, interior drama, and (underrated) political economy. * Blindsight by Peter Watts. * Heart of Darkness by Conrad, who seems more prophet…

    http://jakeseliger.com/2010/03/22/influential-books-on-me-that-is

Some good stuff there indeed. The Game, Predictably Irrational, The Mating Mind, and Lord of the Rings stand out to me as excellent suggestions. I'm just now starting book 12 of Jordan's Wheel of Time series, and while I've enjoyed it so far, I'm not sure I'd cite it as "thought provoking". Entertaining, yes, and certainly worth reading, but the series doesn't stand out to me in that way.

Re: Ask HN: What are the most thought-provoking books that you have read?

#18

Post by walterbell » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 9:05 PM UTC

dnr wrote: post #9

walterbell wrote: post #6

Nine Hundred Grandmothers , by R.A. Lafferty (out of print except for "The Books of Sand") Last and First Men , by Olaf Stapledon, free at http://www.feedbooks.com/book/2028/last-and-first-men Accelerando , by Charles Stross, free at http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/accelera... The Doubter's Companion , by John Ralston Saul, http://www.amazon.com/The-Doubters-Companion-Dictionary-Aggr...

If you've read Last and First Men, Lem wrote an review/essay of it: http://dpuadweb.depauw.edu/icronay_web/lem%20stapledon.html (I've read the essay but not the work itself. It's quite thought-provoking itself, like most of Lem's writing.)

Thanks, that was a thought-provoking essay on its own merits. The book itself is worth reading for the relentless pace of socio-techno-cultural change, best experienced as a dramatic deluge rather than exceprts.

Re: Ask HN: What are the most thought-provoking books that you have read?

#19

Post by Udik » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 9:09 PM UTC

mindcrime wrote: post #15

Udik wrote: post #13

My two cents: The selfish gene by Richard Dawkins - makes you look at living beings as software, and at the world as an immense optimization algorithm. Permutation City by Greg Egan - the perfectly rational idea that the mind is computable is rife with apparently unsolvable paradoxes. Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter. Maths, logic, patterns, artificial intelligence, beauty, art and self-referentiality.

I think we've swapped notes on a similar thread before, so we may have already talked about this, but let me say that if you liked Permutation City by Egan, you may also like Glasshouse by Charles Stross. I also "second the motion" in regards to both The Selfish Gene and *Gödel, Escher, Bach".

> we may have already talked about this..

Not that I remember. Thank you, I took note!

Re: Ask HN: What are the most thought-provoking books that you have read?

#20

Post by keeringplastik » Sat, Oct 03, 2015, 10:22 PM UTC

"Chaos",James Gleick

Maybe not the best book for understanding chaos theory, but I have not stopped seeing stochastic patterns and applying concepts of fractal geometry to things I come across in life as I attempt to wrap my mind around some of the deeply complex phenomena in the universe. Whether being enraptured by the flitting and fluttering of a curtain in a breeze, or in observing the fundamental structure of a trees growth and branching. The whole concept of the poincare section completely blew my mind open, even though the math was well over my head. The book stunned my feeble mind. Even though it has been about 15 years, no scientifically centered book has resonated as strongly since.

As an aside: GEB has come up so often it has reminded me that it was on my short list of books to read once upon a time, alas, before the internet stole my time.