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Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?

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271–280 of 399 posts

Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?

#271

Dropping Ashes on the Buddha https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/152640.Dropping_Ashes_on... Paraphrasing what one reviewer said on GR, it's a good read if you are taking life too seriously, or, the complete opposite. I didn't get it the first time I read it. I do find myself going back to the riddles and the poems in the essays now and then when I feel I'm stuck, blocked, or trapped in a loop. It made me ... more hu…

Just an add on: kong-an and koans are similar things. Kong-an is the Chinese and Korean pronunciation of koan.

It means "public question" literally but is traditionally used in contexts of Buddhism

Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?

#272
Spinoza's "Ethics". It was one of the first efforts to apply mathematical logic to philosophy (Wittgenstein borrowed a lot from it), and to provide an axiomatic model of emotion. Very roughly, it took a two pronged approach to illustrate there is no objective logical foundation for differentiating between "me" and "not me": firstly, by showing that, given determinism, everyone/thing is part of a single unalterable process, and secondly, by showing that there is no single objective standard for drawing the line between a thing and the things around it. (He doesn't deal with nondeterminism, but most of the conclusions could be mapped directly to a system containing a mix of nondeterminism and determinism, as adding nondeterminism cannot "increase" moral responsibility or "self-causation").

In that sense it gave a (comparatively) rigorous argument for the nebulous eastern concept of "oneness". Using this foundation he then makes a logical argument (given his axiomatisation of emotion) for why we should be happy.

It's also the book that made me realise that, even if the jealous Abrahamic God exists, He is not moral. Because due to determinism every action can be traced back to the initial cause, so it doesn't make sense for Him who created the universe to punish or reward people for actions that were ultimately predictable consequences of the universe's creation, which if omniscient he should have foreseen. (And if some things are nondeterministic, this still applies, because somebody cannot gain moral responsibility through decreased determinism).

Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?

#273

Spinoza's "Ethics". It was one of the first efforts to apply mathematical logic to philosophy (Wittgenstein borrowed a lot from it), and to provide an axiomatic model of emotion. Very roughly, it took a two pronged approach to illustrate there is no objective logical foundation for differentiating between "me" and "not me": firstly, by showing that, given determinism, everyone/thing is part of a single unalterable pr…

> there is no objective logical foundation for differentiating between "me" and "not me": firstly, by showing that, given determinism, everyone/thing is part of a single unalterable process, and secondly, by showing that there is no single objective standard for drawing the line between a thing and the things around it.

I don’t see it. Does he address the fact that dozens of other philosophers over the years have argued the opposite?

> ultimately predictable consequences of the universe's creation, which if omniscient he should have foreseen.

Isn’t this just free will? Is that the nondeterminism that the author is ignoring?

Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?

#274

Anthony Trollope's "The Warden." Trollope isn't as well known as Dickens or Austen. I think the emotional intelligence of this book makes up for the fact that nothing much happens. There's a vicar who is old friends with the Bishop. He's made Warden of an Almshouse for old men in the community. The amount of money he's going to get to do basically nothing is embarrassingly large. It's an extremely gentle book about c…

I read “The Way We Live Now” at the height of the first dot com bubble. Amazing. There is truly nothing new under the sun.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?

#275

Not exactly a book, Assessing and Strengthening the Manufacturing and Defense Industrial Base and Supply Chain Resiliency of the United States . (1) It raises some concerns that folks in this forum are probably interested in and could do something about. Things like forcing US companies doing business in China to transfer dual-use technologies, the lack of US suppliers for certain goods, like high tenacity polyester…

It's interesting that all of this is only a problem if China is indeed an/the enemy. In fact mutual dependence is one of the key elements of Europe's narrative since WW2 - "if we all exchange and trade we will not make war against each other."

On the one hand not surprising that a War/Defense-Ministry funded documentary has this underlying premise of 'China is the enemy'. On the other hand we should really wonder: where the hell are we headed and how can we change this trajectory?

Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?

#276

How To Measure Anything [1] by Douglas Hubbard. The basic gist of the book goes something like this: in the real world (especially in a business setting) there are many things which are hard to measure directly, but which we may care about. Take, for example, "employee morale" which matters because it may affect, say, retention, or product quality. Hubbard suggests that we can measure (many|most|all|??) of these thin…

Sounds interesting. I’m sure the book covers this, but isn’t this how you wind up with perverse incentives? Once managers figure out that you’re measuring X as a proxy for Y “thing we actually care about” they’re going to start optimizing for X, with potentially unpleasant results.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?

#277
post #82

Anthony Trollope's "The Warden." Trollope isn't as well known as Dickens or Austen. I think the emotional intelligence of this book makes up for the fact that nothing much happens. There's a vicar who is old friends with the Bishop. He's made Warden of an Almshouse for old men in the community. The amount of money he's going to get to do basically nothing is embarrassingly large. It's an extremely gentle book about c…

A thousand times yes to Trollope, and I think there are a lot of nineteenth-century novelists who are like that (not quite as well known as the biggest names, but absolutely superb). Wilkie Collins ( The Moonstone , The Woman in White ) is another good example from that category.

Dan Simmons’ novel “Drood”, a very fictional account of the relationship between Willkie Collins and Charles Dickens. A fascinating true item I learned from the novel was that Willkie Collins was addicted to laudanum and for many years hallucinated his doppelgänger whom he called ‘ghost Willkie’.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?

#279

Not exactly a book, Assessing and Strengthening the Manufacturing and Defense Industrial Base and Supply Chain Resiliency of the United States . (1) It raises some concerns that folks in this forum are probably interested in and could do something about. Things like forcing US companies doing business in China to transfer dual-use technologies, the lack of US suppliers for certain goods, like high tenacity polyester…

It's interesting that all of this is only a problem if China is indeed an/the enemy. In fact mutual dependence is one of the key elements of Europe's narrative since WW2 - "if we all exchange and trade we will not make war against each other." On the one hand not surprising that a War/Defense-Ministry funded documentary has this underlying premise of 'China is the enemy'. On the other hand we should really wonder: wh…

What happens if Taiwan is invaded? Would the US stay neutral, or at that point would China become an enemy? If the US stays neutral, then who is a friend?

You can only be truly friends with people who share your principles and values. Not all of them, but most or many of them.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best unknown books you have read?

#280

Spinoza's "Ethics". It was one of the first efforts to apply mathematical logic to philosophy (Wittgenstein borrowed a lot from it), and to provide an axiomatic model of emotion. Very roughly, it took a two pronged approach to illustrate there is no objective logical foundation for differentiating between "me" and "not me": firstly, by showing that, given determinism, everyone/thing is part of a single unalterable pr…

Assume non-determinism - this is just pure pragmatism because if the universe is conpletely deterministic, what is the point of even this conversation? It would be immoral for god to create us without free will. If we have free will, we must be able to act immorally, else it's not really free will. So god is in a bind - he has to imbue us with the power to go against his wishes, morally speaking. Immorality in humans is a direct consequence of a moral creator.
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