A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle https://www.amazon.com/New-Earth-Awakening-Purpose-Selection...
Agreed. Life-changing if you're in the right place for it.
Ask HN: Mind bending books to read and never be the same as before?
101–110 of 747 posts
Re: Ask HN: Mind bending books to read and never be the same as before?
#102Lying by Sam Harris
Re: Ask HN: Mind bending books to read and never be the same as before?
#103The Tibetan Book of the Dead
Re: Ask HN: Mind bending books to read and never be the same as before?
#104I would recommend Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter if you haven't already read it.
I am of the generation that fixated upon GEB as some sort of deep wisdom, and I have a nostalgic fondness for it. I certainly credit it for sparking a lot of my curiosity about Lisp.
But in hindsight, its value to me was not in the content of the book, as much as in communicating the kind of delight and curiosity around programming that has kept me interested in the subject since 1972 or so.
Other books have done the same thing for me, most notably everything by Martin Gardner, Raymond Smullyan's books about logic puzzles that sneak an education past you, and William Poundstone's books about Game Theory and Computability.
In a way, I'm delighted that this book is not sitting as the number one thread so far. Not because it's terrible, but because new generations ahve written great books, and they deserve mention too.
Re: Ask HN: Mind bending books to read and never be the same as before?
#105"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…
Greg Egan's an impressively good author even though he's writing about the kinds of sci-fi setups that usually come hand-in-hand with bad dialogue and poor characters. I actually think Quarantine is my favorite of his that I've read so far, though the sci-fi parts are less strong than Permutation City, some of it's philosophical aspects about identity feel like they're more immediately relevant.
Also take a trip to his website [1] if you haven't yet.
Re: Ask HN: Mind bending books to read and never be the same as before?
#106Jed McKenna - Spiritual Enlightenment
Re: Ask HN: Mind bending books to read and never be the same as before?
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
I didn't get that impression at all. What I walked away from was a feeling of dire unease at the popularity of Dawkins' opinion that human beings are machines that can be broken and manipulated by their environment, and that social scientists can exploit this fact to their own ends, in industry, culture and war. It may be 'true' inasmuch as the fact that applying his theories give predictable results, but even the mo…
I don't know this author, and I feel this discussion may turn to a flame, so sorry to put oil on the fire, but I'm quite perplexed by your argument. For all I know, maybe you're right, but it sounds a lot like you're rejecting a scientific argument because you don't like the result, which is what science has always had to fight against from the beginning. Maybe you could articulate your objection based on science rat…
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Re: Ask HN: Mind bending books to read and never be the same as before?
#108Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker. Maybe not mindbending, but a must read for us engineers prone to burning the midnight oil.
Careful with this one, the content is controversial and considered unscientific: https://guzey.com/books/why-we-sleep/
I stopped halfway through because it smelled fishy. Glad to know there are people who agree and have validated that feeling!
Re: Ask HN: Mind bending books to read and never be the same as before?
#109Listen to an expert analysis of {insert random topic}
(bonus points if you are not very familiar with the topic in question)
AlphaZero teaches Stockfish a lesson in the French Defense https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ebzevCLGbQ
Mississauga: Density Without Urbanism https://granolashotgun.com/2014/01/15/77/
Masked 1: Rise to the Rubedo Stage https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWNPN6PtuUc
Re: Ask HN: Mind bending books to read and never be the same as before?
#110Some of my faves in this vein:
Stranger In A Strange Land
Solaris
The Fall
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Seveneves (a bit silly but definitely fun and will set you to thinking)