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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?

#211

Post by nicbou »

mjberg01 wrote: post #127

"Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" by Robert Pirsig takes you deep into the philosophy on what is 'quality'. Once you see it you can't unsee it. A powerful excerpt from the book: 'So the thing to do when working on a motorcycle, as in any other task, is to cultivate the peace of mind which does not separate one’s self from one’s surroundings. When that is done successfully then everything else follows natura…

Despite all the praise it got, I really struggled with that book. I hated it so much that I had to check if I didn't pick the wrong book by accident. I found that it's a very polarising book. It's life-changing for some, and garbage for others.

There were a few insightful passages, but most of the book was pretentious rambling. It was difficult to understand what the author was even trying to say, with his head so far up his butt. It has a promising beginning, but becomes increasingly dense and confusing.

Quality is the ability of a thing to do its job. Chasing the definition of that word doesn't warrant a spiral into insanity.

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

#213

Post by fjfaase »

kryogen1c wrote: post #192

perhaps blasé, but the Tao. it is as simple as it is unknowable, from the highest levels of philosophy down to action-items in your everyday life. the Tao that can be described is not the true Tao, so you must search yourself :) to simply be smarter (but maybe not wiser), the art of learning by josh waitzkin. if you are interested in optimizing anything, why not learn how to optimize optimization?

I wonder if the Tao is so profound as it is interpreted in the West, because the understanding of the text, much lies on the nature of the Chinese language, which is much more about concepts, than about words. For example, the 'the Tao that can be described' part in Chinese consists of only three characters, which when transliterated would read 'way can speak', where for both 'way' and 'speak' the character for tao is used. The remaining part of the sentence also only uses three characters, if I am not mistaken 'not constant(timeless, eternal) way'. See for example: https://www.tao-te-king.org/

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

#214

Post by clairity »

davidgould wrote: post #116

Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon. I feel like it left me subtly but permanently changed, as if seeing through new differently tinted lenses.

that book left me feeling like i’d wrestled a bear to a draw, and it was still staring at me contemplating a round 2.

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

#215

Post by ser13 »

A few that affected me and haven't already been mentioned (in no particular order)

Anything by John Twelve Hawks, but especially The Traveler: his works got me thinking about the role technology plays in the world and especially the balance among surveillance and privacy.

Pure by Linda Kay Klein: perhaps only interesting if you were raised in the Church's purity culture, but this also talks about the role religion plays in society as a whole.

14 Lessons in Yogi Philosophy: really opened my mind to Eastern ideas about living a spiritual life.

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

#216

Post by gdubs »

Someone already mentioned “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”, so I’ll go with something I read last year, Carlo Rovelli’s, “Reality is Not What it Seems.”

I don’t think I really ever grasped the concept of relativity fully until reading that book — at least the aspects of time. [edit: well, not “fully”, I’m sure — but at least a lot more than I have in the past.]

At the same time I read the Dalai Lama’s, “Universe in a Single Atom”, which focuses on his love of science / physics, and was a very good pair to Rovelli’s book. It made me really think about the role of subjectivity in terms of Relativity. It also made me think about life, and consciousness, broadly.

That led to the Dalai Lama’s other book, “A Profound Mind”, which helped me really understand the Buddhist concept of “Emptiness” for the first time.

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

#217

Post by donquichotte »

nicbou wrote: post #211
mjberg01 wrote: post #127

"Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" by Robert Pirsig takes you deep into the philosophy on what is 'quality'. Once you see it you can't unsee it. A powerful excerpt from the book: 'So the thing to do when working on a motorcycle, as in any other task, is to cultivate the peace of mind which does not separate one’s self from one’s surroundings. When that is done successfully then everything else follows natura…

Despite all the praise it got, I really struggled with that book. I hated it so much that I had to check if I didn't pick the wrong book by accident. I found that it's a very polarising book. It's life-changing for some, and garbage for others. There were a few insightful passages, but most of the book was pretentious rambling. It was difficult to understand what the author was even trying to say, with his head so fa…

I had a similar experience.

Reading secondary literature gave me some context about Pirsig's own mental illness and his struggles overcoming his son's death, but in the end I was still disappointed.

Edit: Also, it's not about motorcycles at all. If you are interested in motorcycle travel, read Ted Simon's Jupiter's Travels instead.

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

#218

Post by iainmerrick »

sneak wrote: post #110

Some 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)

I adore Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, but for Philip K Dick at his most mind-bending, I’d instead go for Valis

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

#219

Post by mrfredward »

enitihas wrote: post #88

Highly recommended for everyone: "Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahenman. If you have difficulty interacting with people 1. How to win friends and influence people (Easy read) 2. Seven habits of highly effective people (Harder read) To learn how to write well: On writing well To understand how large products are made: Show Stopper!: The Breakneck Race to Create Windows NT

Amusingly, the introduction to "Seven Habits" starts off arguing against a hollow "personality ethic" approach pushed by other self-help books. I could be misinterpreting, but I believe that this is Covey insulting "How to Win Friends."

I found both books full of obvious things, but also found that reading and reflecting on obvious things can still go a long way for self-improvement. Personally, I didn't like "7 Habits" though because Covey is always saying his methods/truths are "self-evident" and he uses the "this is true because it would be dumb to think otherwise" line of reasoning at the points in the book when I thought his argument was weakest.

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

#220

Post by scott_s »

enitihas wrote: post #88

Highly recommended for everyone: "Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahenman. If you have difficulty interacting with people 1. How to win friends and influence people (Easy read) 2. Seven habits of highly effective people (Harder read) To learn how to write well: On writing well To understand how large products are made: Show Stopper!: The Breakneck Race to Create Windows NT

On "Thinking Fast and Slow", you may want to read criticisms of the book. For example, "Reconstruction of a Train Wreck: How Priming Research Went off the Rails", https://replicationindex.com/2017/02/02/reconstruction-of-a-...
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