"How Not to Die" by Michael Greger describes how a good plant-based diet can prevent and even reverse various common diseases
Ask HN: Mind bending books to read and never be the same as before?
531–540 of 747 posts
Re: Ask HN: Mind bending books to read and never be the same as before?
#532Prometheus Rising by Robert Anton Wilson
Re: Ask HN: Mind bending books to read and never be the same as before?
#533Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> It's life-changing for some, and garbage for others. I feel this way about Catcher in the Rye. My English teacher recommended it to me obviously on the basis that I was an angsty teenager that would identify with Holden Caulfield. But what a pile of crap it is. I still want back the hours I wasted on reading that stupid boring book.
I loved Salinger's books when I was a teenager in the 80s. I just don't think his work is relevant today. The major themes are about how everyone else is a conformist and a phony. Both ideas have been turned inside out since Salinger wrote his books. What does being a "phony" mean if you're a YouTube star or say the President of the United States?
Re: Ask HN: Mind bending books to read and never be the same as before?
#534"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…
For higher dimensional mind bending his Diaspora book is a must read! For mind games: The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi. Plus for a related rabbit hole: the idea that a random pattern can just pop into existence and have consciousness is basically the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain concept.
Diaspora was going to be my answer as well, the ending in particular. It kinda forced me to accept as inevitable that at some point my consciousness will cease, in one way or another.
I can plausibly see life extension technology arising that gives me hundreds, or even thousands of extra years of life. It doesn't seem entirely impossible to extend that premise to millions of years, but at billions it doesn't really seem fathomable, and trillions seems to be well beyond what we know about the likely fate of the universe. And once I accepted that inevitability, it suddenly seemed a lot more plausible that my time left was probably closer to decades than even centuries, let alone anything beyond that. There were definitely a fair few existential crises in the weeks and months after finishing that book.
Re: Ask HN: Mind bending books to read and never be the same as before?
#535Check out _The Eden Express_ by Mark Vonnegut (son of Kurt Vonnegut). It is a memoir documenting the author's own psychotic breakdown. Reading this gave me insight into the human mind and what it's like when it goes off the rails. You say "anything that transforms me into a smarter, wiser person" so I'll add Eliezer Yudkowsky's fanfic _Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality_ ( http://www.hpmor.com/ ) The whole H…
Just finished HPMOR and loved every second of it. Truly an amazing piece of work, would definitely recommend. I do hope that i remember some of the methods of rationality mentioned in the book, but even beyond that it was just a plain good story.
If people are interestead in reading it, I would highly recommend the audio book/podcast, it's extremely well produced and features an insane amount of good voice acting [1]. Though I would definitely recommend _not_ listening to it in podcast player, and instead use one of the stitched together mp3s.
Re: Ask HN: Mind bending books to read and never be the same as before?
#536Mere Christianity , by C. S. Lewis. Any of his nonfiction works have a style of writing that I seldom find. He has a dedication to reason and a step-by-step approach. The Elements of Style , by William Strunk and E. B. White. I liked writing since I learned how to. I didn't find this book until I was 17, and it unlocked me to write in a way that better helped others. The Language Instinct , by Steven Pinker. I guess…
I liked Mere Christianity and I like C.S. Lewis's writing in general, but certain parts of Mere Christianity annoyed me because it felt manipulative. The most egregious example is Lewis's trilemma which seems constructed to win arguments, although I've never seen it win a single argument, not by a good faith argument but by putting someone on the spot and demanding that they to choose between three answers; Two of which will make them sound exceedingly rude and harm their standing in society.
Re: Ask HN: Mind bending books to read and never be the same as before?
#537Earlier 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…
I believe that's Permutation City. I don't remember the exact details from the book but there's definitely some similar things in it.
That idea also comes back in Diaspora. That book contains some nice things, like mind-grafts, procreation/creation in a non-biological society etc. Loved that book. I also like Ted Chiangs books. I.e. the idea from story of your life (a language that treats time flow differently), also "Understand" [0] is nice: What happens we we actually increase our thinking capacity. I mean that is hard to comprehend without a nice story, for a puny brain like mine.
Re: Ask HN: Mind bending books to read and never be the same as before?
#538For me that was 'The Infinite Book' by John D. Barrow. I read it at a very young age and changed my brain completely.
Re: Ask HN: Mind bending books to read and never be the same as before?
#539"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…
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 artistic communities in the simulation.
Re: Ask HN: Mind bending books to read and never be the same as before?
#540The Fountainhead Or anything Vonnegut or Philip K Dick A personal "brain expanding" book for me was The Miracle Planet but timing is everything, as an 8 year old who had only been reading children's books it taught me that you can read through anything with persistence The Bible has a lot of mind games & plot twists. I read it as an atheist seeking better perspective on a couple thousand years ago
I can't take anyone reading Ayn Rand seriously anymore; it's what all the selfish right-wingers read and take as gospel, those that take a massive shit on everyone but themselves - Trump to name but one. And it's ironic because Rand herself was fervently atheist and hated conservatives as they turned to religion and nationalism in the 50's.
I don't want to moralize too much, but I think it's a mistake to generalize this much about a person based solely on your knowledge of a book they've enjoyed.