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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?

#591

Post by eerrt »

chairmanwow1 wrote: post #570
bemmu wrote: post #100

"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…

Egan is a close second for my all-time favorite sci-fi author. Some of his books read like mathematical dialogues or transcriptions of lectures (lots of the Orthogonal Series is conversations between professors and their grad students reasoning about physics of a world that we don't live in), but he also delves deep into mathematics and fringe ideas and presents them in a vista where you can enjoy the absolute splend…

So who's your favorite sci-fi author?

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

#592

Post by greyhair »

I reread Moby Dick as an adult within the last couple years. Found it far more interesting than I did when I was young. The book plays on narration in far more complex ways than I remembered.

Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five. Seriously. Read it. The horrors of war leaked into your brain through a sci-fi novel. If you enjoy that, try Player Piano, a moral discourse on technology and its social effects. Even though it is old, the social complications are familiar.

To keep your brain busy, anything by Umberto Eco, but this would be my order: Name of the Rose, Foucault's Pendulum, The Island of the Day Before.

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

#593

Post by james_s_tayler »

tryptophan wrote: post #287
achow wrote: post #9

Guns, Germs and Steel. Actually, any well researched history book. View on the world gets changed drastically, and usually for better.

'Why nations fail' is about the same subject and much better supported, incase you are interested.

The opening chapter is even a direct challenge to Diamonds book!

The rest is a really wild ride through history. Fascinating read.

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

#594

Post by abvdasker »

"The Dispossessed" by Ursula K Le Guin is a classic science fiction novel written in 1974 about political philosophy and its relation to individuals' personal lives. The book's genius is in describing capitalism through the eyes of a protagonist for whom it is unfamiliar and literally alien.

It changed the way I think about how society today is structured and showed me that something different is possible.

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

#595

Post by Nevermark »

"The Dictator's Handbook" by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith reveals the simple principles used by everyone from CEO's, politicians, and autocrats to gather and consolidate power, depending on as few people as possible.

The general population is rarely important in this process, and of course (if you are among those accreting power) you want keep them in the dark. The illusion of participation is very important to the institutionalization of power for yourself in any kind of system, especially ones that think they are democracies.

As might be expected, to the degree they are good at it, the less the governing class needs to concern themselves with good governance or policy. And again, in the "real" Gov 101 its rule #1 that the populace doesn't understand that.

Mind bending? I think so, but I appreciate even more as a mental/citizen level up.

These are the principles they should teach kids in government class in elementary school. History without understanding this is just a database of facts.

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

#596

Post by bananamerica »

- The Men Who Folded Himself is a book about a time traveler that falls in love and has sex with himself in several distinct time periods.

- All You Zombies is a short story that makes use of one of the most ingenious and mind-bending time travel conundrums to reflect on the nature of personal identity.

- The Door Into Summer is about the effects of suspended animation on personal relationships.

- Anything written by Philip K. Dick.

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

#597

Post by jenkstom »

combatentropy wrote: post #309

Mere 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 tried "Mere Christianity" at the urging of my mother. It was a series of logical fallacies one after the other. Although I will give him props, though, he tried to put a twist on most of them. Instead of a "false dilemma" it was a "false trilemma" and so on. It was still pretty silly.

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

#599

Post by mariodiana »

combatentropy wrote: post #309

Mere 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…

His Screwtape Letters are an excellent read.
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