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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?

#611

Post by GoodJokes »

binaryorganic wrote: post #299

Super serious question. Of the 278 comments that have been posted to this thread in the last 8 hours, has anyone suggested a single female author? I looked for a while and saw exactly zero. Isn’t that kind of notable?

I try to say this every time on book recommendation posts. I always get flagged. I guess I am too mean about it. I just think most HN users don't even think about the need to actively seek out authors of different identities than their own. It has nothing to do with availability or enough female authors. That is such utter bs and lazy thinking.

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

#612

Post by mariodiana »

giu wrote: post #200
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

I have a conflicting relationship with "How to Win Friends and Influence People," and maybe some of you may relate to this. Disclaimer: I only read a small, initial part of the book, and I'll explain the reasons behind this. For one, I liked the initial parts of it; for example, remembering first names is a nice and very attentive thing to do, and in general people appreciate it when I can remember their first name a…

Years ago I read an interview with Marlon Brando in Playboy. He remarked that How to Win Friends and Influence People was "a book on hustling."

In China, the book is very popular and is sold under the title "The Weaknesses of Human Nature."

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

#613

Post by GoodJokes »

mam2 wrote: post #601
binaryorganic wrote: post #299

Super serious question. Of the 278 comments that have been posted to this thread in the last 8 hours, has anyone suggested a single female author? I looked for a while and saw exactly zero. Isn’t that kind of notable?

Lol what's the percentage of girl reading HN you think ?

Female authors aren't just for girls.

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

#614

Post by caleb-allen »

The Little Schemer, by Felleisen and Friedman.

Entertaining style, and amazing at conveying very complex ideas. I had understood recursion for years prior, but this really showed me what it was to truly "think" in recursion, and to understand the Y Combinator and its significance.

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

#615

Post by pas »

delecti wrote: post #534
pas wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

Uuuuuhmmmm, yes, agreed. That whole story still gives me the existential shivers sometimes. The juxtaposition of the big and small. Brilliant, raw, too elegant, too calculatingly cold, too far out - and all because of its hardness (as in I don't even know if you have to suspend disbelief, it seems so perfectly real/possible), truly a masterpiece of science-fiction.

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

#616

Post by caleb-allen »

wigl wrote: post #294
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

Thinking, Fast and Slow is good if you like pop-sci, but has aged like milk if you are into the science. I respect Kahneman for walking back some of his claims since but he needs to publish a revision.

Agreed. I ate that book up for the first half, and when I came across the concept of "priming" I was obsessed. I looked it up only to find it had been largely debunked. Immediately lost interest. There are some great concepts in there, but it's not worth my time to tease out what is and is not legitimate.

I'd also want him to publish a revision, I've enjoyed listening to Kahneman on podcasts and have nothing against him as an author

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

#617

Post by [deleted] »

carapace wrote: post #462
crimsonalucard wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might as well recommend the Holy Bible or the Koran. Also good books with good stories.

FWIW Buddhism is different from the "People of the Book" (Jews, Christians, Muslims all worship literally the same God.) Buddhism is not monotheistic. (The resolution between these forms was given in South Park of all places: God appears on Earth and mentions in passing that He is Buddhist.) - - - - Uh, heh, Hinduism is also different from the "People of the Book", and from Buddhism. The Gita is, of course, Hindu, no…

[deleted]

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

#618

Post by justaguyhere »

Bandrsnatch wrote: post #394

Most likely no one is going to like this post. My father was a physicist and he had a large library of books. Growing up all of these books were over my head but I tried reading all of them. The more difficult the book the more determined I became to read and understand the content. I found this to be mind expanding. I began a life long quest to read the most difficult books and texts I could find. It sometimes takes…

Any advice on how to balance learning/knowing theory vs practical stuff? As a kid, I read tons of books. While I don't regret it, I kinda wish I had spent some time outside doing socializing and physical activities. I'm in awe of people who seem perfectly happy with a book by themselves but also get along nicely with other people as needed.

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

#619

Post by more_corn »

I'm surprised Sapiens isn't all over this page. I read it last year and I wish I'd read it twenty years ago. It really changed how I think of humanity, religion, ideology, law, civilization, corporations... It changed my whole world by changing how I think of the world.

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

#620

Post by 9214 »

9214 wrote: post #98

• "Laws of Form" by George Spencer-Brown, a little book that describes how to bootstrap the Universe from nothing. Louis Kauffman [1] has a lot of papers/writeups on it, from knot theory to quantum physics. If you ever wanted to make a pancake truly from scratch, this is a place to start. • "The Unconscious as Infinite Sets" by Ignacio Matte Blanco. Reformulates Freud in logico-mathematical terms and establishes a fo…

Retroactively, I would also add "A Thousand Plateaus" by Deleuze & Guattari to this list, except that I haven't yet read the actual thing, but only dipped my toes into related studies, like e.g. "The Allure of Machinic Life" by John Johnston that traces the history of cybernetics, A-Life and AI fields and adds a Deleuzian spin on top.

This is the only case in my life where I wanted to adopt author's philosophy and learn to see the world the way they do. The content is very interdisciplinary and heavily borrows from various fields (psychoanalysis, dynamic systems theory, biology, linguistics &c) and will surely appeal to a technically minded person.

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