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In other words, I wonder if the structure, language, composition etc in a novel might "open up" the reader's brain in a similar way that e.g. musical works by Bach or Philip Glass seem to get some coders "in the zone".
You might be thinking of nonfiction, particularly nonfiction about programming.
I wonder how would reading this kind of stuff actually stimulate our brain, as compared to solving coding or maths puzzles.
E.g. the book linked above, Perec's "Life: A User's Manual", was "heartly recommended" by Don Knuth [2].
You might be thinking of nonfiction, particularly nonfiction about programming.
I think I'm most interested in works with a clearly mathematical, complex, multi-layered structure or language usage. Like the experiments of Georges Perec [1], for example. I wonder how would reading this kind of stuff actually stimulate our brain, as compared to solving coding or maths puzzles. E.g. the book linked above, Perec's "Life: A User's Manual", was "heartly recommended" by Don Knuth [2]. 1: https://en.wik…
There's a cool programming project already based on this short story that I've enjoyed exploring: see https://libraryofbabel.info/
And looks like there's a link to the story on archive.org: https://archive.org/details/TheLibraryOfBabel/
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think I'm most interested in works with a clearly mathematical, complex, multi-layered structure or language usage. Like the experiments of Georges Perec [1], for example. I wonder how would reading this kind of stuff actually stimulate our brain, as compared to solving coding or maths puzzles. E.g. the book linked above, Perec's "Life: A User's Manual", was "heartly recommended" by Don Knuth [2]. 1: https://en.wik…
People such as yourself get a hard-on about Godel, Escher, Bach. Myself? If I want to learn about basic number theory and recursion, I'll google it. Verbosity is an existential threat.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
People such as yourself get a hard-on about Godel, Escher, Bach. Myself? If I want to learn about basic number theory and recursion, I'll google it. Verbosity is an existential threat.
GEB is pretty dense. Comparing GEB to short stories by Borges, I feel like Borges is able to capture the same ideas (recursion, infinite permutations) in a more engaging way and at a fraction of GEB's length.
Also, I'm going to list these from 1 to 2, but the first is an order of magnitude better then the second, so think of them on an inverse log scale.
1. David Foster Wallace's short story "The Awakening of My Interest in Annular Systems". DFW is a brilliant writer in general, but his writings on math and logic have always been so unique and powerful to me. This one is my favorite. There's this combination of melancholy, and mathematical precision that was one of the first times I started to think about the beauty of analysis, and in particular, abstracting n-dimensional geometric space.
2. Peter Watt's novel "Blindsight". Blindsight has a very different mathematical feel to it, compared to DFW's stories. It's almost the opposite. Very sloppy (stylistically, not in terms of accuracy), filled with jargon, and always slightly outside the limits of my comprehension, (actually a lot of times just plain outside the limits of my comprehension). But that layer of overwhelming, rapid-fire technical description ends up creating this very interesting, frenetic, cyberpunk/dystopian aesthetic, as the plot builds momentum.
Honorable Mentions/Other stuff:
- Watt's "Echopraxia" (sequel to Blindsight)
- Neal Stephenson's "Anathem"
- Arthur C. Clarke "Rendesvous with Rama"
- Greg Egan's "Permutation city" and "Diaspora"
Art/Architecture:
- Philip Beesley's Hylozoic Soil installations (my advisor in uni!)
- All of Junya Ishigami's installations/architecture.
- All of Rafael Moneo's buildings & writings.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think I'm most interested in works with a clearly mathematical, complex, multi-layered structure or language usage. Like the experiments of Georges Perec [1], for example. I wonder how would reading this kind of stuff actually stimulate our brain, as compared to solving coding or maths puzzles. E.g. the book linked above, Perec's "Life: A User's Manual", was "heartly recommended" by Don Knuth [2]. 1: https://en.wik…
People such as yourself get a hard-on about Godel, Escher, Bach. Myself? If I want to learn about basic number theory and recursion, I'll google it. Verbosity is an existential threat.
.. maybe I likes the verbosity?
Asteroids are an existential threat. Verbosity is a style that some people enjoy.