31–40 of 211 posts
- The Daily Stoic. A collection of snippets from stoic philosophers, tied with examples from modern living, it was a good and lightweight introduction to philosophy.
- The Way of The Superior Man. The only "self help" book I give any credit. It really boils down to encouraging people to have a purpose in life and accept ourselves. - The Stupidity Paradox. Ever feel the world works in a "stupid" way? That your organization keeps promoting stupid ideas? Read this book and get into the roots of functional stupidity. It's a bit repetitive, but extremely insightful book. - Structure a…
SICP. When do you recommend software devs read it? Beginning of their journey or mid journey?
It know better understand the importance of testing ideas before investing time and money.
Note that the books are adapted from a free podcast of the same name, hence perhaps why they feel so comparatively approachable. As a podcast, however, I didn't find it easy listening in the usual contexts and states of mind that you would be listening to podcasts.
I had previously tried reading Anthony Kenney's a new history of Western Philosophy, but it didn't seem to me to contextualize each philosopher against their forebears as well as Adamson. This made each discussion seen isolated and made it more difficult to empathize how each philosopher grew to have the ideas they had, and why they are so interesting, since one ends up compelled to compare against our current far more sophisticated milleu.
Now, why I find these books so rewarding; they elucidate how we have come to have the frameworks through which we perceive the world, and also provide contrasts to them.
The Tao of Pooh - Benjamin Hoff
Both offer a fictitious and simplistic introduction to eastern philosophy. Growing up as an atheist in Western Europe, I never realized just how deep the influence of religion on our culture, traditions and history was. These books gave me a playful look at Buddhism and Taoism, right when I needed it. Shifted my entire worldview.
Meditations - Marcus Aurelius Republic - Plato Laws - Cicero National System of Political Economy - Friedrich List Man and Technics - Oswald Spengler The Bible
The Bible is not exactly .. readable? Embarking on actually reading it all the way through and understanding the references is a serious project of literary archaeology, even armed with a concordance and a Greek lexicon. Then you run in to the various hapax legomenon: the words for which we have exactly one example in one sentence in the Bible, and are forced to guess the meaning of the word from context. Then three…
Stanford Western Culture class had Book of Genesis and New Testaments as part of required reading [0].
[0] https://web.stanford.edu/dept/news/stanfordtoday/ed/9705/970...
Meditations - Marcus Aurelius Republic - Plato Laws - Cicero National System of Political Economy - Friedrich List Man and Technics - Oswald Spengler The Bible
The Bible is not exactly .. readable? Embarking on actually reading it all the way through and understanding the references is a serious project of literary archaeology, even armed with a concordance and a Greek lexicon. Then you run in to the various hapax legomenon: the words for which we have exactly one example in one sentence in the Bible, and are forced to guess the meaning of the word from context. Then three…
Is something you're meant to read through out your life, not in one sitting.
>then what what what?
If I were to choose three fiction, those would make the cut. Fiction: The Invincible by Stanislaw Lem - It shed light on me in regards to microelectronics, swarm intelligence. Nothing ever eased my learning curve more for genetic algorithms like this short novel! It is also a good read in general. It also taught me that the difference in scientific vs force vs emotional approach to unknown. Would recommend as a sprin…
I'd not heard of The Invincible , but Solaris had a transformative effect on me and you've convinced me to read the first two items on your list. Didn't Roadside Picnic become Tarkovsky's Stalker ?
Indeed, it did -- it also spawned the "S.T.A.L.K.E.R." game series, which really nails down the derelict industrial soviet aesthetic.
If I were to choose three fiction, those would make the cut. Fiction: The Invincible by Stanislaw Lem - It shed light on me in regards to microelectronics, swarm intelligence. Nothing ever eased my learning curve more for genetic algorithms like this short novel! It is also a good read in general. It also taught me that the difference in scientific vs force vs emotional approach to unknown. Would recommend as a sprin…