Awareness by Anthony de Mello
Elaborate please. What made the book stand out to you?
Ask HN: What is the most mind expanding book(s) you have read till date?
61–70 of 88 posts
Re: Ask HN: What is the most mind expanding book(s) you have read till date?
#62Around the World in Eighty Days, from Jules Verne. I read that when i was a child and blowed my mind with glimpses from other countries, other cultures and the joy of reading.
I think that after that book i had the question: how 100 years ago he was able to write about those places?. Then i never stopped to read. After that i started to develop the addiction i have about knowledge.
EDIT: oh, and the final plot twist.., was amazing.
Re: Ask HN: What is the most mind expanding book(s) you have read till date?
#63_What Should I Do With My Life_ by Po Bronson There are a lot of stories of people who hate their jobs and make a switch. One was a lawyer who became a truck driver. A doctor who became a programmer (iirc ... I do remember she was in tears because she didn't want to disappoint their family not sure if she wanted to be a programmer or not). This book gave me the courage to leave engineering field and become a firefigh…
> firefighter paramedic
Are you neutral good or chaotic good? And can you achieve a third class when you level up?
Sorry, couldn't resist.
Re: Ask HN: What is the most mind expanding book(s) you have read till date?
#64The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
All you need to know about the universe. And mankind.
Re: Ask HN: What is the most mind expanding book(s) you have read till date?
#65_What Should I Do With My Life_ by Po Bronson There are a lot of stories of people who hate their jobs and make a switch. One was a lawyer who became a truck driver. A doctor who became a programmer (iirc ... I do remember she was in tears because she didn't want to disappoint their family not sure if she wanted to be a programmer or not). This book gave me the courage to leave engineering field and become a firefigh…
> firefighter paramedic Are you neutral good or chaotic good? And can you achieve a third class when you level up? Sorry, couldn't resist.
No worries...but honestly have no clue what you mean.
Re: Ask HN: What is the most mind expanding book(s) you have read till date?
#66"The Dawn of Everything" by the Davids, Graeber and Wengrow. It's a little dense and a bit meandering at times, but the core idea behind it: we have a strong bias in believing that civilization comes in stages. We believe we go 'hunter/gatherer/primitive' -> agriculture -> 'real' civilization. Basically, this is totally false. Not only is it totally false, but one of the reasons we might have this bias is because, wh…
Seconded!
The thing that I think about from them is the 'Reverse Fermi Paradox'. We've been humans for ~200k years now. Just in the last 10k or so have we had 'civilization'. What were we doing for the other 19/20ths of our time here? Ice ages don't account for all that time and there were warm periods in them. What was going with us all that time?
I think about it a lot also in context of their reviews of different cultural models. It seems we spent a lot of time experimenting and trying out a bazillion different ways to organize and have families and be in a tribe. Since we've no record of it, I'm fascinated by how our deep ancestors lived as a culture and how different it was.
Re: Ask HN: What is the most mind expanding book(s) you have read till date?
#671000 Years of Non-linear History by Miguel De Landa was a read from a long long time ago that was a good materialistic philosphy read, that helped me see & feel the world as morpholically advancing. It gave me a sense of what shifts & changes are, how they occur, and gave a narrative for many of the changes that reshaped humanity across the last 1000 years. Used a neat lense of geomorphology that was entertaining.
Non-zero: the Logic of Human Destiny was anothrr very good materialistic philosophy read for my impressionable young mind. Talking about human cooperation & emergence of civil order. Not nearly as in depth but I think of it as also quite related to the History of Everything, mentioned in other comments here.
Re: Ask HN: What is the most mind expanding book(s) you have read till date?
#68Re: Ask HN: What is the most mind expanding book(s) you have read till date?
#69The Book of Mormon (with the Bible). After decades of reading it repeatedly, it does not run out of ways to comfort, strengthen, give direction & confidence & pea ce, and help me want to be a better person. Cover to cover, amazing to me.
Also Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Be proactive; Begin with the end in mind; Put first things first; Think win–win; Seek first to understand, then to be understood; Synergize; Sharpen the Saw (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_7_Habits_of_Highly_Effecti...).
Re: Ask HN: What is the most mind expanding book(s) you have read till date?
#70The Law of One, a set of channeled transcripts by an entity named Ra (in congruency to the sun god Ra of Egyptian times) proclaiming to be three levels of densities, or major evolutions, ahead of our own as humans.
Great read whether it sticks around as a belief for you or not, akin to any other religious text in my opinion.
Can be read for free at lawofone.info
Definitely read the intro before jumping into the meat of it for the great context provided by the L/L Research team for what comes after.