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Ask HN: What is the most mind expanding book(s) you have read till date?

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Re: Ask HN: What is the most mind expanding book(s) you have read till date?

#71

Post by markus_zhang »

mharig wrote: post #63
fm2606 wrote: post #35

_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.

I think it's a classic adnd 2e dual classing.

Re: Ask HN: What is the most mind expanding book(s) you have read till date?

#73

Post by markus_zhang »

ankaAr wrote: post #62

Around 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.…

Recommended. Actually anything by the venerable Verne. I was fascinated by his books when I was 8-10.

Re: Ask HN: What is the most mind expanding book(s) you have read till date?

#74

Post by vram22 »

Balgair wrote: post #66
i_dont_know_ wrote: post #55

"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…

>we had 'civilization'

Can't resist this apocryphal Gandhi quote:

Reporter: What do you think of civilization?

Gandhi: I think it is a good idea.

Re: Ask HN: What is the most mind expanding book(s) you have read till date?

#75

Post by krapp »

vram22 wrote: post #74
Balgair wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>we had 'civilization' Can't resist this apocryphal Gandhi quote: Reporter: What do you think of civilization? Gandhi: I think it is a good idea.

The quote, apocryphal or not, was "What do you think of Western civilization?"

Re: Ask HN: What is the most mind expanding book(s) you have read till date?

#76

Post by vram22 »

frontman1988 wrote: post #34

Ashtavakra Gita(Ancient hindu philosophy poem) : It really opened a new dimension of thinking for me. It's main message of identifying yourself as the witness consciousness is quite trippy and the sanskrit used is quite powerful. It plays around with the concepts of soul , karma and concept of non-duality in quite radical ways. I found it quite an empowering way of going about life, one can only imagine how it must h…

>Ashtavakra Gita

It is about Advaita (Vedanta). Another good introduction to it is the Mandukya Upanishad: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandukya_Upanishad

which, in just 12 verses, shows that we are neither body or mind but the witness of both.

Re: Ask HN: What is the most mind expanding book(s) you have read till date?

#77

Post by vram22 »

frontman1988 wrote: post #34

Ashtavakra Gita(Ancient hindu philosophy poem) : It really opened a new dimension of thinking for me. It's main message of identifying yourself as the witness consciousness is quite trippy and the sanskrit used is quite powerful. It plays around with the concepts of soul , karma and concept of non-duality in quite radical ways. I found it quite an empowering way of going about life, one can only imagine how it must h…

>Such people nowadays would be called delusional though.

Not necessarily, at all. Advaita is supposed to be very rational and logical, and not require faith. Faith belongs to the path of Bhakti Yoga (faith/devotion to God), while Advaita is about the path of Jnana Yoga, the path of knowledge.

Also, the Wikipedia article about Advaita Vedanta seems to me to be somewhat poor, and factually wrong in parts, IMO, though I am not an expert on this. I may think this way because my family has some background knowledge about Advaita, Adi Shankara, Sanskrit and related subjects related to Hinduism, going back some generations, so I may have picked up some stuff by osmosis, apart from what I have read and studied and practiced myself.

Re: Ask HN: What is the most mind expanding book(s) you have read till date?

#78

Post by vram22 »

vram22 wrote: post #76
frontman1988 wrote: post #34

Ashtavakra Gita(Ancient hindu philosophy poem) : It really opened a new dimension of thinking for me. It's main message of identifying yourself as the witness consciousness is quite trippy and the sanskrit used is quite powerful. It plays around with the concepts of soul , karma and concept of non-duality in quite radical ways. I found it quite an empowering way of going about life, one can only imagine how it must h…

>Ashtavakra Gita It is about Advaita (Vedanta). Another good introduction to it is the Mandukya Upanishad: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandukya_Upanishad which, in just 12 verses, shows that we are neither body or mind but the witness of both.

Also check out Drg Dryshya Viveka (Discrimination between the Seer and the Seen), another fundamental Sanskrit text about Advaita. English translations should be available for both it and the Mandukya.

Re: Ask HN: What is the most mind expanding book(s) you have read till date?

#79

Post by Blackstrat »

i_dont_know_ wrote: post #55

"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…

The Enlightenment came from native Americans?

Re: Ask HN: What is the most mind expanding book(s) you have read till date?

#80

Post by vram22 »

leephillips wrote: post #44
frontman1988 wrote: post #34

Ashtavakra Gita(Ancient hindu philosophy poem) : It really opened a new dimension of thinking for me. It's main message of identifying yourself as the witness consciousness is quite trippy and the sanskrit used is quite powerful. It plays around with the concepts of soul , karma and concept of non-duality in quite radical ways. I found it quite an empowering way of going about life, one can only imagine how it must h…

Any English translation worth reading?

There should be but I don't have the name handy right now. Check out translations of Advaita and other Hinduism scriptural books by the Ramakrishna Math.
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