Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How to live an intellectually rich life

utsavmamoria.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 337 posts

Re: How to live an intellectually rich life

#121

Post by WillAdams »

soupfordummies wrote: post #115
WillAdams wrote: post #32

For my part, one of the most striking things which I recall from my youth was reading Dumas' _The Count of Monte Cristo_ and the Abbé Faria contending that everything a gentleman needed to make his way in life was contained in less than 100 books --- which he had memorized the content of, and could impart to the young Edmond Dantes. A naïve younger me tried to brute force this by reading one non-fiction book from eac…

> reading one non-fiction book from each major section of the Dewey Decimal system catalog This actually sounds really fun. Not so much in an optimized way, but more like just going to the library and picking a decimal heading and then just selecting a cool-looking book in that heading and reading it, then repeat.

It was.

Tried to do it again in college, but using the LoC headings, but ran out of time and graduated before running out of college/headings.

To this day, when going to the library, I try to keep this in mind when looking over the new books, and if there is one on a major/notable subject I can't recall having read a book on, grab it.

Re: How to live an intellectually rich life

#124

Post by whatnow37373 »

BoxFour wrote: post #43
nonethewiser wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But let’s not overly-romanticize ancient thinkers: Plato and Aristotle held fundamentally different views on knowledge. 1) everyone agrees “overly” Romanticizing is wrong. By definition of “overly”. 2) why should having a fundamentally different view on knowledge disqualify something from being romanticized? Isnt romanticizing precisely for things that are different? 3) i think its a mischaracterization to say Plato…

> everyone agrees “overly” is wrong I mean, apparently not - this author alone takes Plato’s cave allegory at face value without spending even a moment to criticize it. > I think it’s a mischaracterization… It is not. Read Meno. Socrates thought this, and has a very painful example of trying to prove it. Plato thought the exact same.

The example he gives about geometry is actually quite interesting. It is one of the early highlights of a deep question: is this knowledge, geometry in this case, learned/learnable or is it, somehow, innate? Do we learn this from scratch or do we have innate pre-existing cognitive structures that are “configured” by experience? If the latter, what does “learning” mean? It’s definitely not what we usually mean. If the former, we meet Hume and Kant and have to show how we arrived at space and geometry ex nihilo.

If learning is essentially based on “configuring” innate structures, you can IMO state it is eternal or uncovered or whatever poetic vehicle you desire. I’d say give these pre-modern guys a break.

These are issues being discussed way into the modern era starting (again) with the likes of Hume and Kant and no easy solutions are available. This is not a solved problem.

Re: How to live an intellectually rich life

#125

Post by WillAdams »

crims0n wrote: post #70
WillAdams wrote: post #32

For my part, one of the most striking things which I recall from my youth was reading Dumas' _The Count of Monte Cristo_ and the Abbé Faria contending that everything a gentleman needed to make his way in life was contained in less than 100 books --- which he had memorized the content of, and could impart to the young Edmond Dantes. A naïve younger me tried to brute force this by reading one non-fiction book from eac…

I am about a quarter of the way through Modern Library’s top 100 and it has been a worthwhile journey. It is “just” literary fiction but it is among the best humanity has produced. I have learned so much about the human condition, my ability to articulate ideas has improved tremendously, and I feel like my mind has been “freed from the tyranny of the present” (to quote Cicero). https://sites.prh.com/modern-library-to…

I've read more than half of those, and every time I see that list, I really wish that almost every book would be paired w/ one which enhances/comments on either the book or that same theme.

e.g., _Kim_ by Rudyard Kipling should be paired w/ Robert Heinlein's _Citizen of the Galaxy_, or _The Grapes of Wrath_, which was cribbed from Sanora Babb's notes w/o permission should be paired w/ her _Whose Names Are Unknown_:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1197158.Whose_Names_Are_...

Re: How to live an intellectually rich life

#126

Post by iandanforth »

crims0n wrote: post #70
WillAdams wrote: post #32

For my part, one of the most striking things which I recall from my youth was reading Dumas' _The Count of Monte Cristo_ and the Abbé Faria contending that everything a gentleman needed to make his way in life was contained in less than 100 books --- which he had memorized the content of, and could impart to the young Edmond Dantes. A naïve younger me tried to brute force this by reading one non-fiction book from eac…

I am about a quarter of the way through Modern Library’s top 100 and it has been a worthwhile journey. It is “just” literary fiction but it is among the best humanity has produced. I have learned so much about the human condition, my ability to articulate ideas has improved tremendously, and I feel like my mind has been “freed from the tyranny of the present” (to quote Cicero). https://sites.prh.com/modern-library-to…

Anyone who puts "Ulysses" at the top of a best books list is suffering from expertitis. Ulysses has a massive user experience problem. It's hard. Dense, convoluted, absurd. If your friend asks you for a good book, you don't recommend it. The only time you do is when your college English major, or advanced highschooler, who is bored with the tropes of even very good novels wants to stretch themselves. Then you hand them this book.

Re: How to live an intellectually rich life

#127

Post by dhosek »

WillAdams wrote: post #32

For my part, one of the most striking things which I recall from my youth was reading Dumas' _The Count of Monte Cristo_ and the Abbé Faria contending that everything a gentleman needed to make his way in life was contained in less than 100 books --- which he had memorized the content of, and could impart to the young Edmond Dantes. A naïve younger me tried to brute force this by reading one non-fiction book from eac…

I actually did your Dewey Decimal project: https://www.dahosek.com/category/dewey-decimal-project/ I read one book out of each “decade” of the Dewey catalog from my local library (which is reasonably well stocked). It was a bit less than the predicted 100 books since there are some gaps in both the system and the collection of my library, but it was an interesting way to discover things I didn’t know I didn’t know.

Re: How to live an intellectually rich life

#128

Post by literalAardvark »

crims0n wrote: post #112
whatnow37373 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seeing that I am on HN and can unleash unrestrained pedantry I wish to ask where Cicero actually writes that because I cannot find it?

The full quote is allegedly "The purpose of education is to free the student from the tyranny of the present." ...I picked it up in Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death, but he didn't cite which work it came from. Goodreads attributes it to "Selected Works".

The Roman version of "trust me bro"

Re: How to live an intellectually rich life

#129

Post by dukeofdoom »

WillAdams wrote: post #110
dukeofdoom wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Judging from the French movie (with Pierre Niney) I saw last year (which was awesome btw) , and my vague recollection of the book, there's lots of physical skills involved. It's not just an intellectual pursuit, but more like applied science in getting vengeance. Really fun read. Big chunk of social media is self improvement. Stumbled across this guy yesterday and actually gives pretty solid advice. https://www.youtu…

Point! Added: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/803453.The_Sword_and_the... (which I have a copy of and re-read when I was considering taking up fencing, but my wife demurred)

You might enjoy the movie "Young Sherlock Holmes" than. If you haven't seen it, great fun. And it ends in a fencing scene like Hamlet.

Re: How to live an intellectually rich life

#130

Post by sesm »

noduerme wrote: post #5

Just because you can prove mathematically that most link chains "end" at "philosophy" doesn't mean that's the end you should end up at. I spend at least 2 nights a week just reading links through wikipedia as I'm falling asleep, and I almost inevitably end up at languages and cultures or historical events that I knew little about. Philosophy isn't an end, and it's pretty meaningless without some stone cold knowledge…

Philosophy is like math for humanities.
Post reply on HN