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Ask HN: Interesting (Non software) books?

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Re: Ask HN: Interesting (Non software) books?

#171
Elsewhere in the thread, I posted some recommendations on books on philosophy of religion from a non-theistic perspective. I guess I should probably list some books on philosophy generally.

1. Bertrand Russell - The Problems of Philosophy

A good introduction to the basic things which philosophers in the Anglo-American/analytic tradition worry about in logic, metaphysics and epistemology (primarily epistemology): induction, a priori knowledge, anti-sceptical arguments, and universals.

2. Hans-Georg Gadamer - Truth and Method

You know about the 'Continental' philosophers, right? All those wacky guys like Derrida. They are all a bit suspicious, right? Like, Heidegger was a Nazi, and Foucault spreads HIV. Yeah, gossip is great. A lot of this type of philosophy seems like bunkum - Alan Sokal showed that, right? Lots of waffly French dudes talking out of their ass, abusing science to basically support their political ideology. Gadamer isn't like that. He sets out to try and answer the question "how do we understand texts?" and rather than saying something goofy like "we just make up what we understand about texts" or that we deconstruct them by subjecting them to our ideological whims, ripping the book apart to suit whatever the passing fancy is. No, Gadamer tries to explicate how the reading of a book is more of a process that starts with pre-judgement - 'prejudice' in Gadamer's words. Such prejudice is natural and actually quite desirable. You do judge a book by the cover. To understand a book as a whole, you need to understand all the components which make it up. But to understand any bit of the book, you need to understand how it fits into the wider contest of the book. This 'hermeneutic cycle' is daunting, but the only thing you can do is jump on board.

3. Saul Kripke - Naming and Necessity

Kripke's book is on a slightly strange topic: how we use names. But how he deals with this is an interesting problem is a model of clarity and philosophical excellence. It has also been very influential - the way Kripke solves the problem with names led to other philosophers producing many so-called causal accounts of all sorts of things.

I'd post some more, but I've got to get the hell out of my hotel room and go to a philosophy conference...

Re: Ask HN: Interesting (Non software) books?

#172

- David Marr: "Vision" The foundations of computational neroscience - and lots of practial demonstrations of how your eyes and brain work. - Daniel Dennett "Consciousness Explained" How the mind works? - J.E Gordon: "The new Science of Strog Materials" & " Structures, or why things don't fall down." How is 'stuff' strong/hard? - Steve Grand: "Creation" & "Growing up with Lucy" The programmer behind the game 'Creature…

Snow Crash was published in 1992, not in 1975. Still, this dude got it already.

Edit: Sorry, it's probably just a formatting problem and you were referring to The Shockwave Rider.

Re: Ask HN: Interesting (Non software) books?

#173
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also liked most of those. I'm just reading Blindsight, wonderful. The only one I hated was "Market forces" by Morgan. It felt like reading "The Pilgrim's Progress", but with Chomsky as Jesus -- a little bit too heavy handed in political propaganda. For that kind of stuff done in a fascinating way, check Ken MacLeod's "The Stone Canal" and following. (Asher got a little too much of Space Opera for me, in the end.) F…

Strongly agree on Greg Egan. "Schild's Ladder" is one of the best 'hard' SF novels I've ever read! I can see how you'd feel that way about Market Forces. Personally what I liked most in that book was the way the main character developed/changed over the course of the story. That being said I would consider it on the 'lighter' end of the SF spectrum, but I still think it's an interesting exploration of a society taken…

I was probably extra angry because I bought it in hard covers instead of waiting. :-)

Re: Ask HN: Interesting (Non software) books?

#175
post #4

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

I just cannot understand why people here like that book so much. Maybe it's because of my eastern background and because I drank too much spiritual koolaid when I was younger, but that book is full of the same old eastern mysticism wrapped up in language that probably appeals to philosophical "hackers". I mean, how can you like stuff where the protagonist is being so self-righteous and condescending to a 10-year old?

Re: Ask HN: Interesting (Non software) books?

#176

If you're talented and get frustrated with stupid people, you have to read "Musashi" by Eiji Yoshikawa. I mean, you have to. Musashi was one of the greatest (maybe the greatest) swordsman of all time. He invented a Japanese longblade/shortblade mixed style of swordsmanship, at one point fighting himself out of an ambush when he was attacked by over 30 men. He was undefeated in over 60 duels, including defeating argua…

> If you're talented and get frustrated with stupid people, you have to read "Musashi" by Eiji Yoshikawa. I mean, you have to.

you might also find the 3 mushashi set of movies by Hiroshi-Inagaki pretty nice. i certainly enjoy them a lot...

Toshirô-Mifune plays samurai roles with elan

Re: Ask HN: Interesting (Non software) books?

#178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can someone summarize this book? I've heard about it a bunch of times, but I don't know what it is about.

The scientific process can be formalized, even taught to a machine, however the hypothesis-generation step is a human, artistic, creative process. This book is about reconciling this, and thus reconciling rationality, art, and religion with one another, though the religious part isn't touched on all that much. The author goes on to suggest an idea that "quality" is the fundamental force in the universe. As an example…

Thanks very much. I will.

Re: Ask HN: Interesting (Non software) books?

#179

Two scifi books about turning rationality into a religion: Anathem and Altered Carbon My all-time scifi list started out in a reddit comment: http://akkartik.name/blog/2006-06-02-08-13-58-soc

Oops, I meant A million open doors, not Altered Carbon. Both good books.
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