I think Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is particularly relevant to programming (perhaps thought in general).
Why read Dostoevsky? A programmer's perspective
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Re: Why read Dostoevsky? A programmer's perspective
#92I met a young and apparently highly intelligent AI researcher the other week who confessed to me that he thought fiction (books but also movies etc) was a waste of his time: there was nothing to be gained there. Being a lover of fiction myself, I huffed and puffed and he challenged me to name him a book that would change his mind. Usually when people ask me where to start in literature, I advise them to start at the…
I sometimes recommend Borges (Labyrinths) and Kafka (The Trial, Short Stories) to tech people looking to get into literature.
Re: Why read Dostoevsky? A programmer's perspective
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
And language is just a tool to hunt better and coordinate distribution of berries. And human consciousness is just a tool to model other minds to negotiate better. Nothing to see here.
Cynicism is both cheap and lazy. You two sound miserable
Worldviews don't win points for being expensive and industrious. But my point, had you seen past your mood affiliation, was that explaining the origin of a phenomenon doesn't tell you its value.
Re: Why read Dostoevsky? A programmer's perspective
#94Having read about 1 to 2/3rds through most of Dostoyevsky's books: I really believe they're over-hyped. Same with Pushkin, Tolstoy, Bulgakov, and so on -- with the only exception of Solzhenitsyn. I think the difference is I'm Slavic, speak a few of the languages, and come from the cultures that succeeded those authors; so they read mostly as sentimental, overly-emotional, and superstitious, i.e. what I feel are the w…
It's odd that you regard those 19th/early 20th century authors as overly-emotional. In my experience, these works were much more blunt in their self-examinations of the human condition than the other European and American authors I've read. As for questions:
What do you think of Russian-American writers like Ayn Rand and Nabokov?
In your view, what philosophical fiction provides a "deeper" and less antiquated understanding of today's "Russian soul"?
What American/European/foreign works do you or other Slavs consider to be world-shaping?
Re: Why read Dostoevsky? A programmer's perspective
#95There is also another great thing that can dispense knowledge, the same that inspired both classics and mathematics: real life. You mention Taleb, so you must be a bit familiar with Mandelbrot work. Well he observed reality carefully, free of prejudices, skeptically, and took it for what it is. Then built math on top of it. Sometimes going outside of recombining ideas and taking new ones from reality itself can be good. That said, I come from the opposite experience, having read my share of classics and recently discovering math (I was also taught it but always approached as yet another thing to study, not as a tool to model reality).
Re: Why read Dostoevsky? A programmer's perspective
#96> Some deep truths about human nature require instead the reflection provoked by the classics. Yes, read Dostoevsky and the classics. There is so much to learn and to enjoy. But remember that great authors didn't discover deep truths of human nature from books alone, but from their attention to the experiences of real life. “When we read, another person thinks for us: we merely repeat his mental process. In learning…
I feel like there’s a lot to be gleaned here, but all I can focus on is how this - especially the last line - could be easily misrepresented to spread an anti-education message.
> an anti-education message
But since when is all reading "education"? I see a lot of people reading a lot of trash and could be spending their time reading Dostoevsky, or better yet plotting their own murder + burglaries !
Re: Why read Dostoevsky? A programmer's perspective
#97Having read about 1 to 2/3rds through most of Dostoyevsky's books: I really believe they're over-hyped. Same with Pushkin, Tolstoy, Bulgakov, and so on -- with the only exception of Solzhenitsyn. I think the difference is I'm Slavic, speak a few of the languages, and come from the cultures that succeeded those authors; so they read mostly as sentimental, overly-emotional, and superstitious, i.e. what I feel are the w…
Yeah. If Russian classics contained some great life lessons, how do you explain Russia? Every kid reads these classics in school, and it's a shit of a country.
Re: Why read Dostoevsky? A programmer's perspective
#98> [Taleb] showed, through his life's work, that one can make money by betting against people that believe too much in mathematics and their applicability to the real world. Does anyone know any good examples of this?
I believe the author is referring to the money Taleb made during the 2008 financial crash, rather literally betting against people using mathematics to model complex systems (which collapsed and failed rather badly, much as Taleb predicts).
Wikipedia has some links to sources in the summary section:
Re: Why read Dostoevsky? A programmer's perspective
#99Dostoevsky has been a better psychologist to me than actual licensed psychologists.
Re: Why read Dostoevsky? A programmer's perspective
#100Do not, I repeat, DO NOT read Dostoevsky. It's full of harmful memes which are very likely to impair your subsequent functioning, and spread out into your surroundings, by way of contaminating your intentional actions with paradox (not the fun kind, either.)
I would generally suggest avoiding Russian literature entirely, especially if you're a programmer. Unless you've somehow made yourself basilisk-proof (and note that the reverse Algernon method won't work, their whole deal's bootstrapped)
EDIT:
OP says:
> Try applying the scientific method to define the psychology of the criminal. You will end up writing and sending a questionnaire, then publishing a paper in Science of how 80% of respondents (n=12) selected option A in the questionnaire. Try even finding 12 criminals willing to reply honestly to your questionnaire. Then ask yourself why social science papers don't replicate.
Now imagine a society with institutions that have the knowledge of how to force their way through the above issue, and decide for yourself whether you really wish to integrate any intellectual outputs from that society in your decision making process.