As a high school student, I had all sorts of interests: Math, science, electronics, music, computers. GEB reinforced my interest in math as being more than just useful (for physics and electronics), and led me to choose math as my college major. Not surprisingly, getting interested in math as an end unto itself was what got me good enough at it, to actually make it useful for those other things, and I ended up doing my graduate work in physics.
+1, Same here. Like, I'm not even happy about it, I could have done something very different if i didn't read that book. "It blew my mind at an impressionable age" is a comment I read online about this book, very accurate!
Yes, the same for me - this book was the most influential in my life!
I spent three years of my life reading this book from cover to back three times and it was a different experience every time.
That was in 1985 and in Germany, during my education as a typesetter. I was 20, into computers (ZX81, C64), the Internet was still years away and this book just mesmerized my brain.
The German version of GEB is also a typographical marvel (printed by Klett-Cotta, fonts Syntax and Weidemann) - much nicer than the US version.
I picked out GEB randomly at a bookstore like 20 years ago. The cover grabbed my attention and I started flipping through it and was instantly curious. My mom ended up buying it for me, on Valentine's Day I believe, ha.
Read the whole thing pretty quickly after that, I couldn't put it down.
I quite like your description of what you got out of it, it's been a pretty fuzzy concept to me for a long time but "the beauty of logic and its limits" is a great way to put it. :)
This. This book is so much more than math. It's about using multidisciplinary approach to tackle a series of deep philosophical problems. The math-inclined crowd here unsurprisingly sees inspiration from the math perspective (which is a perfectly fine and valid view), but there's also a lot of ideas from art (Escher), music (Bach), and classic philosophy (both from Western and Eastern traditions!), not to mention as a book written in the 1970s, it is (AFAICT) well-informed in the a state of art theory of computation and bioinformatics.
The sheer breadth and depth of understanding from the author blew my mind away. I suspect my attitude towards cross-disciplinary learning was probably reinforced by reading the book.
I think what you get out of this book really depends on where you are intellectually when you approach it. I read this book decades ago while in college and it helped me conceptualize a recursive universe; thus, how complexity comes from simplicity. It was a mind blowing experience where I wasn't able to sleep for days as my mind raced to make sense of it all.
Ultimately, the ideas I formulated while reading this book set the foundation for my understanding of the universe in general. It gave me a mental model that has served me well for over 20 years and freed my mind to wonder about other things.
+1 for influenced. A charismatic high school philosophy teacher recommended it to us and it prompted me to read G's collected works they had in my uni library. Came up liking more the set theoretic bit than the incompleteness conundrum.
One of the recommended lectures on a logic class I had at my school, which was run by missionary nuns from Minnessota (and the teacher himself was catholic), was Carl Sagan's The demon-haunted world. It turned me into an atheist.
Yes, In a lot of ways Sagan was a forerunner of the "New Atheists" like Dawkins and Dennet, but I think The Demon-Haunted World was more effective because it didn't go the confrontational "religion is evil" route rather than just gently point out the flaws in the religious world view and so could actually convince some people who weren't already atheists.
No Nordic country describes itself as socialist. The Nordic welfare model is made possible by free markets and private enterprise: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_model
Despite the PM not wishing to be seen adopting a US-negatively stereotyped moniker, the economy is democratic socialism. See the wiki article for more sources. Also, your wiki article[0] describes the Nordic model transition to socialism.
though honestly I was more influenced by movies than books, I guess strongest influence on hour I vote the world around me had Fight Club, Falling Down and American Beauty plus the car speech in Se7en and Collateral as well, Taxi Driver as well
I can trace some drastic changes in my own life's trajectory to this book. Baxandall treats a familiar subject in starkly unfamiliar terms. Putting it in context but not making it any more relatable as it would be in a work of fiction or scholarly microhistory. Rather he works out some fundamental relations, social networks, kin structures, schooling and tribal knowledge, higher cortical functions etc. from the basic principles. The canonical works of art (lesser known but no less striking when presented through this lens in his Limewood Sculptors of Renaissance Germany) served me as a vehicle to self discovery.
This is actually the most interesting book on this thread. I ordered immediately. I’ve been on a big Renaissance kick lately. You find inspiration in the unlikeliest of places. Thanks!
Steven Pinker's "Better Angels of Our Nature" and the sequel "Enlightenment Now" briefly helped to restore my faith that humanity is not entirely an evil virus best gone the way of the dinosaurs. Don't get me wrong though, these books are not easy reads. In the first one Pinker does spend an inordinate amount of time cataloging humanity's centuries of evils against itself before he can make the case that we're doing better now, so don't consider these to be light reads.
Going to assume that your use of "briefly" there is preceding your attempt at a short synopsis, rather than that your views have shifted again.
Personally I'm depressingly cynical when it comes to Pinker's views, looking at, e.g., https://twitter.com/robinhanson/status/1496685550241292293 and then thinking about how now, given modern weaponry one man's decision could basically destroy all life on earth. A few billion dead in a single conflict would be all it'd take to really mess up Pinker's trend line.
I have sympathy for what he is trying to do (actually put data on what people traditionally just use "gut feeling" for) but yes, it is the sort of thing that might sound sadly misguided depending on how things turn out, much as how late 19th century writers like Spencer suggested that the trend of the 19th century suggested that things like war and famine were fading away not predicting the world wars or the famines of Stalin and Mao in the 20th.
The Compass of Zen by Seung Sahn. I was a much angrier and stressed person prior to reading it.
Not perfect today by any means but far, far better. And no, I'm not a "practicing" zen buddhist or anything close - the book just sort of reset my mind and outlook on life and dealings with others.
The Gita-- Eknath Easwaran's translation is the best
Gilgamesh--Stephen Mitchell's translation
Dear Author, you need to quit by Becca Syme-- a book for fiction writers, it opened my eyes to the fact that I dont need to follow the advice of "experts", thats its okay to write what I love and keep my writing a fun hobby. I only recently read this, and it allowed me to restart writing after a 2-3 year gap.
If you want a balanced, philosophical, explanatory, and a direct version, go with the translation by Servapalli Radhakrishnan. SR was an educator, philosopher, and the first Vice President of free India. He later became the President of India.
As far as I know Hacker News and the people that dwell on it, this translation [0] will be an ideal fit.
Martin Gardner’s “The Whys of a philosophical scrivener” influenced my 20s & 30s. Looking back, should have been exposed to it much earlier, perhaps in my early teens.
My book is in context of changing career over to software engineer... "SOFT SKILLS" by John Somnez. Not sure if there's any alternative today for self taught people, but this book released right when I had started obtaining real work. Obviously just my personal experience.
"The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching" - Thich Nhat Hanh
It's not overly spiritual, but there's a relaxing, reassuring, thoughtful, and un-judging sense of peace that permeates this books. Brought me out of a really dark place when I was looking for reasons to keep existing.
I think the key is that you have to read it when you are trying to collaborate with someone and you can't seem to communicate. In that moment, the guidance is a serious level up. If read outside of that context you'll say "well, yeah, sure, duh." In situ, it will help you better communicate (speaking and listening).
It's been a few years since I read this (when I briefly considered switching from software engineering to management) and the one thing that stuck is the advice to "start with heart" during your crucial conversations.
Trite indeed, but it's not a bad phrase to have bouncing around in your head before you have to deliver critical feedback or resolve an interpersonal conflict. Never forget you're talking to a fellow human.
Maybe a bit more niche, but these two have been real eye openers.
The Book of Why - Judea Pearl. A very down to earth book about causality and related concepts.
How Emotions are Made - Lisa Feldman Barrett. Emotions make a lot more sense after reading her book.
538 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 324 ms ] threadThis book explained me concepts of - material - time - and quality
in chess and business life.
Introduced me to the beauty of logic and its limits. Also gave me solid mathematical thinking foundations.
Pro tip: Try listening to Bach while you read about Bach.
I spent three years of my life reading this book from cover to back three times and it was a different experience every time.
That was in 1985 and in Germany, during my education as a typesetter. I was 20, into computers (ZX81, C64), the Internet was still years away and this book just mesmerized my brain.
The German version of GEB is also a typographical marvel (printed by Klett-Cotta, fonts Syntax and Weidemann) - much nicer than the US version.
Read the whole thing pretty quickly after that, I couldn't put it down.
I quite like your description of what you got out of it, it's been a pretty fuzzy concept to me for a long time but "the beauty of logic and its limits" is a great way to put it. :)
I need to re-read it.
The sheer breadth and depth of understanding from the author blew my mind away. I suspect my attitude towards cross-disciplinary learning was probably reinforced by reading the book.
Ultimately, the ideas I formulated while reading this book set the foundation for my understanding of the universe in general. It gave me a mental model that has served me well for over 20 years and freed my mind to wonder about other things.
- 2011 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2147034
- 2013 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6975638 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6413600
- 2015 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10914079
- 2018 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17168136
- 2019 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22011867
- 2020 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24361132 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25356908
"I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different."
And
"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be."
And not a book, but a documentary – The War by Ken Burns.
It show me there is another world if you go outside socialism and that socialism has a lot of bad consequence that are never talked about
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_socialism
This conflation of a welfare state with democratic socialism is Bernie Bro level nonsense: https://www.thelocal.dk/20151101/danish-pm-in-us-denmark-is-...
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_model#Sweden
though honestly I was more influenced by movies than books, I guess strongest influence on hour I vote the world around me had Fight Club, Falling Down and American Beauty plus the car speech in Se7en and Collateral as well, Taxi Driver as well
Personally I'm depressingly cynical when it comes to Pinker's views, looking at, e.g., https://twitter.com/robinhanson/status/1496685550241292293 and then thinking about how now, given modern weaponry one man's decision could basically destroy all life on earth. A few billion dead in a single conflict would be all it'd take to really mess up Pinker's trend line.
Not perfect today by any means but far, far better. And no, I'm not a "practicing" zen buddhist or anything close - the book just sort of reset my mind and outlook on life and dealings with others.
It got me into reading about history and taught me to be more critical of media.
Gilgamesh--Stephen Mitchell's translation
Dear Author, you need to quit by Becca Syme-- a book for fiction writers, it opened my eyes to the fact that I dont need to follow the advice of "experts", thats its okay to write what I love and keep my writing a fun hobby. I only recently read this, and it allowed me to restart writing after a 2-3 year gap.
If you want a balanced, philosophical, explanatory, and a direct version, go with the translation by Servapalli Radhakrishnan. SR was an educator, philosopher, and the first Vice President of free India. He later became the President of India.
As far as I know Hacker News and the people that dwell on it, this translation [0] will be an ideal fit.
[0]: https://harpercollins.co.in/product/the-bhagavad-gita/
There is no innate talent - it takes practice and repetition to build those capabilities
Scary
I would also suggest going through the references that they use in Peak and understanding the samples they use to extrapolate from.
Cosmos was such a departure from anything else I read for school or for pleasure. It transformed my love of reading into a love of learning.
On the Road gave me wanderlust and made me want to move beyond my bubble and see the world.
It's not overly spiritual, but there's a relaxing, reassuring, thoughtful, and un-judging sense of peace that permeates this books. Brought me out of a really dark place when I was looking for reasons to keep existing.
It limits itself only to direct teachings of Buddha, and it explains the core concepts and teachings of Buddhism by explaining everything simply.
The author is a revered scholar and his style of writing is excellent.
wow!!
downloaded, thank!
About 75 pp. ca. 1850.
I think the key is that you have to read it when you are trying to collaborate with someone and you can't seem to communicate. In that moment, the guidance is a serious level up. If read outside of that context you'll say "well, yeah, sure, duh." In situ, it will help you better communicate (speaking and listening).
Trite indeed, but it's not a bad phrase to have bouncing around in your head before you have to deliver critical feedback or resolve an interpersonal conflict. Never forget you're talking to a fellow human.