Re: [silk] What book changed your mind?
I was happy to see The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind on the list in the Chronicle (although it's more than 30 years old. Closer to 40, I think.) I remember reading it shortly after it came out, and while some of its conclusions seemed a bit of a stretch, it was certainly provocative answered questions that I had never thought about but which are in fact interesting legitimate. If I had to choose 1 non-fiction book that has changed my mind it would be Hofstadter's Goedel Escher Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. (It too is dates from 1970's but if Jaynes gets in, then I'll assume Hofstadter can too.) This book changed me in two ways. The first was in tying together the various ideas about recursion, self-similarity, and of course the Strange Loop, and the provocative thesis that strange loops are at the core of self-awareness consciousness (which I believe is very likely on the right track which has certainly influenced me as a novelist; all of my work touches on this central idea in one way or another). The second way that the book changed me was in convincing me that I could understand concepts that had scared me away before I read it. I graduated from college in 1974, a few years before I read GEB. In college I didn't take a single math (maths) course or course in logic. After college I spent 2 years in the Peace Corps, most of that time living in a mud hut on the edge of the Sahara, a full day's travel from reliable electricity or running water. I was interested in agriculture my philosophy was pretty romantic -- still feeling the after effects of the whole hippie thing. GEB showed me that what I really love, where I'm really at home, is in the geek world where ideas fixations like his predominate. jrs On Nov 14, 2014, at 5:29 PM, Thaths wrote: This post http://chronicle.com/article/What-Book-Changed-Your-Mind-/149839/ of people talking about the books that changed their minds made me wonder Which book made *you*, dear Silk lister, change your mind? How? A handful of books have had such an impact on me. I need to whittle it down to one. Thaths PS: The annual Silk List Book Recommendations thread is starting early this year.
Re: [silk] What book changed your mind?
Destructive Emotions: A Scientific Dialogue with the Dalai Lama by Daniel Goleman As a rationalist and skeptic, I had been extremely suspicious of woo woo claims about meditation, but I was interested is Dan Goleman's research into meditation and stress and I was intrigued by the scientific dialog claim. I was reading along with a rather skeptical attitude when I ran across a chapter talking about an experiment that Paul Ekman did with a trained meditator, in which he suppressed his startle reflex. That should not be possible! Digging further I discovered that meditation does seem to have objective measurable effects and I now meditate daily. Because of this book. -- Charles On Mon, Nov 17, 2014 at 12:57 AM, John Sundman j...@wetmachine.com wrote: I was happy to see The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind on the list in the Chronicle (although it's more than 30 years old. Closer to 40, I think.) I remember reading it shortly after it came out, and while some of its conclusions seemed a bit of a stretch, it was certainly provocative answered questions that I had never thought about but which are in fact interesting legitimate. If I had to choose 1 non-fiction book that has changed my mind it would be Hofstadter's Goedel Escher Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. (It too is dates from 1970's but if Jaynes gets in, then I'll assume Hofstadter can too.) This book changed me in two ways. The first was in tying together the various ideas about recursion, self-similarity, and of course the Strange Loop, and the provocative thesis that strange loops are at the core of self-awareness consciousness (which I believe is very likely on the right track which has certainly influenced me as a novelist; all of my work touches on this central idea in one way or another). The second way that the book changed me was in convincing me that I could understand concepts that had scared me away before I read it. I graduated from college in 1974, a few years before I read GEB. In college I didn't take a single math (maths) course or course in logic. After college I spent 2 years in the Peace Corps, most of that time living in a mud hut on the edge of the Sahara, a full day's travel from reliable electricity or running water. I was interested in agriculture my philosophy was pretty romantic -- still feeling the after effects of the whole hippie thing. GEB showed me that what I really love, where I'm really at home, is in the geek world where ideas fixations like his predominate. jrs On Nov 14, 2014, at 5:29 PM, Thaths wrote: This post http://chronicle.com/article/What-Book-Changed-Your-Mind-/149839/ of people talking about the books that changed their minds made me wonder Which book made *you*, dear Silk lister, change your mind? How? A handful of books have had such an impact on me. I need to whittle it down to one. Thaths PS: The annual Silk List Book Recommendations thread is starting early this year.
Re: [silk] What book changed your mind?
The most important book in my life was Solzhenitsyn’s “One Day In the Life of Ivan Denisovich”, which I read in my teens. Because while I’ve always read obsessively, all I read up till then was formulaic sci-fi, often re-reading the same one over and over. It taught me that other kinds of books – “serious” books – were worth trying. I still like me some good ol’-fashioned Space Opera, but Solzhenitzyn led me to a lifetime of challenging myself to read big complicated books that try to be more than entertainment. Even though “Ivan Denisovich” is small and simple. And perfect. On Sun, Nov 16, 2014 at 1:08 PM, Charles Haynes charles.hay...@gmail.com wrote: Destructive Emotions: A Scientific Dialogue with the Dalai Lama by Daniel Goleman As a rationalist and skeptic, I had been extremely suspicious of woo woo claims about meditation, but I was interested is Dan Goleman's research into meditation and stress and I was intrigued by the scientific dialog claim. I was reading along with a rather skeptical attitude when I ran across a chapter talking about an experiment that Paul Ekman did with a trained meditator, in which he suppressed his startle reflex. That should not be possible! Digging further I discovered that meditation does seem to have objective measurable effects and I now meditate daily. Because of this book. -- Charles On Mon, Nov 17, 2014 at 12:57 AM, John Sundman j...@wetmachine.com wrote: I was happy to see The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind on the list in the Chronicle (although it's more than 30 years old. Closer to 40, I think.) I remember reading it shortly after it came out, and while some of its conclusions seemed a bit of a stretch, it was certainly provocative answered questions that I had never thought about but which are in fact interesting legitimate. If I had to choose 1 non-fiction book that has changed my mind it would be Hofstadter's Goedel Escher Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. (It too is dates from 1970's but if Jaynes gets in, then I'll assume Hofstadter can too.) This book changed me in two ways. The first was in tying together the various ideas about recursion, self-similarity, and of course the Strange Loop, and the provocative thesis that strange loops are at the core of self-awareness consciousness (which I believe is very likely on the right track which has certainly influenced me as a novelist; all of my work touches on this central idea in one way or another). The second way that the book changed me was in convincing me that I could understand concepts that had scared me away before I read it. I graduated from college in 1974, a few years before I read GEB. In college I didn't take a single math (maths) course or course in logic. After college I spent 2 years in the Peace Corps, most of that time living in a mud hut on the edge of the Sahara, a full day's travel from reliable electricity or running water. I was interested in agriculture my philosophy was pretty romantic -- still feeling the after effects of the whole hippie thing. GEB showed me that what I really love, where I'm really at home, is in the geek world where ideas fixations like his predominate. jrs On Nov 14, 2014, at 5:29 PM, Thaths wrote: This post http://chronicle.com/article/What-Book-Changed-Your-Mind-/149839/ of people talking about the books that changed their minds made me wonder Which book made *you*, dear Silk lister, change your mind? How? A handful of books have had such an impact on me. I need to whittle it down to one. Thaths PS: The annual Silk List Book Recommendations thread is starting early this year. -- - Tim Bray (If you’d like to send me a private message, see https://keybase.io/timbray)
Re: [silk] What book changed your mind?
On Sat, Nov 15, 2014 at 3:59 AM, Thaths tha...@gmail.com wrote: Which book made *you*, dear Silk lister, change your mind? How? Rudy Rucker's _Infinity and the Mind_. 1. It kicked off a lifelong fascination with the concept of infinity. 2. It provided an accessible introduction to Godel's Incompleteness Theorems, which also changed my mind in many ways (no, Hofstadter was *not* a good introduction, although GEB was great in many other ways) 3. It provided an interesting, previously unconsidered, way of thinking about mysticism. Udhay PS: I invited Rudy to silk when I started it in 1997, but he declined. :) -- ((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com))
Re: [silk] What book changed your mind?
Godel, Escher Bach. Douglas Hofstadter. Read it when I was seventeen, understood very little, but was absolutely staggered by what little I did understand. Godel's Incompleteness theorem changed my life view, if math could not be 'perfect,' what could?
