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.
