Hacker News Books

> I could also take the works of Darwin and insert references to young earth creationism on every page, but

Something very similar to this exists: A version of Origin of Species with a 50-page rebuttal attached:
https://www.google.com/search?q=creationist+origin+of+specie...

I think the modern pop-science book (eg this or Thinking Fast and Slow) is more or less the same thing as older natural philosophy writing (eg Origin of Species).

Onfim is just wonderful, thank you for that! (I love the one of an adult horseman labelled "Onfim.")

At some point I should make a collection of all the kid's scribbles I've seen in archives. I remember one in the Huntington Library that was a contemporary copy of John Donne poems, written in beautiful script, but interspersed with a 4-year-olds scribbles of faces and animals via quill pen. It was hilarious.

I also love Darwin's kids drawings on the back of his "Origin of Species" manuscript: http://theappendix.net/posts/2014/02/darwins-children-drew-v...

A lot of the criticisms of the Jaynes hypothesis tend to surround the word “consciousness,” which Jaynes defined very precisely for the sake of his argument (internal mind space, analog I, and something else, been a while since I read origin of consciousness).

Either way I’d heavily recommend Origin of Consciousness, it’s an endlessly entertaining piece of work.

in my family there has been a simple question being raised for as many years i can remember but there has never been a satisfactory answer yet.
"if early muslims had all the science, mathematics, geography, philosophy and all fields of science including hundreds of scientists who laid down the foundations of modern science with their works, what happened 800 years ago that all that science just vanished?"

Then years ago i read "origin" by "Dan brown" where an interesting line caught my attention

“By the end of the eleventh century,” Edmond said, “the greatest intellectual exploration and discovery on earth was taking place in and around Baghdad. Then, almost overnight, that changed. A brilliant scholar named Hamid al-Ghazali—now considered one of the most influential Muslims in history—wrote a series of persuasive texts questioning the logic of Plato and Aristotle and declaring mathematics to be ‘the philosophy of the devil.’ This began a confluence of events that undermined scientific thinking. The study of theology was made compulsory, and eventually the entire Islamic scientific movement collapsed.”

Since reading this, i've been trying to understand 2 things. 1, is this just fiction on the part of author and in that case, isnt it slander, spreading false information about a scholar who many hold to high regards and 2, if this is true, then this fucking asshole is responsible for causing immeasurable harm to "science" as a human idea on the whole.

While i think just one person "might not" be responsible for single-handedly causing such a travesty on his own, there is no doubt "something" happened that caused this change. This author says it was this ghazali guy, maybe there were others also. I don't know but i surely would want to know

A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts - Andrew Chaikin. Loved it

A Man for all Markets - Edward O. Thorp. Loved his stories about counting cards and then moving onto hedge funds etc.

American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road – Nick Bilton. Not a bad rundown on the Silk Road. I came across this book after listening to the Casefile podcast https://casefilepodcast.com/case-76-silk-road-part-1/ which I highly recommend.

Origin - Dan Brown. Enjoyed his first couple of books and thought that this might be alright. It was okay.

Past related threads. Others?

Bicameralism (Psychology) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20366921 - July 2019 (29 comments)

Mr. Jaynes’ Wild Ride (2013) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19122626 - Feb 2019 (9 comments)

The “bicameral mind” 30 years on: A reappraisal of Jaynes’ hypothesis (2007) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18521482 - Nov 2018 (92 comments)

How Julian Jaynes’ consciousness theory is faring in the neuroscience age (2015) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15677871 - Nov 2017 (90 comments)

How Bicameralism Helps Explain Westworld - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13141112 - Dec 2016 (2 comments)

“There Is Only Awe” – on Julian Jaynes - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9321158 - April 2015 (14 comments)

The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7799698 - May 2014 (60 comments)

Origin of Consciousness (bicameral mind) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1510815 - July 2010 (7 comments)

Try starting with something suspense based that does not have convoluted writing and really grabs your attention, like a Dan Brown book or Harry Potter (read by Stephen Fry). Also, go for the professional readings (i.e. not most of Librivox) and pay careful attention to what reviews say about the reader, as their performance is essential for comprehension. Play around with listening speed a bit (both too slow and too fast won’t work, depending on the material). I could easily increase material complexity after getting through suspense-based books.

I could not get into audiobooks (even after years of listening to scientific talk podcasts) until I got hold of Origin by Dan Brown in an Audible trial, and ended up being gripped by the 20 hour book for two weeks straight. It has been 15+ audiobooks from various sources per year for me since then, which has really enriched my life. Retention is better since I finish the books that can be integrated with various activities not requiring verbal thinking way faster.