Books that dramatically changed the way you think

[Jimmy Higgins]

Tao Te Ching

I didn't realize I hadn't posted in here. The Tao Te Ching was huge for me. It provided me a philosophical compass late in my days of High School. Already an atheist, I really didn't have much else to go off of. I wasn't lacking, but there was some sort of void. I didn't need religion to live, but knowing how to approach the world isn't a bad thing either.

The Tao Te Ching was introduced to me in World Lit, and I absorbed that thing. Rare book that I had to read... yes, I know it isn't much of a book, but my interest in it was intense. Oddly enough, we were given four of the items from the Tao Te Ching while also reading Jonathon Livingstone Seagull... which was the dumbest fucking book ever! I plowed straight through that, though we were supposed to be reading as a class, so I could snag the Tao Te Ching from the teacher's desk and read that instead. The Tao Te Ching helps provide an understanding on how to see and interpret information, how to value what is before you, understand why something is as it is. In the end, I found it a bit too laissez faire, but it was an important start. Coupled with Siddhartha in the same class, my understanding of how some cultures could view the universe and humanity was expanded greatly. It was unique how gender, wealth, status could be removed to expose simple truths and reality.

Ironically an English class had a huge impact on my philosophical world views, despite me hating English with all my heart.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

There are many but they are mostly religious texts.

Reading the Bible made me realize how terrible Christianity is.

Reading books on Eastern religions (ex Tao Te Ching) made me see the world in a completely different and positive way

It is funny, you have that entire Bible, and almost no wisdom whatsoever. You've got Ecclesiastes and Proverbs, but that stuff is almost more like Readers Digest wisdom, than actual wisdom. The Eightfold Path cuts out the middle man and just puts it all out there, without the fluff. Learning to live as such takes a lifetime, but at least you can read it quickly, instead of studying a massive book of moral contradictions and stupidity.

 

[Tristan Scott]

Just finishing up Observer by Lanza and Kress. It definitely changes the way you think about just about everything.
I've read many SF stories where dealing with reality, but this one is written by a physicist who believes reality is literally produced by the observer. It's like the double slit experiment taken to an extreme conclusion.

Have you read Distress by Greg Egan?

It has a similar premise.

Egan is very good at very hard science fiction; A lot of his stuff is quite mind-bending.

He likes to set his stories in universes that are like ours, but with one topological or dimensional difference; However Distress is set on the regular universe (and indeed all takes place on Earth) in the near future.

No, haven't read it yet, I'll put it on my list.

 

[Thomas II]

Tao Te Ching

I didn't realize I hadn't posted in here. The Tao Te Ching was huge for me. It provided me a philosophical compass late in my days of High School. Already an atheist, I really didn't have much else to go off of. I wasn't lacking, but there was some sort of void. I didn't need religion to live, but knowing how to approach the world isn't a bad thing either.

The Tao Te Ching was introduced to me in World Lit, and I absorbed that thing. Rare book that I had to read... yes, I know it isn't much of a book, but my interest in it was intense. Oddly enough, we were given four of the items from the Tao Te Ching while also reading Jonathon Livingstone Seagull... which was the dumbest fucking book ever! I plowed straight through that, though we were supposed to be reading as a class, so I could snag the Tao Te Ching from the teacher's desk and read that instead. The Tao Te Ching helps provide an understanding on how to see and interpret information, how to value what is before you, understand why something is as it is. In the end, I found it a bit too laissez faire, but it was an important start. Coupled with Siddhartha in the same class, my understanding of how some cultures could view the universe and humanity was expanded greatly. It was unique how gender, wealth, status could be removed to expose simple truths and reality.

Ironically an English class had a huge impact on my philosophical world views, despite me hating English with all my heart.

Tao Te Ching
and Siddhartha
Steppenwolf
Brave New World
1984...

 

[rousseau]

Tao Te Ching

I didn't realize I hadn't posted in here. The Tao Te Ching was huge for me. It provided me a philosophical compass late in my days of High School. Already an atheist, I really didn't have much else to go off of. I wasn't lacking, but there was some sort of void. I didn't need religion to live, but knowing how to approach the world isn't a bad thing either.

The Tao Te Ching was introduced to me in World Lit, and I absorbed that thing. Rare book that I had to read... yes, I know it isn't much of a book, but my interest in it was intense. Oddly enough, we were given four of the items from the Tao Te Ching while also reading Jonathon Livingstone Seagull... which was the dumbest fucking book ever! I plowed straight through that, though we were supposed to be reading as a class, so I could snag the Tao Te Ching from the teacher's desk and read that instead. The Tao Te Ching helps provide an understanding on how to see and interpret information, how to value what is before you, understand why something is as it is. In the end, I found it a bit too laissez faire, but it was an important start. Coupled with Siddhartha in the same class, my understanding of how some cultures could view the universe and humanity was expanded greatly. It was unique how gender, wealth, status could be removed to expose simple truths and reality.

Ironically an English class had a huge impact on my philosophical world views, despite me hating English with all my heart.

The Tao Te Ching as interpreted by Zen Buddhists in The Blue Cliff Record is helpful. But I'm still debating how much more of The Blue Cliff Record I can take. It's about the quintessential Buddhist book (assuming a preexisting mastery of Zen), but the concepts contained in it aren't light in any way.

 

[robnisch]

Masks of God. Totally opened my eyes to what religion really is.

 

[Politesse]

Ah, Campbell. That one or Hero are often the only work of religious philosophy my students have encountered before enrolling in my religions class.

 

[Thomas II]

"The Naked Bible", by Mauro Biglino

 

[Vito Lear]

The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. Because in the end, it's all about probabilities and absurdities.

 

[Elixir]

Asimov’s Foundation series.
Blew my 7th grade mind and it never recovered.

 

[Swammerdami]

I read LOTS of Asimov (fiction and non-fiction) when I was young. Second Foundation was very special. I liked it better than the first two in the trilogy which I read later -- Is there a general tendency to like the first-read best?

It was years later when I finally realized that Paul French -- whose Lucky Starr books I had read when I was VERY young -- was a pseudonym for Isaac Asimov.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

Pale Blue Dot and The Demon Haunted World by Carl Sagan are the main ones. I still re-read them along with Dawkins' evolution books.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Asimov’s Foundation series.
Blew my 7th grade mind and it never recovered.

What really blew my mind was learning that Asimov was an autist and his robots are actually him describing himself. That's also why every single character in his books seems autistic. Because they are. And therefore relatable to kids and teenagers who also think the adult world is weird and alien, while shallow and stupid to a more well adjusted and mature adult.

I forget who said it but the sci-fi addage rings so true, about that sci-fi writers are not writing about the future. They're writing about the present. They just set it in the future to make current problems more dramatic and easier to talk about.