Mental Gains

Look up Anthony Robbins on YouTube and listen to his videos

I'm not preaching Sarte like it's a Bible and I know it's gathered a lot of criticism, but I do think it's an interesting read. Essence before existence or existence before essence is a neat thing to think about.

What sort of mental gains do you wish to achieve Veeky Forumsizen? If the STEM kind I have little to offer, but if you browse Veeky Forums from time to time I would recommend reading the classics of philosophical/ political thought. Try by starting with works from the ancient times, like Plato's "The Republic" and Sun Tzu's "The Art of War". Then naturally progress to studying dark ages history and poetry, then enlightened works starting with anything Machievellian then to Locke and Hobbes, etc. Then if you are a patriot read the "Federalist" essays and study and memorize the Constitution. Then read Tocqueville's observations of the post-revolutionary western world. Then of course Nietzche et al and from there Betrand Russel or whomever tickles your fancy.

Oh and play lots of strategy games, whether it is chess with a brother or halo wars or some shit just keep your mind constantly emgaged.

>why yes, I do read philosophical literature in my spare time

>Making fun of people for trying to learn

Also almost forgot to mention I HIGHLY RECOMMEND checking out Hofdstater's "Surfaces and Essances". It's a beast only the most disciplined and educated and perhaps pedantic can stomach, but if you love to think so much you love to think about how we think this book is eye-opening.

Get yourself a copy of the Bhagavad Gita, preferably the As It Is version (pic related) and preferably from a monk if you have any in your area. This way you can talk to them about the philiosphy once you get into it a bit.

This book changed my life

but why would you want to learn about philosophy? there is no point.

Integral Calculus by Stewart

No, Apolstol. Stewart is for engineers.

>The bible is bullshit
>The koran is a lie
>The bhagavad gita did not fall from the sky

>These are the books that were written by man
>They've caused wars, now follow if you can

This, literally anything after Diogenes is pointless
Also, if you're point is to make mental gains why the fuck would you ask someone instead of doing research like anyone else wishing to enrich their mind does?
Being lazy is hardly the way to start off on an adventure that's destination ends with your mind being enlightened

The book is OK but still not good enough at explaining

but why would you want to lift metal off the ground, there's literally no point

...

I'm reading the communist manifesto right now. It's kind of interesting to see marx look at previous iterations of bourgeois vs proletariat and compare them to how things are at his time, and imagine what he would think of all of this stuff now.

The pursuit of philosophy is literally pursuit of Truth. I'm down to discuss what this means.

Castaneda

If you want to approch it from a non-religious perspective there is still tons of philosophical ideas in the Gita that are found in later pieces of Western literature.
Its funny that you mention that these books have started wars, the Gita itself is framed around Krsna convincing Arjuna to go into battle against his family when he is at the point of laying down his weapons.

Of course >war is bad is a nice modern meme but if you want to expand your thinking to include ideas of duty as well as compasion (again, no religion required) then this book already has something to teach you.

I actually intend to explore economic aspects myself. I wanted to read "Das Kapital" the same time as "The Wealth of Nations" and contrast thetwo.

My understanding of Marx is very limited but from what others have told me, his critism of Capitalism has some merit, he just jumped the shark when he tried to propose Comunism as a solution.

>Letting commies into your mind
If you turn pinko you deserve the bullet you'll eat during The Habbening™

I want /pol/ to stay

I've organized a fair amount of books to read, I was just curious if Veeky Forums would have any suggestions. Also wouldn't this constitute research? Unless the research you had in mind was something more fancy than browsing the internet for noteworthy literature.

I do firmly believe that reading both Marx and Smith concurrently is the best shot one has at discerning the truth and would be best suited to judge which economic approach is most desirable.

I recommend

Spivak's Calculus
Munkres' Topology
John Taylor's Mechanics

Moby Dick
Darkness At Noon
The Trial

Leo Strauss
Oswald Spengler
Spinoza's Ethics
Deleuze's Anti-Oedipus

as particularly interesting works worth reading

Philosphy isn't mental gains, it's mental masturbation.
Learn physics, comprehend all that is.

Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah

Then learn math and physics.

Maybe true for 90% of philosophy but the good shit out there will help you a lot in life. When a personal crisis hits all your knowledge of physics will feel useless, trust me (STEM major here, you don't need uni for philosophy)

Enchiridion of Epictetus

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

A guide to the good life, the ancient art of stoic joy by William Irvine

Basically stoicism.

Am a STEM major, need some worthwhile reads that aren't about math or science. Good literature is a really nice mix up from having to read articles and journals about microbiomes.

Philosophy does jack for a personal crisis.
If anything a school of thought is what you mean.
For example, I'd recommend reading The Gateless Gate.

The Unabomber Manifesto

Not joking, guy was seriously emotionally unstable (due to being tortured as a kid through psychological experiments), but he's one of the most intelligent people alive, really interesting read.

Well a solid understanding of philiosphy is gonna help you create or select a robust 'school of thought' if I understand what you mean by that correctly. You just need the balls to be firm about your values even when society (particularly university) is screaming at you that everything is relative and unqualitable.

Marx was a political theorist who never worked a day in his life. Nothing he has proposed has ever worked when implemented, yet people still say 'omg it just wasn't done right'. The only people who take him seriously anymore are academic elites, far removed from reality, and edgy Che Guvera shirt wearing teenagers.

Not bad. I'd supplement with
>Goldstein: classical mechanics
>*Hoffman & Kunze: linear algebra
>*Rudin: mathematical analysis
>*Gibbs: vector calc
>*Walter: ODEs and PDEs
>*Strogatz: nonlinear dynamical systems
>Jackson: classical electromagnetism
>Taylor & Wheeler: special relativity
>Cohen-Tannoudji: quantum mechanics
>Gallian: theory of rings and fields
>*Sternberg: group theory
>Cox: algebraic geometry
>*Conway: complex analysis
>*Riesz: fucntional analysis
>Schredniki: QFT
>*Bump: Lie groups and algebras
>Thorne, Misner & Wheeler: general relativity
>*Lee: smooth manifolds
This will tide you over for the next decade. * denotes the math texts that you must read if you're going the physics direction if you want a complete understanding.
More information is available at math.ucr.edu/home/baez/books.html#topology.

I've figured out much more by just evaluating reality than with all those philosophic views I studied long ago. Most philosophy is completely irrelevant to anything practical or even to lifestyle. People easily dye themselves of one color or another during their lives, to think a single point of view is right is to be oblivious.
You don't need to be firm against societal adversity, you just need to understand its root and purpose, evaluate how it affects currently or long term, what to do about it if anything, and what to pretend.

Marxism is inevitable, but as a byproduct of automatization of jobs followed by ridiculous amounts of unenployement, not as a state directive or philosphy.

Tips greek bust*

I'm sure similar accusations could be made against all kinds of great thinkers throughout history. Not to imply Marx was a great thinker, it doesn't take a genius to recognise inequality and injustice. If someone has the time to write down those thoughts in a coherent manner it can be worth a read, if only to examine someone elses perspective.

But yes I agree his ideas on Communism were retarded and can be disregarded, doesn't mean his thoughts on Capitalism aren't (potencially) of some merit.

And full disclosure, I've been working shitty minimum wage jobs full time for the last 2 years (I'm 20) and its changed my perspective on a lot of things so I'm not trying to invalidate what your saying.

Plain Facts for Old and Young is a good book to read if you're concerned about sexual health

I agree with most of what you're saying which is why I said 90% of philosophy is a waste of time. Plus regardless of how much reading you do, most of your world view is gonna come from personal experience and examining the world around you (assuming you live a full life and aren't some academic wankoff). I just think its naive to belive that doing this in isolation is gonna lead to the best results. Thats why I read this shit anyway, but its also why I talk to my friends and find out their perspective and whats going on in their lives. Philosophy is just a nice supplement to that.

By reading about different schools of philosophy wouldn't that help one avoid believing one view is right? I can have not only the views that I earned from my upbringing but also views from people who's lives were vastly different from mine.

If you just want a decent story Crime and Punishment/Lolita are fairly well written imo, and they do show a couple of different ways to look at the world.
If you want a laugh I would highly recommend Catch 22

This book is excellent and much better than Spivak

Meditation, Marcus Aurelius

Not the guy your responding to but thats pretty much why I wrote It takes some balls and often a bit of faith to have confidence in a world view when you are presented with all these differing but very well thought out phillosophies. Thats where personal experience comes into play. Its why some people still have strong religious views when we now know how many countless differnt religions coming from countless different cultures there are.

The As it Is version is the worst.

It's the edition by the Hare Krishna cult, and isn't an accurate translation, and the additional material is misleading.

>check out Lolita from local library
>fap to it while reading
>cum on the pages
>there are drops of cum splattered on every 75-100 pages
>close book after finishing it without wiping it off
>wait for it to crust up
>return it
>cancel library card and delete all personal information

>implying that Lolita depicts any character as worth anything other than contempt

>ADD sperglords need pretty little colourful pictures in order to learn
Not surprised in the least.

>that one guy who still doesn't know how God works in the year 2016 with access to the internet

I mean, it's not like it hurts, but reading a ton of text to extract a 5% that is valuable, and out of that a 1% that is practical is quite a waste of time.

What I refered previously as schools of thought is not related to philosophy schools, but literally a way of thinking about the world. I'm not talking about morality or dogma, but about how you percieve and evaluate things.
For example, the gateless gate is a work that wikipedia describes to be about " inquiry and introspection of dualistic conceptualization". It's quite an insightful read despite the pretentious description, that is if you got the time to think instead of being spoonfed.

Literally this

This is my read least

Donald Trump - The art of the deal

Barbara Pease - The Definitive Book of Body Language DONE

John Gray - Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus 15 pages a day

Robert Cialdini - The Psychology of Influence DONE

Ogi Ogas - A Billion Wicked Thoughts

Dale Carnegie - How to win friends and influence people DONE

Allan Pease - Talk Language

>(I'm 20)

Explains why you'd even consider taking Marx seriously. I was the same in college.