Hey Veeky Forums, what are some books that changed your perspectives on life and contributed to your self development...

Hey Veeky Forums, what are some books that changed your perspectives on life and contributed to your self development, maturity, etc.?

You can most certainly recommend entry level literature. For instance, I read "Shogun" when I was really young and up untill this day the whole "shikata ga nai" perspective is still pretty strong in me. Hesse's Sidharta, also made a mark on me. Same with Seneca and Marcus Aurelius.

Thanks!

Other urls found in this thread:

vice.com/en_ca/read/how-anti-vaccine-parents-found-guilty-in-death-of-toddler-grew-to-distrust-medicine
deanradin.com/FOC2014/Masters2007Prayer.pdf
psycnet.apa.org/journals/bul/97/2/286/
mindfulnessstudies.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/S1-Mindfulness-Based-Therapy-A-Comprehensive-Meta-Analysis-by-Khoury-et-al..pdf
twitter.com/SFWRedditImages

source un burger ?

2nded

no idea f.am.

Momo by Michael Ende is like one of those personality-changing books in Dragon Warrior 3. It can have a deep impact on your very essence. Maybe.

From a place called Cali Burger in Stockholm apparently

Jacques Ellul's “The Technological Society” got me out of scientism and I grew more and more hostile towards the current definition and manifestation of progress over the years. Later, I read Paul Feyerabend and it contributed to my skepticism about formal sciences. I also had Norbert Elias' “On Time” which has deeply shaken the way I organize myself and view management as a whole. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was also a great influence morally speaking.

>formal sciences
Math?

Those fryer baskets still piss me off.

No. Everything else. Physics, biology, chemistry, geology, zoology, …

Mathematics can't be wrong because it doesn't deal with the reality. We basically say “here is a set of rules and now we'll work within it to deduce results”. It's different with physics or biology that both entirely relies on the probabilities the model is right.

The Art of Loving by Fromm
Of Human Bondage by Maugham
Montaigne's complete Assays
Becoming a Person by Rogers

Epictetus

>formal sciences
>physics, chemistry, biology, etc
kek

Well, you sure know how to focus on the right thing in a discussion.

>physics or biology that both entirely relies on the probabilities the model is right.
Why exactly is this a problem?
It's literally what "theory" means in the scientific context. The hypothesis which most adequately explains the evidence and is able to make reliable predictions.

Only non-scientists think that science deals in absolute truth-statements, rather than a process of convergence. It's the reason pop-sci I a huge fucking thorn in the side of the scientific community. Someone does a study with some interesting results and then someone else blows it way the fuck out of proportion. Just today I saw an article about "NASA FOUND SECOND MOON!" and it turned out to be a tiny asteroid which looped around the earth a couple times.
Scientists can't help it, that nobody seems to understand the scientific method or reads up on simple statistical values or that non-scientific articles use flashy titles, which people never click on.

I would if you knew what the fuck you were talking about

>Mathematics can't be wrong because it doesn't deal with the reality. We basically say “here is a set of rules and now we'll work within it to deduce results”.

Let me guess, you just finished high school?

It's not—not entirely, at least—about believing science gives the truth, it's also giving more weight and credence to the scientific way to acquire knowledge, as if it produces “better” or “safer” conclusions.

Anything consistent to say besides presuming of my credentials?

When I read the Bhagavad Gita I thought it seemed remarkably salient towards every day life. It made me think a lot about the oneness and indivisibility of everything, and the potential for spiritual sagehood by the recognition of oneness. It also really impressed me with its emphasis on yoga (meditation) and techniques for dealing with life.

Plus, it's also a really short (~150 pages) easy read. The second half gets a little more wonky and religiously cliche, but thay's to be expected from a 2000 year old text.

What's so problematic about the scientific method and reliability?

Just as I said, the idea such a thing as “reliability” doesn't itself rely on arbitrary beliefs.

What's wrong with trust, then?

The fresh prince of medicheese by my nigga nicky macks

There's nothing wrong with trust. The problem is to realize it's about trust, and even faith to an extend. There's nothing inherently problematic to debunk by the way, the thread is about which book has remodeled the way we think and this is my answer.

chips in a basket
IN A FUCKING BASKET

modern food presentation is a sign the end times are upon us

Tortilla Flat taught me a lot about dealing with roommates, rent, and money.

Pale Fire changed the way I see academics and academia. I resolved to try to take it less seriously and myopically after that book.

The Joy Luck Club inspired me to learn my parents' language and reconnect with my extended family.

I'm in the process of reading Aurora Leigh now. According to the introduction it ends with her regretting becoming an artist, but the descriptions of her early outlook on life is hitting pretty close to home with me.

...But that us exactly what it does. The entire process is about producing the most accurate and reliable theory.
The point is not to rely on guesswork, but to establish a body of evidence to make reliable predictions.
And these predictions are tested over and over. If the theory does not work, it is thrown out or altered to more closely resemble reality.

Based on your logic, there is no difference in reliability between medical research and random medicine men.
Do you understand what reliability actually means?
In science it is a way to express the accuracy of predictions. (Or measurements.)
It is not a truth-statement. It is a way to express/quantify how reasonable it is to rely on a given theory/test.
Again, by your logic penicillin is not more reliable at treating bacterial infection than prayer, because both have cases of not working.
The difference being that the reliability of penicillin is significantly higher than random correlations, unlike prayer, which "helps" about as much as doing nothing.

>There's nothing inherently problematic to debunk by the way

I'm only curious of your rationale, user. Thanks for sharing, by the way.

The Way of A Pilgrim

But it isn't about trust. It is simply reasonable. What you are saying is that if a theory works 99% of the time, you shouldn't be surprised if sometimes if doesn't work. And you are acting as though it is unreasonable to "trust" the theory that obviously works way better than guesswork.
It isn't trust if the alternative is active ignorance to all accumulated knowledge.

To speak boldly, reliability doesn't exist per se. When I said it relies on trust, I mean that the whole Bohr-like probabilistic vision of sciences, although less naive and arrogant, is still founded upon unproven claims. When you say two assertions have respectively 15% and 95% chance to be right, you're trusting—“believing” would be more accurate—the experiment which produced these figures, and so the conclusion “let's prefer the first over the second one, then” isn't rational. To so-called accuracy is another belief.

>there is no difference in reliability between medical research and random medicine men
There's no difference in “truthiness” between medical research and feng shui. Sure.

>again, by your logic penicillin is not more reliable at treating bacterial infection than prayer, because both have cases of not working. The difference being that the reliability of penicillin is significantly higher than random correlations, unlike prayer, which “helps” about as much as doing nothing
That's exactly the point. Penicillin isn't more reliable that praying in absolute. Neither are. If studies show penicillin gives a success rate of 95%—I don't know, I make up the figure—when treating an infection, it's still considered a truth. To come back to Paul Feyerabend, his conclusion is that, since penicillin and prayers have a chance to work, we should intensively engage in both. His point is, nothing can be deemed true, then nothing is reliable—since believing “X works x% of time” is already held as a truth—so we should consider all the ways to knowledge as equal, and we should be involved in both.

It isn't reasonable to trust a theory with a 99% success rate over another theory that has none. Actually, there's nothing rational in preferring the evolution over the theory the man is a divine creation made in a week. Even if one is obviously more coherent and backed with many evidences, none are logically proven to be right or simply better than the other. Sure, in “real life” I don't rely on astrology to treat an injury. This is common sense, I'm speaking on a conceptual level. This still has deeply influenced the way I conceive science and non-scientific paths to information. I don't consider any more an alternative stream of thinking as inherently devoid of interest and unable to produce knowledge. To refer to your example, I wouldn't pray over taking penicillin but I would gladly use penicillin, and Chinese medicine, and acupuncture, and whatever could work to heal me, no matter the success “chances” a method has over another.

This post is terrible and badly written, I hope I still managed to make my position clear… To sum up, the idea isn't the back the science out because it isn't objective but to simultaneously give as much credence and interest to other ways to acquire knowledge, whether it is religion, myths or—probably the most important consequence on a daily basis—intuition.

Would you say you assume a relativist position?

I don't know. I guess it is, but, considering a theory with its probability of being true is already a sort of relativism. I would simply say I don't exclude nor prefer any kind of knowledge, and honestly don't care that much about having a label. Of the four authors I listed this one got me the weakest influence.

The Pigman. I read it when I was 14 and going through some crap in life.

Thanks for being honest. Science isn't for everyone, I guess. Godspeed, user!

>science isn't for everyone, I guess
What?

"Being right isn't for everyone, I guess. May God be with you, Anonymous!"

...

>is still founded upon unproven claims.
You are literally trying to pull a "But you can't be CERTAIN!" on science, dude.
The scientific method is the answer to the sceptical problem.
>To so-called accuracy is another belief.
No, because I can express the accuracy itself.
Even without full accuracy, I can make the assertion that when I run 1000 experiments with a 95% accuracy, I can reasonably expect about 950 positive results. The more often I apply it, the closer it will be to p*n*100.
That is more than "belief".
>There's no difference in “truthiness” between medical research and feng shui. Sure.
There is, when I can demonstrate that the effects of feng shui are indistinguishable to no method at all.

You keep attempting to apply the absolute truth-statement norm on a method that assumes degrees of truth, BECAUSE of scpeticism.
> If studies show penicillin gives a success rate of 95%—I don't know, I make up the figure—when treating an infection, it's still considered a truth. To come back to Paul Feyerabend, his conclusion is that, since penicillin and prayers have a chance to work, we should intensively engage in both.
Again, that isn't what is happening. Prayer has no significant probability for effect, because it is indistinguishable form random remission, meaning there is no effect at all.
Unlike penicillin, which has an effect. The assumption isn't that it has a randomized effect with set probability, but that the non-1 p values is simply due to unknown variables.
There is never a Hypothesis which claims "Penicillin heals infection!" but "Penicillin use has a negative effect in infection symptoms and duration."
And you can prove this statement to be either true or untrue.
>It isn't reasonable to trust a theory with a 99% success rate over another theory that has none.
Again, you are literally the Phil101 freshy, throwing scepticism at everything.
>I don't consider any more an alternative stream of thinking as inherently devoid of interest and unable to produce knowledge.
They are, however, inherently less interested in providing evidence for the coherence of their hypothesis with reality.
>To refer to your example, I wouldn't pray over taking penicillin but I would gladly use penicillin, and Chinese medicine, and acupuncture, and whatever could work to heal me, no matter the success “chances” a method has over another.
No, you wouldn't, unless someone had proven in a study that these things do not have an adverse effect. In fact the only reason doctors would tolerate you behavior, is because of placebo-effects. Do you know what happens, when people start disregarding the objectively higher weight of assertions in science?
Stuff like this:
www.antivaccinebodycount.com
Or this:
vice.com/en_ca/read/how-anti-vaccine-parents-found-guilty-in-death-of-toddler-grew-to-distrust-medicine
Even fucking Steve Jobs managed to kill himself by having a strongly distorted view on the weight of assertions in his treatment.

>It isn't reasonable to trust a theory with a 99% success rate over another theory that has none.
And out the window you go.

(cont.)
>To sum up, the idea isn't the back the science out because it isn't objective but to simultaneously give as much credence and interest to other ways to acquire knowledge, whether it is religion, myths or—probably the most important consequence on a daily basis—intuition.
It's quite the opposite.
Scientific method is set up in such a way, that all of these things can be studied exactly the same way anything else can be studied.

Intuition is, it its core, simply bad empiricism. Your brain works in a way, that it will give you a sense of probability about things. These are, however, inherently flawed in what we call "cognitive biases". Science doesn't produce discrimination. Intuition, however, does.

Trying to discredit scientific study, by pulling a "we can't KNOW anything hurrdurr" and asserting there is no difference between things with demonstrable effects and random effects, if anything, makes people seek out potentially harmful alternatives or even forgo objectively better treatment altogether.


You got memed by a pop-philosopher, m8.
Scepticism is not a problem in science. Science is the solution to scepticism and is inherently sceptical of it self. That makes it better than, say, anecdotal assertions, which are not.

I think my continuous reading of The Divine Comedy as a teenager has had an effect on me.

>You are literally trying to pull a "But you can't be CERTAIN!" on science, dude.
Is it wrong? I don't know if you purposely try to diminish what I said by dumbing it down into a single capitalized sentence but, still, explain me how it isn't the case, then.

>the scientific method is the answer to the skeptical problem
How? Is it proven to be more efficient? Does it provide safer results?

>no, because I can express the accuracy itself. Even without full accuracy, I can make the assertion that when I run 1000 experiments with a 95% accuracy, I can reasonably expect about 950 positive results. The more often I apply it, the closer it will be to p*n*100. That is more than "belief"
This is a belief. “95%” is an arbitrary figure which has no concrete bases. You could ran 1,000 more experiments and find out the accuracy has fallen to 80%. You think the higher you repeat it, the more accurate this number becomes. It doesn't rely on logic. You can't prove this claim. Accuracy, reliability are both assumed to be existent for practical purposes yet remain unproven. The means that any comparison between two figures is also a produce of beliefs, thus a belief itself. We all think a medical treatment with a positive record of success is better than praying. It's common sense. It's backed up with experiments. However, it still not logical.

>there is, when I can demonstrate that the effects of feng shui are indistinguishable to no method at all
Actually you can't. There are probably some studies which suggest it has no discernible value but there's no way you can dismiss it as a whole.

>you keep attempting to apply the absolute truth-statement norm on a method that assumes degrees of truth, BECAUSE of skepticism
Are you sure you read what I wrote? I did, not on the method itself, but the assumption there's something like a degree of truth.

>again, that isn't what is happening. Prayer has no significant probability for effect, because it is indistinguishable form random remission, meaning there is no effect at all
Please read it again, I'm sure you can spot the hole in your sentence.

>unlike penicillin, which has an effect
No, it “may” have an effect, which is held as more accurate because of empirical data. It may be less efficient than another medicine. It may be less efficient than praying. It may have no effect at all.

>the assumption isn't that it has a randomized effect with set probability, but that the non-1 p values is simply due to unknown variables
It's all arbitrary. How do you trim the confounding factors? What is a confounding factor? How do you know it hasn't been taken in account? The experiments yield a bunch of figures to assess the likelihood a result is to be right and rid of unrelated variables but it's still an experiment which could be completely wrong. The ideas it has a degree of truth and that degree is somehow a proven, reliable parameter have no rational basis.

>there is never a Hypothesis which claims "Penicillin heals infection!" but "Penicillin use has a negative effect in infection symptoms and duration."
Once again I'm not sure you carefully read what I wrote. First of all, you can't prove “penicillin use has a negative effect in infection symptoms and duration” and the statement I was questioning is “penicillin has x effects with x% chance”.

>again, you are literally the Phil101 freshy, throwing scepticism at everything
I won't bother answering this.

>they are, however, inherently less interested in providing evidence for the coherence of their hypothesis with reality
Evidences has no value per se. If a study show 1,000 patients out of 1,000 are healed with a medicine, it still doesn't prove the medicine to be effective. In addition, it implies the coherence is depending on an arbitrary amount of evidences. Would you flag a theory as “wrong” or “probably wrong” because it has no experiments led?

>no, you wouldn't, unless someone had proven in a study that these things do not have an adverse effect
Studies never proved anything, wrong or right. According to you, at best, it suggests an assertion is more or less likely to be true.

>in fact the only reason doctors would tolerate you behavior, is because of placebo-effects
Ho, if doctors don't “tolerate” my behavior I better change it right now…

>do you know what happens, when people start disregarding the objectively higher weight of assertions in science?
They try to prove their point with anecdotes?

>scientific method is set up in such a way, that all of these things can be studied exactly the same way anything else can be studied
I don't get what you mean.

>intuition is, it its core, simply bad empiricism. Your brain works in a way, that it will give you a sense of probability about things. These are, however, inherently flawed in what we call "cognitive biases". Science doesn't produce discrimination. Intuition, however, does
What do you mean by “producing discrimination”? A cognitive bias doesn't exist outside the scientific method. The rest of the post is a pure assertion with—ironically—no evidences to be right, even within your own acceptance.

>trying to discredit scientific study, by pulling a "we can't KNOW anything hurrdurr"
Tell me, on a scale of one to ten, how intellectually honest would you say this sentence is?

>asserting there is no difference between things with demonstrable effects and random effects, if anything, makes people seek out potentially harmful alternatives or even forgo objectively better treatment altogether
The more I come through the harder I believe you actually read my post. I don't “assert there's no difference”, I simply point there's no order in truth likeliness between the methods and theories. In addition, most examples in the thread were plainly never experimented. Praying, astrology, Buddhist medicine and so on had few to none studies conducted, so you're not even comparing two results, you're assuming what has a result must be better than what remained unchecked so far. I also don't “forgo objectively (sic) better treatments” since I made clear several times the conclusion is to use whatever is available and don't exclude anything.

>you got memed by a pop-philosopher, m8
Thankfully you bothered enlighten me.

>skepticism is not a problem in science. Science is the solution to skepticism and is inherently skeptical of itself
Curiously it lost its conviction power next to two messages full of unquestionable assertions.

Frankly, I'm not sure I would answer another lengthy post if you don't precisely address what I wrote.

>Is it wrong? I don't know if you purposely try to diminish what I said by dumbing it down into a single capitalized sentence
It could be wrong. Can you prove otherwise?
I am reducing it the the core argument. And it is radical scepticism, which is not useful. And because the scientific method applies this very concept.
>How? Is it proven to be more efficient? Does it provide safer results?
...Yes. Of course it does. It's the difference between seeking unbiased evidence rather than doing whatever or nothing. Any double-blind placebo study does exactly that.
>You can't prove this claim.
I can by demonstrating it. Unless, of course, you are unironically a rationalist.
>However, it still not logical.
It is logical. Only it seems the only logical system you are aware of is true-false dichotomy, and seem intent to make it a logical fatalism problem. Modal Logic, Temporal Logic,... even fucking Transcendental Logic are solutions to this.
Read Kant. You need it.
>Actually you can't. There are probably some studies
Actually I can, because there is such a thing as meta-analysis.
>but the assumption there's something like a degree of truth.
There is such a thing as a degree of truth. Which is quite evident in the real world.
>No, it “may” have an effect,
No, it "probably" will have an effect, which is fundamentally different.
>The ideas it has a degree of truth and that degree is somehow a proven, reliable parameter have no rational basis.
Oh, so you are a rationalist then. Well done. You are 235 years behind in philosophy.
Read your Kant. I'm not about to give you a 101 Phil lesson. So I'm just gonna skip all the things already answered...
>and the statement I was questioning is “penicillin has x effects with x% chance”.
You forgot ", which is not 0"
>it implies the coherence is depending on an arbitrary amount of evidences.
No, you are talking about a value called "significance".
>Would you flag a theory as “wrong” or “probably wrong” because it has no experiments led?
No, I would flag it as an untested hypothesis. You do know the difference between a hypothesis and a theory, right?
>Studies never proved anything, wrong or right. According to you, at best, it suggests an assertion is more or less likely to be true.
If anything, studies can prove things wrong. "All swans are white." is easily disproven. This is called the induction problem. It is probably in the first chapter of the logic book you never touched before reading pop-philosophy.
>Ho, if doctors don't “tolerate” my behavior I better change it right now…
Yes, listening to the dude who's job it is to provide you with the scientific knowledge you need is generally a good idea. And for him it is a good idea to stay up to date on research.
>They try to prove their point with anecdotes?
Yup. Like you essentially are, by saying "exceptions to the rule mean the rule is fundamentally meaningless".

cont
>What do you mean by “producing discrimination”?
Have you heard about stereotypes, for instance?
>A cognitive bias doesn't exist outside the scientific method.
Are you trolling me? Whenever you make an intuitive assessment, that is a bias.
The scientific method is set up to avoid these.
>The rest of the post is a pure assertion with—ironically—no evidences to be right, even within your own acceptance.
Sure, if neural imaging is not something you feel you can ignore, I might suggest you try crack.
>Tell me, on a scale of one to ten, how intellectually honest would you say this sentence is?
Exactly 10, because I have not heard a single different argument from you.
>In addition, most examples in the thread were plainly never experimented.
>Praying,
deanradin.com/FOC2014/Masters2007Prayer.pdf
>astrology
psycnet.apa.org/journals/bul/97/2/286/
>Buddhist medicine
mindfulnessstudies.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/S1-Mindfulness-Based-Therapy-A-Comprehensive-Meta-Analysis-by-Khoury-et-al..pdf
>and so on had few to none studies conducted, so you're not even comparing two results, you're assuming what has a result must be better than what remained unchecked so far. I also don't “forgo objectively (sic) better treatments” since I made clear several times the conclusion is to use whatever is available and don't exclude anything.
I is objectively better. The conclusion your author pulled about attempting to apply unstudied methods of, say, treatment, has already been made and is simply dismissed, because it could just as well be harmful and helpful.

And now I'm simply done with you. You don't seem to bring anything other than retarded rationalism and radical scepticism to the table. This is worse than Descartes.
I can't stress this enough: Read your fucking Kant. Critique of Pure Reason in particular.
And stop reading pop-phil books.

Tao te Ching, Im OK, You're OK, Staying OK, Creative Visualization, The Tao of Jeet Kun Do, The Tao of Tai Chi Chuan, The Tao of Meditation, Qi Gong, The Tao of Pooh, The Big Book, The Bible.

what the fuck is all this shit

Sorry for entry level, but The Picture of Dorian Grey and The Decline of Lying. Totally changed my philosophy on life.

You want user to address precisely what you wrote yet you quote him incorrectly. Spare the raciotinations and just learn about the scientific method.

>Im OK, You're OK
>Becoming a Person by Rogers

???

Thus Spoke Zarathustra (or I guess Nietzsche in general. I consider Zarathustra to be sort of the crown on top).

You sound like a teenager who just realized that his teachers and parents aren't have access to the undeniable divine truth of the universe. I can't even tell where you're going with this because you're rambling so hard. Would you rather have a surgey that is 99% likely by the current methods of testing to cure you of your ailment or would you rather pray, drink tea and cleanse your body with enemas? I mean you bring up Asian medicine, even that shit is tested in some way by history and whatever stuck over the years, hence why we often find that some of the treatments actually surpass placebos even in scientific testing.

Also sorry for the typos, please don't focus on them in your reply.

i like your style

Everybody poops.

>Paul Feyerabend
"Hurr you can't know nothing." Which is technically correct. But in a same way some like to say that because capitalism is imperfect, it must be abolished, and a new economy must be built from scratch. We have seen examples of that, and we have seen the results. Feyerabend is good to snap people out of mindless scientism, but he offers nothing in return, apart from even more mindless agnosticism.

Mein Kampf. Not even being ironic; it's made me wake up. Now I will watch as people accuse me of being a baiter as they don't provide any cogent counterargument as to why Hitler and his ideology contained fallacy. You guys renounce your own race if you don't.

>renounce your own race
Had me going for a while there, not bad bait but you went a little too far at the end there.

>he unironically believes "race" is a valid taxnomy among homo sapiens
It's literally like a dog breeder pretending he is a Bio-Scientist.

STEMfag detected

The Growth of Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution and Inheritance by Ernst Mayr

Made me aware of all these essentialism scam.

This, and Wittgenstein Tractatus, a bit hard to read, i'm not really fond of progression from axioms, but still, very enlightning

>Mein Kampf. Not even being ironic; it's made me wake up

The Decay of Lying
Dubliners
Critique of Pure Reason
History of Sexuality
The Ego and Its Own

he looks good, high t. stick to posting the downs syndrome guy or whatever

>he looks good
If you're a chick you're despicable, if you're a twink you have your bar set low, and if you're a straight dude you're probably in acceptable means for calling that good looking.

>implying that's not the ideal desirable british male physique

1. steppenwolf
2. steppenwolf
3. steppenwolf

I didn't know there was an ideal British man, because all of them are ugly.

resistance is futile, do not deny your arousal

>high t.
I'll bear on mind that for you high t involve gyno and little to no lean mass.

do you have any idea what testosterone is

If a man's butt is bigger than my butt we would have issues. This is the standard.

I know I do. I know you don't but faith is a strong thing, and in some ways precious in this world. If I were to convince you that your mammary gland development was not as you thought down to high t but the opposite, how would you react?

>If you're a chick you're despicable
Please stop this anti-woman double standard.

>If a man's butt is bigger than my butt we would have issues.
What do you have against squats?

Daniel Craig is the face of the average British man.

that guy barely has gyno though, have you seen what 2016 white men look like shirtless

Ant-Fat misandry

>barely has gyno
Uh oh...
We're also not talking about averages here bud. Frankly that shit is just unacceptable and if YOU are really that fat put down the food tubby and lose some weight.

its not a matter of bf %, just where you store it. my bf % is way lower than his but i probably wouldn't look that good if it was that high

>pic very related