What are you reading? Options

[ePiTau]

I am reading a book by Geert Kimpen called "De kabbalist". Did you know what the the god of self confidence is called in hebrew? No?
He He He. Yup, that is the name. Now I wonder what Ha Ha Ha would mean.

Are you laughing "He He He" about the fact that the god's name is Yup?
Or is his name He He He and you use yup in the sense of "affirmative"?
Doesn't Yup sound a lot like Hebrew? But then again, He He He brew. Perhaps there's a connection.

[zanardi]

Ha Ha Ha. He He He. Yup Yup Yup. Now what do you say? I know your skills in sanskrit and what not, but my hebrew might just be something extraordinary!

[Brainiac]

The God Question: What Famous Thinkers from Plato to Dawkins Have Said About the Divine - by Andrew Pessin

I borrowed this from the local library. It is a novel-size paperback that has a one-page summary (sometimes slightly over) of a thinker's thoughts on some subject of theology, say philosophical conundrums regarding the creation of the world, God's omniscience vs. free will, etc. I was attracted to this book because of the recommendation of Michael Shermer: "Brilliantly succinct. If you want to know what the greatest minds of the past 2500 years said on the most contentious issue in all of culture, you simply must start with this book."

Oddly, I find it tough to read in the mornings but easier to read and understand in the evenings. And also oddly, I remain surprised at the lengths people will go to square the circle when they have evidently stumbled across a theological conundrum, although to be fair, theology was the height of intellectualism in centuries gone by. In any case I find it fascinating. I also think GV could have something to learn from the discussions on free will, conundrums regarding the 'creation', and so on.

I might try and transcribe a couple of interesting summaries for our GR forum.

[ras]

All the books I read should fulfill these requirements;
1. take place on the road where I was on traveling sankirtan in the 70s
2. have porn stars on drugs, a little murder and mayhem
3. have abuse issues making me feel good about buying the victim's book. Oh, and be a real slice of Americana while it's doing it.

The only one I've found yet - a real page turner. Seriously, great..

The Road Through Wonderland: Surviving John Holmes by Dawn Schiller

Painstakingly honest, this chilling memoir reveals how a teenager became immersed in the bizarre life of legendary porn star John Holmes. Starting with a childhood that molded her perfectly to fall for the seduction of “the king of porn,” this autobiography recounts the perilous road that Dawn Schiller traveled—from drugs and addiction to beatings, arrests, forced prostitution, and being sold to the drug underworld. After living through the horrific Wonderland murders of 1981, she entered protective custody, ran from the FBI, and turned in John Holmes to the police. This is the true story of a young girl’s harrowing escape from one of the most infamous public figures, her struggle to survive, and her recovery from unthinkable abuse.

[ePiTau]

I am presently reading
Also sprach GOLEM by Stanislaw Lem.
The book was originally published in Polish as Golem XIV,
Wydawnictwo Literackie, Krakow (1973, 1981).
I got it as a Christmas present from my mother-in-law.
I suspect Raymond Kurzweil read it too. Lem expertly gets into the minds of spiritual machines,
which is a recurring theme in Kurzweil's books (perhaps a little less philosophical/existential than Lem, but equally fascinating).

[ePiTau]

Obviously:

How to Create a Mind by Ray Kurzweil.

Essential reading matter, since we have some members that are actually machines and might get their fragile machine sensibilities hurt by careless remarks.
No, but really, I would pull the plug on them any time. Dudes like:

Baiduspider/2.0; +http://www.baidu.com/search/spider.html
AhrefsBot/4.0; +http://ahrefs.com/robot
Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html

And then a couple of others, of course, for good measure, ha, ha, ha

[Gomer]

Mary Shelly's Frankenstein. I never bothered to read the book as I thought the original movie was silly. The book is very interesting and very different to the film.

[kalki]

Mary Shelly's Frankenstein. I never bothered to read the book as I thought the original movie was silly. The book is very interesting and very different to the film.

I have an easy reader version for young readers. I find the story to be quite nice. There is a moment in the book where the monster is in the house trying to get food. The uncle was blind and so he couldn't see his hideous features and it didn't matter until the others came home and attacked the monster.

I felt so bad for him.

[Brainiac]

Mary Shelly's Frankenstein. I never bothered to read the book as I thought the original movie was silly. The book is very interesting and very different to the film.

I have the 1848 edition and I loved it. There were some really good quotes in it too, but I will have to read it again to find them and I want to reread it anyway. You're right, it was so different to the film, and was extremely poignant in places.

[Gomer]

What I found particularly interesting was the exploration of the theme that god finds his own creation of man to be a regretful act. Also, the denial of a companion 'Eve' for his creation brings up the question of god not fulfilling the desires of man and the resultant revolt staged by his 'Adam'; god and man become sworn enemies. Is the monster bound by the laws of personal responsibility and karma? Are we?

[kalki]

What I found particularly interesting was the exploration of the theme that god finds his own creation of man to be a regretful act. Also, the denial of a companion 'Eve' for his creation brings up the question of god not fulfilling the desires of man and the resultant revolt staged by his 'Adam'; god and man become sworn enemies. Is the monster bound by the laws of personal responsibility and karma? Are we?

I honestly never thought about those correlations. I remember when I was in grade school and my sister was reading Frankenstein in about 8th grade. By the time I reached the 8th grade, Frankenstein was taken off the reading list and my teacher taught us Animal Farm and 1984.

1984 was the main reason that I turned to Hare Krishna later in life because Prabhupada harped on a lot of themes of the government being corrupt.

[ePiTau]

Back on topic.

A New Kind of Science by Stephen Wolfram.
Wolfram published this in 2002. I wonder how I could have missed it.
It is such an obvious choice considering what I have been spending my time with the past ten years or so.
This is a huge book. 20cm x 25cm x 6cm, and counting 1200 pages! I just finished reading up to page 120.
I am very much looking forward to get through the remaining pages.

And as supplemental reading, for a snack, as it were:
Lure of the Integers by Joe Roberts.
Published 1992 by the Mathematical Association of America.
Essential and lovely, like oxygen.
I would not have known that,
"The integer 16 is the only positive integer n for which there are integers x and y such that x^y = y^x = n."

[Kalisurfer]

And as supplemental reading, for a snack, as it were:
Lure of the Integers by Joe Roberts.
Published 1992 by the Mathematical Association of America.
Essential and lovely, like oxygen.
I would not have known that,
"The integer 16 is the only positive integer n for which there are integers x and y such that x^y = y^x = n."

Integers are light, Zero is darkness. Where there is Integer there is no Zero. Back to Integers.

Counting numbers. Which would then mean that the number 15 is the smallest composite number n, with the property where there is only one group of order n. Hmmm, which means then I am stuck with 18, the only positive number that is twice the sum of its digits, which physically feels like what is happening with my two hands right now, where though there are only 2, each with 5 digits, combining to the sum of 10 digits doing all the typing, though when I raise these hands and digits above my 1 head, I feel at more at home,... it being all above my head that is.

I need more integers to get me out of this darkness me thinks? Perhaps I need to subscribe to Back to Integers Magazine, or get a copy of Lure of the Integers by Joe Roberts?

Thanks for sharing eP, much can be learned from the reading lists of others!

•
• •
• • • •
• •
•

[ePiTau]

Your animated GIF reminded me of "The Wheel of Life", a famous motive in medieval churches.
Here is a picture I took in Härkeberga Church (14th century), last July:

[ras]

God knows I've tried, reading Vaisnava books. It's always the same, you go back to ol' holy grail you were once taught to rely on for inspiration and come away with the opposite. Seems it's usually because there's a slant that is foisted on something that was once original and pure, like the excessive substituting of Krsna for Vishnu or Brahman, etc. Or the ever-redundant selling of "personal form" as though it were pre-engineered for mass appeal.

"I'd rather trust a man who doesn't shout what he's found. There's no need to sell if you're homeward bound."

Recently it got so bad I even plunked down $60 for a massive two-volume hardbound edition of Brahmavaivarta-Purana (Shanti Lal Nagar's translation). It looks like it would be really inspiring with all the inclusion of other major god, goddess worship, etc., but somehow I always wind up putting it down quickly with a gentle thud roughly echoing its true dullness.

Well now yer gonna kill me because I've decided I really like this piece of transcendental literature (I know, my opinions change like the weather, what the heck is anyone supposed to make of it?). I guess what happened was all that talk about Bhaktivinode's "weaknesses" brought it to life for me. So here it is folks - Sri Gaudiya Giti Guccha - An unprecedented collection of Sanskrit, Bengali and Hindi devotional poems, prayers and songs written by the Gaudiya Vaisnava Acaryas compiled under the guidance of Sri Srimad Bhaktivedanta Narayana Maharaja!

Mostly I just like reading the translations, and only seem to need about 1 song. I like it so much though, I'm thinking of selling hard copies of it right here wholesale! (mod hat anyone? ) Really though, the current 2011 edition does not have a binding that will lay flat like a songbook, but is more like a small hardbound book with a decent binding. It apparently contains more songs, though I can't tell which ones were added.

[Brainiac]

Currently reading:

Hinduism as a Missionary Religion (2011) by Arvind Sharma.

From the preface:

To describe Hinduism as a missionary religion further lengthens the distance between the word and the reality. Three questions seem to be contained in this description: Is Hinduism an ism? Is it a religion? And is it a missionary religion? This book is concerned with the exploration of the third dimension at a substantive level, although the issue has been posed as a nominal one. The question which is addressed is: In what ways and to what extent can Hinduism be described as a missionary religion in terms of available historical evidence?

The first of the three questions or propositions listed above has been under the lens of scholarly investigation for some time now; so, also the second. The aim of this book is to subject the third issue to scholarly scrutiny in the same spirit.

It is quite an eye-opening book; 'evidence' is collected from the Vedic, Classical, medieval and modern eras of Indian history that bring some surprising conclusions. People have generally long stated and even admired Hinduism for presumed lack of fundamentalism and dogma, and that the 'preachiness' of modern sects (cough cough) tend to attributed to other reasons, more or less foreign influences.

Currently going through the 'Vedic' chapter; much is made of the distinctions between the Aryans and the Dravidans, but it is interesting to see how these distinctions can transform into conflicts that get reflected into the scriptural literature. The Rig Veda supposedly contains several references to Indra's attempts to transform (read: convert) the Dasyus (non-Aryans) into Aryans. A typical reference: "One verse of the ṚgVeda (IX. 63.5) contains the following exhortation: “Making the world Aryan” (kṛṇvanto viśvamāryam)."

[ePiTau]

Anti Fragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
There was no way I wouldn't pick up that book.
I had been waiting for his next book ever since I read The Black Swan in Jul 2007.

[Kalisurfer]

Your animated GIF reminded me of "The Wheel of Life", a famous motive in medieval churches.
Here is a picture I took in Härkeberga Church (14th century), last July:

Nice pic Ep, interesting to see the Christian version of "The Wheel of Life." Was the rest of the ceiling moralistic scenes depicting the life of people in the world and not scenes from the Bible? I love it when these type of scenes are portrayed during the Middle Ages, the images remind me of the symbolic type of representations found on Tarot Cards. We Americans marvel at the idea of waking into a church that still stands from the 14th Century! I'm familiar with the Buddhist versions of the wheel of life, actually uncovered one, a Thangka painting that was placed in my portfolio years ago for safekeeping after buying it at a second hand shop, then forgot about it as time went on. Unearthed it recently, here it is.

•
• •

• •
•

[Brainiac]

Anti Fragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
There was no way I wouldn't pick up that book.
I had been waiting for his next book ever since I read The Black Swan in Jul 2007.

That Taleb guy sure is interesting. I ran into him recently on Twitter in the middle of a debate between a neuroscientist and a philosopher. Taleb of course came out in support of the philosopher but that was it. Then I started checking Taleb out from his Facebook group page and such, and wow he gets into arguments quite a lot.

[Dhyana]

Nice pic Ep, interesting to see the Christian version of "The Wheel of Life." Was the rest of the ceiling moralistic scenes depicting the life of people in the world and not scenes from the Bible? I love it when these type of scenes are portrayed during the Middle Ages, the images remind me of the symbolic type of representations found on Tarot Cards. We Americans marvel at the idea of waking into a church that still stands from the 14th Century!

Yes, Sweden is amazing in this regard. Ek and I have walked into many a church from the 12th century, with 15th-century wall paintings and all kinds of other artifacts.

Once, I climbed up to a pulpit in an empty church to explore other angles with my camera. A venerable old Bible lay there, as if waiting for a preacher to come and begin his sermon. That Bible was from 1703! It wasn't behind the glass, it wasn't fastened in any way, and I don't think there were any surveillance cameras in there. It was from the times of the warrior King Charles XII.

I'm familiar with the Buddhist versions of the wheel of life, actually uncovered one, a Thangka painting that was placed in my portfolio years ago for safekeeping after buying it at a second hand shop, then forgot about it as time went on. Unearthed it recently, here it is.

What a wonderful picture to study! So many details, and such harmonious colors.