Skip to main content

Textual Mind Erosion...

It is still a mystery to me how we are able to transfer concepts and thoughts from one mind to another via text on screens and in pages. But, yet it seems to happen everytime I let my eyes and mind connect for a session of blissful, detached yet mindful, reading of glorious texts. Is there really a transmission of new thoughts from the characters or does the text somehow unlock the understanding that already exists within my mind. Is it like the potential energy of a boulder that has always been on the side of a cliff, but takes years of erosion to be uncovered and transition to kinetic?

I tend to read many books at the same time and start new ones before I finish others.
This may not be the most effective way to read texts, but, I am not always in the same mood when I sit to read, so I have many books of many topics and styles so that I can grab whatever seems most interesting at the time. The titles with a splat in front of them are what are currently in progress, the others are fighting to be next in line.

Here is my current reading list in no particular order:

*"Information, the new language of science" by Hans Christian von Baeyer
*"Symmetry, and the beautiful universe" by Leon M. Lederman and Christopher T. Hill
*"The Tao of Physics" by Fritjof Capra
"The Pleasure of Finding Things Out" Short works by Richard Feynman
"About Time" by Paul Davies
*"Hacking, the art of exploitation" by Jon Erickson
"Counter Hack, A step by step guide to computer attacks and effective defenses" by Ed Skoudis
*"Level Set Methods and Dynamic Implicit Surfaces" by Stanley Osher and Ronald Fedkiw
"Level Set Methods and Fast Marching Methods" by J.A. Sethian
*"Statistical Mechanics, A Set of Lectures" by Richard Feynman
*"On the Shoulders of Giants, Great Works of Physics and Astronomy" by Steven Hawking
"The Bit and the Pendulum, from Quantum Computing to M Theory - The New Physics of Information" by Tom Siegfried
"The Mathematical Experience" by Philip J. Davis and Reuben Hersh
"Consilience, The Unity of Knowledge" by Edward O. Wilson
"The Elegant Universe" by Brian Greene (I have the DVD, I know... cheater!)
"The Five Ages of the Universe" by Fred Adams and Greg Laughlin
"The World Treasury of Physics, Astronomy and Mathematics" by Timothy Ferris

Here are a few titles I finished in the last few months:
"Emergence, The connected lives of Ants, Brains, Cities and Software" by Steven Johnson
"Warmth Disperses and Time Passes, the History of Heat" by Hans Christian von Baeyer
"Ideas and Opinions" by Albert Einstein
"Siddhartha" by Herman Hesse
"The World as I See It" by Albert Einstein
"Linux Server Hacks" by Rob Flickenger
"The Salmon of Doubt" by Douglas Adams
"The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul" by Douglas Adams
"Who Needs God" by Rabbi Harold Kushner
"Origins of existence" by Fred Adams
"The Universe in a Nutshell" by Stephen Hawking

I love books that potentially effect the way I see the reality, hopefully for the better.
I can say that over time, I have begun to see life and the universe and everything as more beautiful, mysterious and "magical" as my understanding of the current human understanding of physics deepens. The more I am confronted by the magnitude of what is going on all the time, the more improbable it seems. So much so, that if in the end I come to find out that this was all a grand illusion, I will not be very surprised.

It sounds to me that the texts have definitely eroded my mind, hopefully leaving behind lots and lots of soft gooey grey folds.

-Ziv

PS. Tomorrow is my 30th birthday.

Comments

  1. Talya12/29/2004 2:17 PM

    O-M-G. You did it! I request permission to intensely post comments here and, BTW, Happy Birthday!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. BK12/29/2004 9:15 PM

    Thank you Talya!
    I am off to play with my Robosapien...

    -Ziv

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Value of Procrastination...

For most of my life I have been called a procrastinator. Usually this carried a negative connotation. I have worked hard in my personal habits to be more responsive when asked to do something, but I still have some of this tendency to put things off until later. But, in the last few years, especially as the speed of information flow, the change to systems I work with and the demand on my time increases, procrastinating a little has been a benefit. Let me explain... The common meaning of procrastination involves the deferment of activities to a point where the delay is detrimental to the successful execution of the activity. But, in situations were there are rapidly changing needs, the definition of the need and related activities change as well, and to put in a bit of delay in execution can buffer the dynamic system a bit. The buffer results in the initial set of rapidly evolving changes to be skipped over, and allows the more finalized set of necessary activities to be more clearl...
1 comment
Read more

Transition Phase 1 is Complete...

We have been in Manhattan, KS since the 5th of July. Today, July 14th, the moving company brought our things from Maryland and unloaded it into the house we are renting. It is a really nice place and we are happy to have found somewhere to stay that is walking distance to both of our offices and to almost anything we would want to do in town. We now begin the process of unpacking, arranging and settling in to our new home. Work is going really well and I am now beginning the process of incorporation as I launch my new web services business. The next big milestone will be the sale of our home in Maryland. It is not going to be a very good deal for us, but the seller we bought from and the buyer we are selling to have made out like bandits. I am looking forward to a day to be on the other end of the deal. Life is changing, that is for sure. I open my arms and mind to the unknown as we begin to explore this new place we call home.
Post a Comment
Read more

4 years and 7 days since Blog creation...

My first post to this blog was on Monday 12/27/2004. It seems like so long ago, especially if time is a way to measure change and I look back at all the changes that have happened since then. I would say that time seems to pass more quickly when things are changing a lot and when we are trying to do as much as we can in the short amount of time we have to do it in. I thought that this was interesting, according to http://www.timeanddate.com/date/duration.html , from 12/27/2004 up to today there have been 1468 days. 1468 days can be converted to one of these units: * 126,835,200 seconds * 2,113,920 minutes * 35,232 hours * 209 weeks (rounded down) And in that ridiculous amount of time I have only posted 52 times to my blog. That is only 1 post per month (28 days) on average. Not the best I can do by a long shot, considering all the stuff I am doing each day. Not a very accurate reflection of all the change and adventures during that time. So, for 2009 and on, I wil...
1 comment
Read more