Originally posted by: Kadarin
[...] I'd also recommend Pandora's Star and its sequel, Judas Unchained, both by Peter F. Hamilton.
Originally posted by: TeeJay1952
State of Fear Michael Crichton A novel about how the Global Warming issue is dictated by news sources and environmental groups.
I've heard about that one before and it sounded really interesting. How have you found it so far? Difficult read? I don't mind something that isn't Disney-type reading but if it's full of techno-babble and words I have no clue what they mean, I lose interest.Originally posted by: RightIsWrong
The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes
Not light reading by any means....but a really unique perspective on the human mind and how we got to where we are today in re:though processing, metaphoric speaking, religion, etc.
Originally posted by: clamum
I'm currently reading "Freakonomics" but I've slacked off lately. Need to get back to it, interesting book so far.
I've heard about that one before and it sounded really interesting. How have you found it so far? Difficult read? I don't mind something that isn't Disney-type reading but if it's full of techno-babble and words I have no clue what they mean, I lose interest.Originally posted by: RightIsWrong
The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes
Not light reading by any means....but a really unique perspective on the human mind and how we got to where we are today in re:though processing, metaphoric speaking, religion, etc.
Sounds good. I think I actually heard about it on these forums awhile back, but I forgot about it until your post. I may pick it up after I'm done with the current one I'm readin, thanks. :thumbsup:Originally posted by: RightIsWrong
Originally posted by: clamum
I'm currently reading "Freakonomics" but I've slacked off lately. Need to get back to it, interesting book so far.
I've heard about that one before and it sounded really interesting. How have you found it so far? Difficult read? I don't mind something that isn't Disney-type reading but if it's full of techno-babble and words I have no clue what they mean, I lose interest.Originally posted by: RightIsWrong
The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes
Not light reading by any means....but a really unique perspective on the human mind and how we got to where we are today in re:though processing, metaphoric speaking, religion, etc.
It is actually pretty easy to read. There are some "psycho-babble" terms but he does a really good job of keeping it in laymen's terms and very well referenced.
It really is a fascinating theory/thesis on a lot of interesting subjects and had me looking at things in a different manner.
The Philistine is not dead, ? quite the contrary, he abounds, ? but he no longer reigns. The sons of Culture have not exactly conquered, but they have got rid of the old Goliath and replaced him by a new giant. This is the sensational man who has got awakened to the necessity at least of some intelligent use of the higher faculties and is trying to be mentally active. He has been whipped and censured and educated into that activity and he lives besides in a maelstrom of new information, new intellectual fashions, new ideas and new movements to which he can no longer be obstinately impervious. He is open to new ideas, he can catch at them and hurl them about in a rather confused fashion; he can understand or misunderstand ideals, organise to get them carried out and even, it would appear, fight and die for them. He knows he has to think about ethical problems, social problems, problems of science and religion, to welcome new political developments, to look with as understanding an eye as he can attain to at all the new movements of thought and inquiry and action that chase each other across the modern field or clash upon it. He is a reader of poetry as well as a devourer of fiction and periodical literature, ? you will find in him perhaps a student of Tagore or an admirer of Whitman; he has perhaps no very clear ideas about beauty and aesthetics, but he has heard that Art is a not altogether unimportant part of life. The shadow of this new colossus is everywhere. He is the great reading public; the newspapers and weekly and monthly reviews are his; fiction and poetry and art are his mental caterers, the theatre and the cinema and the radio exist for him: Science hastens to bring her knowledge and discoveries to his doors and equip his life with endless machinery; politics are shaped in his image. It is he who opposed and then brought about the enfranchisement of women, who has been evolving syndicalism, anarchism, the war of classes, the uprising of labour, waging what we are told are wars of ideas or of cultures, ? a ferocious type of conflict made in the very image of this new barbarism, ? or bringing about in a few days Russian revolutions which the century-long efforts and sufferings of the intelligentsia failed to achieve. It is his coming which has been the precipitative agent for the reshaping of the modern world. If a Lenin, a Mussolini, a Hitler have achieved their rapid and almost stupefying success, it was because this driving force, this responsive quick-acting mass was there to carry them to victory ? a force lacking to their less fortunate predecessors.