A brief history of everything

What Hacker News says

1. lordnachoApr 2024
   There's too much focus on the "what we know" like Kreb's cycle, which is easily examinable. The focus should actually be "how we found out", something like what the book A Brief History of Everything traces out. Things like "we used isotopes with different masses to figure out this thing about phosphorous in DNA".

   In general, the "what" makes no sense without the history. Why were we searching for DNA in the mid 20th century? What did we already know? Retracing science as an investigation would be much more beneficial to kids than making them remember the conclusions. It's much more portable as a skill to understand the path of investigation than some facts about organelles that they aren't likely to use.

   But the real reason I dropped biology when the choice came (and why did it come, dear IB organisation?) is that biology is not seen as the smart kid subject, when compared to physics and chemistry. Part if this is that you can grind your way through memorizing the biochemical cycles, probably easier for most than learning calculus that you need for physics. But part of it is simply reputation, and it's not reasonable.

   I have a friend who is a postdoc stats guy in the biology field. There's actually a deep need for numeracy in biology, people just don't seem to know it when they're in school.

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2. lordnachoJan 2022
   Since my school days I always thought Theory of Knowledge was the most important and underrated class. That's where you talk about the scientific method and how we discover facts. Somehow it was only worth a tiny portion of the international baccalaureate.

   Basically this essay is correct. Science is taught the wrong way. It should all be a mix of history (of thought) and experiments that guided that thinking. Something like that Bill Bryson book, a brief history of everything. Instead of telling kids the end result, tell them how we got there. Basically, follow the method that you say you use. If you understand science, you know the end result is tentative anyway.

   Speaking of everything, there's probably too much content as well. Too many insignificant details that people have to cram, and that they'll never need to know, and if they do, it won't take them long to find. People need to know the large movements, not lots of specific reactions and equations.

   The content is also missing a rather important ingredient: what are the open questions in each field? Why turbulence? Teaching kids that we don't know everything is an antidote to science denial, however strange that may sound. The objection people have to science is often that it's arrogant.

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3. hoshMay 2018
   People's journeys are different, so what is insight for me or triggers a realization for me may not for you. Transformative experiences doesn't always happen in a book. I will add some non-book medias, but not all of transformative experiences of my life.

   In my teens, I was all over the place. I was exploring some existential stuff. I probably could have benefited from talking to a transpersonal psychologist. These were three books that stuck out in my mind from that time:

   Ken Wilbur's Brief History of Everything (this is Wilber's Integral Philosophy, and helped me know there are some framework to put seemingly competing paradigms and views into a coherent whole, as well as a few philosophical techniques to get my head out of my rear... somewhat)

   James Redfield's Celestine Prophecy (kicked off a lot of things)

   Robert M Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (I didn't know this at the time, but it spoke to me about what can be beyond subject-object duality)

   In my early 30s, I stopped using books and media as a proxy for change and transformation, and journyed. Went through a lot, experienced many things that I had only read about. Lots of peak states. But coming back to ordinary life had proven to be difficult. That started the next era -- of embodying what I had found with those peak experiences in ordinary life.

   Chris Wallis's Tantra Illuminated -- lots of view correction for me, helped untangled some things for me, particularly around working. I read this one within my first year of marriage.

   Second year of marriage, I might have been able to work, but my marriage at this point was on the rocks. I had this book on my shelf for years and never really read it. When I read it, it was pointing out to me some of the deep stuff on why my marriage was failing:

   Glen Mazis's The Trickster, Magician, and the Grieving Man.

   This is a critical, honest look at toxic masculinity, and descriptions of alternate masculine archetypes; but not complete by itself, just made me wallow in anger and depression, and self-loathing. I could tell, it did not integrate well with the hard-won personal perspective from all those journeying earlier.

   The next book that followed was one from last summer:

   Crucial Conversations. (Four authors)

   This book was very good to read following Mazis's book. It was very practical advice grounded in psychological research, yet very much in alignment with all the things leading up to it. It wasn't a pancea, but reading this and trying to apply it was probably the inflection point in my relationship with my wife.

   In the past six months, I somehow got sucked into the orbit of one particular non-dual teacher by the name of Adyashanti. I usually prefer reading rather than listening, and with Adya, it was the reverse. I mostly listen to his stuff while washing dishes (and that seems somehow appropriate). There are some free podcast interviews with him (on different podcast series), and some of his retreat talks are also available for free. He has some guided meditation.

   His talks and his teaching lineage is very direct. By that, I am talking about very directly pointing to the nature of being, of letting the world be _exactly_ the way it is. I don't know what kind of transformative experience you have, but whatever it is, if you're ready for this stuff, his words will speak to you. If you are not, that's fine too.

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4. jamiek88May 2018
   A lot of the ‘priests’ were quasi landed gentry who inherited church titles and lands and read a couple sermons from a book per week. Hey had incomes from local farms and lots and lots of education and free time.

   A good introductory to this and the history of western science is Bill Bryson’s ‘a brief history of everything’and the one he edited on the Royal Society.

   Some of course were deeply religious, it I think it’s correct to treat their Christianity as incidental. I dont know if it’s the same with the ‘islamic’ scholars. I’d like to think so and I’d like to know more about them.

   Anyone recommend any laymen focused books on Islamic scholarship in antiquity?

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5. jaxnJul 2010
   A Brief History of Everything - Ken Wilber

   I think Wilber's inclusion of physics would resonate with HNers.

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6. nonrecursiveJun 2010
   I have a commute that takes an hour each way on average. Some audiobooks I've enjoyed:

   * I Drink For a Reason - very funny

   * Stumbling on Happiness (sounds self helpy but is actually a great book on our inability to predict how we will feel about situations in the future)

   * A Brief History of Everything - one cool story after another

   * A Long Way Gone, Memoirs of a Boy Soldier - hard to bear, but eye-opening

   * Getting Unstuck - buddhist talk by Pema Chodron

   * Born to Run - great, exciting story. Sometimes I would sit in the parking lot or the driveway after arriving in order to keep listening.

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