A Healthy Diet For The Mind | Hacker News Reader

A Healthy Diet For The Mind

cs.uni.edu

110 pointsbgray32 comments

About reading fiction apart from technical things - I believe that fiction writing is important and practical for society as a whole in a way similar to how thought experiments and simulations are important for scientists. Writers of books and TV shows create imaginery worlds in which they set up different scenarios, create problems and propose solutions. Those stories often create discussions, in which people generate and evaluate ideas.

For example, many science-fiction fans get involved in lengthy discussions about physics of space travel and social consequences of technology that doesn't exist yet. But it might exist in the future, as it is with ie. Orson Scott Card's writings exploring influence of global information network on society and governments back in 1980-s.

I believe the same applies to other genres as well - good stories contain simulations of events that might not be happening right now around us, but one day they might. It's a human way to create solutions before real problems strike hard.

> For example, many science-fiction fans get involved in lengthy discussions about physics [...]

This always bothers me when talking to sci-fi fans that only read sci-fi. It also bothers me in more modern sci-fi when the author puts too much time into explaining the mechanics of whatever concepts are used.

The 1950s, 1960s and the earlier 1970s sci-fi is usually about ideas. The 'science' is mostly there as a plot device. This gives the author huge freedom to just take an idea (however absurd) and run with it.

Whatever kind of fiction your read, though, it's always characters, their development and their reaction to the environment that they find themselves in that is the key to a good story.

(Yes, there is plenty of good sci-fi to be found today, from the hard kind to the lyrical/meta-physical kind, I'm just commenting on the general development of the genre. Also, see Sturgeon's Law).

One of the worst things you can do for your mind is watch the eleven o'clock news. Before you head off to bed. Rarely do you see anything positive - it's all about calamities, accidents, and murders. And, of course, X product does something bad.

Suppose you were a news outlet and suppose you were trying to maximize your company's profitability.

Clearly,when folks change the channel away from your program, your profitability goes down. So, you might do a bit of research to find out what tends to make folks change or not change the channel.

Your research could indicate that strong negative emotions, such as anger, sadness or fear tend to make the viewer fixate and not change the channel.

Finally, you might ask yourself, how should the news be presented so as to maximize profits?

In many cases, a news outlet's profitability is directly related to the amount of emotional distress it can generate in its viewers. Sure isn't something I want to support when looked at that way.

I think you got it - "If it bleeds, it leads". I can't fault them for maximizing revenues, but I'd advise everyone to avoid them, just like you'd avoid a casino or social gaming.

Why can't you fault a company for maximising revenues?

The answer is always profit.

That doesn't make it okay or good or long termist.

Reminds me of the Kentucky Fried Movie. During a 'commercial break' in the movie, a news caster chimes in with the headlines:

"Moscow in flames, missiles headed to New York, film at eleven"

Can we get a more descriptive title next time? I clicked this link expecting to read about food and diet choices that improved thinking and was incredibly disappointed.

I too expected that. But what I read managed to thrill me than disappoint me. This is some topic which isn't discussed much and I am glad such an idea is being discussed!

I was thinking about exactly this yesterday - so much of "media matter" is like junk food for the mind. I wondered if we could start an organic movement but for the content industry.

Isn't that what "Hacker News" is supposed to provide?

HN isn't so much a movement in the content industry, but a very specialized aggregator. It certainly is one of the ways I try to provide myself with good reading material so it does help.

One of the good things about twitter is if you follow content sharing people with similar interests it acts as a filter. A human filter you are exploiting, but still a pretty good filter. I'm sure somehow content aggregators can move away from a board based format and into a more heavily human filtered format. Trawling through a board is time-consuming and not nearly as well filtered as it could be.

A programmer I know told me once about his method of using Twitter. He doesn't read any normal news sites, use RSS, etc. but just follows on Twitter people who write things that he finds interesting (mostly game development). When someone stops tweeting high-value things (links to interesting articles, etc.) he just stops following him and finds someone with more interesting tweets.

I think it's disappointing your friend doesn't (presumably) have a Twitter List. Many of us on HN love game programming, even if we don't live it because game programming is an art.

Actually, I just found something which looks like a good solution for developers: http://tagmask.com/ . It allows developers to share not just posts, but code snippets as well. Filtered by tags. A social-news board-community for programmers. Found it via Twitter, Guido shared it. I do indeed use twitter for news and resources.

You might check out this novel:

http://www.amazon.com/Davids-Sling-Marc-Stiegler/dp/06716536...

Among other things, Stiegler posits a "Zetetic Institute" that teaches people how to think better -- effectively, an "organic foods" industry for the mind.

Interesting. Stiegler's book is copyrighted 1988, but "Zetetic" references were also briefly popular in the mid-1970s as well. If I recall correctly P.J. Plauger had a Zetetic Institute in one of his SF stories back then, for example. The term refers to a form of Pyrrhonism -- basically skepticism without the dogmatic certainty that can be just as blinding as affirmative certainty.

Isn't that basically what the Singularity Institute and http://lesswrong.com/ guys are trying to do?

I added this from David's Sling to the December Rationality Quotes thread on Less Wrong (http://lesswrong.com/lw/37k/rationality_quotes_december_2010...):

In the Information Age, the first step to sanity is FILTERING. Filter the information; extract the knowledge.

Filter first for substance. Filter second for significance. These filters protect against advertising.

Filter third for reliability. This filter protects against politicians.

Filter fourth for completeness. This filter protects from the media.

-- Marc Stielger, David's Sling

You become the stories you listen to. Be mindful of the diet of ideas you feed your mind.

This applies not only to your reading list, but also to your own thoughts.

And your physical actions - Your attitudes and general outlook tends to follow your physical actions as much or more than the other way around. So act how you want to feel, then you will become more like you act. I actually learned this trick back in the eighties from a book Self-Creation by George Weinberg.

I welcome healthy discussion on the Story's role in shaping, sharpening, and healing minds (especially as we grow up and then grow older). At the very least, it's a big change from the "I have empirical evidence that degrees in English and the people who major in it are absolutely worthless" threads/links that run through HN from time to time.

Remember, all, those great characters and classic tales you've ever read and heard/seen are spun by someone who studied the language and the past storytellers just as intently as a software engineer studied the merge and bubble sort.

How many great novelists were English majors?

David Foster Wallace majored in English (and philosophy), and I think he's a great novelist. Most older novelists didn't study English because English literature wasn't considered a serious scholarly pursuit until fairly recently.

Douglas Adams, Stephen King, John Updike, Joseph Heller, JRR Tolkein.

Among other notable storytellers: Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, James Cameron, Danny Boyle.

I agree strongly with the sentiment of the post. My conception of self and world has been shaped in no small part by great works of fiction.

That said, I winced a bit at the author's particular use of the nutrition metaphor. The U.S. government's "food pyramid" is one idea that could do with a bit less mass consumption.

Reading fiction shouldn't be brushed aside as something frivolous. When you read a story you live the characters. When you live different characters to acquire the ability to relate to different kinds of people that are not like you. In short you learn to empathize. You become more human.

Anybody got any good sources of material to read?

A little off topic:

In the "It Pays To Be Specific" post below the main story, I sure hope the student didn't get an F for the assignment, assuming his submission was otherwise correct.

Err, i think it's actually proof the guy paid someone else to do it. I hope he got a zero not an F.

Naive me, I thought it was because he knew more than one version of assembly.

One time, I did a database assignment in MySQL instead of SQL server because I was only running Linux at the time, and didn't have access to the school's lab the night before the assignment was due. Ya, I know.

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