(Part 3) Top products from r/HPMOR

In the interest of trying to recommend books you may not have read, I am suggesting some that may seem far afield from books like HPMOR. But I have read each of them multiple times and loved them, and all of them gave me a lot to think about.

I just created a comment for Chapter 85 recommending Between Silk and Cyanide by Leo Marks. It is non-fiction, a painfully honest autobiography, and not very similar except for the bits about Knut Haukelid, but it is an amazing book. The author was the head of codes for SOE during WWII and so the book is about cryptography and secrets. And courage. I'm reading it for the third time right now.

Tuf Voyaging is a collection of short stories by George R. R. Martin (no one named Stark is in it), about Haviland Tuf, a misanthropic cat-loving merchant who starts with his humble ship "Cornucopia of Excellent Goods at Low Prices" and ends up with terrifying power and some hard decisions to make about how to use it. I'd call it comedy because it is hilarious, but it is also brilliantly-written horror.

Memoirs Found in a Bathtub is a tiny surreal book by Stanislaw Lem, about a journal uncovered by a post-apolcalyptic civilization. The main character has no name, and is apparently a spy on a mission so secret even he doesn't know about it. It is nightmarish, has absolutely no rationality to it at all, is clever and unlike any other book I've read, and most people haven't heard of it.

The Control of Nature by John McPhee is another non-fiction book. I recommend it for the beauty of the language, the depth of the research, and the fact that it is incredibly fascinating and impossible to put down. McPhee makes every person he meets into someone you want to know, and his science has substance without ever losing that sense of wonder.

Oh, you're in for a treat. I'm not sure where you can get them these days, if they've been completely translated yet or not (I've read bootleg translations, pretty good), but I'd recommend these two:

The Monogatari series - just an awesome mix of action, silly, sexy and surreal:
http://www.amazon.com/KIZUMONOGATARI-Wound-Tale-NISIOISIN/dp/1941220975/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1454151508&sr=1-1&keywords=nishio+ishin

Haruhi Suzumiya - starts as light fun, ends up as hard SF. I think the best time-travel sf series I've read, among other things.
http://www.amazon.com/Melancholy-Haruhi-Suzumiya-Nagaru-Tanigawa/dp/0316039020

Q: Why did this Buddhist monk burn himself to death?

A: Because he was not willing to burn anyone else.

Harry does not think "that [he is] the only one who has any ethical responsibility, and everyone else's actions are simply the consequences of [his] own."

Rather, he believes that he is the only one he can personally be ethically responsible for, and he holds himself to a rigorous standard of existential discipline. This results from his ultimate refusal to be bound by anyone else's ethical ideas, having instead committed himself, in the strongest sense, to the ethical mandates of rationality. If his rational conclusions tell him he must take a certain ethical stance, and back it with all necessary action, then he is committed to do so... or else he may as well give up on rationality altogether and join the lemming horde of mediocrity.

(Edit: this is how he can credibly threaten to wreck Azkaban even at the cost of his life when nobody else would even consider it.)

If you can't fully understand this attitude, it merely means you are like most people. If you can fully understand this attitude, you are probably already a source of wonder in your social circle. You'll be the one who is not lightly messed with.

For an expanded examination of what I am talking about, hunt down a copy of The Outsider by Colin Wilson.

Edit: seriously, downvoted? Whoever you are, my opinion of your intellect just took a hit. You're trying to understand a character who isn't average, as if he were. Not gonna work.

>"Gödel, Escher, Bach" by Douglas R. Hofstadter is the most awesome book that I have ever read. If there is one book that emphasizes the tragedy of Death, it is this book, because it's terrible that so many people have died without reading it."

Apparently I never got remotely far-enough into the book for this statement to make sense.

(I got tired of carrying that huge paperback around in my backpack.)

Lemme go get a Kindle copy.

I've heard good things about Good and Real.

>Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach[2] , also recommended by Yudkowsky, is the most comprehensive, state of the art introduction to the theory and practice of artificial intelligence for modern applications. It's the leading textbook in the field of artificial intelligence, used in over 1100 universities worldwide. I think it's obvious why a community read-through of this would be beneficial.

Russel and Norvig is the standard textbook for "Good Old-Fashioned AI", ie: the kind that's not at all worthy of being called "AI". It's used as a textbook in the first course in GOFAI for undergrads. It teaches fairly little programming, very little mathematics, and covers nothing of the kind of modern machine-learning techniques that actually get results these days, let alone the increasingly elegant and advanced learning techniques that are yielding good models of what cognition is.

On the textbook front, though, I can recommend that anyone with basic Calc 1+2 under their belt can go ahead and read Introduction to Bayesian Statistics to get a first taste of how "Bayesianism" actually works, and also why it hasn't taken over the world already (hint: computational concerns).

True, though multi-factored Bayesian analysis is a thought experiment, and remember the point isn't the probabilities the point is to force your mind to consider factors, look how they combine empirically, and then come to decisions or conclusions.

Remember you chuck the end numbers out and go with your gut after you have forced yourself to think through all of the factors, instead of just taking the solutions you've seen.

Most of the predictions I've seen seem more based on the concepts in Blink where wisdom/expertise is comes from the patter matching Harry decries. Hell arguably I do a fair bit of it based on my meta interpretations.

On the up and down side many people express their odds in high percentages. That makes sense, other than the crack/tinfoils people aren't going to make predictions that don't have high probabilities based on inductive or deductive reasoning, but it's also a fair way to express certainty.

Also, minds don't deal with numbers well. Some people can be trained to do good mental arithmetic, or to be proficient judging an angel within a few degrees, so the difference between 14 and 17 percent being about one in six or one in seven is likely to be missed and things will stay often in approximate terms of numbers easy to conceptualize: ie under six.

That said most of my predictions are based on assumption that I see solution x among n plausible solutions with a approximate percentage of roughly 1/(n+k) or so, where the evidence is about equal and k is generally a fudge less than one. I have a hunch, usually based on Harry's hated pattern matching, that he also lauds as "asking how long it took last time. . . that's called taking the outside view." and I use it to promote a possibility and what I think the solution space is narrowed down to based on the evidence.

Often I throw up here things that come from looking for solutions instead of looking at the problem, with the intent of seeing if constructive /destructive criticism, occurs and I generally try to do the same, because good group discussion, vice groupthink can be very productive (in business this is often called and integrated product team or the like)

Maybe I should take HPMOR more seriously, but I'm in this for the fun and haven't taken the time for all of the series yet.

Your scenario assumes there is only one ransomer and one ransomee in the world. This can make for a good toy problem, but we should be clear that we're diverging from the real world here.

This is one of many scenarios where it is to your advantage for your opponent to believe that there are circumstances in which you will act against your own (apparent) self-interest. The best thing you can do to prevent kidnapping (in this scenario) is to credibly and publicly assert that you will never pay a random.

If you're a kidnapper and you anticipate people attempting this strategy, you can publicly and credibly delcare that you'll kidnap people regardless. (This might be tricky, as kidnappers historically aren't super credible people).

The key is to be (1) credible and (2) first. Whoever makes the first credible precommitment wins.

Similarly: there is a game called "Chicken", where two drivers careen towards each other at high speed; whoever swerves first loses. The dominant strategy...

(think about it for at least 30 seconds)

(it hasn't been 30 seconds yet)

(keep thinking)

(do you have an answer?)

(take a second to write it down or say it out loud)

[solution](#s "...is to throw your steering wheel out the window before the game starts, such that your opponent knows for a fact that you can't swerve.")

Another, similar demonstration of the power of precommitment is demonstrated here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0qjK3TWZE8. If you want to skip the game show fluff: It's a prisoners dilemma and things get fun around 2:40.

tldr: You can use your opponent's model of you as a weapon against them.

Recommended reading: http://www.amazon.com/The-Strategy-Conflict-Thomas-Schelling/dp/0674840313

> So You Want To Be a Wizard by Diane Duane. It's kid-friendly stuff, surprisingly serious, and really amazingly cool. There are digital editions of the 9 book set around for relatively cheap. These books are great.

There's also a tenth book now, as well as a book of three novellas that take place between the ninth and tenth books.

You may enjoy Too Like the Lightening by Ada Palmer. Has a cast of engaging characters, with major themes on enlightenment philosophy, science fiction, global politics, ethics, metaphysics, service, humanism and redemption. Quite the combination.

Otherwise, characters with long-term plans and wit can be seen in Sherlock Holmes and Luther by the BBC.

A few recommendations....

Worm is an amazing fanfic, think Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson except more depressing. It has a slow beginning, but soon becomes awesome.
Synopsis:An introverted teenage girl with an unconventional superpower, Taylor goes out in costume to find escape from a deeply unhappy and frustrated civilian life. Her first attempt at taking down a supervillain sees her mistaken for one, thrusting her into the midst of the local ‘cape’ scene’s politics, unwritten rules, and ambiguous morals. As she risks life and limb, Taylor faces the dilemma of having to do the wrong things for the right reasons.

Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus is hilarious and absurdist, a bit like Terry Pratchet. Still updating every two weeks.
Synopsis: Lily is not quite a normal little girl. The Dursleys always say she's a freak just like her freakish parents, her uncle Death seems to be convinced she's the grim reaper, and her ever political and invisible best friend Wizard Lenin just thinks she should take over the world. On top of all that the secret society of wizards think she's Jesus. AU female!Harry among other things.

Saga of Soul is Puella Magi Madoka Magica meets science. Slow to update though...
Synopsis: Meet Eriko, an introverted, intellectual teenage girl with good intentions. Now, watch Eriko get caught in the middle of multiple simultaneous plots as fairies, demons, inter-dimensional empires, evil geniuses, immortal killers, cosmic horrors and more all make their move, and it's up to her to save the day."Saga of Soul" tells the story of Eriko, A.K.A. Soul, as she strives to protect the world against all odds. Updated on an irregular basis.

Imperfect Metamorphosis Takerfoxx took a scrapped character from Touhou and made them an vengeful abomination bent on killing and absorbing everyone into their eldritch body.

To the Stars I guess this is like Star trek meets Puella Magi Madoka Magica? It's completely different from the source material, the world created is immense.
Synopsis:Kyubey promised that humanity will reach the stars one day. The Incubator tactfully refrained from saying too much about what they would find there.

Gods & Monsters God character development (or should I say character regression?) If you like broken characters trying to do the right thing, take a look.
Synopsis: Miranda struggles to keep a fractured Jane Shepard focused on the task of defeating the Collectors. Meanwhile, Maya Brooks steals Shepard's clone and tries to stay one step ahead of Cerberus. Pairings: It's complicated.

Legend of the Sun knight It's not a fanfic, but a fan translation of a popular Taiwanese novel. Gods cannot walk the earth, so they choose human representatives who are supposed to be perfect. The Sun knight is supposed to be the living carnation of justice and compassion; however he has megalomaniac tendencies...

Edit: added in synopsis

I don't know why this message does not have more upvotes. I have looked up both books and they both seem very interesting. Mastery seems worth a read as well.

Please replace the amzn.to link (under John Scalzi's Redshirts) with the full original URL (minus the referral tag). URL-shortened links aren't necessary on reddit, and they'll always get spamfiltered - especially if they contain an Amazon referral tag.

I haven't read it, but EY recommended the novel Jumper in a recent post.

This is unrelated, but where did the name hoja_nasredin come from? From the book?

Good shit good shit.

I wrote a quick script to search the full text of HPMOR and return everything italicized and in title case, which I think got most of the books mentioned in the text:

Book title|Author|Mentioned in chapter(s)|Links|Notes
:---|:---|:---|:---|:---
Encyclopaedia Britannica| |7|Wikipedia|Encyclopaedia
Financial Times| |7|Wikipedia|Newspaper
The Feynman Lectures on Physics|Richard P. Feynman|8|Wikipedia|Full text is available online here
Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases|Amos Tversky|8|Amazon|
Language in Thought and Action|S.I. Hayakawa|8|Amazon Wikipedia |
Influence: Science and Practice|Robert B. Cialdini|8|Wikipedia|Textbook. See also Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
Rational Choice in an Uncertain World: The Psychology of Judgment and Decision Making|Reid Hastie and Robyn Dawes|8|Amazon |Textbook
Godel, Escher, Bach|Douglas Hofstadter|8, 22|Amazon Wikipedia|
A Step Farther Out|Jerry Pournelle|8|Amazon|
The Lord of the Rings|J.R.R. Tolkien|17|Wikipedia|
Atlas Shrugged|Ayn Rand|20, 98|Wikipedia|
Chimpanzee Politics|Frans de Waal|24|Amazon|
Thinking Physics: Understandable Practical Reality|Lewis Carroll Epstein|35, 102|Amazon|
Second Foundation|Isaac Asimov|86|Wikipedia|Third novel in the Foundation Series
Childcraft: A Guide For Parents| |91|Amazon|Not useful if your child has a mysterious dark side

Also, this probably isn't technically what the OP was asking, but since the script returned fictional titles along with real ones, I went ahead and included them too:

Book title|Mentioned in chapter(s)
:---|:---
The Quibbler|6, 27, 38, 63, 72, 86
Hogwarts: A History|8, 73, 79
Modern Magical History|8
Magical Theory|16
Intermediate Potion Making|17
Occlumency: The Hidden Arte|21
Daily Prophet|22, 25, 26, 27, 35, 38, 53, 69, 77, 84, 86, 108
Magical Mnemonics|29
The Skeptical Wizard|29
Vegetable Cunning|48
Beauxbatons: A History|63
Moste Potente Potions|78
Toronto Magical Tribune|86
New Zealand Spellcrafter's Diurnal Notice|86
American Mage|86

As others mentioned, TVTropes has a virtually-exhaustive list of allusions to other works, which includes books that aren't explicitly named in the text, like Ender's Game

Get people to stop accepting violence as a way to get what they want. People are OK with that violence as adults because it was omnipresent for them in their childhood and so it feels natural. If you remove the violence from childhood it will not feel natural when they become adults and violence in the world will be greatly reduced.

So step 1: Start reasoning and negotiating with children rather than ordering them around with violence.