Support NeoGAF

[TheInfamousKira]

Honestly, probably the Bible. I've got one foot in agnosticism but my father has spent his entire life in the ministry, and he's a probably well read person, so I've picked up a lot of second hand verse memorization and knowledge of the inner workings of non denominational and southern Baptist Christianity. It forged me into someone who makes a concerted effort not to be a dick.

Barring that, probably comics. I was never a collector, but my early fascination with Batman and some Marvel superheroes got me into sci-fi, which was later refined by the Power Rangers into weeb shit, and further refined into fantasy when I got into Zelda and gaming in general.

 

[joedan]

Bible

 

[Y0ssarian]

Catch-22

 

[NahaNago]

Life Altering, Dudes!

Had no idea there was a book. I really wanted a sequel to this movie. They could do a story based off their kids having to save the nation somehow as a sequel.

Gotta be the first few Xanth novels for me, A Spell for Chameleon being the main one. As a pubescent 13 year old these books spoke to me.

The Xanth series was always fun to read since I thought I was doing something bad by reading those books back when I was a teen.

Probably Bible for me for greatest influence even though I'm lukewarm Christian(lol).

 

[BigBooper]

As a youngin, the KJV Bible was the only real meaningful book I read. I read a lot of others like Hardy Boys or We Were There, West Point Yearling, and most of the Mark Twain books.

I think Le Morte d'Arthur was the first book I can remember finishing and then thinking I needed to read it again. I wouldn't say it really had much of an impact on me though.

 

[IDKFA]

This wasn't my first book, but it was the book that not only got me hooked on the writing's of Tolkien, but also made me addicted to reading. An addiction that I still have to this day.

 

[Porcile]

The Hungry Caterpillar

oh, and Crime and Punishment.

 

[thefool]

Math books i suppose. They helped me a ton.

 

[V1LÆM]

boring answer but Harry Potter. read the first one when it came out in 1997.

they got me into reading. i didn't have a lot of friends so i kinda felt like harry/ron/hermione were my friends and i could escape into that world. as i grew up so did harry/ron/hermione and when the last book came out it felt like i was saying goodbye to my friends. my dad died when i was young and the books really helped me cope with that too.

another book series would be His Dark Materials. i read some of the first one when i was 13 but i think it was about 20 when i read through them all. they really affected my life.

i can safely say i definitely would not be the person i am today if i hadn't read those books.

This wasn't my first book, but it was the book that not only got me hooked on the writing's of Tolkien, but also made me addicted to reading. An addiction that I still have to this day.

i got a box set of them after fellowship movie came out. they were too much for me at the time but i love LOTR and still reread it often

 

[akimbo009]

Misenchatned Sword by Lawrence Watt-Evans

 

[Dream-Knife]

The Will to Power by Nietzsche. Found that in HS, so I don't know if that counts as "growing up".

 

[ShirAhava]

 

[Fuz]

Lord of the Rings

1984

 

[It's all in the wrist]

Cosmos, by Carl Sagan. Gave me a sense of scale and perspective.

 

[Darchaos]

Mary Shelleys Frankenstein

 

[Jaxx_377]

Changed my Life.

 

[BlackTron]

Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH -the first novel I ever read to completion and actually enjoyed myself while doing it. I think I was 11.
Animal Farm
1984
Man's Search for Meaning -Frankl

Perhaps the greatest influence of all -My Book of Bible Stories. It was this illustrated Jehovah's Witnesses book of stories that my dad had the accompanying cassette tape set to. Regardless of the content, it's most influential because I essentially taught myself to read by analyzing this book while wearing headphones for hours when I was VERY young -I remember playing NES and Genesis around this time meaning I was 4-6. Thinking back, I'm a bit shocked to think I read and understood all my game manuals back then...I studied them like Doctrine. So this book/cassette set primed me to read everything else available to me, and probably helped me adapt to using the computer earlier as well...I recall playing obscure learning games in DOS at that time like Reader Rabbit and Treasure Mathstorm lol.

 

[EverydayBeast]

 

[Star-Lord]

Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy got me through most of my childhood. Superior to Harry Potter in every way, and I say that as a fan of the latter.

 

[West Texas CEO]

 

[wecantrepeat]

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

In the school I used to go to, there was a receptionist who was very sweet. On my birthday, she gave me this book, and I absolutely loved it. Great book, I want to read it again.

 

[Rest]

I suppose it was Patricia Churchland's Neurophilosophy when I was in high-school. I was deep into theoretical physics and likely would have ended-up there, but the philosophy and reductionist arguments convinced me that we could understand a materialist brain and I was fascinated by the engineering aspects. I now work in neuroscience. In hindsight I don't love the book, and have major qualms with it, but at the time it was neat and served as a catalyst.

The only other book that came close was Eric Drexler's Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology. I was older, maybe 20 when I read it but it was a startling view of the world and the future given the promise of molecular nanotechnology. His book Nanosystems is the superior book, but it's far more technical and less visionary.

A hat-tip to any of Ray Kurzweil's books. Although they were, for the most part, but preaching to the choir.

Have you read The Large, the Small, and the Human Mind by Roger Penrose? It's in my stack but I haven't read it yet.



I'm hoping he writes a follow up with Hameroff (as well as fulfills his threat of a new edition of Cycles of Time.)

 

[InverseAgonist]

Have you read The Large, the Small, and the Human Mind by Roger Penrose? It's in my stack but I haven't read it yet.

I'm hoping he writes a follow up with Hameroff (as well as fulfills his threat of a new edition of Cycles of Time.)

Hi Rest! I have not read it, but I would be interested in doing so. I'm familiar with Penrose and his general ideas, but haven't really dug into them. I'm not a big fan of Orch OR, I fall more inline with Max Tegmark's rebuttal.

That said, I'm going to watch the video you posted tonight, thanks it looks neat!

Are you interested in physics, neurobiology or all-of-the-above and more?

 

[Rest]

Hi Rest! I have not read it, but I would be interested in doing so. I'm familiar with Penrose and his general ideas, but haven't really dug into them. I'm not a big fan of Orch OR, I fall more inline with Max Tegmark's rebuttal.

That said, I'm going to watch the video you posted tonight, thanks it looks neat!

Are you interested in physics, neurobiology or all-of-the-above and more?

I'm interested in physics, and Penrose is particularly interesting to me because he's a mathematician and not afraid of the orthodoxy in the physics world that has built up around hyperspace theories. And I think it's also important to look at the human body and understand it in the realm of physics, especially as it relates to consciousness and cognition; our best understanding of physics comes from quantum mechanics, which keeps giving us testable, repeatable and verifiable answers that don't make sense at all. Why is that? Is there something wrong with how we perceive the world? And if so, is that a fundamental flaw in our physical being (errors coming from the senses,) the way we process that perception (some kind of flaw in the brain,) or how we interpret that information (an error that comes from our consciousness?) If it's the last, we have to start figuring out what consciousness is and where or what it comes from.

Besides fundamental questions like that, I'm also interested in the philosophical questions that come up when you study physics. If everything we are and do follows rules, there is an interpretation that that means that we have no free will, that free will is an illusion. But to my thinking, if free will is an illusion, then consciousness as we experience it would also be an illusion. If we don't have free will, why do we have consciousness? What is the evolutionary advantage of illusory consciousness? And again, and I think more importantly in this realm, what is the origin of consciousness?

 

[bloodydrake]

grade school I remember these ..love of horror spooky things and monsters probabaly started here...or the Hillarious House of Frightenstein

 

[Cyberpunkd]

This wasn't my first book, but it was the book that not only got me hooked on the writing's of Tolkien, but also made me addicted to reading. An addiction that I still have to this day.

Same, exactly the same book, exactly the same effect. After reading LotR (I still have that 20 year old book, it bad a cover from PJ movie so I know the exact date it was made) I started reading almost all the time and never stopped.

 

[NotMyProblemAnymoreCunt]

The Satanic Bible

His Dark Materials Trilogy by Philip Pullman

 

[Cyberpunkd]

Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy got me through most of my childhood. Superior to Harry Potter in every way, and I say that as a fan of the latter.

The sexuality stuff from second book onwards was a bit awkward...

 

[joedan]

Bible?

 

[FatallyYours]

 

[Maiden Voyage]