Philosophical and Deep Readings

[Mundane]

I have recently become a fan of philosophy and have in turn began to read a fair share of philosophy essays and deeply philosophical fiction novels. These books really open up your mind to different realities you may have never considered and they truly broaden your intellectual horizons. Reading in general is one of the few ways to really boost your intellectual nature, but reading deep and philosophical books, in my personal opinion, doubles the intellectual stimulation.

You're probably asking what is a philosophical reading? Honestly, it is any essay, short story, novel, poem, or play that stimulates philosophical thought process via a blatant or underlying philosophical question. The reading will, in most circumstances, induce regular book closings for deep introspective thought or arguing with ones self. You may have read one of these and not even have been aware of it.

The aim of this thread is to explain some of the deep pieces you have read and how they influenced your thinking, what you perceived it's immediate and underlying messages to be, and obviously to try and sell the book for others to pick up. I don't really care about a format to how you post, just don't be too short and be sure to be specific on how the writing made you feel.

I'll start off with mentioning the best philosophical pieces I have read:
• Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
• The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley
• Siddhartha by Herman Hesse

I'll begin by explaining Brave New World in a nutshell. BNW is a sci-fi novel right off the bat with it's futuristic setting and it's creepy cloning technology. However, deeply rooted in this techno-babble that Aldous Huxley creates is a philosophical look at the height of human society and how at it's peak society will reach a period of self-destruction in where brain washed clones who are bred into rigorous social classes rule the world. Through hypnotic brain washing and bred defects the world controllers can force the masses into social structure. The novel eventually brings in the opposite of perfect society - the Savage, to counterbalance and shame the "perfect" structure of the world. It really strikes a chord in me how through idyllic language and far out science fiction Huxley(who wrote it in 1932) can almost predict some of the social calamities that would befall the world in the upcoming 40 to 50 years after BNW. It's a good read for intermediate(12th grade requirement in FL) readers. It'll get your brain juices flowing, for sure.

I'll explain the other books in future posts!

 

[RedWitch]

If you want something to make you're brain tick try The Book of Nos or some of Crowleys work when hes blatantly on a trip... at first you'll think 'wtf?' but then you'll wonder why you can't get them out of your head...then you figure out what you think it means and get over it :p
They aren't fictional though.

Will look into your Huxley books...they ring a proverbial bell

 

[Mundane]

If something drug related spurs your interest, that's Huxley. The Doors of Perception is philosophy examined through the use and effects of mescaline. It's confusing at first, but it's a really good insight into some various moral and artistic outlooks on life.

 

[Mascarpone]

I'd avoid most science fiction for your intellectual stimulation. Even the more "philosophical" ones stem from really bland philosophical bases. "The assholes above will find a way to control the huddling masses." "Human's are barbaric and evil at heart."

If u want somethign that will really broaden the way you think about life and even WHAT you think about? The Big Necessity. It's about human waste. Literaly. Poop. and believe it or not it's will really change the way you think about how the world works. Without laser guns clones and and evil masterminds.

If u insist on loving sci fi though, check out "Childhood's End." I forget the author. haven't read it in a long time. but that is a story that will give u a very different and interesting perspective on the evil overlord cliche.

 

[Surmuck]

What? I strongly disagree. Science fiction does a wonderful job of conveying some seriously interesting philosophical standpoints. In fact, almost all the majorly popular scifi I can think of is themed around those views.

Brave New World is an excellent example of this.

 

[Mundane]

I agree with Surmie. I am not a fan of science fiction, I hardly ever read science fiction. I read The Doors of Perception before reading BNW and purchased BNW because I enjoyed Huxley's views. I was not entirely interested in Brave New World until about mid way through the novel when the philosophical juices started flowing.

I am currently trying to decipher some of Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil at the moment, but I fear that it's translation from German has skewed some of his mannerisms - thus making it hard for me to derive a point from any of his paragraphs. I can separate the small little points in the forms of excellent quotes and witty sentences, but the big picture of it is a mystery. If anyone has some pointers on digesting Nietzsche, I could use 'em.

As for other reading, I am interested in picking up some things on metaphysics in correlation to religion and psychoactives - mainly peyotist/Native American/Mazatec cultural beliefs.