A brief history of everything
by Ken Wilber · first published 1996
56% recommend44% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Introduction to Wilber's Integral Philosophy that weaves in physics and big-picture ideas; suits readers working through existential questions, and one commenter found it engaging in audiobook form.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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A Brief History of Everything - Ken Wilber I think Wilber's inclusion of physics would resonate with HNers.
on “Ask HN: Best Philosophical Books?” ↗…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…
on “Ask HN: Which books have made you introspect?” ↗…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.…
on “The Language of the Roman Empire” ↗…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…
on “How can I keep learning on my 1.5 hr commute?” ↗…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…
on “In defense of flat earthers (2020)” ↗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…
on “I should have loved biology (2020)” ↗…How We Got Here. This was my second exposition, in general, to ancient DNA. The first was several papers which have invalidated everything we knew or thought we knew of Hungarian prehistory. But, as A Brief History of Everything by Ken Wilber often attests, there is a hell lot more we do not know than we do even when textbooks claim otherwise.
on “Three kinds of early humans unearthed living together in South Africa” ↗A friend loaned me a copy of Ken Wilbur's A Brief History of Everything, which I credit with starting me down the path of philosophical thought. I honestly don't remember a whole lot about the book, but even if I did I'm not certain I'd recommend it if only because I've noticed…
on “Ask HN: What's one book that changed your life?” ↗A Brief History of Everything by Ken Wilber.
on “Ask HN: 2018 Summer Reading List?” ↗…not so surprising if you did high school math.) I found it to be the most important glue in my math education. In fact, all the natural science ought to be taught in this way. Kinda like Bill Bryson's Brief History of Everything, plus actual calculations. We won a math contest in my last year. I was expecting it to stay interesting. Unfortunately when I got to university math (and the rest of engineering) was taught in a very…
on “There are no rules in math” ↗A Brief History of Everything talks about how little we know about everything. Everywhere we look we just find more and more mysteries. Evolution is like this as well -- while you could explain it easily especially to someone with…
on “Three kinds of early humans unearthed living together in South Africa” ↗Wasn't Einstein actually first interviewed by a sports journalist? I recently read, in A Brief History of Everything, that that happened with either Einstein or some other famous scientist - don't remember who exactly.
on “Bill Watterson, creator of Calvin & Hobbes, first interview since 1989” ↗> 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. The problem is that in school there is far too little time to teach this all. There is already too little time to teach the curriculum material. Thus, if you are interested in such topics,…
on “I should have loved biology (2020)” ↗