Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius
by Jorge Luis Borges · first published 1982
44% recommend56% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Short, dense Borges story about an invented world with an extreme idealist philosophy, where things exist only as perceived. Suits programmers and STEM readers, and a good first Borges story for a lunch break.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
"Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" is a short story by the 20th-century Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges. The story was first published in the Argentinian journal Sur, May 1940. The "postscript" dated 1947 is intended to be anachronistic, set seven years in the future. The first English-language translation of the story was published in 1961. Told in a first-person narrative, the story focuses on the author's discovery of the mysterious and possibly fictional country of Uqbar and its legend of Tlön, a mythical world whose inhabitants believe a form of subjective idealism, denying the reality
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It's worth mentioning that Borges is a great author for STEM types. Apart from being a towering critic of literature, he wrote short stories. He treated these as a poetry problem -- compressing the most story into the least number of words. They are spare, lean, but powerful. The Lottery in Babylon and The Library of Babel, in particular, are combinatorial horror stories. They take simple concept
on “A Lecture on Johnson and Boswell by Jorge Luis Borges” ↗See "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" for a fictional take on this. Meta-comment about the Borges connection: I'm continually astounded by how prescient his work was. "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" was published in 1940, so I suppose it's possible he, in Argentina, heard about this court case in New York, but I doubt it. Other examples: The Garden of Forking Paths: qualitative pre-figuring of the many
on “An Imaginary Town Becomes Real, Then Not” ↗There are few reasons to learn Spanish today, but reading Borges is an extremely strong one. Stories such as "Pierre Ménard", "The garden of forking paths" or "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" blow your mind in several different ways and leave a perennial impression on your intellect. Fortunately, both of his English translators are excellent.
on “Jorge Luis Borges Interview (1977)” ↗This reminded me the superb short story “Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” by Jorge Luis Borges: > There are no nouns in Tlön's conjectural Ursprache, from which the "present" languages and the dialects are derived: there are impersonal verbs, modified by monosyllabic suffixes…
on “Free Sex Pot Bust Rap – Introduction to Noun Talk” ↗The collected short stories of Jorge Luis Borges. Particularly: "The Library of Babel", "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" and "The Immortal". Italo Calvino's, "If on a Winter's Night a Traveller". Melville's "Moby Dick" (I do not think this is a good book but it had a significant impact.) Cormac McCarthy's, "Blood Meridian". Together these works revealed a vanity in traditional intellectualism that
on “Ask HN: Great fiction books that have had a positive impact on your life?” ↗Many LLMs are surprisingly good at using specific named authors (rather than just example texts) to evoke a style, so you could try "in the style of Jorge Luis Borges" or "…Douglas Adams" or "…Robert Anton Wilson" – whose surreal/absurd/fantastic styles could be fertile seeds. (If not already familiar with Borges, definitely check out his 'Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius' and 'Library of Babel' as ins
I was surprised by that omission as well. It is from his short story, Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius (one of my favorites) for those who don't know the reference. A lot of the concepts that Borges writes about have always struck me as relevant to computer science, and Tlön, Uqbar is no exception. For example, identity vs. equality when comparing things: > They said that the heresiarch was prompte
on “Borges’s Mirror” ↗If anyone here hasn't read Borges, I'd strongly recommend him. Pretty much everything he wrote was short, <20 pages, and so it's really easy to sit down and read one of his stories over a lunch break. The common recommendation would be to try out Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius and see if you like it. If so, it's part of Labyrinths, which is (in my opinion) his best collection of short stories. The bes
on “When Jorge Luis Borges met one of the founders of AI” ↗Gernsback Continuum is still my favorite story since Borges' Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius. Physical reality seems pretty solid, but social reality is certainly "flexible." And all the tech I work with is a continuum of different ages smushed together; javascript client apps embedding COBOL apps complied to wasm bytecodes. SQL databases whose schemas predate some of the developers working on the ap
on “Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology (1986)” ↗While we're Borges-posting, I recommend "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" https://sites.evergreen.edu/politicalshakespeares/wp-content...
on “Exactitude in Science – Borges (1946) [pdf]” ↗In no particular order: Book of the New Sun series by Gene Wolfe. (Highly recommended) A Fire Upon the Deep (Either you like the Tines or the Skroderiders) Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius by Jorge Borges (Is reality imbued with our ideas?) Conan the Barbarian by Robert E. Howard (Not unlike "the Greeks" of modern fic) John Carter of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs (perhaps the first true modern fic)
on “Book recommendations from Hacker News?” ↗I'll add some recommendations to the author's list, as I have found that reading difficult literature (both fiction and non-fiction) has been like exercising a muscle for me. For example, I read Blood Meridian before doing this and then again after doing it for a few years, right after McCarthy passed away, and it was a night and day difference in how "difficult" the prose was. A few things I thi
on “Short Little Difficult Books” ↗My favorite is "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius". Still makes me smile to read it.
on “Borges and Money” ↗…should try some Borges, at least Ficciones. Many of his stories are so mind-boggingly close to many topics of interest in CS. Beside The Library of Babel, I can come up with at least two other examples: * Tlon Uqbar Orbis Tertius describes an extreme Idealistic philosophy where things exist only as long as someone (something?) perceives them, which IMHO is an apt description of the digital world. * Funes describes the life of…
on “All Bitcoin private keys are on this website” ↗The first short story of his I read was “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius”. It remains my favourite of his, and I probably read this story and handful of his others once a year or so.
on “A Jorge Luis Borges Reading List” ↗