Books that inspire cosmic vertigo / perspective spiral / ego breakdown
March 12, 2022 6:48 PM Subscribe
I have found myself with an entire week off, and there's no better way to spend it than to scratch a literary itch. I want to be immersed in that feeling you get when you think about the vastness of the universe, the complexity of consciousness, the sheer strangeness of "existance" -- I want to read things that make me feel this way. Where can I start?
Blindsight by Peter Watts
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blindsight_(Watts_novel)
posted by nickggully at 6:58 PM on March 12, 2022 [4 favorites]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blindsight_(Watts_novel)
posted by nickggully at 6:58 PM on March 12, 2022 [4 favorites]
Response by poster: I should add that I'm seeking non-fiction, in particular, If such a thing exists.
posted by Anonymouse1618 at 7:01 PM on March 12, 2022
posted by Anonymouse1618 at 7:01 PM on March 12, 2022
There's a ten minute concentrated dose of that here--Karoline von Günderrode's "Apocalyptic Fragment" (1804). She means it as non-fiction--metaphysics, philosophy, etc.
posted by Wobbuffet at 7:03 PM on March 12, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Wobbuffet at 7:03 PM on March 12, 2022 [1 favorite]
‘Man’s Search for Meaning’ by Viktor E. Frankl comes to mind.
posted by Salamander at 7:32 PM on March 12, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by Salamander at 7:32 PM on March 12, 2022 [3 favorites]
Barbara Ehrenreich wrote an autobiography that might fit the bill here. It's a slow build, but the central idea of the book is an exploration of a fairly hardline atheist having mystical experiences throughout her life.
Many folks who have read her other works approach it with a confused side-eye (and maybe for good reason; this book does not line up with the rest of her works at all), but I found it pretty great.
posted by furnace.heart at 7:37 PM on March 12, 2022 [4 favorites]
Many folks who have read her other works approach it with a confused side-eye (and maybe for good reason; this book does not line up with the rest of her works at all), but I found it pretty great.
posted by furnace.heart at 7:37 PM on March 12, 2022 [4 favorites]
Best answer: A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson - science overviews for a general reader but parts of it made me feel unmoored at the vastness of time and the universe.
More anthropocentric but trippy:
Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder by Lawrence Weschler
Four Lost Cities by Annalee Newitz
Animals:
World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments by Aimee Nezhukumatathil
posted by lizard music at 8:00 PM on March 12, 2022 [4 favorites]
More anthropocentric but trippy:
Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder by Lawrence Weschler
Four Lost Cities by Annalee Newitz
Animals:
World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments by Aimee Nezhukumatathil
posted by lizard music at 8:00 PM on March 12, 2022 [4 favorites]
Best answer: Preposterous Universe Sean Carroll is a professor at CalTech/Santa Fe Institute/Johns Hopkins. Carroll gets deeply into Physics, Philosophy and Religious concepts he categorizes at "Naturalism". He has a range of interviews with various interdisciplinary scholars on his Mindscape podcasts. His own research on Everettian Quantum Mechanics is very challenging, and he has written several books on the topic.
posted by effluvia at 8:01 PM on March 12, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by effluvia at 8:01 PM on March 12, 2022 [1 favorite]
I’m going to lead you astray and down this rabbit hole with the promise that it’s worth it and there are non-fiction recommendations within it:
1. Rick and Morty and the Meaning of Life
2. Rick and Morty and the Meaning of Life — Part II — Screw Enlightenment, Become An Adult Instead
posted by vivzan at 8:08 PM on March 12, 2022 [1 favorite]
1. Rick and Morty and the Meaning of Life
2. Rick and Morty and the Meaning of Life — Part II — Screw Enlightenment, Become An Adult Instead
posted by vivzan at 8:08 PM on March 12, 2022 [1 favorite]
Best answer: How about Douglas Hofstadter? Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid, or Metamagical Themas might just fit the bill.
posted by mollweide at 8:24 PM on March 12, 2022 [13 favorites]
posted by mollweide at 8:24 PM on March 12, 2022 [13 favorites]
a brief history of time. try to really grasp it. ianap.
posted by j_curiouser at 8:26 PM on March 12, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by j_curiouser at 8:26 PM on March 12, 2022 [1 favorite]
100% Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid.
posted by turkeyphant at 8:38 PM on March 12, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by turkeyphant at 8:38 PM on March 12, 2022 [2 favorites]
Something on evolutionary and geological time - Annals of the Former World certainly, but if you can handle nineteenth century writing try The Voyage of the Beagle itself. You can get the skull-cracking of geological time and ecological profusion, plus some of the sense of astonishment of someone to whom the idea was utterly new, plus the distance between us and the early 19th.
posted by clew at 8:50 PM on March 12, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by clew at 8:50 PM on March 12, 2022 [3 favorites]
I was hesitant to recommend John McPhee for some reason, maybe because his work is so much more concrete than what I thought the OP was looking for, but, if I'm wrong, then just about all of his work would work. Assembling California, which is part of the Annals of the Former World, is amazing.
posted by mollweide at 9:14 PM on March 12, 2022
posted by mollweide at 9:14 PM on March 12, 2022
Oh, yeah, thanks to one of my college profs, I had to read The Voyage of the Beagle. It's very readable, and with the foreknowledge of what it means, it's amazing to read it in retrospect. On The Origin of the Species isn't so bad, either. Darwin is refreshingly clear in laying out his argument.
posted by mollweide at 9:25 PM on March 12, 2022
posted by mollweide at 9:25 PM on March 12, 2022
I was coming here to recommend Promethea and then I saw your request for nonfiction.
But Promethea is true enough, I think. Maybe better than true. It's real in a way this reality isn't. The first couple chapters are meh, but it ramps into the greatest story arc I've ever seen. Ego breakdown doesn't usually come from the weight of facts, but from the tug of aeons of humans' collective storytelling pulling our soul into a shape we had somehow forgotten.
If you truly want nonfiction, I always felt like I'd fallen off the edge of the planet after reading Heidegger. Or Neitzsche. YMMV.
posted by ananci at 9:28 PM on March 12, 2022 [2 favorites]
But Promethea is true enough, I think. Maybe better than true. It's real in a way this reality isn't. The first couple chapters are meh, but it ramps into the greatest story arc I've ever seen. Ego breakdown doesn't usually come from the weight of facts, but from the tug of aeons of humans' collective storytelling pulling our soul into a shape we had somehow forgotten.
If you truly want nonfiction, I always felt like I'd fallen off the edge of the planet after reading Heidegger. Or Neitzsche. YMMV.
posted by ananci at 9:28 PM on March 12, 2022 [2 favorites]
Rudy Rucker's "Infinity and the Mind" can get deep into math that goes over my head, some chapters more than others, but even with my superficial understanding, it can be quite mind expanding.
posted by Leontine at 9:42 PM on March 12, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Leontine at 9:42 PM on March 12, 2022 [1 favorite]
Where God Comes From: reflections on Science, Systems and the Sublime by Ira Livingston.
This does just what you're looking for. It's written by a literature professor who works with science, specifically complex systems and loops. He explores the sublime in science, art and philosophy, always looking to witness what makes the world complex, recursive, fractal. He does this in a shortish book that accommodates a range of styles. While not all of these are successful, it's a book I have returned to and bought for others.
posted by einekleine at 11:33 PM on March 12, 2022
This does just what you're looking for. It's written by a literature professor who works with science, specifically complex systems and loops. He explores the sublime in science, art and philosophy, always looking to witness what makes the world complex, recursive, fractal. He does this in a shortish book that accommodates a range of styles. While not all of these are successful, it's a book I have returned to and bought for others.
posted by einekleine at 11:33 PM on March 12, 2022
I've heard good things about Katie Mack's The End of Everything. (It's on my shelf, unread, but I trust the author to be accurate and interesting.)
Manjit Kumar's Quantum is 50% history of science and 50% a very readable survey of how very weird quantum mechanics is. It's accurate about all the science, as far as contemporary physics knows, if a little breathless in the telling. (I can't comment on the history.) It's very good.
posted by eotvos at 9:21 AM on March 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
Manjit Kumar's Quantum is 50% history of science and 50% a very readable survey of how very weird quantum mechanics is. It's accurate about all the science, as far as contemporary physics knows, if a little breathless in the telling. (I can't comment on the history.) It's very good.
posted by eotvos at 9:21 AM on March 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
You can do a search for books on Quantum Chaos. Prices vary greatly.
posted by Splunge at 1:43 PM on March 13, 2022
posted by Splunge at 1:43 PM on March 13, 2022
+1 to The End of Everything by Katie Mack, it's a fantastic read. As a more accessible alternative, Death from the Skies! by Phil Plait also deals with cosmic decay events in the far, very far away future and is less heavy on the physics.
posted by sukeban at 3:05 PM on March 13, 2022
posted by sukeban at 3:05 PM on March 13, 2022
I spent the entire time in that existential state of wonderment while I read The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli. It's a dense little book--I probably understood less than 75% of it especially in the later chapters, but what I did manage to grasp left me pretty spellbound.
posted by tybstar at 6:04 PM on March 13, 2022
posted by tybstar at 6:04 PM on March 13, 2022
I mean.... A Thousand Plateaus by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari.
posted by athirstforsalt at 9:05 AM on March 17, 2022
posted by athirstforsalt at 9:05 AM on March 17, 2022
« Older Quickest way to convert Word document to pdf and... | Help me crush my crush - with literature! Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by wellifyouinsist at 6:55 PM on March 12, 2022 [4 favorites]