I had a bit of a think about it and perhaps the problem was my expectations of it. People kept posting about how it revolutionized their entire life and how they interact with people which hadn't happened for me.
But what that might have been is people thinking about their day-to-day life in a more abstract manner, or rather bridging the gap between abstract theory and how it presents in reality, because I remember having such a revelation from my introduction to mathematical thinking.
Because taken by itself set and logic theory, the backbone of math, really aren't that awe-inspiring, but being able to reduce complex problems to a set of easily formulated axioms certainly made me approach real life issues in a different manner. It's how I fell in love with the field itself.
And so just like set theory seems rather mundane on its surface even though it forms the backbone of the entire field of mathematics so it's with dia-mat.
A couple of carefully chosen minimal axioms that form the backbone of the whole field, making them vital to study for anyone who wants to learn about it, that are supposed to be obviously true since they are taken for granted, i.e. without proof or even much justification.
Also I'm thinking about changing engels for stalins intro to diamat so it's 1. wagelabor and value to kind of get a feel of what it's all about, 2. diamat to make sense of state and revolution and then 3. state and revolution as the "magnum opus" or whatever.
I've thought about this for a while and I'm not sure what to say. I don't think I'd go so far as to say that reading any single book "revolutionized my entire life", I just got useful information and perspectives from them. I think that your guess is at least partially right, that some of the people who have the strongest enthusiasm are probably ones who haven't read much philosophy before and therefore are getting more groundwork covered in reading State and Rev [or whatever] than you and I did, because a fair amount of that stuff was already familiar to us.
Reading theory generally shouldn't be revelatory in some grand sense, this isn't a religious text and you aren't supposed to fall into some kind of transcendental rhapsody, you're just developing your understanding point by point.
I had a bit of a think about it and perhaps the problem was my expectations of it. People kept posting about how it revolutionized their entire life and how they interact with people which hadn't happened for me.
But what that might have been is people thinking about their day-to-day life in a more abstract manner, or rather bridging the gap between abstract theory and how it presents in reality, because I remember having such a revelation from my introduction to mathematical thinking.
Because taken by itself set and logic theory, the backbone of math, really aren't that awe-inspiring, but being able to reduce complex problems to a set of easily formulated axioms certainly made me approach real life issues in a different manner. It's how I fell in love with the field itself.
And so just like set theory seems rather mundane on its surface even though it forms the backbone of the entire field of mathematics so it's with dia-mat.
A couple of carefully chosen minimal axioms that form the backbone of the whole field, making them vital to study for anyone who wants to learn about it, that are supposed to be obviously true since they are taken for granted, i.e. without proof or even much justification.
Also I'm thinking about changing engels for stalins intro to diamat so it's 1. wagelabor and value to kind of get a feel of what it's all about, 2. diamat to make sense of state and revolution and then 3. state and revolution as the "magnum opus" or whatever.
also tagging @anarcho_blinkenist@hexbear.net and @GarbageShoot@hexbear.net because they had very helpful insights to see if it makes sense to them as well. Thank you!!
I've thought about this for a while and I'm not sure what to say. I don't think I'd go so far as to say that reading any single book "revolutionized my entire life", I just got useful information and perspectives from them. I think that your guess is at least partially right, that some of the people who have the strongest enthusiasm are probably ones who haven't read much philosophy before and therefore are getting more groundwork covered in reading State and Rev [or whatever] than you and I did, because a fair amount of that stuff was already familiar to us.
Reading theory generally shouldn't be revelatory in some grand sense, this isn't a religious text and you aren't supposed to fall into some kind of transcendental rhapsody, you're just developing your understanding point by point.