/lit/ - Literature

What are the essential subjects a patrician should be reading in to to reach his full potential, a few obvious ideas are:

- Philosophy
- History
- General fiction

Are there any strong modern criticisms of science?
Science at the moment is considered the best expression of our inherent desire to know how things work and find patterns.
Could it be said this base desire could or should be transcended? Is that what some religions try to do?
And does science find patterns and structures that exist in some obscure reality we can only partially grasp or is science our way of finding patterns where there are none? like seeing recognizable shapes in tv static..