John Brockman

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Maryland

Leading Scientists Explore the Brain, Memory, Personality, and Happiness

Who am “I”? How is happiness achieved? What is the key to memory? How do babies become adults? Is personality determined? What function do emotions serve? Are we hardwired to be moral? The mind is a riddle that has vexed philosophers, psychologists, biologists, and artists for thousands of years. In this invaluable volume, John Brockman, editor and publisher of Edge, gathers the world’s most influential scientists and thinkers to present their deepest thoughts and cutting-edge theories in short, accessible essays about the essential aspects of human consciousness and the complex workings of the brain. Contributors and topics include Steven Pinker on how the human brain works • Martin Seligman on happiness and what it means to live a good life • Philip Zimbardo on the impact of environment on personality • V. S. Ramachandran on the question of self—who “you” are • Simon Baron-Cohen on the innate differences between boys and girls • George Lakoff on the role of the body and brain on different types of reasoning • Alison Gopnik on why human children are the best learning machines in the universe • Jonathan Haidt on the connection between emotions, morality, and religious belief

The Mind

e021196b-92b0-4ee5-b62f-0fc10a1049a6-1

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

Wisconsin

How a Child Becomes a Scientist

A fascinating collection of essays from twenty-seven of the world’s most interesting scientists about the moments and events in their childhoods that set them on the paths that would define their lives. What makes a child decide to become a scientist? •For Robert Sapolsky—Stanford professor of biology—it was an argument with a rabbi over a passage in the Bible. •Physicist Lee Smolin traces his inspiration to the volume of Einstein’s work he picked up as a diversion from heartbreak. •Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a psychologist and the author of Flow, found his calling through Descartes. •Mary Catherine Bateson—author of Composing a Life—discovered that she wanted to be an anthropologist while studying Hebrew. •Janna Levin—author of How the Universe Got Its Spots—felt impelled by the work of Carl Sagan to know more. Murray Gell-Mann, Nicholas Humphrey, Freeman Dyson, Daniel C. Dennett, Lynn Margulis, V. S. Ramachandran, Howard Gardner, Richard Dawkins, and more than a dozen others tell their own entertaining and often inspiring stories of the deciding moment. Illuminating memoir meets superb science writing in essays that invite us to consider what it is—and isn’t—that sets the scientific mind apart and into action.

Curious Minds

04ba14d7-e48f-46d5-814d-e5831f46184f-0

New York

The New Science of Decision-Making, Problem-Solving, and Prediction

Unlock your mind. From the bestselling authors of Thinking, Fast and Slow; The Black Swan; and Stumbling on Happiness comes a cutting-edge exploration of the mysteries of rational thought, decision-making, intuition, morality, willpower, problem-solving, prediction, forecasting, unconscious behavior, and beyond. 

Edited by John Brockman, publisher of Edge.org ("The world's smartest website"--The Guardian), Thinking presents original ideas by today's leading psychologists, neuroscientists, and philosophers who are radically expanding our understanding of human thought.

Contributors include:


 * Daniel Kahneman on the power (and pitfalls) of human intuition and "unconscious" thinking
 * Daniel Gilbert on desire, prediction, and why getting what we want doesn't always make us happy
 * Nassim Nicholas Taleb on the limitations of statistics in guiding decision-making
 * Vilayanur Ramachandran on the scientific underpinnings of human nature
 * Simon Baron-Cohen on the startling effects of testosterone on the brain
 * Daniel C. Dennett on decoding the architecture of the "normal" human mind
 * Sarah-Jayne Blakemore on mental disorders and the crucial developmental phase of adolescence
 * Jonathan Haidt, Sam Harris, and Roy Baumeister on the science of morality, ethics, and the emerging synthesis of evolutionary and biological thinking
 * Gerd Gigerenzer on rationality and what informs our choices

Thinking

848cb66a-b9b4-4cd7-89ea-fb40518615c9-1

Virginia

Today's Leading Thinkers on the Unthinkable

The world's leading scientific thinkers explore bold, remarkable, perilous ideas that could change our lives for better . . . or for worse . . .

From Copernicus to Darwin, to current-day thinkers, scientists have always promoted theories and unveiled discoveries that challenge everything society holds dear; ideas with both positive and dire consequences. Many thoughts that resonate today are dangerous not because they are assumed to be false, but because they might turn out to be true.

What do the world's leading scientists and thinkers consider to be their most dangerous idea? Through the leading online forum Edge (www.edge.org), the call went out, and this compelling and easily digestible volume collects the answers. From using medication to permanently alter our personalities to contemplating a universe in which we are utterly alone, to the idea that the universe might be fundamentally inexplicable, What Is Your Dangerous Idea? takes an unflinching look at the daring, breathtaking, sometimes terrifying thoughts that could forever alter our world and the way we live in it.

Contributors include
Daniel C. Dennett Jared Diamond Brian Greene Matt Ridley Howard Gardner and Freeman Dyson, among others

"

What Is Your Dangerous Idea?

df093bbb-f3d8-4906-ae8f-be4d52047173-1

Wyoming

Deep, Beautiful, and Elegant Theories of How the World Works

In This Explains Everything, John Brockman, founder and publisher of Edge.org, asked experts in numerous fields and disciplines to come up with their favorite explanations for everyday occurrences. Why do we recognize patterns? Is there such a thing as positive stress? Are we genetically programmed to be in conflict with each other? Those are just some of the 150 questions that the world's best scientific minds answer with elegant simplicity. With contributions from Jared Diamond, Richard Dawkins, Nassim Taleb, Brian Eno, Steven Pinker, and more, everything is explained in fun, uncomplicated terms that make the most complex concepts easy to comprehend.

This Explains Everything

90201092-3c74-471f-a45e-a1d87e767b17-1

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

The Net's Impact on Our Minds and Future

How is the internet changing the way you think? That is one of the dominant questions of our time, one which affects almost every aspect of our life and future. And it's exactly what John Brockman, publisher of Edge.org, posed to more than 150 of the world's most influential minds. Brilliant, farsighted, and fascinating, Is the Internet Changing the Way You Think? is an essential guide to the Net-based world.

Is the Internet Changing the Way You Think?

17fd7d53-8baf-4d9e-aa59-217507fd2c0b-1

Minnesota





Drawn from the cutting-edge frontiers of science, This Explains Everything will revolutionize your understanding of the world.

What is your favorite deep, elegant, or beautiful explanation This is the question John Brockman, publisher of Edge.org ("The world's smartest website"--The Guardian), posed to the world's most influential minds. Flowing from the horizons of physics, economics, psychology, neuroscience, and more, This Explains Everything presents 150 of the most surprising and brilliant theories of the way of our minds, societies, and universe work.

Jared Diamond on biological electricity * Nassim Nicholas Taleb on positive stress * Steven Pinker on the deep genetic roots of human conflict * Richard Dawkins on pattern recognition * Nobel Prize-winning physicist Frank Wilczek on simplicity * Lisa Randall on the Higgs mechanism * BRIAN Eno on the limits of intuition * Richard Thaler on the power of commitment * V. S. Ramachandran on the "neural code" of consciousness * Nobel Prize winner ERIC KANDEL on the power of psychotherapy * Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi on "Lord Acton's Dictum" * Lawrence M. Krauss on the unification of electricity and magnetism * plus contributions by Martin J. Rees * Kevin Kelly * Clay Shirky * Daniel C. Dennett * Sherry Turkle * Philip Zimbardo * Lee Smolin * Rebecca Newberger Goldstein * Seth Lloyd * Stewart Brand * George Dyson * Matt Ridley

No markings on any pages,  cosmetic wear on cover. 

Utah

Scientific Theories That Are Blocking Progress





The bestselling editor of This Explains Everything brings together 175 of the world's most brilliant minds to tackle Edge.org's 2014 question: What scientific idea has become a relic blocking human progress

Each year, John Brockman, publisher of Edge.org--"The world's smartest website" (The Guardian)--challenges some of the world's greatest scientists, artists, and philosophers to answer a provocative question crucial to our time. In 2014 he asked 175 brilliant minds to ponder: What scientific idea needs to be put aside in order to make room for new ideas to advance The answers are as surprising as they are illuminating. In :

 * Steven Pinker dismantles the working theory of human behavior
 * Richard Dawkins renounces essentialism
 * Sherry Turkle reevaluates our expectations of artificial intelligence
 * Geoffrey West challenges the concept of a "Theory of Everything"
 * Andrei Linde suggests that our universe and its laws may not be as unique as we think
 * Martin Rees explains why scientific understanding is a limitless goal
 * Nina Jablonski argues to rid ourselves of the concept of race
 * Alan Guth rethinks the origins of the universe
 * Hans Ulrich Obrist warns against glorifying unlimited economic growth
 * and much more.

Profound, engaging, thoughtful, and groundbreaking, This Idea Must Die will change your perceptions and understanding of our world today . . . and tomorrow.

This Idea Must Die

08c27b82-ad33-4872-b67d-a56c7e5809b0-1

Arizona

Texas

Science in the First Half of the Twenty-First Century

A brilliant ensemble of the world's most visionary scientists provides twenty-five original never-before-published essays about the advances in science and technology that we may see within our lifetimes.

Theoretical physicist and bestselling author Paul Davies examines the likelihood that by the year 2050 we will be able to establish a continuing human presence on Mars. Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi investigates the ramifications of engineering high-IQ, geneticially happy babies. Psychiatrist Nancy Etcoff explains current research into the creation of emotion-sensing jewelry that could gauge our moods and tell us when to take an anti-depressant pill. And evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins explores the probability that we will soon be able to obtain a genome printout that predicts our natural end for the same cost as a chest x-ray. (Will we want to read it? And will insurance companies and governments have access to it?) This fascinating and unprecedented book explores not only the practical possibilities of the near future, but also the social and political ramifications of the developments of the strange new world to come.

Also includes original essays by:

Lee Smolin
Martin Rees
Ian Stewart
Brian Goodwin
Marc D. Hauser
Alison Gopnik
Paul Bloom
Geoffrey Miller
Robert M. Sapolsky
Steven Strogatz
Stuart Kauffman
John H. Holland
Rodney Brooks
Peter Atkins
Roger C. Schank
Jaron Lanier
David Gelernter
Joseph LeDoux
Judith Rich Harris
Samuel Barondes
Paul W. Ewald

The Next Fifty Years

4cf76060-a85d-4e1d-a780-fcc274d73c31-1

Kentucky

Ideas That Will Shape the Future





"What game-changing scientific ideas and developments do you expect to live to see"

This is the question John Brockman, publisher of Edge.org, posed to more than 100 of the world's most influential minds. Exhilarating, visionary, sometimes frightening, but always fascinating, their responses provide an eye-opening road map of our near future.

This Will Change Everything

e9408cbd-065c-4dd7-9b76-adad966ede51-1

Today's Leading Minds Rethink Everything





Even geniuses change their minds sometimes.

Edge (www.edge.org), the influential online intellectual salon, recently asked 150 high-powered thinkers to discuss their most telling missteps and reconsiderations: What have you changed your mind about The answers are brilliant, eye-opening, fascinating, sometimes shocking, and certain to kick-start countless passionate debates.

Steven Pinker on the future of human evolution * Richard Dawkins on the mysteries of courtship * SAM HARRIS on the indifference of Mother Nature * Nassim Nicholas Taleb on the irrelevance of probability * Chris Anderson on the reality of global warming * Alan Alda on the existence of God * Ray Kurzweil on the possibility of extraterrestrial life * Brian Eno on what it means to be a "revolutionary" * Helen Fisher on love, fidelity, and the viability of marriage * Irene Pepperberg on learning from parrots . . . and many others.

What Have You Changed Your Mind About?

9b1a5b55-9eb0-4f32-a7dc-e118f5b9648e-1

#paperback #nonfiction #JohnBrockman #WhatShouldWeBeWorriedAbout 

Real Scenarios That Keep Scientists up at Night





Drawing from the horizons of science, today's leading thinkers reveal the hidden threats nobody is talking about--and expose the false fears everyone else is distracted by.

What should we be worried about That is the question John Brockman, publisher of Edge.org ("The world's smartest website"--The Guardian), posed to the planet's most influential minds. He asked them to disclose something that, for scientific reasons, worries them--particularly scenarios that aren't on the popular radar yet. Encompassing neuroscience, economics, philosophy, physics, psychology, biology, and more--here are 150 ideas that will revolutionize your understanding of the world.

Steven Pinker uncovers the real risk factors for war ● Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi peers into the coming virtual abyss ● Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek laments our squandered opportunities to prevent global catastrophe ● Seth Lloyd calculates the threat of a financial black hole ● Alison Gopnik on the loss of childhood ● Nassim Nicholas Taleb explains why firefighters understand risk far better than economic "experts" ● Matt Ridley on the alarming re-emergence of superstition ● Daniel C. Dennett and george dyson ponder the impact of a major breakdown of the Internet ● Jennifer Jacquet fears human-induced damage to the planet due to "the Anthropocebo Effect" ● Douglas Rushkoff fears humanity is losing its soul ● Nicholas Carr on the "patience deficit" ● Tim O'Reilly foresees a coming new Dark Age ● Scott Atran on the homogenization of human experience ● Sherry Turkle explores what's lost when kids are constantly connected ● Kevin Kelly outlines the looming "underpopulation bomb" ● Helen Fisher on the fate of men ● Lawrence Krauss dreads what we don't know about the universe ● Susan Blackmore on the loss of manual skills ● Kate Jeffery on the death of death ● plus J. Craig Venter, Daniel Goleman, Virginia Heffernan, Sam Harris, Brian Eno, Martin Rees, and more

What Should We Be Worried About?

64ecec52-2d77-430d-83b9-bfefc3f74858-1

Pennsylvania

The New Humanists - Science at the Edge

370844f1-95e3-4ab6-a25e-b944af7182d0-0

Illinois

Real Scenarios That Keep Scientists Up at Night

What Should We Be Worried About? 

California

Today's Leading Thinkers on Science in the Age of Certainty

More than one hundred of the world's leading thinkers write about things they believe in, despite the absence of concrete proof

Scientific theory, more often than not, is born of bold assumption, disparate bits of unconnected evidence, and educated leaps of faith. Some of the most potent beliefs among brilliant minds are based on supposition alone -- yet that is enough to push those minds toward making the theory viable.

Eminent cultural impresario, editor, and publisher of Edge (www.edge.org), John Brockman asked a group of leading scientists and thinkers to answer the question: What do you believe to be true even though you cannot prove it? This book brings together the very best answers from the most distinguished contributors.

Thought-provoking and hugely compelling, this collection of bite-size thought-experiments is a fascinating insight into the instinctive beliefs of some of the most brilliant minds today.

What We Believe but Cannot Prove

a8bd5dc2-7fb4-4fde-ad92-9313b6c35c56-1

New Scientific Concepts to Improve Your Thinking

Featuring a foreword by David Brooks, This Will Make You Smarter presents brilliant--but accessible--ideas to expand every mind.

What scientific concept would improve everybody's cognitive toolkit? This is the question John Brockman, publisher of Edge.org, posed to the world's most influential thinkers. Their visionary answers flow from the frontiers of psychology, philosophy, economics, physics, sociology, and more. Surprising and enlightening, these insights will revolutionize the way you think about yourself and the world.

Contributors include:


 * Daniel Kahneman on the "focusing illusion"
 * Jonah Lehrer on controlling attention
 * Richard Dawkins on experimentation
 * Aubrey De Grey on conquering our fear of the unknown
 * Martin Seligman on the ingredients of well-being
 * Nicholas Carr on managing "cognitive load"
 * Steven Pinker on win-win negotiating
 * Daniel Goleman on understanding our connection to the natural world
 * Matt Ridley on tapping collective intelligence
 * Lisa Randall on effective theorizing
 * Brian Eno on "ecological vision"
 * J. Craig Venter on the multiple possible origins of life  
 * Helen Fisher on temperament
 * Sam Harris on the flow of thought
 * Lawrence Krauss on living with uncertainty

Browse by categories

Save this search

John Brockman

The Mind

John Brockman

Curious Minds

John Brockman

Thinking

John Brockman

What Is Your Dangerous Idea?

John Brockman

This Explains Everything

John Brockman

Is the Internet Changing the Way You Think?

John Brockman

This Explains Everything

John Brockman

This Idea Must Die

John Brockman

Thinking

John Brockman

What Is Your Dangerous Idea?

John Brockman

The Next Fifty Years

John Brockman

This Will Change Everything

John Brockman

What Have You Changed Your Mind About?

John Brockman

What Should We Be Worried About?

John Brockman

The New Humanists - Science at the Edge

John Brockman

What Should We Be Worried About?

John Brockman

What We Believe but Cannot Prove

John Brockman

What Have You Changed Your Mind About?

John Brockman

This Will Make You Smarter