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Edge Question
This Will Make You Smarter: 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
399 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2012
About the author
John Brockman
61 books602 followersJohn Brockman is an American literary agent and author specializing in scientific literature. He established the Edge Foundation, an organization that brings together leading edge thinkers across a broad range of scientific and technical fields.
He is author and editor of several books, including: The Third Culture (1995); The Greatest Inventions of the Past 2000 Years (2000); The Next Fifty Years (2002) and The New Humanists (2003).
He has the distinction of being the only person to have been profiled on Page One of the "Science Times" (1997) and the "Arts & Leisure" (1966), both supplements of The New York Times.
He is author and editor of several books, including: The Third Culture (1995); The Greatest Inventions of the Past 2000 Years (2000); The Next Fifty Years (2002) and The New Humanists (2003).
He has the distinction of being the only person to have been profiled on Page One of the "Science Times" (1997) and the "Arts & Leisure" (1966), both supplements of The New York Times.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 382 reviews
October 28, 2012
This Will Make You Smarter is a challenging book that leaves you with a lot to think about. The essays are short — some shorter than a single page — that cover interesting scientific concepts, new and old ideas to help us think about the world.
The founder and publisher of the online science salon, Edge.org, John Brockman, does a great job editing this collection, turning more than 100 essays on a wide range of topics into a coherent manuscript that works its way across the spectrum. You start out talking about one concept and smoothly work your way into another — it definitely kept me interested in topics that could potentially be pretty dry.
There are too many important concepts to cover them all, but there were a few that I found really interesting. First, there was an interesting article by Douglas Rushkoff* called “Technologies Have Biases.” This passage was thought-provoking:
“We are free to use any car we like to get to work — gasoline, diesel, electric or hydrogen-powered — and this sense of choice blinds us to the fundamental bias of the automobile toward distance, commuting, suburbs and energy consumption.”
And that’s true — we buy a hybrid because it’s “greener” and we are pro-environment, but the very fact of buying a car shows a preference that we don’t even think about.
I also found “The Focusing Illusion” by Daniel Kahneman** a fascinating idea:
“Marketers exploit the focusing illusion. When people are induced to believe that they ‘must have’ a good, they greatly exaggerate the difference that good will make to the quality of their life.”
Think about that and apply it to our current political climate. When politicians convince us that a particular issue is important, no matter what the issue, we attach an unreasonable importance to specific laws or measures related to that issue, and the difference they will make in the government. It has given me a different slant on the political commercials I have seen.
There are also a number of essays on risk and uncertainty, and just how bad humans are at understanding risk and dealing with it. The chance that we might be killed in a terrorist attack is almost infinitesimal, but we have spent a huge amount of money, time and effort protecting ourselves against the threat. On the other hand, we are far more likely to die in our car on the way to the grocery store, and yet many people don’t even bother with seat belts or regular brake checks.
All in all, this was a terrific, thought-provoking read that can be applied to so many aspects of modern life. I think that anyone who picks this up is going to find topics that interest them and cause them to rethink their usual assumptions. I would love to buy a copy for all of the teachers I know and challenge them to use some of these concepts in their classrooms! (There is a great essay on the importance of understanding which concepts are easy to teach and which ones are harder to grasp — they could start with that.) I will definitely be passing this on to some thoughtful friends.
The founder and publisher of the online science salon, Edge.org, John Brockman, does a great job editing this collection, turning more than 100 essays on a wide range of topics into a coherent manuscript that works its way across the spectrum. You start out talking about one concept and smoothly work your way into another — it definitely kept me interested in topics that could potentially be pretty dry.
There are too many important concepts to cover them all, but there were a few that I found really interesting. First, there was an interesting article by Douglas Rushkoff* called “Technologies Have Biases.” This passage was thought-provoking:
“We are free to use any car we like to get to work — gasoline, diesel, electric or hydrogen-powered — and this sense of choice blinds us to the fundamental bias of the automobile toward distance, commuting, suburbs and energy consumption.”
And that’s true — we buy a hybrid because it’s “greener” and we are pro-environment, but the very fact of buying a car shows a preference that we don’t even think about.
I also found “The Focusing Illusion” by Daniel Kahneman** a fascinating idea:
“Marketers exploit the focusing illusion. When people are induced to believe that they ‘must have’ a good, they greatly exaggerate the difference that good will make to the quality of their life.”
Think about that and apply it to our current political climate. When politicians convince us that a particular issue is important, no matter what the issue, we attach an unreasonable importance to specific laws or measures related to that issue, and the difference they will make in the government. It has given me a different slant on the political commercials I have seen.
There are also a number of essays on risk and uncertainty, and just how bad humans are at understanding risk and dealing with it. The chance that we might be killed in a terrorist attack is almost infinitesimal, but we have spent a huge amount of money, time and effort protecting ourselves against the threat. On the other hand, we are far more likely to die in our car on the way to the grocery store, and yet many people don’t even bother with seat belts or regular brake checks.
All in all, this was a terrific, thought-provoking read that can be applied to so many aspects of modern life. I think that anyone who picks this up is going to find topics that interest them and cause them to rethink their usual assumptions. I would love to buy a copy for all of the teachers I know and challenge them to use some of these concepts in their classrooms! (There is a great essay on the importance of understanding which concepts are easy to teach and which ones are harder to grasp — they could start with that.) I will definitely be passing this on to some thoughtful friends.
June 16, 2013
The Edge.org question of 2011 was "What scientific concept would improve everybody's cognitive toolkit?" Many of the world's most famous thinkers responded to it, and their responses are compiled in this book in one-to-four-page essays organized thematically.
It's somewhat ironic that although the book is a collection of the ideas of "great minds," many of the essays emphasize the importance of not trusting authority.
Debates over climate change and creationism were mentioned often enough to become a bit annoying, and some of the suggestions of short-hand abstractions-that-people-would-benefit-from-knowing were too obvious or too repetitive of ideas expressed in nearby essays, but the book nevertheless contains some interesting ideas. These include:
Some notable inaccuracies include:
It's somewhat ironic that although the book is a collection of the ideas of "great minds," many of the essays emphasize the importance of not trusting authority.
Debates over climate change and creationism were mentioned often enough to become a bit annoying, and some of the suggestions of short-hand abstractions-that-people-would-benefit-from-knowing were too obvious or too repetitive of ideas expressed in nearby essays, but the book nevertheless contains some interesting ideas. These include:
Some notable inaccuracies include:
August 17, 2013
Edge is an organisation that promotes the spreading of cultural and scientific knowledge to a general public. Every year they pose a general philosophical question and publish some of the best answers by prominent intellectuals. This book contains the answers to the proposition: "Which new scientific concept should belong to everyone's conceptual toolkit?"
In bundling the answers, the editor made one unfortunate mistake. He grouped them thematically. Since many researchers promote the same concept, grouping all those together always results in three to four consecutive essays that basically tell the same story. It might have been better to spread the answers morde randomly.
Apart from that, this book is excellent to read in small portions. I will try to summarize just a few of the more interesting propositions.
- Nexuscausality: in real life, things rarely have only one cause. Contrary to the human inclination to find a single guilty reason for every disaster, situations generally are the result of a myriad of reasons, all of which contribute only in a small portion to the eventual result.
- Neuroplasticity: the brain has a huge adaptive potential for tasks it needs to perform regularly. Too often people simply accept limitations of their intellect or character. Just like you can train the body however, those properties can be changed by exercising the desired behaviour or ability.
- Supervenience: although psychological and even social mechanisms can probably be described in terms of the participating atoms, such a description would by far exceed the calculating potential of the strongest computers. Eventhough particle physics may lie at the base of every occurence in nature, it is much more economical to describe events on a larger scale with its own, generalizing laws. Supervenience means that not one system of description is superior to another. It just says that every level of reality has an approach that is best suited for that specific size. Similarly, newtonian pshysics supervene quantum mechanics for basic laws of motion and gravity. The latter explanation may be even more exact, but the enormous complexity of it makes it a lot less suited than the simple and quite accurate predictions offered by Newton's laws.
Anyway, a nice book to have on a living room table, to leaf through once in a while.
In bundling the answers, the editor made one unfortunate mistake. He grouped them thematically. Since many researchers promote the same concept, grouping all those together always results in three to four consecutive essays that basically tell the same story. It might have been better to spread the answers morde randomly.
Apart from that, this book is excellent to read in small portions. I will try to summarize just a few of the more interesting propositions.
- Nexuscausality: in real life, things rarely have only one cause. Contrary to the human inclination to find a single guilty reason for every disaster, situations generally are the result of a myriad of reasons, all of which contribute only in a small portion to the eventual result.
- Neuroplasticity: the brain has a huge adaptive potential for tasks it needs to perform regularly. Too often people simply accept limitations of their intellect or character. Just like you can train the body however, those properties can be changed by exercising the desired behaviour or ability.
- Supervenience: although psychological and even social mechanisms can probably be described in terms of the participating atoms, such a description would by far exceed the calculating potential of the strongest computers. Eventhough particle physics may lie at the base of every occurence in nature, it is much more economical to describe events on a larger scale with its own, generalizing laws. Supervenience means that not one system of description is superior to another. It just says that every level of reality has an approach that is best suited for that specific size. Similarly, newtonian pshysics supervene quantum mechanics for basic laws of motion and gravity. The latter explanation may be even more exact, but the enormous complexity of it makes it a lot less suited than the simple and quite accurate predictions offered by Newton's laws.
Anyway, a nice book to have on a living room table, to leaf through once in a while.
January 13, 2013
It didn't.
No, in all seriousness, I think this book would have been quite good for me about five years ago - many of the cognitive tools they bring up are indeed very useful. But this book suffers from having too many authors - so for one thing there is quite a lot of redundancy, as multiple people advocate very similar principles, which often overlap with the essays of others, and for another thing everyone was limited to an average of two pages, so there isn't enough room to say anything with any real depth. It's just a basic, quick response to the question, without a lot of detail.
This is compounded by the fact that I've been reading a lot on this concept over the last few years, so often I have read entire books, or multiple long essays, on many of these theories, and often by the very people who are writing them. This just made these little snippets seem even more shallow by comparison.
So, basically, if "improving your thinking" is something you have an interest in, you've probably already come across 90% of these ideas in a better form. I don't want to bag it out too much - this book genuinely would serve as a great introduction to someone who hasn't come across these ideas before. But that person isn't me.
No, in all seriousness, I think this book would have been quite good for me about five years ago - many of the cognitive tools they bring up are indeed very useful. But this book suffers from having too many authors - so for one thing there is quite a lot of redundancy, as multiple people advocate very similar principles, which often overlap with the essays of others, and for another thing everyone was limited to an average of two pages, so there isn't enough room to say anything with any real depth. It's just a basic, quick response to the question, without a lot of detail.
This is compounded by the fact that I've been reading a lot on this concept over the last few years, so often I have read entire books, or multiple long essays, on many of these theories, and often by the very people who are writing them. This just made these little snippets seem even more shallow by comparison.
So, basically, if "improving your thinking" is something you have an interest in, you've probably already come across 90% of these ideas in a better form. I don't want to bag it out too much - this book genuinely would serve as a great introduction to someone who hasn't come across these ideas before. But that person isn't me.
October 17, 2015
أن تجلس في غرفةٍ واحدة مع كوكبةٍ من أفضل وأشهر عقول هذا العالم، في عدّة مجالاتٍ فكرية واهتماماتٍ علمية، ثمّ تستمع إليهم يجيبون عن سؤالٍ واحد؛ كلًا من زاوية اهتمامه، وعمق تخصّصه. بعضها يهمّك ويثيرك، وأقلّ منه ذلك البعض الذي قد لا يعجبك، غير أنّ في كلّ من تلك الأحاديث المقتضبة ما يمكن أن تتعلّم منه فكرةً أو مصطلحًا أو معلومةً، وأعظمها تلك التي تفتح لك باب سؤالٍ أو بحثٍ تلاحقه.
هذا ما يحدث لك وأنت تقرأ كتب EDGE.org، التي يشرف عليها "بروكمانBROCKMAN” . حقلٌ من المتعة الذهنية، وتجوالٌ بديع في عقول أفضل مفكّري العصر في الغرب. وقد كان سؤال هذا الكتاب (قبل 4 أعوام) عن ما هي الأداة الفكرية التي ترى أنّها تلزمنا في هذا العصر لتحقيق المزيد من النهضة الفكرية البشرية.
هذا ما يحدث لك وأنت تقرأ كتب EDGE.org، التي يشرف عليها "بروكمانBROCKMAN” . حقلٌ من المتعة الذهنية، وتجوالٌ بديع في عقول أفضل مفكّري العصر في الغرب. وقد كان سؤال هذا الكتاب (قبل 4 أعوام) عن ما هي الأداة الفكرية التي ترى أنّها تلزمنا في هذا العصر لتحقيق المزيد من النهضة الفكرية البشرية.
July 31, 2012
Each essay is only 3-5 pages, making this a great book to pick up when you have a few minutes of free time and want a little bit of intellectual stimulation. That said, some essays were great and thought-provoking, but others were painfully dull and a chore to get through.
April 1, 2013
The book is just a printed collection of one page blog entries from edge. com in response to their now famous annual question. Well, wrong medium and rather disappointing uniformity of thought - stick to edge online during your lunch break.
A few themes come up over and over again - complexity, unpredictability, evolutionary biology, cognitive biases. While these subjects are certainly intellectually stimulating and while i like other longer works by a handful of the participating authors , reading an essay after essay that uncover slightly different facets of the same core ideas in the same softly self congratulatory tone gets tiresome quickly.
This will not make you smarter.
A few themes come up over and over again - complexity, unpredictability, evolutionary biology, cognitive biases. While these subjects are certainly intellectually stimulating and while i like other longer works by a handful of the participating authors , reading an essay after essay that uncover slightly different facets of the same core ideas in the same softly self congratulatory tone gets tiresome quickly.
This will not make you smarter.
December 19, 2014
Brockman is the prince of nurd pimps. He's got all the big brained studs in his stable. He's a rock star of science lit agents (who even knew you could be that). I fuckin hate dinner parties and that kind of stuff. But I would love to attend one of Brockman's wing dings. He's bros with the smartest, most interesting people in the world.
Anyway. He's cranking out these little essay books and they're all really good. The way it works is he periodically asks all of his crew to write short (usually one or two paragraph long) pieces about different subjects. Since they're the smartest, most interesting people in the world, the results tend to be pretty smart and interesting.
This one is all about what's your favorite Shorthand Abstraction (SHA). A SHA is like a word or phrase that describes some complex phenomenon in a way that enables people to more easily think about complex, abstract issues. They're like tools for your cognitive tool kit. And as indicated by the books title, they make you smarter. Some notable SHAs are natural selection, placebo etc.
Another example is the Pareto principle, sometimes known as the "80/20 rule. Examples include a pattern whereby the top 1% of the population control 35% of the wealth or, on Twitter, the top 2% of users send 60% of the messages.
Anyway. This book is loaded with cool lesser know SHAs and interesting reframed of some old standards, all in bite sized portions. Good stuff.
Anyway. He's cranking out these little essay books and they're all really good. The way it works is he periodically asks all of his crew to write short (usually one or two paragraph long) pieces about different subjects. Since they're the smartest, most interesting people in the world, the results tend to be pretty smart and interesting.
This one is all about what's your favorite Shorthand Abstraction (SHA). A SHA is like a word or phrase that describes some complex phenomenon in a way that enables people to more easily think about complex, abstract issues. They're like tools for your cognitive tool kit. And as indicated by the books title, they make you smarter. Some notable SHAs are natural selection, placebo etc.
Another example is the Pareto principle, sometimes known as the "80/20 rule. Examples include a pattern whereby the top 1% of the population control 35% of the wealth or, on Twitter, the top 2% of users send 60% of the messages.
Anyway. This book is loaded with cool lesser know SHAs and interesting reframed of some old standards, all in bite sized portions. Good stuff.
Read
April 6, 2013I read this because I wanted to think about how to write accessible, sexy-sounding prose to use in grant proposals. It contains plenty of both good and bad examples of how to make complicated ideas sound exciting to non-experts. The social psychologists and pop-minded economists are the masters of this particular skill. Basically they can just present a couple of examples of goofy human behavior and their job is done. (Though there is also a nice entry on "Anecdotalism", which points out the problems with this approach.) The Physicists are surprisingly terrible at saying anything gripping, and often lapse into very bad philosophy. Some examples:
"Truth as a model" by Neil Gershenfeld (MIT Physicist)
First two sentences: "The most common misunderstanding about science is that scientists seek and find truth. They don't---they make and test models" (72)
Last sentence: "Truth is a model" (73).
Spot the problem!
Another one:
"Our perceptions are crucial in appreciating truth. However, we do not apprehend objective reality". [UH OH! WHY NOT???] "Perception is based on recognition and interpretation of sensory stimuli derived from patterns of electrical impulses" (43).
Why does this mean we don't apprehend objective reality? `
But the masters of banality are the writers from the art world (sadly):
"But there is another case for curating as a vanguard activity for the twenty-first century. As the artist Tino Sehgal has pointed out, modern societies find themselves today in an unprecedented situation: The problem of lack, or scarcity, which has been the primary factor motivating scientific and technological innovation, is now joined and even superseded by the problem of the global effects of overproduction and resource use. Thus, moving beyond the object as the locus of meaning has a further relevance" (119).
"Lack" is "the primary factor motivating scientific and technological innovation"?
What does it mean for the object to be "the locus of meaning"? I have absolutely no idea. And no one else does either.
"Truth as a model" by Neil Gershenfeld (MIT Physicist)
First two sentences: "The most common misunderstanding about science is that scientists seek and find truth. They don't---they make and test models" (72)
Last sentence: "Truth is a model" (73).
Spot the problem!
Another one:
"Our perceptions are crucial in appreciating truth. However, we do not apprehend objective reality". [UH OH! WHY NOT???] "Perception is based on recognition and interpretation of sensory stimuli derived from patterns of electrical impulses" (43).
Why does this mean we don't apprehend objective reality? `
But the masters of banality are the writers from the art world (sadly):
"But there is another case for curating as a vanguard activity for the twenty-first century. As the artist Tino Sehgal has pointed out, modern societies find themselves today in an unprecedented situation: The problem of lack, or scarcity, which has been the primary factor motivating scientific and technological innovation, is now joined and even superseded by the problem of the global effects of overproduction and resource use. Thus, moving beyond the object as the locus of meaning has a further relevance" (119).
"Lack" is "the primary factor motivating scientific and technological innovation"?
What does it mean for the object to be "the locus of meaning"? I have absolutely no idea. And no one else does either.
July 15, 2012
The author asked many famous people, "What scientific concept would improve everybody's cognitive toolkit?"
The idea intrigued me; from each successful, "famous" person, what single thing is it important for people to know? It seemed like the book would be full of good advice.
However, I didn't enjoy reading it. I suppose all the concepts were scientific ones, which didn't interest me. None of the writers (I only read a few. I didn't read the whole book.) spoke about why or how their particular concept could change the world if everybody knew it.
This is the second book I've read where the author asked many dozen people something and compiled the answers. I didn't like either one. It could be that an answer given in 2-3 pages doesn't give enough background for the answer to have meaning. Perhaps we need to know each person better, to understand why/how they came up with their answer.
There is one answer that I felt was quite good, and many others that had decent ideas, so it wasn't a complete waste of my time.
The idea intrigued me; from each successful, "famous" person, what single thing is it important for people to know? It seemed like the book would be full of good advice.
However, I didn't enjoy reading it. I suppose all the concepts were scientific ones, which didn't interest me. None of the writers (I only read a few. I didn't read the whole book.) spoke about why or how their particular concept could change the world if everybody knew it.
This is the second book I've read where the author asked many dozen people something and compiled the answers. I didn't like either one. It could be that an answer given in 2-3 pages doesn't give enough background for the answer to have meaning. Perhaps we need to know each person better, to understand why/how they came up with their answer.
There is one answer that I felt was quite good, and many others that had decent ideas, so it wasn't a complete waste of my time.
January 17, 2015
not smarter a bit but annoyed
July 25, 2016
Well, it gave me a rather long list of new things to further read on! :)
September 6, 2023
Essays in this haphazardly collected volume range from well-informed to tawdry and poignant to a waste of the reader's time. They're so short that they can't help be superficial. The collection pretends at being the kind of thing smart people read to make them so smart. This is pure sophistry.
July 19, 2012
It started with good intentions and bought into the title. After one hundred pages in, I had to put it down. Why? The more I read, the dumber I got. Hoping to get a brain implant - saw one on Craigslist denoted as A.B. Normal - so I can finish it and restore any self-esteem I have left. . .
. . .the new cranium must have helped because I can discuss collective intelligence, defeasibilty, and Black Swan technologies with some modicum of confidence. The cover's secondary title is "New Scientific Concepts to Improve Your Thinking" and it certainly delivers. I think the book underscores my belief that many of us are either scientifically illiterate or scientifically naive.
I would also recommend looking into edge.org for more brain-expanding reading.
. . .the new cranium must have helped because I can discuss collective intelligence, defeasibilty, and Black Swan technologies with some modicum of confidence. The cover's secondary title is "New Scientific Concepts to Improve Your Thinking" and it certainly delivers. I think the book underscores my belief that many of us are either scientifically illiterate or scientifically naive.
I would also recommend looking into edge.org for more brain-expanding reading.
May 22, 2013
The best compilation of essays on scientific concepts and the importance of critical thinking I have read to date.
July 1, 2013
This Will Make You Smarter: 150 New Scientific Concepts to Improve Your Thinking by John Brockman
"This Will Make You Smarter" is a thought-provoking book of scientific essays brought to you by The Edge that provides readers with better tools to think about the world. The Edge is an organization that presents original ideas by today's leading thinkers from a wide spectrum of scientific fields. The 2011 Edge question is, "What Scientific Concept Would Improve Everybody's Cognitive Toolkit?" This worthwhile 448-page book contains 151 short essays that address the question. The quality of these essays range from the obvious to the truly profound.
For my sake, I created a spreadsheet of all the essays and graded them from zero to five stars based on quality. Five star essays are those that provide a great description of the author's favorite scientific concept. On the other hand, those receiving a one or even a zero represent essays that were not worthy of this book. Of course, this is just one reviewer's personal opinion. I basically reprised the same formula I used to review, "This Explains Everything".
Positives:
1. This series by "The Edge" always deliver a high-quality product.
2. A great premise, "What Scientific Concept Would Improve Everybody's Cognitive Toolkit?"
3. A great range of scientific topics: biology, genetics, computer science, neurophysiology, psychology, and physics.
4. There were a number of outstanding essays deserving of five stars for me. I will list my favorites as positives in this review. In order of appearance, the first by P.Z. Myers' "The Mediocrity Principle". It discusses the importance of having basic math skills and accepting the notion that we aren't special. Sounds harsh on the surface but P.Z. won me over with his persuasive argument.
5. Sean Carroll's "Pointless Universe". His contention is that the universe is not advancing toward a goal but is caught up in an unbreakable pattern.
6. Max Tegmarr's "Promoting a Scientific Lifestyle". The need to educate the public on science. Hit on all the pertinent points with mastery.
7. Kathryn Schulz's "The Pessimistic Meta-Induction from the History of Science". Makes the compelling case that there are no absolutes in science. Understanding that science is about constructing models rather than revealing reality.
8. Jonah Lehrer's "Control Your Spotlight." Learning how to control short list of thoughts in working memory.
9. Kevin Kelly's "Failure Liberates Success." Failures in science can lead to success.
10. Steven Pinker's "Positive-Sum Games." A great explanation on the value of understanding positive-sum games.
11. Rebecca Newberger Goldstein's "Inference to the Best Explanation." One of the best essays of the book. Explains what is behind the power of science.
12. Donald Hoffman's "Our Sensory Desktop." The importance of refining our attitude toward our own perceptions.
13. Michael Shermer's "Think Bottom Up, Not Top Down." Great explanation on emerging properties.
14. Terrence Sejnowski's "Powers of 10." How to think about things in the world over a wide range of magnitudes and time scales.
15. Guilio Boccaletti's "Scale Analysis." Understanding this concept can help us on many complex problems.
16. Sam Harris's "We are Lost in Thought." The distorted views of the self.
17. Sue Blackmore's "Correlation is not a Cause." The need to spread this concept to the public.
18. Lee Smolin's "Thinking in Time Versus Thinking Outside of Time." Important and very little discussed topic, it's about time.
19. Geoffrey Miller's "The Personality/Insanity Continuum." Very interesting topic.
20. Mathew Ritchie's "Systematic Equilibrium." The second of thermodynamics applied.
21. Mark Henderson's "Science Methods Aren't Just for Science." Solid defense of science.
22. Scott D. Sampson's "Interbeing." Another one of my favorites.
23. Satyajit Das's "Parallelism in Art and Commerce." A unique contribution.
24. Vinod Khosla's "Black Swan Technologies." Low probability events with extreme impact.
25. Fiery Cushman's "Understanding Confabulation." Understanding our own behavior.
Negatives:
1. Some essays were not worthy of this book. It's not my intent to denigrate any of these great minds so I'm not going to mention them by name. Thankfully just a few received zero or one stars.
2. Some of my favorite authors let me down while others flourished.
3. It requires an investment of time.
In summary, I enjoy these kinds of books. The Edge does a wonderful job of selecting a thought-provoking question and an even better job of bringing in intellectuals from a wide range of fields to answer it. The search for knowledge is a fun and satisfying pursuit. Pick up this book and enjoy the ride.
Further suggestions: "This Explains Everything: Deep, Beautiful, and Elegant Theories of How the World Works" by John Brockman, "A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing" by Lawrence Krauss, "The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution" by Richard Dawkins, "The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements" by Sam Kean, "The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist's Quest for What Makes Us Human" by V.S. Ramachandran, "The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies" by Michael Shermer, "How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed" by Ray Kurzwell, "The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature" by Steven Pinker, "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared Diamond, "Why Evolution Is True" by Jerry A. Coyne, and "Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior" by Leonard Mlodinow.
"This Will Make You Smarter" is a thought-provoking book of scientific essays brought to you by The Edge that provides readers with better tools to think about the world. The Edge is an organization that presents original ideas by today's leading thinkers from a wide spectrum of scientific fields. The 2011 Edge question is, "What Scientific Concept Would Improve Everybody's Cognitive Toolkit?" This worthwhile 448-page book contains 151 short essays that address the question. The quality of these essays range from the obvious to the truly profound.
For my sake, I created a spreadsheet of all the essays and graded them from zero to five stars based on quality. Five star essays are those that provide a great description of the author's favorite scientific concept. On the other hand, those receiving a one or even a zero represent essays that were not worthy of this book. Of course, this is just one reviewer's personal opinion. I basically reprised the same formula I used to review, "This Explains Everything".
Positives:
1. This series by "The Edge" always deliver a high-quality product.
2. A great premise, "What Scientific Concept Would Improve Everybody's Cognitive Toolkit?"
3. A great range of scientific topics: biology, genetics, computer science, neurophysiology, psychology, and physics.
4. There were a number of outstanding essays deserving of five stars for me. I will list my favorites as positives in this review. In order of appearance, the first by P.Z. Myers' "The Mediocrity Principle". It discusses the importance of having basic math skills and accepting the notion that we aren't special. Sounds harsh on the surface but P.Z. won me over with his persuasive argument.
5. Sean Carroll's "Pointless Universe". His contention is that the universe is not advancing toward a goal but is caught up in an unbreakable pattern.
6. Max Tegmarr's "Promoting a Scientific Lifestyle". The need to educate the public on science. Hit on all the pertinent points with mastery.
7. Kathryn Schulz's "The Pessimistic Meta-Induction from the History of Science". Makes the compelling case that there are no absolutes in science. Understanding that science is about constructing models rather than revealing reality.
8. Jonah Lehrer's "Control Your Spotlight." Learning how to control short list of thoughts in working memory.
9. Kevin Kelly's "Failure Liberates Success." Failures in science can lead to success.
10. Steven Pinker's "Positive-Sum Games." A great explanation on the value of understanding positive-sum games.
11. Rebecca Newberger Goldstein's "Inference to the Best Explanation." One of the best essays of the book. Explains what is behind the power of science.
12. Donald Hoffman's "Our Sensory Desktop." The importance of refining our attitude toward our own perceptions.
13. Michael Shermer's "Think Bottom Up, Not Top Down." Great explanation on emerging properties.
14. Terrence Sejnowski's "Powers of 10." How to think about things in the world over a wide range of magnitudes and time scales.
15. Guilio Boccaletti's "Scale Analysis." Understanding this concept can help us on many complex problems.
16. Sam Harris's "We are Lost in Thought." The distorted views of the self.
17. Sue Blackmore's "Correlation is not a Cause." The need to spread this concept to the public.
18. Lee Smolin's "Thinking in Time Versus Thinking Outside of Time." Important and very little discussed topic, it's about time.
19. Geoffrey Miller's "The Personality/Insanity Continuum." Very interesting topic.
20. Mathew Ritchie's "Systematic Equilibrium." The second of thermodynamics applied.
21. Mark Henderson's "Science Methods Aren't Just for Science." Solid defense of science.
22. Scott D. Sampson's "Interbeing." Another one of my favorites.
23. Satyajit Das's "Parallelism in Art and Commerce." A unique contribution.
24. Vinod Khosla's "Black Swan Technologies." Low probability events with extreme impact.
25. Fiery Cushman's "Understanding Confabulation." Understanding our own behavior.
Negatives:
1. Some essays were not worthy of this book. It's not my intent to denigrate any of these great minds so I'm not going to mention them by name. Thankfully just a few received zero or one stars.
2. Some of my favorite authors let me down while others flourished.
3. It requires an investment of time.
In summary, I enjoy these kinds of books. The Edge does a wonderful job of selecting a thought-provoking question and an even better job of bringing in intellectuals from a wide range of fields to answer it. The search for knowledge is a fun and satisfying pursuit. Pick up this book and enjoy the ride.
Further suggestions: "This Explains Everything: Deep, Beautiful, and Elegant Theories of How the World Works" by John Brockman, "A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing" by Lawrence Krauss, "The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution" by Richard Dawkins, "The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements" by Sam Kean, "The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist's Quest for What Makes Us Human" by V.S. Ramachandran, "The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies" by Michael Shermer, "How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed" by Ray Kurzwell, "The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature" by Steven Pinker, "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared Diamond, "Why Evolution Is True" by Jerry A. Coyne, and "Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior" by Leonard Mlodinow.
December 18, 2021
BEST ON SMALL DOSES
The occasional, mildly thought provoking contribution has to be weighed against the embarrassing inclusion of self help advice.
The occasional, mildly thought provoking contribution has to be weighed against the embarrassing inclusion of self help advice.
May 29, 2020
I Liked this book. It did contain some useful new notions. Unfortunately it also contains a lot of repetition and also some platitudes. In the end I expected as much. After all, it is more like cookbook. Not every recipe in it needs to be according to my dad tastes.
That being said, here are some concepts which I found really interesting:
- Deep Time - the Universe has a huge time span. People are aware (those who are not creationists) how long ago it was created, but it will exist for an even longer time, and this is not really permeated in our culture)
- Nexus Causality - if an apple falls of the tree, people will generally attribute a single cause. For example "it fell down because it was ripe". This is a problem because we generally think in "single cause -> single effect" manner. A better way would be to think of a nexus of causality (it was very heavy, it was ripe, it was that time of the year, the wind was blowing, etc.). Even if the apple was ripe, that generally doesn't explain why other ripe apple didn't fall. Using this "Nexus Causality" way of thinking can be useful. It would be especially useful in really complex systems (economic, social, etc.) for avoiding the moral blame game.
- Focusing Illusion - When you focus on a thing, you tend to ignore a lot of myriad other things. Sounds simple, right? Let us do a test. Education is one of the most important factors for determining the income. However, did you know that if everyone had THE SAME education, inequality of income would be reduced by less than 10 percent? Incredible, right? You would expect that if some low income dead end job person would have the same education as that bank CEO, and the same education as Stephen Hawking, their incomes would surely become more averaged out, right? Well... no, because you are focusing on education and ignoring the rest. And that is just the tip of the iceberg. And THAT is why you are fooled by advertising.
- Nominal fallacy - the error of believing that naming carries explanatory information. (There is a difference between knowing ABOUT something and actually knowing something). This was one of the first times that I met this word. I am sick and tired of people attributing some behavioural pattern to "culture" or "education" or "instinct" any other catch all phrase. It is lazy from an intellectual point of view.
- People are really bad at probabilities - Example: At Rockefeller University women are only two-thirds as likely as male applicants to be admitted. There was a gender discrimination lawsuit. However, upon serious inspection, it was discovered that in each department, women are MORE likely to be admitted than men. Can you explain how this is possible? :) If not, perhaps you would benefit from a course in statistics.
- Shifting Baseline Syndrome
- Baselines - (I knew about this from Kahnemann, but I think it is really a useful concept that should be familiar to more people and SHOULD enter in common language).
- PERMA - A measurement of well being
- Structured Serendipity
- Pragmamorphism (this describes a concept that I noticed a lot, but I never had a useful label for it)
- Externalities
- Umwelt and Umgebung
- Culture Cycle (they are not what you think!)
- Cultural Attractors
- Scale Analysis (this is really useful)
- Hidden Layers (analogy to neural networks)
- Anthropocene Thinking
- Findex - The degree to which a desired piece of information can be found online
- Path Dependence
- The Gibbs Energy Landscape (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_...)
- Kakonomics -“Kakonomics is the strange yet widespread preference for mediocre exchanges insofar as nobody complains about them. Kakonomic worlds are worlds in which people not only live with one another’s laxness but expect it: I trust you not to keep your promises in full because I want to be free not to keep mine and not to feel bad about it. ”
- Time Span of Discretion - REALLY USEFUL! WORK ON INCREASING IT!
- Phase Transition and Scale Transition (first one is from physics, second one is invented by the author BUT SORELY NEEDED!)
- Statistically Significant DOES NOT MEAN Significant! - Why some scientists really think (with good reasons) that the term "statistically significant" should be changed or not used anymore. What it means, and how does it differ from "significant". Let me give you a taste for this one:
"Drug A was statistically significantly different from placebo. Drug B was NOT statistically significantly different from placebo. HOWEVER, Drug A and Drug B are not statistically significantly different from each other." If you think that this is strange, or impossible, you should read the book.
There are many other ideas. So while I cannot give this book more than 3 stars, because a lot of useless fluff, some concepts were really useful to me, and I learned quite a lot.
That being said, here are some concepts which I found really interesting:
- Deep Time - the Universe has a huge time span. People are aware (those who are not creationists) how long ago it was created, but it will exist for an even longer time, and this is not really permeated in our culture)
- Nexus Causality - if an apple falls of the tree, people will generally attribute a single cause. For example "it fell down because it was ripe". This is a problem because we generally think in "single cause -> single effect" manner. A better way would be to think of a nexus of causality (it was very heavy, it was ripe, it was that time of the year, the wind was blowing, etc.). Even if the apple was ripe, that generally doesn't explain why other ripe apple didn't fall. Using this "Nexus Causality" way of thinking can be useful. It would be especially useful in really complex systems (economic, social, etc.) for avoiding the moral blame game.
- Focusing Illusion - When you focus on a thing, you tend to ignore a lot of myriad other things. Sounds simple, right? Let us do a test. Education is one of the most important factors for determining the income. However, did you know that if everyone had THE SAME education, inequality of income would be reduced by less than 10 percent? Incredible, right? You would expect that if some low income dead end job person would have the same education as that bank CEO, and the same education as Stephen Hawking, their incomes would surely become more averaged out, right? Well... no, because you are focusing on education and ignoring the rest. And that is just the tip of the iceberg. And THAT is why you are fooled by advertising.
- Nominal fallacy - the error of believing that naming carries explanatory information. (There is a difference between knowing ABOUT something and actually knowing something). This was one of the first times that I met this word. I am sick and tired of people attributing some behavioural pattern to "culture" or "education" or "instinct" any other catch all phrase. It is lazy from an intellectual point of view.
- People are really bad at probabilities - Example: At Rockefeller University women are only two-thirds as likely as male applicants to be admitted. There was a gender discrimination lawsuit. However, upon serious inspection, it was discovered that in each department, women are MORE likely to be admitted than men. Can you explain how this is possible? :) If not, perhaps you would benefit from a course in statistics.
- Shifting Baseline Syndrome
- Baselines - (I knew about this from Kahnemann, but I think it is really a useful concept that should be familiar to more people and SHOULD enter in common language).
- PERMA - A measurement of well being
- Structured Serendipity
- Pragmamorphism (this describes a concept that I noticed a lot, but I never had a useful label for it)
- Externalities
- Umwelt and Umgebung
- Culture Cycle (they are not what you think!)
- Cultural Attractors
- Scale Analysis (this is really useful)
- Hidden Layers (analogy to neural networks)
- Anthropocene Thinking
- Findex - The degree to which a desired piece of information can be found online
- Path Dependence
- The Gibbs Energy Landscape (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_...)
- Kakonomics -“Kakonomics is the strange yet widespread preference for mediocre exchanges insofar as nobody complains about them. Kakonomic worlds are worlds in which people not only live with one another’s laxness but expect it: I trust you not to keep your promises in full because I want to be free not to keep mine and not to feel bad about it. ”
- Time Span of Discretion - REALLY USEFUL! WORK ON INCREASING IT!
- Phase Transition and Scale Transition (first one is from physics, second one is invented by the author BUT SORELY NEEDED!)
- Statistically Significant DOES NOT MEAN Significant! - Why some scientists really think (with good reasons) that the term "statistically significant" should be changed or not used anymore. What it means, and how does it differ from "significant". Let me give you a taste for this one:
"Drug A was statistically significantly different from placebo. Drug B was NOT statistically significantly different from placebo. HOWEVER, Drug A and Drug B are not statistically significantly different from each other." If you think that this is strange, or impossible, you should read the book.
There are many other ideas. So while I cannot give this book more than 3 stars, because a lot of useless fluff, some concepts were really useful to me, and I learned quite a lot.
March 15, 2016
3.5 stars
"This Book Will Make You Smarter: New Scientific Concepts to Improve Your Thinking" is the collection of essays of various scientists', journalists', professors', and many educators' answering to the editor's question, "What scientific concept would improve everybody's cognitive toolkit?". The perspectives of the essays are ranging from biology, sociology, astronomy, technology, all the way to psychology.
Personally, during the first tens pages of the book, I enjoyed cramming the new information into my thought, but I must admit that the further I read, the more challenging it became; it's not because those answers are uninformative or boring, but because they seemed not to catch my interest since my poor brain couldn't comprehend those words. However, the book still provides me some considerable ideas to improve my future thinking skill.
Finally, I will leave you with a small part of Michael Shermer's essay titled "Think Bottom Up, Not Top Down":
Most people, however, see the world from the top down instead of the bottom up. The reason is that our brains evolved to find design in the world, and our experience with designed objects is that they have a designer (us), whom we consider to be intelligent. So most people intuitively sense that anything in nature that looks designed must be so from the top down, not the bottom up. Bottom-up reasoning is counterintuitive. This is why so many people believe that life was designed from the top down, and why so many think that economies must be designed and that countries should be ruled from the top down.
"This Book Will Make You Smarter: New Scientific Concepts to Improve Your Thinking" is the collection of essays of various scientists', journalists', professors', and many educators' answering to the editor's question, "What scientific concept would improve everybody's cognitive toolkit?". The perspectives of the essays are ranging from biology, sociology, astronomy, technology, all the way to psychology.
Personally, during the first tens pages of the book, I enjoyed cramming the new information into my thought, but I must admit that the further I read, the more challenging it became; it's not because those answers are uninformative or boring, but because they seemed not to catch my interest since my poor brain couldn't comprehend those words. However, the book still provides me some considerable ideas to improve my future thinking skill.
Finally, I will leave you with a small part of Michael Shermer's essay titled "Think Bottom Up, Not Top Down":
Most people, however, see the world from the top down instead of the bottom up. The reason is that our brains evolved to find design in the world, and our experience with designed objects is that they have a designer (us), whom we consider to be intelligent. So most people intuitively sense that anything in nature that looks designed must be so from the top down, not the bottom up. Bottom-up reasoning is counterintuitive. This is why so many people believe that life was designed from the top down, and why so many think that economies must be designed and that countries should be ruled from the top down.
January 16, 2016
This is a small-plates restaurant for the brain. More than 150 of today’s top thinkers from many different fields answer a simple question: What scientific concept would improve everybody’s cognitive toolkit? “Scientific” includes any endeavor that seeks analytical knowledge and understanding. Each dish runs anything from one to four pages. Occasionally I could gobble up ten in a sitting, but often one would be so delicious and filling that I would need to stop reading and ponder its ramifications.
The editor implicitly grouped the pieces by similarity, but he must have had a hard time deciding which went best with which others because of the wealth of interconnections amongst them. You may not agree with some answers, and others may seem trivial rather than crucial, but that’s part of the culinary value: you have to taste, judge, test the recipe in your own kitchen, and decide what other dishes best complement it.
Okay, I’m stretching this restaurant metaphor beyond the bounds of good taste. But nibble on one or two samples from the book in a bookstore or Amazon’s “look inside.” See if your brain doesn’t burp and ask for more.
The editor implicitly grouped the pieces by similarity, but he must have had a hard time deciding which went best with which others because of the wealth of interconnections amongst them. You may not agree with some answers, and others may seem trivial rather than crucial, but that’s part of the culinary value: you have to taste, judge, test the recipe in your own kitchen, and decide what other dishes best complement it.
Okay, I’m stretching this restaurant metaphor beyond the bounds of good taste. But nibble on one or two samples from the book in a bookstore or Amazon’s “look inside.” See if your brain doesn’t burp and ask for more.
December 13, 2012
Ugly name, beautiful content.
August 9, 2020
This book is not unlike a short-stories book. Short-story books have always been a case of hit-or-miss for me. And so was this book.
The overarching theme of the book is this: Which scientific concept can improve everyone's cognitive toolkit? Various prominent scientists, almost all of whom are authors in their specialized fields of expertise, including the likes of Daniel Kahneman, Steven Pinker, Clifford Pickover and Jonathan Haidt, proceed to answer the question what they think is the 'best' cognitive tool.
Some essays are absurdly long, unnecessarily detailed and filled with scientific jargon, while some consist of just a couple paragraphs, spelling the concept but explaining nothing at all. You forget them as soon as you turn the page. Some were worth rereading, while most of them did not move me at all. John Brockman's work as editor is not satisfactory; it seems to me that he just compiled all the submissions without sparing a thought as to which ones are truly worth our attention and which ones should better be left out.
If you are a connoisseur of anything science, pick up something more concrete, lucid and empirical. This one would simply not suffice to satiate your curiosity.
The overarching theme of the book is this: Which scientific concept can improve everyone's cognitive toolkit? Various prominent scientists, almost all of whom are authors in their specialized fields of expertise, including the likes of Daniel Kahneman, Steven Pinker, Clifford Pickover and Jonathan Haidt, proceed to answer the question what they think is the 'best' cognitive tool.
Some essays are absurdly long, unnecessarily detailed and filled with scientific jargon, while some consist of just a couple paragraphs, spelling the concept but explaining nothing at all. You forget them as soon as you turn the page. Some were worth rereading, while most of them did not move me at all. John Brockman's work as editor is not satisfactory; it seems to me that he just compiled all the submissions without sparing a thought as to which ones are truly worth our attention and which ones should better be left out.
If you are a connoisseur of anything science, pick up something more concrete, lucid and empirical. This one would simply not suffice to satiate your curiosity.
February 1, 2020
mulle väga meeldis selle raamatu idee - suur hulk väga tarku inimesi saavad võimaluse üsna lühikeses essees öelda, mis on see üks asi, mõte, kontseptsioon, mille me kõik võiksime oma "kognitiivsesse tööriistakasti" lisada, et maailmast ja/või iseendast paremini aru saada.
lugesin seda terve igaviku, sest ega neid tarku ideid väga palju korraga ära ei seedi, pluss mõned olid minu jaoks ikkagi liiga pikalt/keeruliselt kirja pandud. lõpuks tegin süsteemi, et viis esseed igal õhtul enne magamaminekut. uinumisraskustega inimestele absoluutselt soovitan! :D (eile oli viimane kümmekond lehekülge jäänud, mõtlesin, et loen kiirelt lõpuni ja kirjutan arvustuse ka kohe ära. ärkasin tund hiljem diivanil ja midagi ma ei kirjutanud, hambaid pesema läksin...)
umbes üks igast viiest oligi sedasorti essee, millega kuidagi suhestusin või mille kohta mõtlesin, et see on küll hea asi teada või meeles pidada. kahjuks kui keegi nüüd küsiks, et ütle siis midagi, mida me kõik võiks teada, ei tuleks ühtegi head vastust. ainult need asjad, mida me enne ka teadsime, noh, et "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" ja et millegi statistiline olulisus ei tähenda veel sisulist olulisust ja et inimaju ikka ei suuda juhuslikkusega toime tulla jne.
ühesõnaga, ma vist targemaks ei saanud, aga lugemise käigus oli hetki, mil tundsin end korraks targana. või siis võibolla nägin seda kõike unes.
lugesin seda terve igaviku, sest ega neid tarku ideid väga palju korraga ära ei seedi, pluss mõned olid minu jaoks ikkagi liiga pikalt/keeruliselt kirja pandud. lõpuks tegin süsteemi, et viis esseed igal õhtul enne magamaminekut. uinumisraskustega inimestele absoluutselt soovitan! :D (eile oli viimane kümmekond lehekülge jäänud, mõtlesin, et loen kiirelt lõpuni ja kirjutan arvustuse ka kohe ära. ärkasin tund hiljem diivanil ja midagi ma ei kirjutanud, hambaid pesema läksin...)
umbes üks igast viiest oligi sedasorti essee, millega kuidagi suhestusin või mille kohta mõtlesin, et see on küll hea asi teada või meeles pidada. kahjuks kui keegi nüüd küsiks, et ütle siis midagi, mida me kõik võiks teada, ei tuleks ühtegi head vastust. ainult need asjad, mida me enne ka teadsime, noh, et "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" ja et millegi statistiline olulisus ei tähenda veel sisulist olulisust ja et inimaju ikka ei suuda juhuslikkusega toime tulla jne.
ühesõnaga, ma vist targemaks ei saanud, aga lugemise käigus oli hetki, mil tundsin end korraks targana. või siis võibolla nägin seda kõike unes.
December 15, 2017
Yine soluksuz bıraktı bu Adam beni. NTV yayınlarının kapanması çok kötü oldu umarım kitapları yeniden basılır .
June 6, 2015
This will make you smarter. Weh?
Well, if knowing the words Copernican principle, gedankenexperiment, or nexus causality will make you sound smarter, er, smarter, then grab it. The book offers a wide array of answers to the Edge Question 2011: "What scientific concept would improve everybody's cognitive toolkit?"
The essays are grouped topically. Two flaws of putting into a book a number of different field specialists: (1) some authors basically repeat what the other authors have said (2) some authors contradict what the other authors have said.
The book is also reflective of what is there in the current scene of modern science, philosophy, and psychology. Most authors, instead of giving a straight answer for the question, used this as a platform for their ideas such as P. Z. Myers' "man as an accident," Sean Carroll's "pointless universe," Richard Dawkins' "use of experimentation," and Lawrence Krauss' "uncertainty principle." In the quest for improving our cognitive toolkit, an author suggested that we should remind ourselves that "each of us is standard issue, conceived by the union of two germ cells, nurtured in a womb, and equipped with a developmental program that guides our further maturation and eventual decline." An author even surmised that we should be called "Homo dilatus," or the procrastinating ape. Ha!
I appreciate some of authors who really got into the heart of the matter. The discussion about the focusing illusion (Daniel Kahneman) and shorthand abstraction (Richard Nisbett) gave me that "aha" moment. I find Nicholas Carr's essay on cognitive load very practical. "The amount of information entering our consciousness at any instant is referred to as our cognitive load. When our cognitive load exceeds the capacity of our working memory, our intellectual abilities take a hit. Information zips into and out of our mind so quickly that we never gain a good mental grip on it. The information vanishes before we've had an opportunity to transfer it into our long-term memory and weave it into knowledge." His solution? Monitor and manage your cognitive load. Turn the info faucet down to a trickle. Somewhat, this book is worth the time...
Well, if knowing the words Copernican principle, gedankenexperiment, or nexus causality will make you sound smarter, er, smarter, then grab it. The book offers a wide array of answers to the Edge Question 2011: "What scientific concept would improve everybody's cognitive toolkit?"
The essays are grouped topically. Two flaws of putting into a book a number of different field specialists: (1) some authors basically repeat what the other authors have said (2) some authors contradict what the other authors have said.
The book is also reflective of what is there in the current scene of modern science, philosophy, and psychology. Most authors, instead of giving a straight answer for the question, used this as a platform for their ideas such as P. Z. Myers' "man as an accident," Sean Carroll's "pointless universe," Richard Dawkins' "use of experimentation," and Lawrence Krauss' "uncertainty principle." In the quest for improving our cognitive toolkit, an author suggested that we should remind ourselves that "each of us is standard issue, conceived by the union of two germ cells, nurtured in a womb, and equipped with a developmental program that guides our further maturation and eventual decline." An author even surmised that we should be called "Homo dilatus," or the procrastinating ape. Ha!
I appreciate some of authors who really got into the heart of the matter. The discussion about the focusing illusion (Daniel Kahneman) and shorthand abstraction (Richard Nisbett) gave me that "aha" moment. I find Nicholas Carr's essay on cognitive load very practical. "The amount of information entering our consciousness at any instant is referred to as our cognitive load. When our cognitive load exceeds the capacity of our working memory, our intellectual abilities take a hit. Information zips into and out of our mind so quickly that we never gain a good mental grip on it. The information vanishes before we've had an opportunity to transfer it into our long-term memory and weave it into knowledge." His solution? Monitor and manage your cognitive load. Turn the info faucet down to a trickle. Somewhat, this book is worth the time...
June 28, 2013
"This will Make You Smarter" is a compilation of short essays from scientists of every discipline imaginable designed to illuminate scientific concepts that would improve everybody's cognitive toolkit. I was disappointed at both the redundancy and inapplicability of the answers. There were several discussions about the asymmetrical nature of top-down and bottom-up manners of investigation, the subjectivity of observation, the need for replicability, the imperfect but well-intentioned nature of the scientific method, the tendency we have as humans to attribute one cause to one effect when the two are only correlated or there are other causes at work, the fact that being human skews our ability to perceive the world in an objective way, and science is never sure of anything, etc. I consider this type of answer to be only relevant to people that deal with theory-theory on a regular basis: i.e. scientists.
To be fair there were some other answers that were practical. Self-serving bias, the high probability that you are mediocre in most pursuits, the fact that you are 90% microbe mass, that our memories malleable and reconstructive most of the time (eye-witness testimony is VERY unreliable), that language and technology formats biases the way you think, that heaven is not a place you would actually want to go (you would be hopelessly bored), you can't prove that something is safe (or that something won't happen), that winning doesn't feel as good as losing hurts, and that the struggle for existence is more of a SNUGGLE for existence (he who mates first propagates and is the one who is more fit in Natural Selection).
Overall, there are some gems worth reading about in this book, but you have to pick through a lot of theory-theory in order to do so. I was hoping for some life-hacks, and what I got was some scientists complaining about other scientists. :(
It does make a good bathroom reader, though.
To be fair there were some other answers that were practical. Self-serving bias, the high probability that you are mediocre in most pursuits, the fact that you are 90% microbe mass, that our memories malleable and reconstructive most of the time (eye-witness testimony is VERY unreliable), that language and technology formats biases the way you think, that heaven is not a place you would actually want to go (you would be hopelessly bored), you can't prove that something is safe (or that something won't happen), that winning doesn't feel as good as losing hurts, and that the struggle for existence is more of a SNUGGLE for existence (he who mates first propagates and is the one who is more fit in Natural Selection).
Overall, there are some gems worth reading about in this book, but you have to pick through a lot of theory-theory in order to do so. I was hoping for some life-hacks, and what I got was some scientists complaining about other scientists. :(
It does make a good bathroom reader, though.
January 1, 2013
I approached this book with some caution - but fortunately, using Kindle preview, you can try before you buy.
This is a book to be read in short bursts and digested. Since most of the 'chapters' are from one to three pages in length, that's easy. You will definitely want to savor each, since they can really challenge your assumptions, and give you a lot to consider.
The speakers/writers are notable scientists and thinkers and their ideas range from changes in national policy to simple things the individual can do to simply change the way they approach new - and possibly challenging - information.
I think this book is very accessible and should be in every family's library - virtual or otherwise. And, I particularly wanted to mention that this is a book that could benefit students and kids from the age of 12 and up.
This is a book to be read in short bursts and digested. Since most of the 'chapters' are from one to three pages in length, that's easy. You will definitely want to savor each, since they can really challenge your assumptions, and give you a lot to consider.
The speakers/writers are notable scientists and thinkers and their ideas range from changes in national policy to simple things the individual can do to simply change the way they approach new - and possibly challenging - information.
I think this book is very accessible and should be in every family's library - virtual or otherwise. And, I particularly wanted to mention that this is a book that could benefit students and kids from the age of 12 and up.
August 4, 2014
This book has a pretentious title. I prefer the original question: "What scientific concept would improve everybody’s cognitive toolkit?" A long list of deep thinkers were asked this question and they each provide a brief answer in this book. If you would like to read it for free, you can find their answers on Edge.org under the title of the original question.
The book is pretty interesting. If you're already a scientific thinker, then you will be familiar with many of the ideas. I found it to be worth reading for the handful of ideas that were not familiar to me. The first answer in the book is, perhaps, the most enlightening: Nothing In Life Is As Important As You Think It Is, While You Are Thinking About It.
The book is pretty interesting. If you're already a scientific thinker, then you will be familiar with many of the ideas. I found it to be worth reading for the handful of ideas that were not familiar to me. The first answer in the book is, perhaps, the most enlightening: Nothing In Life Is As Important As You Think It Is, While You Are Thinking About It.
January 9, 2013
I guess I expected too much from this book, given its not so humble title. The selection of topics is okay. But if you've been into the science blogosphere and/or TED for a while you will probably be familiar with most of the ideas presented in the book already.
The essays are all really short, most are not longer than a typical blogpost. For many topics a bit more background to the ideas would have been a good thing. If you want a crash course in modern scientific ideas (without actually learning much besides the general existence of those ideas) the book may be nice. Otherwise you can safely skip this one.
The essays are all really short, most are not longer than a typical blogpost. For many topics a bit more background to the ideas would have been a good thing. If you want a crash course in modern scientific ideas (without actually learning much besides the general existence of those ideas) the book may be nice. Otherwise you can safely skip this one.
February 28, 2013
To read my review in my Spanish blog; click here: http://lunairereadings.blogspot.com/2...
There more than 150 bits of very valuable knowledge in this book. There are reflections on time; space science; physics; ethics; death; knowledge; learning; perspective; perception; etc. I liked that every articla was maximum two pages; and that the authors of each article made a real effort to be as clear as possible. I would like to have read a book with more quality in the printing or the quality of the paper; because that would make me have a stronger desire to have it on my shelf; but it is definitely worth a reading.
There more than 150 bits of very valuable knowledge in this book. There are reflections on time; space science; physics; ethics; death; knowledge; learning; perspective; perception; etc. I liked that every articla was maximum two pages; and that the authors of each article made a real effort to be as clear as possible. I would like to have read a book with more quality in the printing or the quality of the paper; because that would make me have a stronger desire to have it on my shelf; but it is definitely worth a reading.
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