This Will Make You Smarter: 150 New Scientific Concepts to Improve Your Thinking

John Brockman

Feb 2012 · Sold by Harper Collins

About this ebook

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

Ratings and reviews

it didn't move me, It was just pure ramblings about anything, nothing concrete, but I bought it out of curiosity so i didn't have no other choice but to completely read it. if I'm you, maybe I'd save my money and pass on this one. sincerely.

3 people found this review helpful

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About the author

The publisher of the online science salon Edge.org, John Brockman is the editor of Know This, This Idea Must Die, This Explains Everything, This Will Make You Smarter, and other volumes.