More than one hundred of the world's leading thinkers write about things they believe in, despite the absence of concrete proof.
Scientific theo...
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Jan 11, 2011
Mangoo
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This was the first projection into paper of the Edge.org cast of bright minds, gathered together to answer their way on the question that gives the title to the collection of short essays. It's pure brilliance and provocation wisely mingled with sound reasoning and questionable feelings. An very much needed and recommended conjuration of deep ideas and far-seeing perspectives which, while possibly wrong in the long term, presently duly pursue the intended job. Which is to stir the reader's imagi
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Sep 16, 2010
Parksy
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Very interesting read. Check out Edge.org... it's all there, plus more. Very thought provoking.
From Publishers Weekly
The title's question was posed on Edge.org (an online intellectual clearing house), challenging more than 100 intellectuals of every stripe—from Richard Dawkins to Ian McEwan—to confess the personal theories they cannot demonstrate with certainty. The results, gathered by literary agent and editor Brockman, is a stimulating collection of micro-essays (mainly by s More...
From Publishers Weekly
The title's question was posed on Edge.org (an online intellectual clearing house), challenging more than 100 intellectuals of every stripe—from Richard Dawkins to Ian McEwan—to confess the personal theories they cannot demonstrate with certainty. The results, gathered by literary agent and editor Brockman, is a stimulating collection of micro-essays (mainly by s More...
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Aug 04, 2011
Darla
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Wow. Put 100 of the world's most brilliant minds in a room and get them to ask each other the questions they ask themselves, and that's the premise of Edge.org, which published this book. The question Edge.org asked these 100 people in 2005 was, what do you believe but cannot prove? This book is the collection of short essays in response to that question. Topics covered quite a range of things, but boil down basically to questions of the physical, metaphysical, and spiritual realms. Some of thes
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Dec 30, 2008
Kevan
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This book includes tiny essays (no more than four pages each, sometimes as short as a paragraph) by the world's smartest people about their hunches, estimates, guesses about a broad range of topics. It's a pretty thoughtful survey that results in a lot of interesting ideas. Some of the more interesting concepts and quotes:
"I believe that the human race will never decide that an advanced computer possesses consciousness."
"We will find ways to circumvent the More...
"I believe that the human race will never decide that an advanced computer possesses consciousness."
"We will find ways to circumvent the More...
Jul 27, 2009
Doctor Nurenberg
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Surprisingly thought provoking, it features short, accessible (for the most part) essays from famous scientists from across disciplines (including social science) speaking of their hopes and beliefs, at times wrestling with some of the very basic questions of scientific thought itself. I haven't learned so much from a single book in ages. The diversity of voices and perspectives is staggering, with many surprises: a social scientist who studies the worst in humanity, for example, wrote one of
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Dec 18, 2010
قصي
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آراء 109 عالم وباحث وصلوا إلى القمة كلٌ في مجاله. سئلوا عما يعتقدون بصحته ولكن لا يمكن إثباته. فكانت النتيجة تصورات مستقبلية مثيرة للاهتمام، وهي في مجالات متعددة من الكمبيوتر إلى الأحياء إلى الفيزياء و الكون. قلت لئن عشنا سنرى بعد سنوات هل تظهر حقيقة بعض مما قالوا
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توقعت أن يكون الكتاب من النوع الثقيل، فقد كان واضحاً من مقدمته أن فيه كثيراً من الفلسفة. ولكن المحرر سهل علينا فجعل لكل عالم صفحة أو أكثر قليلاً ليعرض فكرته فجاءت الأفكار خفيفة ويمكن فهمها، أو قُل فهم More...
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توقعت أن يكون الكتاب من النوع الثقيل، فقد كان واضحاً من مقدمته أن فيه كثيراً من الفلسفة. ولكن المحرر سهل علينا فجعل لكل عالم صفحة أو أكثر قليلاً ليعرض فكرته فجاءت الأفكار خفيفة ويمكن فهمها، أو قُل فهم More...
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Mar 12, 2011
Amber
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When scientists are asked to describe a belief they hold, but cannot prove, the answers are sometimes cooly predictable (unproven scientific theories about human development, extraterrestrial life, or the multiplicity of the universe). Other times, however, their beliefs are unexpected (belief in true love, moral progress, the excitement of anticipation). While I find the first category of essays to sound a bit rehearsed and written in the presence of academic ghosts, I nonetheless appreciate th
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Dec 11, 2008
David
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This is a collection of essays written by scientists and other great thinkers in response to the question, "What do you believe is true, even though you cannot prove it?" The premise is that great minds often can intuit the truth before they have evidence to support it.
This book addresses many deep subjects, including life after death, the existence of extraterrestrial life, the nature of consciousness, and the question of free will. Yet it's always easy to read, avoiding More...
This book addresses many deep subjects, including life after death, the existence of extraterrestrial life, the nature of consciousness, and the question of free will. Yet it's always easy to read, avoiding More...
Aug 04, 2011
A good deal of it was beyond me (McEwan is a little off when he says that these essays are written for the layperson, as some of them feature physics professors talking in equations, always a recipe for me being deeply confused) but I enjoyed the flow of the essays and how they were bunched up in a manner that would allow similar subjects like language leading to consciousness or evolution or parallel universes to lead into one another making the echo chamber of mini-essays actually feel like a
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Dec 26, 2010
Smellsofbikes
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This book is a collection of essays by prominent scientists and technologists on ideas they believe are true, but haven't managed to come up with any way to experimentally verify. The essays range in size from 12 words to maybe 3 pages, and in subject matter from linguistics, mind/body dualism, and multiple universe theories to whether electrons exist. (He believes they do, although there are essays by people who believe that objects don't exist and matter is a perceptual construct.) The essa
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Feb 01, 2011
Lindsaylberger
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This book was one of the most thought-provoking I've read lately. It includes essays from some of today's greatest thinkers, ranging in topic from linguistics and the concept of language as an innate faculty, to religion, to string theory, to consciousness to the universe and the multiverse. I recommend it, if only for those awesome essays that cause you to involuntary throw your head back as your mind is completely blown.
Note: There are more than a few bad essays in this book, but it More...
Note: There are more than a few bad essays in this book, but it More...
Jun 13, 2011
Kasandra
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Definitely thought-provoking, quite interesting that many of these quoted thinkers believe the same things (particularly about life elsewhere in the universe and the nature of consciousness, among others, but also regarding atheism). Might encourage you to read further on certain subjects, since each little essay is very short, so there's not a lot of in-depth reading here; however, there are a lot of books mentioned as having been written by the thinkers quoted, so the book provides many jumpin
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Oct 22, 2008
Laurie
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Okay, so this is supposed to be the responses of the greatest thinkers still alive in this century, at least in the scientific community anyway, to the question: "What do you believe but cannot prove?" And, I concede, that in several entries, I was inspired and challenged by the original theories posed about everything from the origin of the universe to whether or not animals have feelings to Armageddon and the existence of God. However, a good many of the entries (though the foreword
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Apr 11, 2008
John
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The premise of the book is a fantastic idea, but the results are uneven at best, disappointing at worst. I'm not sure why the BBC called it the 'crack cocaine of the thinking world.' It's a rather lumbering presentation to be compared to a stimulant. In any event, I realize that it might have been difficult to edit or omit any of these great scientists' and thinkers' ideas, but the editor disappoints. Some of the presentations should have been omitted (do we really need to know the beliefs of so
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Sep 23, 2009
Michael
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A fascinating look at how the world's leading scientific empiricists differ in interpreting the unknown. At first I thought this would be a book by and for the anti-religious scientific contingency; there is plenty of that, but also plenty of not-that. If nothing else, this book contributed to my sense of wonder about the universe and the human experience.
May 18, 2010
Christi
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Each little "belief" is about a page long so they are quick and to the point which is great if you're not that interested in the topic and leaves you wanting more if you do like the topic. I wrote down the names of some of the people so I can follow up on people and topics. It gave me a lot to think about.
Jan 16, 2009
Shay
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Random bits of disjointedness (is that a word?), but an interesting read. I wished the underlying thread to be a bit more obvious, as it meandered across topics with some vague discernible direction, but I couldn't always get how one essay related to the next. Some were also just way too technical, resulting in an intellectual airlift so far above my head. But I learned quite a few bits of info I didn't know, although I may be hard pressed to recall them now.
Jun 12, 2008
Christopher
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Great book. Quick to read and inspired a lot of interesting thoughts inside myself.
The writers of this book are some of the most creative and intelligent people on the planet, and hearing their speculative ideas was inspiring and insightful both into understanding how the world works and how people think.
Most of the ideas were things familiar, yet with reasoning very unique and fascinating. Plus the handful of unprovable beliefs that were entirely new to me. Things I had never though More...
The writers of this book are some of the most creative and intelligent people on the planet, and hearing their speculative ideas was inspiring and insightful both into understanding how the world works and how people think.
Most of the ideas were things familiar, yet with reasoning very unique and fascinating. Plus the handful of unprovable beliefs that were entirely new to me. Things I had never though More...
Jul 14, 2011
Wendy
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I have to admit to getting a little bored when reading this in big chunks but read a few at a time, and especially in areas which held special interest for me and where the essayists disagreed, at times radically, it was a much more compelling read.
Oct 17, 2011
Diego
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Un gran libro para estimular el pensamiento en aspectos de vanguardia en la ciencia contemporánea.
John Brockman en su proyecto Edge.org hace un gran trabajo de difusión de la ciencia, mostrando que esta en la cabeza de algunos de los investigadores más importantes de la actualidad.
muy recomendable para todos, invita a preguntarnos en que cosas creemos pero no podemos probar.
John Brockman en su proyecto Edge.org hace un gran trabajo de difusión de la ciencia, mostrando que esta en la cabeza de algunos de los investigadores más importantes de la actualidad.
muy recomendable para todos, invita a preguntarnos en que cosas creemos pero no podemos probar.
Aug 12, 2009
DeAnne
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The short essay format does not lend itself well, as a rule, to deep philosophical questions, as it precludes being able to define and defend a well positioned argument. That said, these brief essays by some of the world's top thinkers are, in turn, provocative, interesting, thought provoking, and on occasion pompous and frustrating.
It's an interesting thought experiment, and I think the book was well edited and presented.
It's an interesting thought experiment, and I think the book was well edited and presented.
Dec 13, 2010
Chris
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Very interesting book. The title is a but misleading at times, it's more, "what we believe but haven't yet proven" than anything else.
Still a good read though.
Still a good read though.
Mar 31, 2010
Thomas
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I found that a lot of futuristic thought can be grouped into a few categories: Artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, philosophy, energy, the internet/communication, etc... Like Newton and Leibniz with the calculus, all of the scientists and other big thinkers asked to write essays for this collection were on similar tracks in their thinking. Our technological future is well mapped and the vision is surprisingly clear.
Mar 16, 2008
April
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I think many of my friends share my obsession with the Edge.org annual World Question.
Every year, edge.org collects mini-essays responding to a very "big think" question from 100 leading thinkers (mostly scientists). This book collects the edited essays from the World Question for 2005 which was "What do you believe even though you cannot prove it?" The responses range from the thought-provoking to trivial (and occasionally silly).
I can't even try to top More...
Every year, edge.org collects mini-essays responding to a very "big think" question from 100 leading thinkers (mostly scientists). This book collects the edited essays from the World Question for 2005 which was "What do you believe even though you cannot prove it?" The responses range from the thought-provoking to trivial (and occasionally silly).
I can't even try to top More...
Dec 20, 2008
Jason
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The concept behind this work was more interesting than the execution. But since it is a collection, some essays are better than others.
Feb 12, 2009
Jason
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Vignettes from experts on the cutting edge of science, this book is just fodder for the mill of any Sci-Fi writer's mind.
Dec 29, 2011
Heather
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A really interesting collection of short essays from some leading thinkers in their fields. In large part they cover what they believe to be the future directions in research. Made me think about some of my own (currently) unproved beliefs.
Jan 13, 2009
Jsalem
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goofy cover. crucial book. the future of mankind is somewhere in these pages...who will we be?
Feb 04, 2012
darla
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What a fantastic idea -- to ask leading scientists a thought-provoking question and harvest the results into a book. Just enough of the essays were above my head (neutrinos, huh) to make the book feel weighted and worthwhile. The unanticipated bonus is that the author blurbs at the beginning of each essay have provided me with a fantastic list of books to read.
