John Brockman

Author & Cultural impresario ( Brockman, Inc. (@brockmaninc)—Editor, (

[John Brockman @edge]

Congrats to Danny Kahneman! Hodges Figgis in Dublin, Ireland’s largest and most famous bookstore, announces their bestselling book – of all books! – over the last decade: Kahneman's THINKING, FAST AND SLOW.

[Hodges Figgis @Hodges_Figgis]

Our official best selling book of the decade is... Thinking, Fast and Slow by Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman. The Top 5 best sellers from 2010-2020 are as follows;
1) Thinking, Fast and Slow
2) Sapiens
3) Stoner
4) Milkman
5) My Brilliant Friend

[John Brockman @edge]

The complete "Possible Minds Conference", an update from the field, is now available as a Thanksgiving Weekend Special—10 hours plus of audio and video, as well as a downloadable PDF of the 77,500-word manuscript. Enjoy. https://t.co/rsXmxDOso2

[John Brockman @edge]

"The Universe Is Not in a Box" A Conversation with Julian Barbour, author of The End of Time https://t.co/rsXmxDOso2

[John Brockman @edge]

Danny Hillis:"Emergences"-a "question to which I have no answers (and can barely articulate the question): How do lots of simple things interacting emerge into something more complicated? Then how does that create the next system out of which that happens. https://t.co/rsXmxDOso2

[John Brockman @edge]

"Ecology of Intelligence": A Talk By Frank Wilczek on https://t.co/rsXmxDOso2

"There’s this tremendous drive for intelligence, but there will be a long period of coexistence in which there will be an ecology of intelligence."

[John Brockman @edge]

"Morphogenesis for the Design of Design": A Talk by Neil Gershenfeld on https://t.co/rsXmxDOso2

"This is the thing I’m most excited about right now: the design of design."

[John Brockman @edge]

"The Language of Mind": A Talk By David Chalmers on https://t.co/rsXmxDOso2 "Will every possible intelligent system somehow experience itself or model itself as having a mind? Is the language of mind going to be inevitable in an AI system that has some kind of model of itself?"

[John Brockman @edge]

"Epistemic Virtues": A Talk By Peter Galison on https://t.co/rsXmxDOso2 (video|audio|text)

"I’m interested in the question of epistemic virtues, their diversity, and the epistemic fears that they’re designed to address. By epistemic I mean how we gain and secure knowledge."

[John Brockman @edge]

"AI That Evolves in the Wild" A Talk By George Dyson on https://t.co/rsXmxDOso2

"I’m interested not in domesticated AI—the stuff that people are trying to sell. I'm interested in wild AI—AI that evolves in the wild. I’m a naturalist, so that’s the interesting thing to me."

[Tim O'Reilly @timoreilly]

People send me so many books that they hope I'll review that they pile up on top of the books that I'm actually working with. But sometimes just taking a quick look gives me new ideas. And fortunately, I have time to read some of them! Which ones should I dive into first?

[Steven Pinker @sapinker]

My new PNAS paper w Julian De Freitas, Kyle Thomas & Peter DeScioli (Common knowledge, coordination, and strategic mentalizing in human social life) is open-access (we paid through the nose for this, so please take advantage; a PDF can be downloaded here). https://t.co/4Sn3PSBBXu

[John Brockman @edge]

@washingtonpost BOOKS OF THE AGES: "The best books to read at every age, from 1 to 100" (note: it gets better over time; it peaks when you turn 84!) https://t.co/U1gq3lhDRo

[John Brockman @edge]

BOOKS FOR THE AGES The best books to read at every age, from 1 to 100 - By WaPo Book World Staff "Here are our picks for worthwhile books to read during each year of life, from 1 to 100, along with some of the age-appropriate wisdom they impart." https://t.co/jsbFl8bQSK

[John Brockman @edge]

POSSIBLE MINDS in FT: "An erratic, but intriguing, selection of essays from many of the world’s leading (western) thinkers about artificial intelligence and the nature of humanity." Summer Books of 2019: Technology https://t.co/A9o8ZO41Qx | https://t.co/A9umJjvNel

[John Brockman @edge]

FOREIGN AFFAIRS on POSSIBLE MINDS: "A fascinating map of AI’s likely future and an overview of the difficult choices that will shape it...A sense of respect for the human mind and humility about its limitations runs through the essays in Possible Minds." https://t.co/ZWjQUAvVbS

[John Brockman @edge]

Just learned of the death of my friend John Wilcock, co-founder of the Village Voice last September. at 91. He was the first journalist to take the 1960s NYC avant-garde arts scene seriously. When we met in 1965 he was omnipresent. https://t.co/VRP5Kihj6F

[John Brockman @edge]

"The height of coolness to regard everything with a detached eye and rely on intuition to make instant decisions." —John Wilcock, Village Voice co-founder on NYC counterculture circa 1965, where we were both often present together at Warhol's Factory. https://t.co/DdYsOUT8Pn

[John Brockman @edge]

‘There’s Just No Doubt That It Will Change the World’: David Chalmers on V.R. and A.I. NYTimes https://t.co/nnAIP2x8hh

[John Brockman @edge]

Aguirre's COSMOLOGICAL KOANS https://t.co/KHtwHqgFhw brings back memories of Capra's THE TAO OF PHYSICS and Zukav's THE DANCING WU LI MASTERS.

[Sean Carroll @seanmcarroll]

Mindscape Episode 51: Anthony Aguirre @AnthonyNAguirre on Cosmology, Zen, Entropy, and Information. #MindscapePodcast
https://t.co/nI8weTz4N2