John Brockman

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.

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. edge.org

"The Universe Is Not in a Box" A Conversation with Julian Barbour, author of The End of Time edge.org

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. edge.org

"Ecology of Intelligence": A Talk By Frank Wilczek on edge.org "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."

"Morphogenesis for the Design of Design": A Talk by Neil Gershenfeld on edge.org "This is the thing I’m most excited about right now: the design of design."

"The Language of Mind": A Talk By David Chalmers on edge.org "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?"

"Epistemic Virtues": A Talk By Peter Galison on edge.org (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."

"AI That Evolves in the Wild" A Talk By George Dyson on edge.org "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."

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?

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). pnas.org/content/pnas/e…

@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!) is.gd/zd0qod

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." is.gd/ythFzR

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 is.gd/6ueXZt | is.gd/xWkRjQ

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." is.gd/DLxkRs

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. is.gd/5RoPQV

"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. is.gd/5QhkTM

‘There’s Just No Doubt That It Will Change the World’: David Chalmers on V.R. and A.I. NYTimes nytimes.com/2019/06/18/opi…

Aguirre's COSMOLOGICAL KOANS is.gd/8TlGg brings back memories of Capra's THE TAO OF PHYSICS and Zukav's THE DANCING WU LI MASTERS.