Thinking: The New Science of Decision-Making, Problem-Solving, and Prediction (Best of Edge Series)

This is a surprising book! After being a fan of John and Edge dot org for years, as well as thoroughly enjoying Fast and Slow (Thinking, Fast and Slow), I expected great things from this, especially given the "Edge" contributors, and was not disappointed. However, the range of topics is so much greater than neuro/computing, and some of the more technical topics on Edge, that I was pleasantly surprised.Instead of only looking at the usual "cutting edge" theories of Bayes, Markov, utility functions vs. probabilities, etc. the authors actually challenge nearly all of the "status quo" ideas from stats and emotion to neuro. Frankly, I sometimes get a bit tired of the "brain as computer" as well as "brain not as computer" tug of war, and this refreshing collection is so creative, innovative and pro/con that it leaves many of the "popular neuro" books in the dust. The selection of contributors is breathtaking, not just from credentials, but the pace and quality of the writing and range of topics, keeping us turning the page without writing down to us.If you check out the contents you'll find a wide range of topics, from developmental to neuro, decision theory, linguistics, problem solving, and much more. Hannah Arendt wrote Thinking, Willing and part of Judging, and I think she would have been impressed with this collection (which also adds Feeling and Acting/Deciding) even from a more philosophical frame. The pace is lively and John/ Daniel's editing is consistenly well done, so the quality and "page turner" nature doesn't vary by author. Some are more technical than others, but you can tell the marching orders were to make it fun and enlightening, whether you were talking addiction or econometrics! Although cognitive science and decision theory has been overrun by stats lately, although they are covered thoroughly, they aren't center stage or overstated to show off the contributors' math skills.Daniel does expand some of his fast and slow (as well as "pick a gist") ideas here, especially in two of his favorite areas (intuition and the unconscious), but the range is so broad that there is a ton of new material to consider beyond fast/slow, as well as the other contributors. This will genuinely make your next plane ride go: "What, we're landing?" This doesn't take a "self help" tone any more than fast/slow did, but can truly be life changing in many of its deep and surprising connections between less rational choices and our hormones, wiring, architecture, decision processes, problem solving strategies, and even parsing/ semiotics/ ethics.If you enjoy Kurzweil, Pinker, Eliasmith, Dennett, etc. you will really like this new gem, which covers an amazing range of thinking facets, highways and even backroads, and explores more than one side of the issues. Current tug of ware areas like molecular Darwinism and body/mind chicken vs. egg controversies are handled pleasantly gray and pro/con, not black/white. There is a LOT to digest, and the publisher/Amazon is offering it at a price sympathetic to our budgets.Honestly, the how to build a brain, make a mind, etc. comparables are well written, albeit not nearly as broad or current, and this relatively long text stands equal or better than the best out there, yet doesn't try to capitalize on the success of fast and slow or similar titles by inflating the price into the Springer league! I've read nearly 7 books recently in this general category that are selling in the $40+ range without this book's breadth or depth, let alone currency, research foundations or readability. (Cf: Build a Brain, though brilliant, is $88!). Kurzweil is more reasonable. Highly Recommended at any price, a must at 400+ astonishing and revelatory pages for under $12 US.Emailer question: "Is this a lot of psych? Why is it NOT self help?" A. Good and subtle question. If you compare it with books like the many titled "Blind Spot" that show cognitive biases, demographic/psychographic biases, philosophical quandaries of nature/nurture or "business and leadership" type titles, it is head and shoulders above them neurologically, computationally, psychologically and philosophically. An intelligent reader can look up a dozen links on Wiki on cognitive biases and get the "gist" without investing a dime in any book. This is not some tome on how to avoid mistakes if you are basically an idiot, and the contributors are leading edge in each of their fields.There are many elements that are fun, funny and "homey" but there are graduate probability level discussions too. In brief, it is very well balanced technically, but humanistic and "spiritual" enough (despite sometimes controversial "materialistic" contributors who ironically also believe in free will ala Nietszche-- no one dimensional characters here) to avoid suggesting that if we "only" could balance probability with utility functions like "brilliant" mathematicians with wrecked lives, we'd be fine.The "Edge" controversies over humanities vs. science are not overstated or really even argued here, and with due respect to artists and liberal arts folk/ non science philosophers, the contributors still come down with a LOT of hard science, as that is their frame in general. In general also, a very good mix of both philosophy/ art/ intuition/ creativity and science-- I mean most young artists I know (and I'm OLD) also use Processing, Maya and other digital techniques and math (including splines, kinematics and beziers) along with brushes (physical and digital), so the "humanities" controversy centers more on the rarer select group of philosophers who attack science as having hijacked their field, which is really a little silly.Q. Is this a marketing or management book? A. I get the question. A LOT of books about thinking/decisions are about why consumers pick pink instead of blue, etc., or the math used for "leadership." NO, this is not one of those. Some of those are mildly interesting, but these authors are heavy hitters, including in philosophy as well as math. NOT the annoying semantic kind that splits hairs between specialized nouns, but issues important to our inner and outer lives day to day, as well as fun and exciting as thought provoking, deep frame and modeling issues, as well as practical but nuanced thinking help and techniques beyond "just match your utility functions to the probability weights of success" etc. Obviously with Professor Taleb involved, we do get some black swan "management" wisdom, but more about why academic models are so flawed, not about touting our heroic math prowess in econometrics, let alone using it to invest or "manage portfolios."

The book is a collection of essaya about topics related to the science of thinking. The essays actually are transcriptions of presentations given by the authors at some conferences about the topics. They are very informative and interesting. But, I would say it is a diferent kind of book. Reading it is a different experience. It is much more like as you are attending the conference and attending the presentations. That said, it is a very good book for anyone interested in understanding how our thinking works.

This book spans a diverse spectrum of science, philosophy, and statistics. It contains tremendous insight into human thinking and behavior. I will be re-reading it shortly as there is far too much material to absorb on one pass. This collection of transcribed talks and essays is like a mile-long buffet full of exotic and delicious foods... so don't expect to get it all on one plate (or even 3 or 4 for that matter). The only reason I stop short of 5 stars is that a small minority of the authors (2 or 3) have atrocious writing skills that really do detract from the readability of the book. Some of it reads like a stream-of-consciousness journal entry written by an 7th grader. I wish the book editor had either made them clean it up, or cleaned it up for them! Then it would have been perfect. I have been recommending this book to all my thinking friends with the caveat that some of the grammar and form stinks. But the content is amazing and definitely worth reading. It should be required reading for anyone that works with other member of the human race.

This book consists of transcripts of presentations and is very uneven as might be expected, it would be nice if this were clearer in the description. That said there is some very interesting ideas being presented, I suspect that the some of the discussions held after the presentations would have been both interesting and caustic (I think it would have been much more enlightening to have been there). The primary problem is that there is a lot of chaff to wade through to get to the interesting ideas. What constitutes an interesting idea is going to vary a great deal though depending on the reader's particular interests so your mileage may vary. It was a worthwhile read despite the struggle but it is likely that there will be some struggle involved in getting to your particular gems of knowledge.

I think it's fair to say that I am a total John Brockman fan - I now have pretty much all the books in this collection and they are my absolute go-to source of Brain Food.I first came to this collection through the book This Will Make You Smarter, a collection of predominantly 2-page essays from some of the world's greatest thinkers on all sorts of issues.The discussions are challenging, thought-provoking and interesting and make me revisit what it is I know or think I know - and Thinking is much the same.These should be in the school curriculum - they are the cutting edge of thinking.

This book is split into chapters that are each a separate essay about cognition, intuition, morality, and other topics. Some of the chapters are very good and easy to read. Some are very good but a bit obtuse. And a few weren't that interesting. But overall, you will walk away from this book with a better understanding of how we think, and it introduces some concepts that will make you ask novel questions about yourself and others.

If you can't decide what you feel like learning or reading about, or just want to gather some more knowledge about whatever, you may like the idea of this book. It is a collection of different papers on different subjects, including synesthesia and phantom limb pain (which i found especially interesting), so you may very well learn something new. It is easy to read, can be picked up by most, and will do a nice job as appetizer or dessert, should you want a quick little treat. Chances are that it will open new doors of interest, as it reaches broadly