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

John Brockman

Apr 2013 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by John Allen Nelson and Khristine Hvam

About this audiobook

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. This Will Make You Smarter features 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 C. Dennett on benefiting from cycles; Jaron Lanier on resisting delusion; Frank Wilczek on the brain's hidden layers; Clay Shirky on the "80/20 rule"; Daniel Goleman on understanding our connection to the natural world; V. S. Ramachandran on paradigm shifts; Matt Ridley on tapping collective intelligence; John McWhorter on path dependence; Lisa Randall on effective theorizing; Brian Eno on "ecological vision"; Richard Thaler on rooting out false concepts; J. Craig Venter on the multiple possible origins of life; Helen Fisher on temperament; Sam Harris on the flow of thought; and Lawrence Krauss on living with uncertainty.

Ratings and reviews

Don't buy it. It's a bunch of articles one by one, read in an uninteresting way. Bored lecturer with no intonation or any incentive to make it interesting. All of them articles probably can be fount free online.

About the author

The founder and publisher of the influential online science salon Edge.org, John Brockman is the editor of This Will Make You Smarter, What We Believe but Cannot Prove, What Is Your Dangerous Idea?, and other volumes. He is also the CEO of the literary agency Brockman, Inc. John lives in New York City.

John Allen Nelson's critically acclaimed roles on television's 24 and Vanished are among the highlights of his twenty-five-plus years as an actor, screenwriter, and film producer. As a narrator, he won an AudioFile Earphones Award for his reading of Zoo Story by Thomas French.

Khristine Hvam is a professional voice artist whose work includes audiobooks, video games, and voice-overs, including as Professor Juniper in the Pokemon television series.