John Brockman

The Reality Club is an informal group of adventurous intellectuals whose by-invitation-only membership roster reads like a Who's Who of American arts, science, politics, and business—particle physicist Gerald Feinberg, anthropologist Mary Catherine Bateson, linguist Vitaly Shevoroshkin, cyberneticist and video artist Paul Ryan. Theirs are the cutting-edge minds of our time, whose ideas are creating the reality of tomorrow. The Reality Club has been meeting once or twice a month, in private sessions in New York City, since 1981. Now it's going public in a series of thematic books, of which WAYS OF KNOWING—thirteen provocative essays on the theme of how we learn, think, and process information—is the third volume. Like its predecessors, SPECULATIONS and DOING SCIENCE, it is required reading for anyone who appreciates the life of the mind, the unflinching search for truth, and reading for sheer intellectual pleasure.

The Reality Club is an informal group of adventurous intellectuals whose by-invitation-only membership roster reads like a Who's Who of American arts, science, politics, and business—Neurophysiologist William H. Calvin, social critic Morris Berman, biologist Lynn Margulis, philosopher Daniel C. Dennett. Theirs are the cutting-edge minds of our time, whose ideas are creating the reality of tomorrow. The Reality Club has been meeting once or twice a month, in private sessions in New York City, since 1981. Now it's going public in a series of thematic books, of which SPECULATIONS—thirteen provocative essays on the subject of The Human Mind—is the first volume. It is required reading for anyone who appreciates the life of the mind, the unflinching search for truth, and reading for sheer intellectual pleasure.

A brilliant ensemble of the world’s most visionary scientists provides twenty-five original never-before-published essays about the advances in science and technology that we may see within our lifetimes. Theoretical physicist and bestselling author Paul Davies examines the likelihood that by the year 2050 we will be able to establish a continuing human presence on Mars. Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi investigates the ramifications of engineering high-IQ, geneticially happy babies. Psychiatrist Nancy Etcoff explains current research into the creation of emotion-sensing jewelry that could gauge our moods and tell us when to take an anti-depressant pill. And evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins explores the probability that we will soon be able to obtain a genome printout that predicts our natural end for the same cost as a chest x-ray. (Will we want to read it? And will insurance companies and governments have access to it?) This fascinating and unprecedented book explores not only the practical possibilities of the near future, but also the social and political ramifications of the developments of the strange new world to come.