The scientist, John Brockman, a few years ago asked prominent scientists a crucial question:
“What scientific concept would improve everybody’s cognitive toolkit?”
He compiled the scientist’s answers into a book titled ” This Will Make You Smarter”
Today, I have tried to condense a few of their answers into life lessons which I believe may be applicable to my readership. As I found the book extremely thought-provoking, I would invite you to provide your responses to these ideas and to others found in the book. (The first several pages which are downloadable for free from iBooks contain many of the key insights.) I look forward to your thoughts and your follow up questions, which sometimes are harder to provide than answers.
1. We do not live near the end of time, but closer to the beginning.
2. People are not the product of an accident into an indifferent world, but each of us brings with our birth a unique creation which never existed before and will never again the replicated. This is true for every organism on earth.
3. Given the structure of our brains, we have no choice but to try to make sense of our world, even though we always lack adequate information.
4. Given our biological nature, we are designed to make mistakes… and to learn from those mistakes.
5. We are and are not the center of the universe, depending on perspective. Understanding’s perspective is key to success in life.
6. Our bodies themselves are hosts to trillions of organisms, each a unique, living thing.
7. Today’s truths most often become tomorrow’s falsehood.
8.”Experimentation is something done by everyone all the time.”
9. Our intuition regularly seems to break down with scale.”
10.Each of us is far more akin to a whirlpool,a brief,ever- shifting concentration of energy in vast river that has been flowing for billions of years.
Excerpt From: John Brockman. “This Will Make You Smarter.” iBooks:
https://robpasick.us1.list-manage.com/track/click?u=8c4d7dbf1ab184ab92718edfb&id=ea04e59f61&e=53d8e7051f