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This Explains Everything: Deep, Beautiful, And Elegant Theories Of How The World Works (2013)

by John Brockman(Favorite Author)

3.68 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0062230174 (ISBN13: 9780062230171)

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

Harper Perennial

review 1: I was hoping this book would be better. (I guess that's almost always the case.) Some of the essays are interesting, but many of them are fairly obscure, and some of them get soapbox-y. Not a lot of really big ideas here, and nothing that feels new or revolutionary. Maybe that's the problem with the Edge's question in this case: it's asking about the authors' opinions about explanations that already exist, rather than asking them to come up with something new.
review 2: No it does not, but I learned quite interesting facts and found some of the arguments though-provoking. Commitment: It it fundamental principle of economics that a person is better off if they have more alternatives to choose from. But this is not the case. More than often by restricting my choi... moreces I tend to commit myself to the cause better and thus succeed. Commitment way to go! Selfishness: can sometimes be the best strategy, it is the rational response to the Prisoner's dilemma. Beauty is truth, Life is a code: JIm Watson wrote: We believe that DNA is a code, that to say is made up off orders of letters, it is structure and is copied to regenerate. A, G, T, C (DNA structure) this chain follows logic, A always goes with T, and G with C, and coding order makes it possible, Life. The overdue demise of monogamy: Let me make clear here that I refer to here sex ( not other attachments, no emotional or intellectual connections), is a recreational activity just like many other activities done involving two or more people. Everything is the way it is because it got that way :) Pigeonhole principle: It is a simple idea that if there is n numbers of pigeons, and less than n number cages to put them, there must be at least a box with two pigeons in it. Yes, so far so good, until it gets to the point that lets count numbers. It is infinite, and how many levels of infinite folders can we file them up. Infinite, an d in this thinking further, imagine there's an infinite copies of every matter, you, and all that we know. The universe is infinite but only finite number of possible configurations of matter and energy, thus it only make sense that there are exact copies of earths, solar systems, and everything that comes of matter. Not only countless copies of u, but infinite versions of you with tails, heads, whatever you can never imagine of. What a weird thought right? Yet, even something as simple as counting can lead u to bizarre and unexpected realms. One coincidence; two deja vus: I take confort in the fact that everyone experiences two deja vus a year. not one, not three, TWO? The underlying biodynamics of deja vu is probably ascribable to some sort of tingling neurons in ca certain part of the brain yet this doesn`t tell us why they exist. They seem to me to be a signal from a larger point of view that wants to remind us that our lives are distinct, that they have meaning, and that they occur throughout a span of time. We are important, and what makes us valuable to the universe if our sentience and our curse and blessing of perpetual self-awareness. Nature is cleverer than we are:More than often it is not us, our mind that makes the decision rather the nature itself. Dopamine is called "reward molecule".We are what we do: People become what they do. Self-perception: we create self-perception based on what we think we are, and each decision shapes our self-perception in return. it is a cycle. Are we strangers to ourselves? because without those assurance of every action we make, we hesitate on ourselves. F.e., after buying few coffees, we tend to see ourselves as a coffee consumers, after recycling few times, we create a responsible citizen in own imagine, returning lost wallet, we appreciate ourselves more. We constantly create a image for ourselves, we build self-perception then."We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." less

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