What Scientific Concept Would Improve Everybody’s Cognitive Toolkit?

01/25/2011

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Every year, the Edge Organization (http://edge.org/) asks a provocative question, and this year is no exception. But this year, I have an answer. I believe everybody’s cognitive toolkit would improve with the realization of one concept (in four parts):
1a. Everything known comes from an explanation
1b. Explanations have common parts and patterns
1c. The mind’s explanation patterns are misaligned with the processes of the world’s institutions
1d. We find the solution to this problem within the book: The Explanation Age

Picture this. If I ask you a question related to "where" - you would show me a map. Or if I ask you a question related to "when" - you would show me a calendar. But if I ask you a question related to "why" - now what tool do we expect everybody to pull out of their back pocket? None right now, living in the Information Age, but that will change in the Explanation Age.
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A New Year’s Revelation: You Are What You Read

01/02/2011

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The New Year brings new resolutions for many of us. One of the questions I’ve been asking myself is if there are any new books that I should commit to reading this year. I’m reminded of the importance of this question as I think of the relationship between the books I have read and where I am today as a new author. Over the holidays, some relatives have asked how I got started in writing my book called The Explanation Age. The answer is not just that I have read many books, but that some specific books seemed to “stare at me” from their place on the bookshelf, which made me ask questions, and led me to writing my book.

What books are on your bookshelves that seem to stare at you? What questions do they ask of you? For me, it was a set of books that represented the ages of civilization. I’ve had this collection for over 20 years, and early on some clear questions emerged: Why are some periods of time defined as “ages” and given their own book within the collection, whereas other periods of time were simply “eras” and reduced to the first or last chapter of an age? Is the answer simply that an age is longer than an era, or is the answer related to something deeper like the difference between stable and transitional times?
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