If The Future Fascinates You... Look What's In Store For The Mind
593469
This is an excellent book. If you are into knowing what future technologies will be like in the near future, you will like knowing what will be in store for the human mind.
3085889
A THOUGHT PROVOKING READ WHICH IF FOLLOWED CAN CHANGE YOUR PERSPECTIVE ON LIFE. THE SIXTH SENSE COULD BE YOUR KEY TO A BETTER 'FUTURE:  DONALD GOLD
656057
I like this type of anthologies. The author has collected the thoughts on leaders in the use of mobile technology on the future of what will be used.  Many thoughts are presented on AI,  medicine, education, autonomous self driving cars, robots, the moon/space travel, payments,  VR, AI/robotic  interactions enough that you will have your eyes opened on uses to today and in the immediate future.
3811380
When the future arrives I am often taken by surprise. This is a book that gives me a few hundred easily digestible glimpses into what some evidently brilliant thinkers are thinking about the possible future. About a third of the entries are not super-interesting to me (though they are the ones that may be to others) but the majority are pretty wonderful. It's like being seated next to someone like Steven Pinker at a dinner party, and turning to him and asking what he's working on that really excites him. The chapters are what you'd most likely hear in reply without getting into numbing detail and jargon -- how great is that? What an idea John Brockman had in editing these books.
4803362
Terrifying look into the very near future!  A terror that has, in reality,  already began!  Personally I hope that brilliant minds will be stimulated and have the foresight to start now on creating possible solutions to ward off this reality.  This is a must read!  Written skillfully apparently by an author whose personal knowledge and intelligence shines throughout each page.  I couldn't put it down and now I can't get it out if my mind!  Sharing this is a must, the more minds touched the more likely our nation, as always, will find a way to overcome!
2550387
Recommend this book to anyone trying to look slightly Into the future into how big data, technology and context can make our lives more enjoyable and potentially more meaningful. A lot to think about.
3426954
Think you are aware of your thinking? Think again!

Although we may feel like we are conscious drivers of lives, our brains actually have a heavy reliance on the unconscious forces that steer it. The truth is, much of our thinking happens outside of our conscious awareness and control, and our subliminal programming affects all aspects of our lives--from how we perceive the world, self, and others to how we think, feel, behave, and remember.

But, we can't fault our brains for this heavy subliminal reliance. If our brains actually took in all of the data we are bombarded with each moment, we'd be overwhelmed and overloaded. As the author of _Subliminal_ explains:
"To ensure our smooth functioning in both the physical and the social world, nature has dictated that many processes of perception, memory, attention, learning, and judgment are delegated to brain structures outside conscious awareness...The truth is that our unconscious minds are active, purposeful, and independent. Hidden they may be, but their effects are anything but, for they play a critical role in shaping the way our conscious minds experience and respond to the world...Our subliminal minds take incomplete data, use context or other cues to complete the picture, make educated guesses, and produce a result that is sometimes accurate, sometimes not, but always convincing." (pp. 18, 29, 152)

The reality is that much of what we believe to be true, is actually false. (How's that for a brain challenge?) Our brains are not the computers we assume them to be, but instead creative distorters of reality:
"We are not like computers that crunch data in a relatively straightforward manner and calculate results. Instead, our brains are made up of a collection of many modules that work in parallel, with complex interactions, most of which operate outside of our consciousness. As a consequence, the real reasons behind our judgments, feelings, and behaviors can surprise us...Our brains are not simply recording a taste or other experience, they are *creating* it...We believe that when we choose a laptop or a laundry detergent, plan a vacation, pick a stock, take a job, assess a sports car, make a friend, judge a stranger, and even fall in love, we understand the principal factors that influenced us. Very often nothing could be further from the truth. As a result, many of our most basic assumptions about ourselves, and society, are false." (pp. 22, 25-26)

To wrap our brains around the confusing two-tiered brain processes of the conscious and the unconscious, the author presents a great metaphor explaining how subliminal forces result in our brains acting less like truth-seeking scientists and more like conclusion-driven lawyers:
"The human mind is designed to be both a scientist and an attorney, both a conscious seeker of objective truth and an unconscious, impassioned advocate for what we *want* to believe. Together these approaches create our worldview...As it turns out, the brain is a decent scientist but an absolutely *outstanding* lawyer. The result is that in the struggle to fashion a coherent, convincing view of ourselves and the rest of the world, it is the impassioned advocate that usually wins over the truth seeker...The unconscious mind is a master at using limited data to construct a version of the world that appears realistic and complete to its partner, the conscious mind." (pp. 200-201)

Appropriately enough, I found this book to be incredibly mind-blowing.  Not only is the content fascinating and engaging, but the author's writing is superb: just like the unconscious mind, he has quite the gift for synthesizing huge amounts of information into accessible and digestible slices. (But, unlike our unconscious minds, he does not distort reality!) Admittedly, I can't quite explain the reasons I chose this book from the many others on the shelf (now I realize there were a slew of subconscious processes that influenced my decision), but I can consciously stand behind my five-star recommendation for reading it.
1412825
This is the new vision of the near-future. It's a scary, but logical look at what may happen as corporations control more and more of our lives. In this future, people take the name of their corporation as their last names. It's corporate ownership of people with no apologies. So, we meet Hack Nike, John Nike, Hayley McDonalds, and Jennifer Government. This book is darkly humorous and will find itself up there with 1984, Brave New World, Catch-22, and Farenheit 451 for predicting a darkly possible future. Read this book!
2268732
Time flies when events are happy, but bring on trouble and sadness, then time dawdles and becomes endless.  Notice how  time drags for youth but accelerates for the more mature.  Time is an intangible entity that can be viewed from the past, the present, and the future.  The past resides in memories, the now immediately transitions into the past, and the future relies on imagination.  In this absorbing account of the elusive quality of time, New Yorker staff writer Alan Burdick seeks to understand how time is perceived by different individuals and how the brain intakes stimuli to translate perceptions into our varying clocks.  Beginning with a history of how time is measured from the planetary, global, and atomic levels; the story continues with a survey of the philosophers view of external changes.  Past and current scientific studies exploring the vagaries of the inner time pieces are delightfully detailed.  Some investigators seclude themselves in blackened caves to avoid all external stimuli that might influence their time clock, others use more technological gear trying to probe the brain and find its neuronal dials.  You may be familiar with prediction, but read the book to discover the essence of postdiction.
2341072
Neuroscience is on the horizon of possibilities that the author uses to construct a what if scenario that could lead the human race to evolve in different ways and produce terror from its misuse..
1671613
On what to expect from now until the end of the 21st century there's much meat for mental thought. Worth a gander and wisely a wager
1399858
I really liked this book. Sometimes it makes you think about the future and what we should be doing.
1118710
Helps you see what you have right now, how not to be afraid of any kind of future. Worth your time, attention and money.
1802957
There are few innovations sitting out in the potential space of the future that excite our imaginations so much as the prospect of artificial intelligence. Ex machina explores a future in which the creator of the world's largest internet search engine perfects an inorganic imitation of the human mind and the human body; the audience is invited  to participate in the Turing test of a lifetime alongside the story's protagonist.

Revealing more would be a disservice: you simply must watch and see for yourself. What I can describe are my sentiments regarding the film's philosophical value: in short, ex machina's philosophical value is in its own orbit. Why? Because the best way to present a state of the art summary of our best thinking about what it means to be human is to look at what we would build if we were trying to replicate ourselves. This is an extraordinary film with the power to enlighten.
476316
This is a brilliant, tightly woven exploration of the possibilities in the nearly infinite combinations of connections of the synapses of the human brain.  Apparently, living our lives never uses the vast, vast potential of this inter-connectedness.  The truly clever suggestions of this novel are amazing.

Having said that, one caveat: this may not be a book for every thinking reader.  Speaking for myself, I see a suspicious circularity in the logic.  I'm just not into looking through a microscope at a mirror of my own imaginings.
1518200
An interesting futuristic exposition of where  current political, economic and environmental trends will lead us in a century if they remain unchanged. Reads like  apocalyptic fiction but it is a chillingly high probability look at our future.
2140665
A fascinating, captivating, and accessible in-depth break-down of what the future may look like. Software is eating the world and data is key to where businesses, governments, and individuals will go in tandem. New patterns will emerge and we should be ready to anticipate, identify, and use them.