memory, human, 39–40, 82, 154, 376–77
cognitive load and, 116–17
Einstein’s law of, 252
Internet and, 376–77
lapses in, 116–17
state-dependent, 130
working, 116–17, 251, 252
Mendaña, Álvaro de, 361
Mendel, Gregor, 165
menstrual cycle, 351
mental garbage, 395–97
mental illness, 232–34, 279, 368, 369
Merton, Robert, 102, 110, 372
meta-induction from the history of science, 30–31
Metzinger, Thomas, 214
Mexico, 345
Michelson, A. A., 339
microbes, 13, 14, 15–16, 290, 292
Microsoft, 305
Miller, Geoffrey, 232–34
Miller, George, 116
mind, 213
brain and, 364, 366
consciousness, 217
designing, 250–53
hidden layers in, 188–91
modular, 129–31
see also thought, thinking
misattribution arbitrage, 34, 36
Mischel, Walter, 46–47
Mnemosyne Atlas (Warburg), 186–87
Möbius, August, 109
Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, The (Heinlein), 84
morality, 234, 351, 365–66
moral warfare, 34, 35–36
Morgenstern, Oskar, 94
Morley, Edward, 339
Morozov, Evgeny, 343–44
mosquitoes, 125
motion:
change, 127–28, 290
Newton’s laws of, 72, 192–93
Mowat, Farley, 90
Mueller, Max, 242
multitasking, 251, 252
Murakami, Takashi, 308
Myers, David G., 37–38
Myers, P. Z., 6–8
naming and labeling, 62–64, 190–91
natural selection, 2, 7, 16, 25, 34, 44, 84, 99, 109, 136, 137–38, 172, 196, 243
sexual, 228, 353–54
nature vs. nurture, 154, 156
negative capability, 225
nervous system, 130, 346, 373
cycles in, 171–72
networks:
collective intelligence and, 257–58
neural, 188–90, 258
social, 82, 262, 266
neural networks, 188–90, 258
neuroeconomics, 208
neurons, 82, 129, 130, 149, 172, 395
entanglement of, 330
synapses and, 164
neuroplasticity, 250–51
neuroscience, 208, 250
neurotransmitters, 229–30, 279, 346
Newton, Isaac, 9, 34, 64, 72, 109, 192–93
nexus causality, 34–35
Niesta, Daniela, 150
Nisbett, Richard, 120–23
nominal fallacy, 62, 64
nonlinearity, 184–85
Nonzero (Wright), 97
Nørretranders, Tor, 226–28
Novum Organum (Bacon), 395
Nowak, Martin, 99
nuclear bomb, 185–86
nuclear transfer, 56
numbers, rounded, 182
Obama, Barack, 204
Obrist, Hans Ulrich, 118–19
Ockham’s razor, 324–27
O’Donnell, James, 127–28
Oedipus, 33
oil industry, 209
Olber’s paradox, 301
Olson, Randy, 269
On the Origin of Species (Darwin), 359
openness, 232–33
open systems, 86–87
opinions, 267, 268, 270
ordinariness, in dual view of ourselves, 32
Origgi, Gloria, xxviii, 318–20
Ortega y Gasset, José, 229
Orwell, George, 33
Osler, William, 109
otherness, 292–93
Otto, Nikolaus, 170
oxytocin, 230
Pagel, Mark, 340–42
Paine, Robert, 174
Pakistan, 20
Panofsky, Erwin, 247–48
Papuans, 361–62
paradigms, 242–45
paradoxes, 301–2
parallelism in art and commerce, 307–9
Pareto, Vilfredo, 198–99
Pareto Principle, xxvii, 198–200
Parkinson’s disease, 63
particles:
entangled, 330–31
wave duality, 28, 296–98
path dependence, 285–88
pattern finding, 105, 107, 394
Paul, Gregory, 268–70
Pauling, Linus, 269
Pauly, Daniel, 90
PDFs (partially diminished fractions), 206
Peirce, Charles Sanders, 112, 113, 114, 222
Pepperberg, Irene, 160–61
perception, 43, 133
cognition and, 133–34
see also senses
PERMA, 92–93
personality, 229, 230–31
character traits in, 229
insanity and, 232–34
temperament dimensions in, 229–31
pessimistic meta-induction from the history of science, 30–31
Pettenkofer, Max, 338, 339
phase transitions, 371–72
philosophy, 271, 275
phlogiston, 360
physicians, 36
physics, 221, 222–23, 234, 277, 322
supervenience and, 364
see also quantum mechanics
Pickover, Clifford, 109–11
Pinker, Steven, xxv, xxx, 94–97
Pizarro, David, 394
placebo and placebo effects, 379, 381–85
Plato, 9, 34, 221–22
Platonism, 222
Poe, Edgar Allan, 301
political systems, 157–58, 159
politicians, 50
polywater, 243
Pondicherry, 389–90
Pöppel, Ernst, 395–97
positive-sum games, 94–97
powers of 10, 162–64
pragmamorphism, 115
predictability, 103–4
randomness and, 105–8
predictions, 261
predictive coding, 132–34
prions, 240
priors, 219
privacy, 262
probability, 52, 65–67, 147, 149, 356, 378, 379
risks and, 68–71
problems, wicked, 203–5
procrastination, 209–10
projective thinking, 240–41
prokaryotic cells, 157
proof, 355–57
Provine, Robert R., 84
Prusiner, Stanley, 240
psychiatry, 232, 233–34, 235, 279
psychotherapy, 41–42
public policy, 93
experiments in, 26, 273–74
uncertainty and, 54, 56
QED moments, 355–57
quantum gravity, 297–98
quantum mechanics, 25, 114, 192–93, 234, 322, 356
entanglement in, 330–32
“many worlds” interpretation of, 69–70
thought experiments in, 28
wave-particle duality in, 28, 296–98
quantum tunneling, 297
quarks, 190–91, 297
Quaternary mass extinction, 362
QWERTY keyboards, 285–86
Ramachandran, V. S., 242–45
Randall, Lisa, 192–93
randomness, 105–8
rational un
conscious, 146–49
ratios, 186
Read, Leonard, 258
realism, naïve, 214
Reality Club, xxix
recursive structure, 246–49
reductionism, 278
Rees, Martin, 1–2
regression, 235
ARISE and, 235–36
relationalism, 223
relativism, 223, 300
relativity, 25, 64, 72, 234, 297
religion, 5, 6, 114
creationism, 268–69
self-transcendence and, 212–13
supernatural beings in, 182–83
and thinking in time vs. outside of time, 222
repetition, in manufacture, 171
replicability, 373–75
Revkin, Andrew, 386–88
Ridley, Matt, 257–58
risk, 56–57, 68–71, 339
security theater and, 262
statistical thinking and, 260
risk aversion, 339
risk literacy, 259–61
Ritchie, Matthew, 237–39
Robertson, Pat, 10
Roman Empire, 128
root-cause analysis, 303–4
Rosen, Jay, 203–5
Rovelli, Carlo, 51–52
Rowan, David, 305–6
Rucker, Rudy, 103–4
Rushkoff, Douglas, 41–42
Russell, Bertrand, 123
Rwanda, 345
Saatchi, Charles, 307–8
safety, proving, 281
Saffo, Paul, 334–35
Sagan, Carl, 273, 282
Sakharov, Andrei, 88
Salcedo-Albarán, Eduardo, 345–48
Sampson, Scott D., 289–91
Sapolsky, Robert, 278–80
Sasselov, Dimitar, 13–14, 292–93
SAT tests, 47, 89
scale analysis, 184–87
scale transitions, 371–72
scaling laws, 162
Schank, Roger, 23–24
Schmidt, Eric, 305
schools, see education
Schrödinger’s cat, 28
Schulz, Kathryn, 30–31
science, 192–93
discoveries in, 109–11, 240–41, 257
humanities and, 364–66
method of, 273–74
normal, 242–43, 244
pessimistic meta-induction from history of, 30–31
replicability in, 373–75
statistically significant difference and, 378–80
theater vs., 262–63
scientific concept, 19, 22
scientific lifestyle, 19–22
scientific proof, 51, 52
scuba divers, 40
seconds, 163
security engineering, 262
security in information-sharing, 75–76
Segre, Gino, 28–29
Sehgal, Tino, 119
Seife, Charles, 105–8
Sejnowski, Terrence, 162–64
self, 212
ARISE and, 235–36
consciousness, 217
Other and, 292–93
separateness of, 289–91
subselves and the modular mind, 129–31
transcendence of, 212–13
self-control, 46–48
self-model, 214
self-serving bias, 37–38, 40
Seligman, Martin, 92–93
Semelweiss, Ignaz, 36
senses, 43, 139–42
umwelt and, 143–45
sensory desktop, 135–38
September 11 attacks, 386
serendipity, 101–2
serotonin, 230
sexuality, 78
sexual selection, 228, 353–54
Shamir, Adi, 76
SHAs (shorthand abstractions), xxx, 228, 277, 395–97
graceful, 120–23
Shepherd, Jonathan, 274
Shermer, Michael, 157–59
shifting baseline syndrome, 90–91
Shirky, Clay, xxvii, 198, 338
signal detection theory, 389–93
Signal Detection Theory and Psychophysics (Green and Swets), 391
signals, 228
Simon, Herbert, 48
simplicity, 325–27
skeptical empiricism, 85
skepticism, 242, 243, 336
skydivers, 39
Smallberg, Gerald, 43–45
smell, sense of, 139–42, 143–44
Smith, Adam, 258
Smith, Barry C., 139–42
Smith, Hamilton, 166
Smith, Laurence C., 310–11
Smith, John Maynard, 96
Smolin, Lee, 221–24
social microbialism, 16
social networks, 82, 262, 266
social sciences, 273
Socrates, 340
software, 80, 246
Solomon Islands, 361
something for nothing, 84
specialness, see uniqueness and specialness
Sperber, Dan, 180–83
spider bites, 68, 69, 70
spoon bending, 244
stability, 128
Standage, Tom, 281
stars, 7, 128, 301
statistically significant difference, 378–80
statistics, 260, 356
stem-cell research, 56, 69–70
stock market, 59, 60–61, 151, 339
Flash Crash and, 60–61
Pareto distributions and, 199, 200
Stodden, Victoria, 371–72
stomach ulcers, 240
Stone, Linda, 240–41
stress, 68, 70, 71
string theories, 113, 114, 299, 322
subselves and the modular mind, 129–31
success, failure and, 79–80
sun, 1, 7, 11, 164
distance between Earth and, 53–54
sunk-cost trap, 121
sunspots, 110
Superorganism, The (Hölldobler and Wilson), 196–97
superorganisms, 196
contingent, 196–97
supervenience, 276, 363–66
Susskind, Leonard, 297
Swets, John, 391
symbols and images, 152–53
synapses, 164
synesthesia, 136–37
systemic equilibrium, 237–39
Szathmáry, Eörs, 96
Taleb, Nassim, 315
TANSTAAFL (“There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch”), 84
Tapscott, Don, 250–53
taste, 140–42
tautologies, 355–56
Taylor, F. W., 186
Taylor, G. I., 185–86
Taylor, Timothy, 333
Taylorism, 186
technology(ies), 223, 249, 251, 257, 259, 273, 315
biases in, 41–42
black-swan, 315–17
humanity and, 333
Tegmark, Max, 19–22
telepathy, 244, 245
telephone game, 177, 178, 179
television, 287
temperament dimensions, 229–31
temperature, 151–52
ten, powers of, 162–64
terrorism, 69, 262, 264, 265
September 11 attacks, 386
testosterone, 230, 231
Thaler, Richard, 338–39
theater, science vs., 262–63
theory, effective, 192–93
Theory of Everything, 365
There’s No Such Thing as a Free Lunch (Friedman), 84
thermodynamics, 108, 227, 237, 302
’t Hooft, Gerard, 297
thought, thinking, 395
bottom-up vs. top-down, 157–59
design for, 250–53
flow of, 211–13
language and, 242
projective, 240–41
reactive, 240
thought, thinking (cont.)
in time vs. outside of time, 221–24
see also mind
thought experiments, 28–29
time, 1–2, 128, 138, 163, 169, 234
arrow of, 237
evolution and, 1–2, 223
thinking in vs. outside of, 221–24
time span of discretion, 334–35
Tolstoy, Leo, 34
Tooby, John, 33–36
tools, 333
top-down thinking, 157–59
Topol, Eric, 303–4
Torrey, Fuller, 279
tracery, 247
trade, 100, 258
international, 96
traffic, 125
transparent self-model, 214
Trivers, Robert, 321
Truman Show, The, 143
truth, 43, 44–45, 192, 301
as model, 72–73
and thinking in time vs. outside of time, 221–22, 223
utility vs., 135–36
Turing, Alan, 146–47
Tversky, Amos, 121, 280
Twain, Mark, 111
typewriter keyboards, 285–86
ulcers, 240
umwelt, 143–45
uncertainty, 28, 53–54, 65, 69, 72, 273, 340
and fear of the unknown, 55–57
unpredictableness, 103–4
risk literacy and, 259–61
statistical thinking and, 260
theater and, 262
see also certainty; probability
unconscious, 146
rational, 146–49
understanding, 358
unintended effects of actions, 124–26, 372
uniqueness and specialness:
Copernican Principle and, 11–12
in dual view of ourselves, 32
of Earth and humans, 3–5
mediocrity principle and, 6–8, 11, 12
Universal Turing Machine, 276
universe, 294, 301
causes and purposes in, 9–10
Copernican Principle and, 11–12
expansion of, 1, 11
life in, 3–5, 13–14, 292
mediocrity principle and, 6–8, 11, 12
truth and, 222
unknown, fear of, 55–57
Uranus, 361
“Use of Knowledge in Society, The” (Hayek), 258
utility, 347
truth vs., 135–36
vaccinations, 268, 279, 394
autism and, 56, 331
vanilla, 142
Veblen, Thorstein, 228
Veeck, Bill, 360
Veeck effect, 360–62
Venter, J. Craig, 13–14, 15, 166
Venus, 360
vestibular system, 139, 142
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