"Edge.org presents ideas from today's leading thinkers"--Cover.

"Contributors include Steven Pinker on how the mind adapts to new technologies; Nassim N. Taleb on the destruction of precise knowledge; Richard Dawkins on the consequences of infinite information; Nicholas Carr in the future of deep thought; Helen Fisher on finding love and romance thought the Net; Wikipedia cofounder Larry Sanger on the promise and pitfalls of the 'hive mind'; Sam Harris on the wired brain; Brian Eno on finding authenticity in a world of endless reproduction. Other thinkers include tech theorists Tim O'Reilly, Clay Shirky, Douglas Rushkoff, and Evgeny Morozov; founding Wired editor Kevin Kelly; Google executive Marissa Mayer; computer scientist Jaron Lanier; philosopher Daniel C. Dennett; physicists Frank Wilczek, Martin Rees, Lisa Randall, and Lee Smolin; psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi; geneticist George Church; novelists Tom McCarthy and Douglas Coupland; actor Alan Alda; artists Marina Abramović and Ai Weiwei; X Prize founder Peter H. Diamandis; science historian George Dyson; and TED Conferences curator Chris Anderson."--Cover p. [4].

Every year, Edge.org's World Question Center poses a new question to be answered by a group of luminary thinkers--philosophers, scientists, historians and the like. The 2010 question is "How is the Internet changing the way YOU think?" This book collects the responses of more than 150 of the world's most influential minds.

List of 172 essayists: "Marina Abramovic, Anthony Aguirre, Alan Alda, Alun Anderson, Chris Anderson, Noga Arikha, Scott Atran, Mahzarin R. Banaji, Albert-László Barabási, Simon Baron-Cohen, Samuel Barondes, Thomas A. Bass, Yochai Benkler, Jesse Bering, Jamshed Bharucha, Nick Bilton, Sue Blackmore, Paul Bloom, Giulio Boccaletti, Stefano Boeri, Lera Boroditsky, Nick Bostrom, Stewart Brand, John Brockman, Rodney Brooks, David M. Buss, Jason Calacanis, William Calvin, Philip Campbell, Nicholas Carr, Sean Carroll, Leo Chalupa, Nicholas Christakis, George Church, Andy Clark, June Cohen, Tony Conrad, Douglas Coupland, James Croak, M. Csikszentmihalyi, Fiery Cushman, David Dalrymple, Richard Dawkins, Aubrey De Grey, Stanislas Dehaene, Daniel Dennett, Emanuel Derman, Keith Devlin, Peter Diamandis, Chris DiBona, Eric Drexler, Jesse Dylan, Esther Dyson, George Dyson, David Eagleman, Olafar Eliasson, Brian Eno, Juan Enriquez, Daniel Everett, Paul Ewald, Hu Fang, Christine Finn, Eric Fischl, Helen Fisher, W. Tecumseh Fitch, Richard Foreman, Fabrizo Gallanti, Howard Gardner, David Gelernter, Neil Gershenfeld, Ralph Gibson, Gerd Gigerenzer, Ian & Joel Gold, Nigel Goldenfeld, Alison Gopnik, April Gornik, Joshua Greene, Haim Harari, Judith Rich Harris, Sam Harris, Daniel Haun, Marc Hauser, Marti Hearst, Virginia Heffernan, W. Daniel Hillis, Donald Hoffman, Bruce Hood, Nick Isaac, Xeni Jardin, Paul Kedrosky, Kevin Kelly, Jon Kleinberg, Brian Knutson, Terence Koh, Stephen Kosslyn, Kai Krause, Andrian Kreye, Jaron Lanier, Joseph LeDoux, Andrew Lih, Seth Lloyd, Gary Marcus, Lynn Margulis, John Markoff, Marissa Mayer, Tom McCarthy, Jonas Mekas, Thomas Metzinger, Geoffrey Miller, Dave Morin, Evgevny Morozov, David Myers, Tor Nørretranders, Hans Ulrich Obrist, James O'Donnell, Tim O'Reilly, Gloria Origgi, Neri Oxman, Mark Pagel, Gregory Paul, Irene Pepperberg, Clifford Pickover, Stuart Pimm, Steven Pinker, Ernst Pöppel, Emily Pronin, Robert Provine, Steve Quartz, Lisa Randall, Raqs Media Collective, Martin Rees, Ed Regis, Howard Rheingold, Matt Ridley, Matthew Ritchie, Rudy Rucker, Douglas Rushkoff, Karl Sabbagh, Paul Saffo, Scott D. Sampson, Larry Sanger, Robert Sapolsky, Roger Schank, Peter Schwartz, Charles Seife, Terrence Sejnowski, Robert Shapiro, Michael Shermer, Clay Shirky, Barry Smith, Laurence Smith, Lee Smolin, Galia Solomonoff, Linda Stone, Seirian Sumner, Tom Standage, Victoria Stodden, Nassim Taleb, Timothy Taylor, Max Tegmark, Frank Tipler, Fred Tomaselli, John Tooby, Arnold Trehub, Sherry Turkle, Eric Weinstein, Ai Weiwei, Frank Wilczek, Ian Wilmut, Eva Wisten, Richard Saul Wurman, Anton Zeilinger."--Edge.org.

Examines the way the Internet has affected society and the way people think and poses the title question to various writers, author, actors, and thinkers who contribute short essays on the subject.

Preface: the edge question / by John Brockman -- Introduction: the dawn of entaglement / by W. Daniel Hillis -- The bookless library / Nicholas Carr -- The invisible college / Clay Shirky -- Net gain / Richard Dawkins -- Let us calculate / Frank Wilczek -- The waking dream / Kevin Kelly -- To dream the waking dream in new ways / Richard Saul Wurman -- Tweet me nice / Ian Gold and Joel Gold -- The dazed state / Richard Foreman -- What's missing here? / Matthew Ritchie -- Power corrupts / Daniel C. Dennett -- The rediscovery of fire / Chris Anderson -- The rise of social media is really a reprise / June Cohen -- The internet and the loss of tranquility / Noga Arikha -- The greatest detractor to serious thinking since television / Leo Chalupa -- The large information Collider, BDTs, and gravity holidays on Tuesdays / Paul Kedrosky -- The web helps us see what isn't there / Eric Drexler -- Knowledge without, focus within, people everywhere / David Dalrymple -- A level playing field / Martin Rees -- Move aside, sex / Seth Lloyd -- Rivaling Gutenberg / John Tooby -- The shoulders of giants / William Calvin -- Brain candy and bad mathematics / Mark Pegel -- Publications can perish / Robert Shapiro -- Will the great leveler destroy diversity of thought? / Frank J. Tipler -- We have become hunter-gatherers of images and information / Lee Smolin -- The human texture of information / Jon Kleinberg -- Not at all / Steven Pinker -- This is your brain on internet / Terrence Sejnowski -- The sculpting of human thought / Donald Hoffman -- What kind of dumb question is that? / Andy Clark -- Public dreaming / Thomas Metzinger -- The age of (quantum) information? / Anton Zeilinger -- Edge, A to Z (pars pro toto) / Hans Ulrich Obrist --

The degradation of predictability - and knowledge / Nassim N. Taleb -- Calling you on your crap / Sean Carroll -- How I think about how I think / Lera Boroditsky -- I am not exactly a thinking person - I am a poet / Jonas Mekas -- Kayaks versus canoes / George Dyson -- The upload has begun / Sam Harris -- Hell if I know / Gregory Paul -- What I notice / Brian Eno -- It's not what you know, it's what you can find out / Marissa Mayer -- When I'm on the net, I start to think / Ai Weiwei -- The internet has become boring / Andrian Kreye -- The dumb butler / Joshua Greene -- Finding stuff remains a challenge / Philip Campbell -- Attention, crap detection, and network awareness / Howard Rheingold -- Information metabolism / Esther Dyson -- Ctrl + click to follow link / George Church -- Replacing experience with facsimile / Eric Fischl and April Gornik -- Outsourcing the mind / Gerd Gigerenzer -- A prehistorian's perspective / Timothy Taylor -- The fourth phase of homo sapiens / Scott Atran -- Transience is now permanence / Douglas Coupland -- A return to the Scarlet Letter Savanna / Jesse Bering -- Take love / Helen Fisher -- Internet mating strategies / David M. Buss -- Internet society / Robert R. Provine -- Don't ring me / Aubrey De Grey -- A thousand hours a year / Simon Baron-Cohen -- Thinking like the internet, thinking like biology / Nigel Goldenfeld -- The internet makes me think in the present tense / Douglas Rushkoff -- Social prosthetic systems / Stephen M. Kosslyn -- Evolving a global brain / W. Tecumseh Fitch -- Search and emergence / Rudy Rucker --

My fingers have become part of my brain / James O'Donnell -- A mirror for the world's foibles / John Markoff -- A completely new form of sense / Terence Koh -- By changing my behavior / Seirian Sumner -- There is no new self / Nicholas A. Christakis -- I once was lost but now am found, or how to navigate in the chartroom of memory / Neri Oxman -- The greatest pornographer / Alun Anderson -- My sixth sense / Albert-Laśzló Barabási -- The internet reifies a logic already there / Tom McCarthy -- Instant gratification / Peter H. Diamandis -- The internet as social amplifier / David G. Myers -- Navigating physical and virtual lives / Linda Stone -- Not everything or everyone in the world has a home on the internet / Barry C. Smith -- Ephemera and back again / Chris Dibona -- What do we think about? Who gets to do the thinking? / Evgeny Morozov -- The internet is a cultural form / Virginia Heffernan -- Wallowing in the world of knowledge / Peter Schwartz -- One's guild / Steward Brand -- Trusting nothing, debate everything / Jason Calacanis -- Harmful one-liners, an ocean of facts, and rewired minds / Haim Harari -- What other people think / Marti Hearst -- The extinction of experience / Scott D. Sampson -- The collective nature of human intelligence / Matt Ridley -- Six ways the internet may save civilization / David eagleman -- Better neuroxing through the internet / Samuel Barondes -- A gift to conspirators and terrorists everywhere / Marcel Kinsbourne -- The ant hill / Eva Wisten -- I can make a difference because of the internet / Bruce Hood --

Go virtual, young man / Eric Weinstein -- My internet mind / Thomas A. Bass -- "If you have cancer, don't go on the internet" / Karl Sabbagh -- Incomprehensible visitors from the technological future / Alison Gopnik -- "Go native" / Howard Gardner -- The maximization of neoteny / Jaron Lanier -- Wisdom of the crowd / Keith Devlin -- Weirdness of the crowd / Robert Sapolsky -- The synchronization of minds / Jamshed Bharucha -- My judgment enhancer / Geoffrey Miller -- Speed plus mobs / Alan Alda -- Repetition, availability, and truth / Daniel Haun -- The armed truce / Irene M. Pepperberg -- More efficient, but to what end? / Emanuel Derman -- I have outsourced my memory / Charles Seife -- The new balance: more processing, less memorization / Fiery Cushman -- The enemy of insight? / Anthony Aguirre -- The joy of just-enoughness / Judith Rich Harris -- The rise of internet prosthetic brains and soliton personhood / Clifford Pickover -- Immortality / Juan Enriquez -- A third replicator / Susan Blackmore -- Bells and smoke / Christine Finn -- Dare, care, and share / Tor Nørretranders -- Getting close / Stuart Pimm -- A miracle and a curse / Ed Regis -- "The plural of anecdote is not data" / Lisa Randall -- Collective action and the global commons / Giulio Boccaletti -- Informed, tightfisted, and synthetic / Laurence C. Smith -- Massive collaboration / Andrew Lih -- We know less about thinking than we think / Steven R. Quartz -- An impenetrable machine / Emily Pronin -- A question without an answer / Tony Conrad -- Conceptual compasses for deeper generalists / Paul W. Ewald -- Art making going rural / James Croak -- The cat is out of the bag / Max Tegmark -- Everyone is an expert / Roger Schank --

Pioneering insights / Neil Gershenfeld -- Thinking in the Amazon / Daniel L. Everett -- The virtualization of the universe / David Gelernter -- Information-provoked attention deficit disorder / Rodney Brooks -- Present versus future self / Brian Knutson -- I am realizing how nice people can be / Paul Bloom -- My perception of time / Marina Abramović -- The rotating problem, or how I learned to accelerate my mental clock / Stanislas Dehaene -- I must confess to being perplexed / Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi -- Taking on the habits of the scientist, the investigative reporter, and the media critic / Yochai Benkler -- Thinking as therapy in a world of too much / Ernst Pöppel -- Internet is wind / Stefano Boeri -- Of knowledge, content, place, and space / Galia Solomonoff -- The power of conversation / Gloria Origgi -- A real-time perpetual time capsule / Nick Bilton -- Getting from Jack Kerouac to the pentatonic scale / Jesse Dylan -- A vehicle for large-scale education about the human mind / Mahzarin R. Banaji -- Sandbars and portages / Tim O'Reilly -- No one is immune to the storms that shake the world / Raqs Media Collective -- Dowsing through data / Xeni Jardin -- Bleat for youself / Larry Sanger.