Jason Silva Recommended Books

“Startling in scope and bravado.” —Janet Maslin, The New York Times“Artfully envisions a breathtakingly better world.” — Los Angeles Times“Elaborate, smart and persuasive.” — The Boston Globe“A pleasure to read.” — The Wall Street JournalOne of CBS News ’s Best Fall Books of 2005 • Among St Louis Post-Dispatch ’s Best Nonfiction Books of 2005 • One of Amazon.com’s Best Science Books of 2005A radical and optimistic view of the future course of human development from t he bestselling author of How to Create a Mind and The Singularity is Nearer who Bill Gates calls “the best person I know at predicting the future of artificial intelligence”For over three decades, Ray Kurzweil has been one of the most respected and provocative advocates of the role of technology in our future. In his classic The Age of Spiritual Machines , he argued that computers would soon rival the full range of human intelligence at its best. Now he examines the next step in this inexorable evolutionary the union of human and machine, in which the knowledge and skills embedded in our brains will be combined with the vastly greater capacity, speed, and knowledge-sharing ability of our creations.

Winner of the Pulitzer prize in 1974 and the culmination of a life's work, The Denial of Death is Ernest Becker's brilliant and impassioned answer to the "why" of human existence. In bold contrast to the predominant Freudian school of thought, Becker tackles the problem of the vital lie -- man's refusal to acknowledge his own mortality. In doing so, he sheds new light on the nature of humanity and issues a call to life and its living that still resonates more than twenty years after its writing.

"It is time to kill death." Alan Harrington "THE IMMORTALIST is remarkably bold, ingenious, profoundly and intentionally shocking, utterly diabolical ... Harrington has hold of something absolutely central in human existence." Book World "I'm obliged to report with a certain awe and dismay that Mr. Harrington may have written the most important book of our time. The book is splendid and the attacks on it will be bitter, but he is right, and if the human race proves not to be suicidal—a moot point—he will have been one of the first new cartographers." Gore Vidal "What we don't seem to realize, says Harrington, is that science has in recent years brought us very close to the death of death ... He suggests a crash program to make immortality a reality ... A serious, visionary book by a desperately earnest man. He has gone way, way out, but then so has the world in which we live. Since we are presently committed to some serious tinkering with that world we ought at least to consider tinkering at the level he suggests." Harper's Magazine

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TechGnosis is a cult classic of media studies that straddles the line between academic discourse and popular culture; it appeals to both those secular and spiritual, to fans of cyberpunk and hacker literature and culture as much as new-thought adherents and spiritual seekers. How does our fascination with technology intersect with the religious imagination? In TechGnosis—a cult classic now updated and reissued with a new afterword—Erik Davis argues that while the realms of the digital and the spiritual may seem worlds apart, esoteric and religious impulses have in fact always permeated (and sometimes inspired) technological communication. Davis uncovers startling connections between such seemingly disparate topics as electricity and alchemy; online roleplaying games and religious and occult practices; virtual reality and gnostic mythology; programming languages and Kabbalah. The final chapters address the apocalyptic dreams that haunt technology, providing vital historical context as well as new ways to think about a future defined by the mutant intermingling of mind and machine, nightmare and fantasy.

From the author of the New York Times bestseller The Inevitable — a sweeping vision of technology as a living force that can expand our individual potential In this provocative book, one of today's most respected thinkers turns the conversation about technology on its head by viewing technology as a natural system, an extension of biological evolution. By mapping the behavior of life, we paradoxically get a glimpse at where technology is headed-or "what it wants." Kevin Kelly offers a dozen trajectories in the coming decades for this near-living system. And as we align ourselves with technology's agenda, we can capture its colossal potential. This visionary and optimistic book explores how technology gives our lives greater meaning and is a must-read for anyone curious about the future.

A fascinating deep dive on innovation from the New York Times bestselling author of How We Got To Now and FarsightedThe printing press, the pencil, the flush toilet, the battery--these are all great ideas. But where do they come from? What kind of environment breeds them? What sparks the flash of brilliance? How do we generate the breakthrough technologies that push forward our lives, our society, our culture? Steven Johnson's answers are revelatory as he identifies the seven key patterns behind genuine innovation, and traces them across time and disciplines. From Darwin and Freud to the halls of Google and Apple, Johnson investigates the innovation hubs throughout modern time and pulls out the approaches and commonalities that seem to appear at moments of originality.

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