Big Ideas Reading Group
In early 2009, a Mensa reading group began meeting,
with the theme of big ideas.
The current meeting location
is
Le Boulanger, 20488 Stevens Creek Blvd., Cupertino, CA 95014.
Le Boulanger is at the southeast corner of De Anza and Stevens Creek in Cupertino, in front of the Cypress Hotel, with plenty of free garage parking.
We meet the second Saturday of the month, 3:30-6pm.
All are welcome to attend.
Each book is selected by the group at least a month in advance.
Members are encouraged to read the book before the meeting.
The format is open discussion,
with just enough moderation to assure
everyone gets a fair chance to share.
Our book list is below.
We use this email list for
announcements and some discussion.
Contact
.
- The Next Fifty Years: Science in the First Half of the 21st
Century, edited by John Brockman
- Conversations on Consciousness, a collection of interviews
conducted by Susan Blackmore
- Decoding the Universe by Charles Seife
- The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human
Intelligence, by Ray Kurzweil
- Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, by Daniel
Dennett
- Unweaving the Rainbow by Richard Dawkins
- How We Believe by Michael Shermer
- Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever by Ray
Kurzweil and Terry Grossman
- 12-12-2009 The Political Mind by George Lakoff
- 01-16-2010 Descartes Error:Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain by Antonio
Damasio
- 02-13-2010 The Monty Hall Problem: The Remarkable Story of Math's Most
Contentious Brain Teaser, by Jason Rosenhouse
- 03-13-2010 Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes
- 04-10-2010 Don't Believe Everything You Think: The 6 Basic Mistakes We Make
in Thinking, by Thomas Kida
- 05-08-2010 The Intelligent Universe, by James Gardner
- 06-12-2010 How We Decide, by Jonah Lehrer
- 07-10-2010 The Greatest Show On Earth: The Evidence for
Evolution, by Richard Dawkins
- 08-14-2010 Quantum Evolution, by Johnjoe McFadden
- 09-11-2010 Introducing Evolutionary Psychology, by Dylan Evans and Oscar Zarate
- 10-09-2010 If the Universe Is Teeming with Aliens... Where Is Everybody?
Fifty Solutions to Fermi's Paradox and the Problem of Extraterrestrial
Life, by Stephen Webb
- 11-13-2010 Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell
- 12-11-2010 The Faith Instinct: How Religion Evolved & Why It Endures, by
Nicholas Wade.
- 01-08-2011 Visions, by Michio Kaku
- 02-12-2011 Fabric of Reality, by David Deutsch
- 03-12-2011 (no March meeting)
- 04-02-2011 Godel, Escher, Bach, by Douglas Hofstadter
- 05-14-2011 Godel, Escher, Bach, by Douglas Hofstadter
- 06-11-2011 The Grand Design by Hawking and Mlodinow
- 07-09-2011 Unbounding the Future: The Nanotechnology Revolution by Drexler, Peterson, and Pegamit.
- 08-13-2011 Beyond AI, by J. Storrs Hall
- 09-10-2011 Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos,
by M. Mitchell Waldrop
- 10-08-2011 Guesstimation: Solving the World's Problems on the Back of A Cocktail Napkin, by Lawrence Weinstein
- 11-12-2011 Ending Aging: The Rejuvenation Breakthroughs that Could Reverse Human Aging in Our Lifetime, by Aubrey de Gray
- 12-10-2011 Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe, by Peter D. Ward & Donald Brownlee
- 01-14-2012 Physics for Future Presidents, by Richard Muller
- 02-11-2012 The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love,
Character, and Achievment, by David Brooks
- 03-10-2012 The War of Worldviews--Science vs Spirituality,
by Leonard Mlodinow with Deepak Chopra
- 04-14-2012 The Clock of the Long Now: Time and Responsibility. The ideas Behind the World's Slowest Computer, by Stewart Brand
- 05-12-2012 The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World by David Deutsch
- 06-16-2012 NOTE date change Truth: A Guide, by Simon Blackburn
- 07-14-2012 Do Not Go Gentle, Book One, Discovery [book one of three], by Mark Millstorm (Muhlestein).
Mark is a member of our group.
This is his new book that has just came out on Kindle.
You can download a free copy of Kindle and then download the book at $0.99.
- 08-11-2012 Too Big to Know: Rethinking Knowledge Now That the Facts Aren't the Facts, Experts Are Everywhere, and the Smartest Person in the Room Is the Room, by David Weinberger
- 09-08-2012 Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
- 10-13-2012 Knocking on Heaven's Door: How Physics and Scientific Thinking Illuminate the Universe and the Modern World, by Lisa Randall
- 11-10-2012 The Evolution of Cooperation (Revised Edition) by Robert Axelrod with forward by Richard Dawkins
An expanded book list has
a brief description of some of the books.
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