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We are Big Idea Hunters…

We live in a time of information abundance, which far too many of us see as information overload. With the sum total of human knowledge, past and present, at our fingertips, we’re faced with a crisis of attention: which ideas should we engage with, and why? Big Think is an evolving roadmap to the best thinking on the planet — the ideas that can help you think flexibly and act decisively in a multivariate world.

A word about Big Ideas and Themes — The architecture of Big Think

Big ideas are lenses for envisioning the future. Every article and video on bigthink.com and on our learning platforms is based on an emerging “big idea” that is significant, widely relevant, and actionable. We’re sifting the noise for the questions and insights that have the power to change all of our lives, for decades to come. For example, reverse-engineering is a big idea in that the concept is increasingly useful across multiple disciplines, from education to nanotechnology.

Themes are the seven broad umbrellas under which we organize the hundreds of big ideas that populate Big Think. They include New World Order, Earth and Beyond, 21st Century Living, Going Mental, Extreme Biology, Power and Influence, and Inventing the Future.

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Browse videos featuring experts across a wide range of disciplines, from personal health to business leadership to neuroscience.

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World Renowned Bloggers

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Big Think’s contributors offer expert analysis of the big ideas behind the news.

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Big Think Edge

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Big Think’s Edge learning platform for career mentorship and professional development provides engaging and actionable courses delivered by the people who are shaping our future.

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21st Century Spirituality Posts

Redefining Spirituality and Debunking Magical Thinking In the Modern Age

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21st Century Spirituality

The Weird Pride in Gun Ownership

Bt-pride-guns
4 months ago

Arguably the most dangerous of the seven deadly sins, pride acts like the invisible center of the wheel of transgression in which the other six revolve. Inextricably entwined in cases of wrath, lust, greed, sloth, envy and gluttony, humanity’s boastful nature has forced commentators to say plenty ...

21st Century Spirituality

Spiritual, Not Religious

Bt-spiritual
4 months ago

One of the more ubiquitous statements that has emerged over the last decade, ‘Spiritual, Not Religious’ is a self-affirming antidote to the traditional trappings of religion, the archaic and inflexible (and at times invented) demands of doctrine sometimes associated with Christianity, Judaism and ...

21st Century Spirituality

The Art of Loneliness

Bt-art-of-loneliness
5 months ago

Humans experience joy in a multitude of ways, yet the varied forms of suffering—death, divorce, separation—return to one root principle: loss. What drives the fear of loss is something far more frightening, a state of being which religions and spiritual practices have been attempting to combat ...

21st Century Spirituality

Yoga as a Political Tool

Shutterstock_yoga-politics
6 months ago

In one of his many humorous asides on Real Time earlier this year, Bill Maher got into a discussion about Eastern spirituality and made the claim, ‘Yoga is just stretching.’ While talking about the many connotations often attached to yoga in our culture, his assessment, as much as it made me laugh ...

21st Century Spirituality

The Science of Reincarnation?

Shutterstock_58356988
7 months ago

In general, I avoid free literature thrown my way on subways and street corners. Recently passing by a stack of cheaply printed books while leaving Samosa House in Culver City, one caught my eye: Coming Back: The Science of Reincarnation. I pocketed a copy and walked through the door, interested to ...

21st Century Spirituality

The Wisdom of Insecurity

Shutterstock_86506786
7 months ago

Security is perhaps the most well-known illusion human beings have contrived. From the cursory seduction of emotional stability to the wrathful manifestation of raging armies, the painful longing for complete ease blankets our species. Somewhere along our evolutionary trail the quest for safety ...