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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If one religion does indeed have a monopoly on the truth than how do we know which one? It’s like playing Russian roulette with only one empty chamber, and the stakes couldn’t be higher, the fate of each everlasting soul is on the line. How does one choose? How did you choose? or did you allow ...
How would a christian convert a muslim? Or to put it in more chrisitan terms, how would you go about saving the soul of a muslim? Say you discovered the man/woman you loved, or, god forbid, you’re your own child, had joined islam, how would you save them from eternal torment? How would you go ...
Not sure if any of you have seen his video on consciousness and free will ( http://bigthink.com/ideas/daniel-dennett-explains-consciousness-and-free-will ), but Dennett says he believes humans possess free will. Though I share his belief, his reasoning seems circumspect. What do you think about it ...
Well we all know that it is impossible to prove a negative, but at what point can one argue that so many of the core attributes of an individual are inaccurate or impossible that the traditional understanding of that individual is no longer valid. If we were to learn that Christopher Marlowe was ...
I saw Bill Maher's documentary Religulous on Friday and I loved it. The girl who was sitting next to me, a Catholic, was very offended and became teary eyed afterwards when talking about it. I was wondering what anyone else thought about the movie. I agree almost completely with Maher, an anti ...