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From: John Brockman ________________________ 
Sent: 12/31/2010 6:23:47 PM 
To: Jeffrey Epstein [jeevacation@gmail.com] 
Subject: Edge Question 2011 - An Invitation 
Importance: High 
"Deliciously creative.., the variety astonishes...intellectual skyrockets of stunning brilliance. Nobody 
in the world is doing what Edge is doing." Denis Dutton, ARTS & LETTERS DAILY 
THE WORLD QUESTION CENTER 
James Flynn has defined "shorthand abstractions" (or "sHA's") as concepts drawn from science that have 
become part of the language and make people smarter by providing widely applicable templates ("market", 
"placebo", "random sample," "naturalistic fallacy," are a few of his examples). His idea is that the 
abstraction is available as a single cognitive chunk which can be used as an element in thinking and 
debate. 
The Edge Question 2011 
WHAT SCIENTIFIC CONCEPT WOULD IMPROVE EVERYBODY'S COGNITIVE TOOLKIT? 
The term 'scientific"is to be understood in a broad sense as the most reliable way of gaining knowledge 
about anything, whether it be the human spirit, the role of great people in history, or the structure of 
DNA. A "scientific concept" may come from philosophy, logic, economics, jurisprudence, or other analytic 
enterprises, as long as it is a rigorous conceptual tool that may be summed up succinctly (or "in a 
phrase") but has broad application to understanding the world. 
[Thanks to Steven Pinker for suggesting this year's EDGE Question and to Daniel Kahneman for advice on 
its presentation.] 
In Memoriam 
DENIS DUTTON 
1944-2010 
Last year, the 2010 EDGE Question, "How Is The Internet Changing The Way You Think?" 
(http://www.edge.org/q2010/q10_index.html), generated 172 essays (132,000 words) and received global 
press attention. 
To date, the following have already responded to the 2011 EDGE Question: Clifford Pickover, Rudy 
Rucker,sean Carroll, Gino Segre, Jason Zweig, Dylan Evans, Steven Pinker, martin Seligman, Gerald Holton, 
Robert Provine, Nassim N. Taleb, R

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