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From: John Brockman < INIMI> To: Jeffrey Epstein Subject: This year's Edge Master Class Date: Fri, 05 Jun 2009 16:53:22 +0000 JE, Interested in backing this year's event?? JB this weekend Eastover Farm To: Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com Stewart Brand, Long Now Foundation Sergey Brin, Google John Brockman, Edge Foundation, Inc. Jason Calacanis, Mahalo Steve Case, Revolution Health George Church, Harvard Medical School Freeman Dyson, Princeton University George Dyson, Science Historian Tony Fadell, Apple Computer Bill Gates, Gates Foundation W. Daniel Hillis, Applied Minds Bill Joy, Kleiner Perkins Daniel Kahneman, Princeton University Salar Kamangar, Google Dean Kamen, Deka Research Katinka Matson, Edge Foundation, Inc. Elon Musk, Tesla Motors, SpaceX Nathan Myhrvold, Intellectual Venture, LLC Pierre Omidyar, Omidyar Network Larry Page, Google Sean Parker, Founders Fund; Causes; Facebook Jean Pigozzi Nick Pritzker Jacqui Safra Charles Simonyi, Intentsoft Jeff Skoll, Participant Media Richard Thaler, University of Chicago J. Craig Venter, J. Craig Venter Institute Jimmy Wales, Wikimedia Foundation Evan Williams, Twitter Mark 2uckerberg, Facebook I am pleased to invite you to attend and participate in the 2009 EDGE Master Class which will be in Los Angeles during a July or August weekend (to be determined). Other than handling your own hotel and transportation arrangements, you are the guest of Edge Foundation, Inc. There are no charges. Rather than the resort experience of the last two years, this year we we plan to move around. Both Elon Musk at SpaceX and Danny Hillis at Applied Minds have offered to host the class, so I suggest finding a hotel midway between the two in Beverly Hills (such as the Bel Air or the Beverly Hills Hotel), and busing the group to SpaceX on Saturday and EFTA00775440 Applied Minds on Sunday. This year, rather than focus on one person or one subject, I suggest some variety, perhaps as many as four full presentations: Saturday morning and afternoon; Sunday morning and afternoon. Here are some ideas: --Brian Arthur has offered to teach a class on the subject of his forthcoming book, "The Nature of Technology". Here are the page proofs as a downloadable link: https://www.brockman.com/Projects/Books/2009/Arthur_Technology/Arthur_Technology.pdf And here's a pre-publication blurbs from Richard Rhodes: "Brian Arthur's brilliantly original analysis of how technology develops and evolves reminds me of Euclid's Geometry -- it's clear, simple and seemingly self-evident now that a master has spent years working it out. The Nature of Technology is a seminal work, thrilling to read and rich in implications for business as well as engineering and the social sciences." --During the TED Conference Danny Hillis suggested that every year we should assign a topic to Nathan Myhrvold, who, according to Danny, would do a better job at presenting than most of the experts in any given field. In this regard, I am reminded that my friend, the late Sidney Coleman, known as the physicists physicist, gave the annual talk in Italy at a physics conference on the state of the field. At the time, Nathan said he was up to the challenge. I have since run the idea by Martin Rees, president of the Royal Society and the world's preeminent cosmologist. Martin said he would come and serve as Nathan's assistant. --There are a number of top people in and near LA, among them Ramachandran, Jared Diamond, Mihalyi Csikzentmyhalyi, Marco Iacoboni (frmi). Any one of them, schedule permitting, would be pleased to come and teach a class. And, of course, there are Elon Musk and Danny Hillis. The hard part is to find an optimal weekend. And I've yet to come across an algorithm that can deal handle this. For startersm I suggest either the weekend of Sat-Sunday, July 18-19 or 25-26. So (A) please send me an email letting me know if you would like to attend, and if so (B) send the dates of weekends that work for you. Also, please let me know what you think about the programming ideas above. Finally, for those of you who have yet to attend an EDGE Master Class, below you will find some background and links to text, photos, and videos from the 2007 and 2008 events. Hope to see you. Best, JB this weekend John Brockman Edge Foundation, Inc. 5 East 59th Street New York, NY 10022 tel: fax: 212.935.5535 http://www.edge.org ABOUT THE EDGE MASTER CLASS The Master Class is the most recent iteration of Edge's development, which began its EFTA00775441 activities under than name "The Reality Club" in 1981. Edge's is different from The Algonquin, The Apostles, The Bloomsbury Group, or The Club, but it offers the same quality of intellectual adventure. The closest resemblances are to The Invisible College and the Lunar Society of Birmingham. The early seventeenth-century Invisible College was a precursor to the Royal Society. Its members consisted of scientists such as Robert Boyle, John Wallis, and Robert Hooke. The Society's common theme was to acquire knowledge through experimental investigation. Another example is the nineteenth-century Lunar Society of Birmingham, an informal club of the leading cultural figures of the new industrial age -- James Watt, Erasmus Darwin, Josiah Wedgewood, Joseph Priestly, and Benjamin Franklin. In a similar fashion, Edge's, through its Master Classes, gathers together intellectuals and technology pioneers. In this regard, George Dyson, in his summary (below) of the second day of the proceedings, writes: Retreating to the luxury of Sonoma to discuss economic theory in mid-2008 conveys images of Fiddling while Rome Burns. Do the architects of Microsoft, Amazon, Google, PayPal, and Facebook have anything to teach the behavioral economists--and anything to learn? So what? What's new?? As it turns out, all kinds of things are new. Entirely new economic structures and pathways have come into existence in the past few years. Indeed, as Erling Norrby, former Secretary of the Nobel committee, noted, the weekend, it was "a remarkable gathering of outstanding minds. These are the people that are rewriting our global culture". 2007 A SHORT COURSE IN THINKING ABOUT THINKING Edge Master Class 07 DANIEL KAHNEMAN Auberge du Soleil, Rutherford, CA, July 20-22, 2007 http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/kahneman07/kahneman07_index.html LIFE: WHAT A CONCEPT! An Edge Special Event at Eastover Farm, August 27, 2007 FREEMAN DYSON, J. CRAIG VENTER, GEORGE CHURCH, ROBERT SHAPIRO, DIMITAR SASSELOV, SETH LLOYD http://www.edge.org/documents/life/life_index.html 2008 A SHORT COURSE IN BEHAVIORAL ECONOMICS Edge Master Class 2008 RICHARD THALER, SENDHIL MULLAINATHAN, DANIEL KAHNEMAN Sonoma, CA, July 25-27, 2008 http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/thaler_sendhil08/thaler_sendhil_index.html = EFTA00775442