TED RSS Feed: "Engineers' Dreams": A short story by George Dyson

[RSS FEED-from consistent personal brands]

My RSS Feed is a collection of inspirational Thinkers and Has Just Posted the Following:

Today, Edge 250 publishes a new short story by science historian George Dyson. A born storyteller (watch his TEDTalks on Project Orion and the earliest digital computers), he uses the short story as a persuasive tool -- or so Stewart Brand suggests in his foreword:

How does one come to a new understanding? The standard essay or paper makes a discursive argument, decorated with analogies, to persuade the reader to arrive at the new insight.

The same thing can be accomplished -- perhaps more agreeably, perhaps more persuasively -- with a piece of fiction that shows what would drive a character to come to the new understanding.

It gives nothing away to share this eye-opening line from the story:

Are we searching Google, or is Google searching us?

Read George Dyson's short story, "Engineers' Dreams," on Edge.com >>



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