Introduction : the new humanists / by John Brockman -- Part I. Homo sapiens: A new scientific synthesis of human history / Jared Diamond -- A biological understanding of human nature / Steven Pinker -- Getting human nature right / Helena Cronin -- Natural born cyborgs? / Andy Clark -- Animal minds / Marc D. Hauser -- The evolution of cooking / Richard Wrangham -- The computational perspective / Daniel C. Dennett -- What shape are a German shepherd's ears? / Stephen M. Kosslyn -- Part II. Machina sapiens?: Software is a cultural solvent / Jordan B. Pollack The second coming: a manifesto / David Gelernter -- Making living systems / Rodney Brooks -- Making minds / Hans Moravec -- Quantum computation / David Deutsch -- What comes after minds? / Marvin Minsky -- The singularity / Ray Kurzweil -- One half a manifesto / Jared Lanier -- Part III. Evolving universes ... : How fast, how small, and how powerful? Moore's law and the ultimate laptop / Seth Lloyd -- A golden age of cosmology / Alan Guth -- The cyclic universe / Paul Steinhardt -- Theories of the brane / Lisa Randall -- Loop quantum gravity / Lee Smolin -- A look ahead / Martin Rees -- Epilogue. Responses to "The new humanists": Nicholas Humphrey, Jaron Lanier, Joseph LeDoux, John Horgan, Timothy Taylor, Carlo Rovelli, Steven Johnson, Lee Smolin, Douglas Rushkoff, Piet Hut, Marc D. Hauser, Mihalyi Csikzentmihalyi, Denis Dutton, Daniel C. Dennett, Howard Rheingold, Chris Anderson.