Danny Hillis, physicist and computer scientist, brings together, in full circle, many of the ideas circulating among third culture thinkers: Marvin Minsky's society of mind; Christopher G. Langton's artificial life; Richard Dawkins' gene's-eye view; the plectics practiced at Santa Fe. Hillis developed the algorithms that made possible the massively parallel computer. He began in physics and then went into computer science — where he revolutionized the field — and he brought his algorithms to bear on the study of evolution. He sees the autocatalytic effect of fast computers, which lets us design better and faster computers faster, as analogous to the evolution of intelligence. At MIT in the late seventies, Hillis built his "connection machine," a computer that makes use of integrated circuits and, in its parallel operations, closely reflects the workings of the human mind. In 1983, he spun off a computer company called Thinking Machines, which set out to build the world's fastest supercomputer by utilizing parallel architecture.

The massively parallel computational model is critical to an understanding of today's revolution in human communication. Hillis's computers, which are fast enough to simulate the process of evolution itself, have shown that programs of random instructions can, by competing, produce new generations of programs — an approach that may well lead to the first machine that truly "thinks." Hillis's work demonstrates that when systems are not engineered but instead allowed to evolve — to build themselves — then the resultant whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Simple entities working together produce some complex thing that transcends them; the implications for biology, engineering, and physics are enormous.

Burda has the discipline of Germany but he also has certain qualities that Powerful Germany may not have respected in the past. He is stirring the pot, bringing people together, searching for new ideas, making things happen. When he meets talented people he brings them into his network, combines them into his mix. This is his discipline. This is his power. In addition to new people, he attracts new ideas, brings fruitful chaos to a world of certainty, shakes things up, and makes a mess out of the old order, the old way of thinking. Science (and the technology that follows) does not have to be beautiful or pure. Things do not need to be symmetrical or deducible from first principles. That esthetic, a great motivating force in science since Plato, is over. The sciences of complexity, which are the hallmark of the third culture, can be very messy. Out of chaos comes creativity. Hubert Burda is Germany's agent of change.

HUBERT BURDA is Chairman of the Board of Hubert Burda Media Holding. Under his leadership Burda Publishing, which was consolidated into Hubert Burda Media Holding in 1995, has grown into one of the most powerful and innovative media enterprises in Germany. With 4,400 employees, annual revenue in excess of DM 2.07 billion for 1998, the group's main areas are in publishing, printing and new media. The company is divided into 26 independent profit centers and has close to 30 different publications. Burda's strategy has been to develop international alliances with publishing companies including Hachette (Paris), RCS Rizzoli (Milano) and Dogan (Turkey). His work is best known through the publication of such titles as Focus, Bunte, Elle, Freundin, Das Haus and Freizeit Revue.

In the middle of the nineties, Burda developed his vision of interactive electronic media.Today, Hubert Burda Media is the biggest provider of German language Internet content, which includes the #1 and #2 Web sites in the German language: Focus Online and Haus & Garten, as well as the business-to-business service Health Online Service for medical practitioners. Recent Burda initiatives include a number of innovative, wholly owned Internet startups including TalkingWeb, Interactive Content Production (ICP) and Cyberlab, as well as investments in Heimwerker.de, OnVista, JustBooks and Ciao.

Hubert Burda's Edge Bio Page

[Simultaneously published in German by Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung — Frank Schirrmacher, Publisher.]

Introduction
By John Brockman

On May 23rd, the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung published Frank Schirrmacher's manifesto "Wake-Up Call for Europe Tech", in which he calls for Europe to adopt the ideas of the third culture. "Europe," he writes, "should be more than just a source for the software of ego crisis, loss of identity, despair, and Western melancholy. We should be helping write the code for tomorrow."

Schirrmacher is a publisher of the newspaper, and his manifesto, a call to arms, is the beginning of a effort byFAZ to publish articles by and about third culture thinkers and their work. His goal: to change the culture of the newspaper and to begin a process of change in Germany and Europe.

Schirrmacher's program, a departure for FAZ, has been covered in the German press and has caused a stir in German intellectual circles. FAZ has played an important role in shaping German culture, and that has meant, until now, culture with a capital "C".

In a few short weeks since publication of his manifesto, Schirrmacher has brought the ideas of Bill Joy, Ray Kurzweil, V.S. Ramachandran, Patrick Bateson, James Watson, Craig Venter, among other notable thinkers to the forefront of public discussion in Germany, while also initiating a collaboration between FAZ and Edge, the first product of which was the recent simultaneous publication in English and German of David Gelernter's manifesto, "The Second Coming."

—JB

FRANK SCHIRRMACHER became head of the arts and science department of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, one of the most influential German newspapers . He has been one of the publishers of FAZ since 1994.

Frank Schirrmacher's Edge Bio Page

REALITY CLUB:  George Dyson, Stewart Brand, Sebastian Schnitzenbaumer, Dave Myers, Clifford Pickover, Kai Krause, Jason McCabe Calacanis, Charles Simonyi, Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi, J.C. Herz, Lee Smolin.

I do not make any clear distinction between mind and God. God is what mind becomes when it has passed beyond the scale of our comprehension. God may be either a world-soul or a collection of world-souls. So I am thinking that atoms and humans and God may have minds that differ in degree but not in kind.

Introduction
By John Brockman

On March 22, 2000 the Templeton Foundation announced that physicist Freeman Dyson had won the 2000 Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion. The Templeton Prize, awarded annually "to a living individual for outstanding originality in advancing the world's understanding of God or spirituality, is one of the world's largest monetary awards, this year valued at 600,000 pounds sterling, about $948,000. Created in 1972 by the pioneering global investor Sir John Templeton to remedy what he saw as an oversight by the Nobel Prizes, which do not honor the discipline of religion, the Templeton Prize is always set at an amount that exceeds the value of the Nobels. Previous Templeton Prize recipients include the Rev. Dr. Billy Graham, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Charles Colson, Ian Barbour, Paul Davies, physicist Carl Friedrich von Weizsacker, and Mother Teresa.

The following is the text of Freeman Dyson's acceptance speech on May 16, in the Washington National Cathedral.

-JB

FREEMAN DYSON is professor of physics at the Institute for Advanced Study, in Princeton. His professional interests are in mathematics and astronomy. Among his many books are Disturbing The Universe, Infinite In All Directions Origins Of Life, From Eros To Gaia, Imagined Worlds, and The Sun, The Genome, And The Internet

Click here for Freeman Dyson's Edge Bio page