transgressive, 79–80
artificial intelligence, 124, 227–29
assumptions, flawed, 93–94, 185–86
Austen, Jane, 45
author’s background, 195–97
Avengers: Age of Ultron (film), 227
Axis: Bold as Love (album), 60
Bach, Johann Sebastian, 72
Bachelor, The (TV show), 170
Bailey, F. Lee, 14
Ballers (TV show), 170
Bandwagonesque (album), 92n
Barr, Roseanne, 174–75
Barrett, Deirdre, 138n
Barry, Dave, 233, 234n
Bartlett, Jamie, 37
bat, imagining being a, 254
Baudrillard, Jean, 28
Baxter, Les, 78
Beach, The (Garland), 53
Beatles, 60, 66–68, 75, 84, 161
Bee Gees, 79–80
Beethoven, Ludwig van, 72
being wrong
author’s experiences, 1–2, 237–38
collective conscious, 2, 239
about the future, 252–53
major shifts in beliefs before 1600, 3–7, 98–102
socially detrimental effects of, 239
Being Wrong (Schulz), 10–11
bell curve. See Gaussian curve
Bellamy, Matt, 63–64
Benét, Stephen Vincent, 93
Beowulf, 45
Berlin, Isaiah, 200
Berry, Chuck, 79, 84–86
bias, cultural, 25–27
Bigelow, Kathryn, 152
Bill of Rights, 209–12
bin Laden, Osama, 151–53
Blair, Jayson, 154n
Blake, William, 32
blogging, 231–32
Blue Velvet (film), 166
blues music, 81
Boccherini, Luigi, 73
Bonaparte, Napoleon, 58, 156
Book of Lists, The (Wallechinsky, Wallace, and Wallace), 13
Book of Predictions, The (Wallechinsky, Wallace, and Wallace), 13–15
books
Civil War literature, 22, 155
commercial success of, 27–28
diversity of authors, 25–27
evaluating writers, 22–28, 30–39
extinction of, 19–20
films based on, 53
finding deeper themes of, 47–48
literary canon, 32–33, 47–48
plot vs. tone, 21–22
Borland, Chris, 179–80
Bostrom, Nick, 121–23, 129
Boswell Sisters, 59
bowl games (college football), 192–93
boxing, 187
Boyhood (film), 140
Bridges to Babylon (album), 82
Brod, Max, 35, 38
Brody, Richard, 189
Bryant, Kobe, 188
Buchanan, Pat, 246–48
Burns, Ken, 155
Bush, George W., 197–98
Byrne, David, 68–70
Campbell, Joseph, 74
“Canon Fodder” (GQ column), 242–45
Carey, John, 70
Carlin, Dan, 201–5, 215
Carlin, Lynn, 201
Caro, Robert, 51
Carter, Amy, 79
Catastrophe (TV show), 167
Catholic Church, 117–18, 134
ceilings in movies, visibility of, 244
certainty, 6–7, 10
changes in the world, dealing with, 248
Chicago Daily Tribune, 232n
children’s involvement in sports, 190–91
Chronicles (Dylan), 230
Citizen Kane (film), 90, 244
Citizenfour (film), 236
Civil War, US
causes, 233–34
literature, 22, 155
Civil War, The (film), 155
classical music, 72, 73
climate change
disagreement about, 239–41
future consequences of, 240
no middle-of-the-road position on, 240–41
“clutch” scenarios in sports, 250n
Coates, Ta-Nehisi, 52
Cobain, Kurt, 92n
collective conscious, 2
Colophon, The, 92–93
color
The Dress (viral phenomenon), 146–47
Homer’s description of Aegean Sea, 147–48
light, influence of, 149
shiny/matte distinction, 148
subjective nature of, 147–50
commercial success, 27–30, 56, 77
consensus, scientific, 112–13
conspiracy theories, 133–34, 145
Constitution, US, 207–12, 220–21
consumer reviews, 7–8
Contemporary Kafka, 35–39, 41–43
content, too much, 10, 33
Cooper, Alice, 144
Cooper, Dennis, 54n
Copernicus, Nicolaus, 99, 116, 117
Corrections, The (Franzen), 57
Cosby Show, The (TV show), 174
cosmic rays, 125n
cosmological constant, 130
criticism, 7–8, 10, 78
Crosby, Bing, 77
Dark Net, The (Bartlett), 37
Davydov, Denis, 156
Declaration of Independence, 212–13
Deep Web, 37–39
“Deflategate” scandal, 41
democracy, 215–16, 219
Descartes, René, 137, 149–50
“Dewey Defeats Truman” headline, 232n
Díaz, Junot, 25–27, 39
Dick, Philip K., 31
dictatorships, 215
dimethyltryptamine (DMT), 141–42
dinosaurs, 97–98
disco music, 79–80
disrespect for past classic works, 243–45
Do Not Sell at Any Price (Petrusich), 81
Domino, Fats, 79
“Don’t Stop Believin’” (song), 71
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Stevenson), 143–44
dreaming
content of dreams, 142–43
dimethyltryptamine (DMT), 141–42
“Dream Argument,” 137n
lucid, 137, 141
meaningless nature of, 138–39
and near-death experiences, 141–42
Dress, The (viral phenomenon), 146–47
dying and sleep, relationship between, 141–42
Dylan, Bob, 74–77, 86–87, 230
Earth, location in Milky Way, 120
earthquakes, 258–60
echolocation sonar, 254
Ed Sullivan Show, The, 60, 66
Egan, Jennifer, 52
Eggers, Dave, 52
Ehrlich, Paul, 14
Einstein, Albert, 4, 112, 114
elections, US
Ohio’s importance in, 196–97
political polarization since 9/11, 198–99
presidential race of 2000, 197–98, 216
See also voting
electronic dance music (EDM), 79
EmDrive rocket thruster, 119–20
Empire (TV show), 170
“End of History?, The” (Fukuyama), 226–27
End of Science, The (Horgan), 223–24, 226
End of War, The (Horgan), 226–27
Entourage (TV show), 170
equality, 212–14
Esquire, 246
E.T. (film), 182
“Ethicist, The” (New York Times Magazine column), 255
Everest, Mount, 183
extraterrestrials, music for, 83–
84
fact-checking, 154n
false memories, 150–51
Fight Club (Palahniuk), 53
film industry, 28–30, 90, 227, 243–45
financial crisis of 2008, 41
First Amendment rights, 211–12
flawed assumptions, 93–94, 185–86
fleeting popularity, 23–24
Foer, Jonathan Safran, 47
Fomenko, Anatoly, 135
football
college level, 191–93
comparative risks in other sports, 183
dangerous nature of, 179–80, 185
future of, 178–82
hypothetical scenario of its decline, 180
National Football League (NFL), 180–81, 182–83
safety modifications envisioned, 181
silo analogy, 184–85
forces
fundamental vs. emergent, 4
gravity, 3–7
Fourteenth Amendment rights, 220
fox vs. hedgehog, 199–201
Franzen, Jonathan, 27, 36, 261
free speech, limitations to, 211–12
Freed, Alan, 59
freedom, 214
Freud, Sigmund, 138
Frost, Robert, 93
Fukuyama, Francis, 226–27
future, thinking about, 252–53
Galileo, 5, 100, 117–18
Gaussian curve, 22n
Gazzaniga, Michael, 203n
Gehry, Frank, 90
genius, recognizing, 23–24, 73
Gibbon, Edward, 207
Gillett, Charlie, 14
Gladwell, Malcolm, 177–79, 181
Glass, Stephen, 154n
global politics, 15, 17
God and the simulation hypothesis, 124–27
Gone Girl (Flynn), 53
“good job” response to art, 188–89
Goodman, John, 174
Gore, Al, 197–98
gorillas, 255–56
GQ, 242–43
Grand Theft Auto (video game), 128
Grant, Ulysses S., 206
gravity
Aristotle’s ideas about, 5, 101
author’s knowledge of, 3
evolution of ideas about, 3–7
temperature analogy, 4n
greatness, 51n
Greene, Brian, 3–4, 101–8, 112–14, 124–25
Gross, David, 104n
Gumbel, Bryant, 185
Halley’s Comet, 136
Hannibal’s crossing of the Alps, 156–57
Harbaugh, Jim, 185
Hard Rain (album), 75
Hardcore History (podcast), 201–3
Harrison, George, 84n
heliocentrism, 117
Hellman, Martin, 260
Hemingway, Ernest, 93
Hendrix, Jimi, 60
“Here Comes the Sun” (song), 84
Hero with a Thousand Faces, The (Campbell), 74n
hero’s journey, 74
Hersh, Seymour, 151–53
Herzen, Alexander, 201
Hidden Reality, The (Greene), 103
Higgs boson (“God particle”), 130–31
historical figure game, 155–56
history
confirming, 151, 153–57, 203–5
revisionist, 233–35
History: Fiction or Science? (Fomenko), 135n
Hobson, John Allan, 138
Homer, 147–48
Horgan, John, 223–27
How Music Works (Byrne), 69
human brain, mapping, 228–29
Hunter, Tab, 79
“Hurricane” (song), 75
identity politics, 25–30
Illig, Heribert, 134
“I’m Eighteen” (song), 144
immortality, achieving, 228–29
Independence Day (film), 243
inequality of similar people, 212–14
Infinite Jest (Wallace), 48
infinity, 103–4
information
collective server for brain’s contents, 228–29
decentralization, 40–41, 86
limited, 11–12
instability of the world, 10
intelligence
cognitive, 256
emotional, 256–57
of octopuses, 253–54
international relations, 15, 17
Internet culture
blogging, 231–32
conventional, 36, 86
Deep Web, 37–39
The Dress (viral phenomenon), 146–47
early adopters, 231
fluidity of history, 235–36
start of, 229
unlikely relationships, 236
“You’re doing it wrong” argument, 242
Jackson, Michael, 1, 67
James, Skip, 81
Jefferson, Thomas, 213, 214
Jenner, Caitlyn (formerly Bruce), 29
Jesus, 135
“Johnny B. Goode” (song), 84
Johnson, Lyndon, 204n
Jonson, Ben, 94
Journey, 71
Jung, Carl, 74n, 138
Kael, Pauline, 186
Kafka, Franz, 31–32, 35–36, 38–39
Kasparov, Garry, 136
Kennedy, John F., 17, 218
“Killing of Osama bin Laden, The” (Hersh), 151–53
King, Stephen, 27–28
Klosterman, Chuck, background, 195–96
Klosterman’s Razor, 17, 42–43
Knausgaard, Karl Ove, 213
Koko (gorilla), 255–56
Krakauer, Jon, 52
Kuhn, Thomas, 114–16, 224–26
Kurzweil, Ray, 228
L.A. Noire (video game), 128–29
language
describing colors, 147–48
permanence of words, 19–21
TV dialogue, 166–67
unfamiliarity of, 57
Large Hadron Collider (LHC), 130–31
Lear, Norman, 173
Led Zeppelin, 60n
Lennon, John, 60n, 67n, 86
Lethem, Jonathan, 86–87
Lewis, Jerry Lee, 60n, 79
Lewis, Sinclair, 92
lies and untruths, 154–57
life after death, 11–12
Limbaugh, Rush, 185
Lincoln, Abraham, 24, 96, 173n, 218
Linklater, Richard, 139–44, 150–51
literature, criticism of, 7–8, 10
London Review of Books, 151
lucid dreaming, 137, 141
Lugar, Richard, 260
MacCambridge, Michael, 181
machines, and attempts to kill people, 227
Mad Men (TV show), 164–65
Madison, James, 207, 210
Mahler, Jonathan, 152
Man Without a Country, A (Vonnegut), 43
Manhattan, attack on police in, 150–51
marching music, 64–65
marginalization, 41–42, 81
Marley, Bob, 65
Marlowe, Christopher, 94
“Mathematics of the Past” (Kasparov), 136
Mathog, Mike, 109n
Matrix, The (film), 28–30, 122n, 227
Maugham, W. Somerset, 31
Mayweather–Pacquiao fight (2015), 187
McCarley, Robert, 138
McCartney, Paul, 67
McLaughlin, John, 245–48
McLaughlin Group, The (TV show), 245–47
media alienation, 47–48
Meltzer, Richard, 61
Melville, Herman, 7–9, 21–22, 31–32
memory, 150–51, 230
Mencken, H. L., 233
merit, 89–94
Metamorphosis, The (Kafka), 36
Miami Herald, The, 234n
Millay, Edna St. Vincent, 93
Moby-Dick (Melville), 7–10, 21–22
modern verification process, 154–55
Mondale, Walter, 204
monomyth (hero’s journey), 74
Moore, Michael, 197
morality, 126–28
Moravec, Hans, 121
Morozov, Nikolai, 135
movies. See film industry
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 72, 73
multiverse hypothesis, 103–5, 119–20
music
author’s qualifications as a critic, 95–96
blues, 81
classical, 72, 73
critics’ role, 78–79
decline in interest, 63–64
dominance of single artist, 64–66
electronic dance music (EDM), 79
for extraterrestrials, 83–84
finding the best example of a genre, 85–87
industry, 14n
marching, 64–65
1920s, 77
punk-vs.-disco divide of the 1970s, 79–80
records and LPs, 19–20, 81, 83–84
repurposing rock songs, 62–63
rock, 14, 60–87, 92n, 95, 161
rock and roll, 59–60, 68, 74, 82, 86. See also rock music
rock ’n’ roll, 59–60, 72, 78, 82, 85, 159. See also rock music
skiffle, 161
My Struggle: Book 2 (Knausgaard), 213
myth of universal timeliness, 44–45
Nagel, Thomas, 254
naïve realism, 10–11, 34, 116, 239
NASA, 83–84, 118–19
Nashville (TV show), 170, 171n
National Football League (NFL), 180–81, 182–83
Native American population, 41–42
Navy SEALs, and assassination of bin Laden, 151
near-death experiences, 141–42
Neptune, discovery of, 109
Never Mind the Bollocks (album), 79–80
Nevermind (album), 92n
New Musical Express (NME), 79
New Republic, The, 154n, 235
New York magazine, 217
New York Times, The, 25, 26, 150–51, 154n
New York Times Magazine, The, 22–23, 152, 255
New Yorker, The, 177, 189, 258
Newton, Isaac, 3–4, 5–6, 105, 108–9, 110, 112, 149
Newton’s Third Law, 119
Niemitz, Hans-Ulrich, 134
9/11 attacks, 41, 48n, 199
Nirvana, 70, 92n
Nixon, Richard, 186
“normal science,” 115–16
“now,” perpetual sense of, 232
nuclear weapons, 260–61
numerical constants, 124–25, 130
Nussbaum, Emily, 164
Obama, Barack, 1, 217–18
objective ranking, 94
Occam’s Razor, 17
octopuses, 253–54