The Edge Question 2018 - 4 [1]

David M. Eagleman [16]
Neuroscientist, Stanford University; Author, Incognito, Sum, The Brain

Can we create new senses for humans—not just touch, taste, vision, hearing, smell, but totally novel qualia for which we don't yet have words?

David Edelman [17]
Neuroscientist; Guest Investigator, Dartmouth College

Will we ever be replaced by another earthly species capable of evolving to a similar degree of social and technical sophistication that effectively fills the biocultural niche we vacated?

Nick Enfield [18]
Professor and Chair, Department of Linguistics, University of Sydney; Author, How We Talk

Is the cumulation of shared knowledge forever constrained by the limits of human language?

Brian Eno [19]
Artist; Composer; Recording Producer: U2, Coldplay, Talking Heads, Paul Simon; Recording Artist

Have we left the Age of Reason, never to return?

Juan Enriquez [20]
Managing Director, Excel Venture Management; Co-author (with Steve Gullans), Evolving Ourselves

So, before The Singularity...?

Dylan Evans [21]
Founder and CEO of Projection Point; Author, The Utopia Experiment

Will civilization collapse before I die?

Daniel L. Everett [22]
Linguistic Researcher; Dean of Arts and Sciences, Bentley University; Author, How Language Began

Will humans ever embrace their own diversity?

Christine Finn [23]
Archaeologist; Journalist; Author, Artifacts, Past Poetic

Is there a place for our past in our future?

Stuart Firestein [24]
Professor and Chair, Department of Biological Sciences, Columbia University; Fellow, AAAS

How many incommensurable ideas can we hold in our mind simultaneously?

Helen Fisher [25]
Biological Anthropologist, Rutgers University; Author, Why Him? Why Her?: How to Find and Keep Lasting Love

What will courtship, mate selection, length of marriages and family composition and networks be like when we are all living over 150 years?

Steve Fuller [26]
Philosopher; Auguste Comte Chair in Social Epistemology, University of Warwick; Author, The Proactionary Imperative: A Foundation for Transhumanism

Can we design a common test to assess machine, animal and human intelligence?

Howard Gardner [27]
Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education, Harvard Graduate School of Education; Author, Truth, Beauty, and Goodness Reframed

Will the "third culture" be followed by a fourth culture, a fifth culture, and, ominously, a Final Culture?

David C. Geary [28]
Curators’ Professor, Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Missouri-Columbia

Is there a single, evolved biological mechanism that can be tweaked to improve overall health, cognitive abilities, and slow aging?

James Geary [29]
Deputy Curator, Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard; Author, I Is an Other

Why is the phenomenon too familiar to investigate the hardest thing to completely understand?

Amanda Gefter [30]
Physics writer; Author, Trespassing on Einstein's Lawn

Is intersubjectivity possible in a quantum mechanical universe?

Neil Gershenfeld [31]
Physicist, Director, MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms; Co-author, Designing Reality

Is there a Turing test for living rather than thinking that can distinguish animate from automata?

Asif A. Ghazanfar [32]
Professor of Neuroscience, Psychology and Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University

What behaviors are we attributing only to brain mechanisms that may be better explained by considering biomechanics?

Steve Giddings [33]
Theoretical Physicist; Professor, Department of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara

Is there a single theory of all physics (TOP), and what is it?

Gerd Gigerenzer [34]
Psychologist; Director, Harding Center for Risk Literacy, Max Planck Institute for Human Development; Author, Risk Savvy

Can human intuition ever be reduced to an algorithm?

Bruno Giussani [35]
European Director and Global Curator, TED

How much time will pass between the last minute before artificial superintelligence and the first minute after it?