1998 : WHAT QUESTIONS ARE YOU ASKING YOURSELF?

"What do we want from science?"

"What was the key factor in the success of Homo sapiens compared with other human species such as the Neanderthals?"

"A chimpanzee cannot understand Bessel functions or the theory of black holes. Human forebrains are a few ounces bigger than a chimp's, and we can ask many more questions than a chimp. Are there facets of the universe we can never know? Are there questions we can't ask?"

"What is needed regarding the understanding of the mental process so that we will be able to produce thought computationally?"

"How does the brain represent the meaning of a sentence?"

"Do emotions contribute to intelligence, and if so, what are the implications for the development of a technology of 'affective computing?' "

"Can our ever-more-integrated society avoid becoming more vulnerable to high-tech extremists and terrorists?"

"Given what we know now about the origins, history, and impacts of technology, is it possible to design, deploy, and use technologies in ways that help humans be more human, instead of more like components in a machine?"

"How to ensure that we develop sciences and technologies that serve the people, are open to democratic scrutiny and which assist rather than hinder humans to live harmoniously with the rest of nature?"

"How much of what we as persons can experience in life can we share with fellow human beings?"

"How shall I teach my children?"

"Can human beings achieve spontaneous morality by opening ourselves further to some basic expression of nature, or must we create and adopt a set of moral guidelines?"

"Why are religions still vital?"

"Which industries will shake out, or disappear in the new industrial revolution fomented by the advent of the world wide web, intranets, and extranets? How do we help those who are afraid of these new technologies to benefit from them, rather than be crushed by those who understand?

"If humanity ever encounters an alien intelligence, will we be able to communicate with it ÷ or even realize that it is there?

"How can we reconcile our desire for fairness and equity with the brutal fact that people are not all alike?"

"When posterity looks back on the 20th Century from the perspective of a hundred years, what will they see as our greatest successes and worst follies?"

"What must a physical system be such that it can act on its own in an environment."

"Is there a way to enlarge our separate tribal loyalties, to include all our fellow humans?"

"How come we don't understand how photosynthesis works?"

"Do we or even can we know the joint multi-variable probability density function (f(x1, ... , xn)) that describes any realworld event?"

"Can we use our current technology to bring C. P. Snow's two cultures closer together? For example, could we produce a vision-oriented, computer-based version of the cross-cultural artifact envisioned in Hermann Hesse's Das Glasperlenspiel?"

"How does the capacity for low mood give a selective advantage?"

"How do neural computation principles and the neural networks of our brains, together with the relevant aspects of experience, account for the details of all human concepts, especially their structure, how they are learned, and how they are used in thought and expressed in language?"

"How can minds, lives, and relationships be enhanced by information systems in unforeseen ways?"

"How can scientific and technological culture be articulated so that fewer people are driven to embrace superstitions, and so that technology is more likely to be designed and judged on humanistic terms?"

"With the ever-growing dominance of corporate forms of control in everyday social life, how do we reconcile our notions of personal liberty and autonomy rooted in Enlightenment political thought?"

"'What is the question I am asking myself?' ÷ After contemplating this for hours the only honest answer I could come up with was, 'What is the question I am asking myself?'"

"How can we know when and what we do not know?"

"What is the evolutionary advantage of the universality of mysticism in human societies? could it have played a vital role when populations were small, and widely dispersed, but now is outdated for modern global societies?"

"We are hurtling toward an immersive, networked virtual reality, driven by two unstoppable trends ÷ ever faster chips, and the global compulsion to be connected via the Internet. This 'Second Web' will open new territories for imagination and social interaction, unfettered by the real world's geography, physics, or time. On the wall of this new cave, what will humans dream to paint?"

"Why not trees in the oceans?"

"Can we learn to die?"

"What are the powers, and the limits, of human intuition?"

"Why are decentralized processes ubiquitous in nature and society and why are they so poorly understood that people will sacrifice their autonomy and freedom for authoritarian, centralized solutions (gods, governments, and gurus) to personal and social problems?"

"How can we teach each other to embrace pluralism, and to trust each other with the new tools that promote privacy and freedom of speech?"

"Is 'self' necessary to life?"

"Is a sense of 'self' necessary to consciousness?"

"What would a consciousness without a sense of 'self' be like?"

"Is psychic phenomenon just wishful thinking and can we ever prove it exists or doesn't exist using scientific methodology."

"At what point a complex organic macro-structure becomes 'alive' ?"

"If tragedy + time = comedy, what is the formula for equally therapeutic music? Do (Blues) musicians reach a third person perspective similar to that found in meditation, mind-altering drugs, and genius?"

"The best questions were asked long ago. For example, Fermi's question, 'Where are they?', and Blake's question, 'How do you know but ev'ry bird that cuts the airy way is an immense world of delight, clos'd by your senses five?' My question is, 'What goes on inside the head of a baby?' "

"It appears likely that the universe that we can observe is just one of an infinity of 'pocket universes,' which are continually being created by a process called eternal inflation. These pocket universes are believed to split off from a region of 'false vacuum', which expands so quickly that its volume increases forever, despite the loss of volume to the formation of pocket universes. The problem is to find a reliable way to extract predictions from this picture. The properties of the pocket universes can vary, and with an infinity of trials essentially anything will happen an infinite number of times. We need to learn how to distinguish the probable from the improbable, but so far such a probability calculation has never been given a precise definition."

"Will we find the will and the way to limit our population growth before the Biosphere does it for us?"

"How can considering the longest time scales in human endeavor lead us to deal with the approaching crises of greenhouse warming and species diversity?"

"Most human beings perform effortlessly a variety of tasks that are computationally extremely difficult (such as seeing, holding objects and understanding speech); but they are generally poor and vary enormously in tasks that are computationally easy (such as solving puzzles, doing mathematics and science). Given that the latter skills are apparently as biologically valuable as the former, does this disparity reveal a fundamental limitation of the human brain?"

"How can we even begin to formulate the right questions about consciousness?"

"What is the mathematical essence that distinguishes living from non-living, so that we can engineer a transcendence across the current boundaries?"

"Is a greater understanding of the way the brain works going to give me a new language to explain what it is like to be me? Will the words we use now one day seem as strange as the 'humours' we once used to explain the state of our bodies? And what will be the consequence if a scientist gains the power to know me better than I can know myself?"

"Throughout its history, the scientific community has shown great integrity in resisting the onslaught of anti-rationalism. How can it now be persuaded to show the same integrity in regard to scientism?"

"If Mosaic had never supported pictures (read: the Internet didn't become a commercial medium), what would I be doing right now?"

"How will minds expand, once we understand how the brain makes mind?"

"Any musically aware listener will know of music that breaks out of established forms or syntax to profound effect ÷ my personal favourites include Beethoven'sEroica symphony, Wagner's Tristan und Isolde,Schoenberg's Erwartung, Debussy's Apres midi d'un faune. .. What is the most that we can ever say objectively about what those composers are discovering? What are the limits of objective description using science, mathematics and musical analysis? More generally, how do these structures in sound make sense? As of now, I see only very preliminary hypotheses in response to this last question, no possibility of much more given current understanding and techniques, and no consensus as to the ultimate constraints on such an answer."

"When will we learn to ask 'And then what' as a matter of course?"

"If Gordon Moore was correct in his prediction that the amount of information storable on semiconductor chips would double every 18 months, then over time is time more or less valuable?"

"How can we sustain young people's interest in asking questions such as these? Does the emphasis on personal success and security divert psychic energy from taking the long-term view on things? How long can we keep curiosity and creativity alive in an increasingly materialistic culture?"