science

A Better Mind: The Great Unknowns & The Great Values

Alex Coppen

Jan 28, 2021 • 17 min read

Our generation's most brilliant minds are burning CPU time explaining, to our least functional minds, the basic concept of the link between sex and gender; despite having more knowledge than ever before, we have less wisdom. It begs the simple question: what should we spending our time on?

Well, there are places to start. The most obvious being what we do not know yet. Knowledge is supposed to be produced by our universities, which are in flames.

We can one even begin?

"The Last Unknowns: Deep, Elegant, Profound Unanswered Questions About the Universe, the Mind, the Future of Civilization, and the Meaning of Life" by John Brockman is available on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Last-Unknowns-Unanswered-Questions-Civilization/dp/0062897942

It can also be read on Google Books, here:

https://books.google.ca/books?id=4adtDwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover

Its contents are quite fascinating.

Those Extraordinary Questions: The Full List

When reading through the subjects our knowledge producers are contemplating, several things are immediately apparent.

A. Few, if any, are even concerned about the real questions, let alone curious about their potential answers.

B. Their interest is predominantly in the future, rather than the past.

C. They have a generalized contempt for religion, yet indicate their leanings toward metaphysics.

D. Their questions are abstract, rather than material or practical.

This mindset is most pronounced in the platitude of "following the science" during the Covid pandemic: the "abstract" modelling has all but destroyed all the things which make human life colourful.

Can we program a computer to find a 10,000-bit string that encodes more actionable wisdom than any human has ever expressed?
Are complex biological neural systems fundamentally unpredictable?
Are the simplest bits of information in the brain stored at the level of the neuron?
Are people who cheat vital to driving progress in human societies?
How can we put rational prices on human lives without becoming inhuman?
How will we build the tools to maintain the software in long-lived online devices that can kill us?
How do we best build a civilization that is galvanized by long-term thinking?
How would changes in the marginal tax rate affect our efforts and motivation?
Will it ever be possible for us to transcend our limited experience of time as linear?
Does consciousness reside only in our brains?
How can science best leverage unreason to overcome the heroic passion for war?
What is the optimal algorithm for discovering truth?
Will the appearance of new species of talented computational intelligence result in improving the moral behavior of persons and societies?
Can we re-design our education system based on the principle of neurodiversity?
How does a single human brain architecture create many kinds of human minds?
What would a diagram that gave a complete understanding of imagination need to be?
What libraries will we have to build when cloning becomes infinitely expandable?
Will the process of discovery be completed in any of the natural sciences?
What is the hard limit on human longevity?
Will we ever live together in a hive?
What kinds of minds could solve the mind-body problem?
Will AI make the Luddites (mostly) right?
Why are we so often kind to strangers when nobody is watching and we have nothing to gain?
How much biodiversity do we need?
Is there a way for humans to directly experience what it’s like to be another entity?
Will a machine ever be able to feel what an organism feels?
Which questions should we not ask and not try to answer?
Can wild animals that are large and dangerous be made averse to threatening humans?
Can consciousness exist in an entity without a self-contained physical body?
Will scientific advances about the causes of sexual conflict help to end the “battle of the sexes”?
How do I describe the achievements, meanings, and power of Beethoven’s piano sonata Appassionata?
When will we accept that the most accurate clocks will have to advance regularly sometimes, irregularly most of the time, and at times run counterclockwise?
How complex must be the initial design of the simplest machine that can learn from experience to achieve, at a minimum, the intelligence and abilities of a typical human being?
How can we design a machine that can correctly answer every question, including this one?
What new methodology will be required to explain the neural basis of consciousness?
Is there a fundamental difference between the biological world and the physical world?
Can we design a modern society without money which is at least as effective economically and politically as our current system?
Will some things about life, consciousness, and society necessarily remain unseen?
Is the unipolar future of a “singleton” the inevitable destiny of intelligent life?
Will we pass our audition as planetary managers?
What will we do as an encore once we manage to develop technological solutions to infection, aging, poverty, asteroids, and heat death of the universe?
Will we soon cease to care whether we are experiencing normal, augmented, or virtual reality?
What would comprise the most precise and complete sonic representation of the history of life?
How far are we from wishing to return to the technologies of the year 1900?
If science does in fact confirm that we lack free will, what are the implications for our notions of blame, punishment, reward, and moral responsibility?
Why do we experience feelings of meaning in a universe without purpose?
Is technology changing the nature of moral emotions?
Can natural selection’s legacy of sex differences in values be reconciled with the universal values of the Enlightenment?
Why be good?
Could the thermodynamic prophecy of an increasingly entropic universe be fulfilled by the cosmic flourishing of intelligent life?
What future progressive norms would most forward-thinking people today dismiss as too transgressive?
If we want to make a real and effective science-based policy, should we change politics or science?
Is our brain fundamentally limited in its ability to understand the external world?
How can an aggregation of trillions of selfish, myopic cells discover the unwitting teamwork that turns that dynamic clump into a person who can love, notice, wonder, and keep a promise?
Are accurate mathematical theories of individual human behavior possible?
Are the ways qualia relate to computation, creativity to free will, risk to probability, morality to epistemology, all the same question?
Can we develop a procedure that, in principle, would tell us whether or not our universe is a simulation (analogous to the way the now proven Poincaré conjecture can tell us the universe’s shape)?
Why is there such widespread public opposition to science and scientific reasoning in the United States, the world leader in every major branch of science?
Will a computer ever really understand and experience human kindness?
Does this question exist in a parallel universe?
How will we know if we achieve universal happiness?
Is it ultimately possible for life to bend the shape of the universe to fit life’s purposes, as we are now bending the shape of our environment here on earth?
Why are there no trees in the ocean?
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?
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?
Is the cumulation of shared knowledge forever constrained by the limits of human language?
Have we left the Age of Reason, never to return?
So, before the Singularity . . . ?
Will civilization collapse before I die?
Will humans ever embrace their own diversity?
Is there a place for our past in our future?
How many incommensurable ideas can we hold in our mind simultaneously?
What will courtship, mate selection, length of marriages, and family composition and networks be like when we are all living over 150 years?
Can we design a common test to assess machine, animal, and human intelligence?
Will the “third culture” be followed by a fourth culture, a fifth culture, and, ominously, a Final Culture?
Is there a single, evolved biological mechanism that can be tweaked to improve overall health, cognitive abilities, and slow aging?
Why is the phenomenon too familiar to investigate the hardest thing to completely understand?
Is intersubjectivity possible in a quantum mechanical universe?
Is there a Turing test for living rather than thinking that can distinguish animate from automata?
What behaviors are we attributing only to brain mechanisms that may be better explained by considering biomechanics?
Is there a single theory of all physics, and what is it?
Can human intuition ever be reduced to an algorithm?
How much time will pass between the last minute before artificial superintelligence and the first minute after it?
Can we acquire complete access to our unconscious minds?
Is it possible to control a system capable of evolving?
If we’re not the agents of ourselves (and it’s hard to see how we can be), how can we make sense of moral accountability (and how can we live coherently without it)?
Is there a subtle form of consciousness that operates independent of brain function?
How can the few pounds of grey goo between our ears let us make utterly surprising, completely unprecedented, and remarkably true discoveries about the world around us, in every domain and at every scale, from quarks to quasars?
Will a comprehensive mathematics of human behavior ever be created?
Are stories bad for us?
What knowledge and know-how are our descendants at risk of forgetting as our species passes through future evolutionary bottlenecks?
What will happen to human love when we can design the perfect robot lover?
What ethical responsibilities will humans owe to AGI systems?
What new cognitive abilities will we need to live in a world of intelligent machines?
What is the upper limit for how malleable the human mind and our emotions can actually be?
Why is it so hard to find the truth?
What will be the use of 99 percent of humanity for the 1 percent?
Is scientific knowledge the most valuable possession of humanity?
Why do we get to ask questions at all?
How could one last question possibly be enough?
Is the actual all that is possible?
Which facets of life will we never understand once biological and cultural diversity has vanished?
Will reading and writing survive given the seduction of video and audio?
What does it mean to be human?
When will we replace governments with algorithms?
Will a baby grown from an embryo constructed from human stem cells eventually become a person?
What is the principle that causes complex adaptive systems (life, organisms, minds, societies) to spontaneously emerge from the interaction of simpler elements (chemicals, cells, neurons, individual humans)?
Will humanity eventually exhaust the unknown?
Why is it that the maximum information we can pack into a region of space does not depend on the volume of the region, but only on the area that bounds it?
What would the mind of a child raised in total isolation of other animals be like?
Does every mathematical symmetry have a manifestation in the physical world?
What will it take to end war once and for all?
How can we separate the assessment of scientific evidence from value judgments?
Why is the world so beautiful?
How does a thought become a feeling?
What is the biological price of being a species with a sense of humor?
When will race disappear?
Will humanity end up with one culture?
What systems could be put in place to prevent widespread denial of science-based knowledge?
Will the “hard problem” of consciousness dissolve (rather than be solved) as we learn more about the natural world?
i = we ?
What might the last fully biological human’s statement be at their last supper?
Are the laws of physics unique and inevitable?
What is consciousness?
Is there any observational evidence that could shake your faith, or lack thereof?
Why don’t naked mole rats age or get cancer?
How can the process of science be improved?
How can we build machines that make us smarter?
Can we create technologies that help equitably reduce the amount of conflict in the world?
How can we achieve closed-loop neural control of human hedonics?
What is the bumpiest and highest-dimensional cost surface that our best computers will be able to search and still find the deepest cost well?
Can brain implants make us better human beings?
Is our continued coexistence with the other big mammals essential to furthering our understanding of human cognition?
What will happen to religion on Earth when the first alien life form is found?
Do we need checks and balances for virtual worlds?
Why do we care so much about how well we’re approximated by algorithms?
Has consciousness done more good or bad for humanity?
Will human psychology keep pace with the exponential growth of technological innovation associated with cultural evolution?
What proportion of “ethnic” and “religious” tensions are rooted in our genes?
Are humans capable of building a moral economy?
Is gravity a fundamental law of nature, or does gravity—and thereby spacetime—emerge as a consequence of the underlying quantum nature of reality?
Where were the laws of physics written before the universe was born?
What is the fundamental geometric structure underlying reality?
Will it ever be possible to download the information stored in the human brain?
How did our complex universe arise out of simple physical laws?
How will advances in mental prosthetics that connect us with other human and machine minds change the way we think about expertise?
How will evolution shape the biological world one hundred years from now, or one hundred thousand?
Can we train machines to design and construct a humane and vibrant built environment for us?
How will people focus more on forming the right question, before rushing headlong toward the answer?
Why are humans still so much more flexible in their thinking and everyday reasoning than machines?
How will the world be changed when battery storage technology improves at the same exponential rate seen in computer chips in recent decades?
Is the number of interesting questions finite or not?
When in the evolution of animal life did the capacity to experience love for another being first emerge?
How much of what we call “reality” is ultimately grounded and instantiated in convincing communication and storytelling?
What is the master principle governing the growth and evolution of complex systems?
Why are people so seldom persuaded by clear evidence and rational argument?
Is love really all you need?
Are humans ever really capable of regarding others as ends in themselves?
If the sum of all significant knowledge is finite, what proportion of it can humans, aided by intelligent machines, eventually attain?
Will we be one of the last generations in human history that dies?
Can major historical events, from the advent of moral religions to the Industrial Revolution, be explained by changes in life history strategies?
What is the most intelligent and efficient way to minimize the overall amount of conscious suffering in the universe?
If we discover another intelligent civilization, what should we ask them?
Are feelings computable?
Is the brain a computer or an antenna?
Is there an evolutionary advantage to building societies that favor entertaining over understanding?
Does religious engagement promote or impede morality, altruism, and human flourishing?
Are there limits to what we can know about the universe?
Why do humans who possess or acquire unaccountable power over others invariably abuse it?
In what situations does the capacity for low mood give a selective advantage?
What does the conscious mind do that is impossible for the unconscious mind?
What is the f low of information through human beings?
Why do humans behave as though what can be known is finite?
What is the purpose of it?
Does the future belong to nonhuman entities?
When will “human being” cease to be a meaningful category to speak of?
How did our sense of mathematical beauty arise?
What can humanity do right now that will make the biggest difference over the next billion years?
How can AI and other digital technologies help us create global institutions that we can trust?
Why do even the most educated people today feel that their grip on what they can truly know is weaker than ever before?
Is a single world language and culture inevitable?
Why is religion still around in the twenty-first century?
Is the assertion “Nothingness is impossible” the most fundamental statement we can make about our existence?
Can we engineer a human being?
What is the most important thing that can be done to restore the general public’s faith and trust in science?
Will humans ever prove the Riemann hypothesis in mathematics?
How can we empower the better angels of our nature?
Are we smart enough to know when we’ve reached the limits of our ability to understand the universe?
How far will we go in predicting human behavior from DNA?
Will blockchain return us to the golden age of ownership of information licenses that can be resold like books and records?
Will artistic invention enlighten the age of AI?
What will it take for us to be fully confident that we have found life elsewhere in the cosmos?
Does the infinite multiverse of cosmologists, in which all that is physically possible occurs, contain realizations of our unruly paradoxes of infinity (Hilbert’s Hotel, Thomson’s lamp, 1+2+3+4 . . . = −1/12; etc.)?
What quirk of evolution caused us to develop the ability to do pure mathematics?
Can a single underlying process explain the emergence of structure at the physical, biological, cognitive, and machine levels?
Will questioning be replaced by answering without questions?
Must we suffer and die?
Will weaving networks that blend humans and machines yield network effects?
Why should we prize the original object over a perfect replica?
How far can we extend beyond our human limitations to more fully grasp the nature of the world?
Why is sleep so necessary?
Will it be possible to do surgical operations in the future without making incisions?
Will post-humans be organic or electronic?
Why are reason, science, and evidence so impotent against superstition, religion, and dogma?
How smart does another animal have to be for us to decide not to eat it?
What does justice feel like?
Is the botscape going to force us to give up the use of the first-person singular nominative case personal pronoun, I?
When will we develop a robust theory of ontological intelligence?
Can a user-friendly computer proof assistant satisfy the mathematician’s desire for certainty without killing the pleasure?
Can you prove it?
How can aims of individual liberty and economic efficiency be reconciled with aims of social justice and environmental sustainability?
Is there an ultimate reality?
Was agriculture a wrong turn for civilization?
How will humanity change in light of the increasing use of nonsexual methods of reproduction?
Will there ever be a mechanistic scientific question that can be asked about the lone individuality of mental life, with its particular beginning, middle, and end?
Will we ever be able to predict earthquakes?
Why do some people act inside the law and others outside, and others create the law?
Can technology tame evolution?
How do ideas about biological evolution change once one species has control over the origin and extinction of all other species?
What cognitive capacities make humans so damn weird relative to all the other animals on the planet?
Given the nature of life, the purposeless indifference of the universe, and our complete lack of free will, how is it that most people avoid ever being clinically depressed?
What is the cosmic perspective to the future of life?
Why is it so difficult to influence people’s belief systems for deeply held beliefs and so easy to manipulate belief systems when little is known about the subject?
Is a human brain capable of understanding a human brain?
What are the beautiful curiosities that artificial curiosities can’t comprehend?
Is immortality desirable?
Can an increasingly powerful species survive (and overcome) the actions of its most extreme individuals?
Is the universe relatively simple and comprehensible by the human brain, or is it so complex, higher dimensional, and multiversal that it remains forever elusive to humans?
Can the human brain ever fully understand quantum mechanics?
How can we reap the benefits of the wide and open exchange of data without undermining the values that depend upon the scarcity of information?
How diverse is life in the universe?
Would you like to live a thousand years?
Will we ever find an organization form that brings out the best in people?
Is civilization’s demand for water a dividing or unifying force?
Why is human communication embedded in the silence of material objects?
Why is the acceleration of the expansion of the universe roughly equal to a typical acceleration of a star in a circular orbit in a disk galaxy?
Does romantic love have a biological function?
Could superintelligence be the purpose of the universe?
What would the ability to synthesize creativity do to cultural evolution?
Will the universe observed today someday begin to contract, bounce, and be reborn?
Do the laws of physics change with the passage of time?
Why did we acquire our extraordinary human capacity for social learning?
How do I know the right level of abstraction at which to explain a phenomenon?
Can we ever wean humans off their addiction to religion?
Will our AI future forms need the natural world?
Is there a design to the laws of physics, or are they the result of chance and the laws of large numbers?
Will the behavior of a superintelligent AI be mostly determined by the results of its reasoning about the other superintelligent AIs?
Why is Homo sapiens the sole nonextinct species of hominin?
What will be the literally last question that will preoccupy future superintelligent cosmic life for as long as the laws of physics permit?
How will we cope when we are capable of keeping humans alive longer than our optimal life expectancy?
Can rational beings such as Bayesian robots, humans, and superintelligent AIs ever reach agreement?
Can behavioral science crack the ultimate challenge of getting people to durably adopt much healthier lifestyles?
What will time with artifacts that simulate the emotional experience of being with another person do to our human capacity to handle the surely rougher, more frictional, and demanding human intimacies on offer?
How do the limits of the mind limit our understanding?
How can coalitions of scholars who wish to update the content of explicit common knowledge in order to use that knowledge collaboratively detect and circumvent coalitions which are applying narrative control strategies to preserve arbitrage opportunities implicit in disparities between official narratives and reality?
Will the creation of a superhuman class from a combination of genome editing and direct biological-machine interfaces lead to the collapse of civilization?
Will we ever understand how human communication is built from genes to cells to circuits to behavior?
Are there any phenomena for which it will never be possible to develop parsimonious theories?
Are moral beliefs more like facts or more like preferences?
Can humans set a nonevolutionary course that is game-theoretically stable?
Does something unprecedented happen when we finally learn our own source code?
How do we create and maintain backup options for humanity to quickly rebuild an advanced civilization after a catastrophic human extinction event?
How and when will it end or will it persist indefinitely?
How will the advent of direct brain-to-brain communication change the way we think?
How much would surrendering our god(s) strengthen the odds of our survival?
How can we sculpt how individual brains develop to avert mental illness?
Why?
Why are the errors that our best machine-learning algorithms make so different from the errors we humans make?
What will be obvious to us in a generation that we have an inkling of today?
Can general-purpose computers be constructed out of pure gravity?
Can the pace of human evolution stop accelerating?
In which century or millennium can all humanity be expected to speak the same primary language?
How do our microbes contribute to that particular combination of continuity and change that makes us human?
Clarify the differences between understanding, knowledge, and wisdom that could be communicated to a literate twelve-year-old and recommunicated to their parents?
How do contemporary developments in technology affect human cultural diversity?
How can we rebel against our genes if we are biological creatures without free will?
Will the frontiers of consciousness be technological or linguistic?
What is the fastest way to reliably align a powerful AGI around the safe performance of some limited task that is potent enough to save the world from unaligned AGI?
What is the world without the mind?
Will the individual quantum event forever remain random?
How does the past give rise to the future?

The Big List of 400 Values

It's hard to know whom to credit for these, - other than the editors of the dictionary -, but it follows from studying academic fetishes our interests are dictated by our values.

The next question is: what are values? They could also be described as states. And we used to call them virtues.

Abundance
Acceptance
Accomplishment
Accountability
Accuracy
Achievement
Activeness
Adaptability
Adventure
Affection
Affluence
Aggressiveness
Agility
Alertness
Altruism
Amazement
Ambition
Amusement
Anticipation
Appreciation
Approachability
Approval
Artistry
Assertiveness
Assurance
Attentiveness
Attractiveness
Audacity
Availability
Awareness
Awe
Balance
Beauty
Being the best
Belonging
Benevolence
Bliss
Boldness
Bravery
Brilliance
Buoyancy
Calmness
Camaraderie
Candor
Capability
Care
Carefulness
Celebrity
Certainty
Challenge
Change
Charity
Charm
Chastity
Cheerfulness
Clarity
Cleanliness
Clearmindedness
Cleverness
Closeness
Comfort
Commitment
Community
Compassion
Competence
Competition
Completion
Composure
Concentration
Confidence
Conformity
Congruency
Connection
Consciousness
Conservation
Consistency
Contentment
Continuity
Contribution
Control
Conviction
Conviviality
Coolness
Cooperation
Cordiality
Correctness
Courage
Courtesy
Craftiness
Creativity
Credibility
Cunning
Curiosity
Daring
Decisiveness
Decorum
Deference
Delight
Dependability
Depth
Desire
Determination
Devotion
Devoutness
Dexterity
Dignity
Diligence
Direction
Directness
Discipline
Discovery
Discretion
Diversity
Dominance
Dreaming
Drive
Duty
Dynamism
Eagerness
Ease
Economy
Ecstasy
Education
Effectiveness
Efficiency
Elation
Elegance
Empathy
Encouragement
Endurance
Energy
Enjoyment
Entertainment
Enthusiasm
Environmentalism
Ethics
Excellence
Excitement
Exhilaration
Expediency
Experience
Expertise
Exploration
Expressiveness
Extravagance
Extroversion
Exuberance
Fairness
Faith
Fame
Family
Fascination
Fearlessness
Ferocity
Fidelity
Fierceness
Financial independence
Firmness Fitness
Flexibility
Flow
Fluency
Focus
Fortitude
Frankness
Freedom
Friendliness
Friendship
Frugality
Fun
Gallantry
Generosity
Gentility
Giving
Grace
Gratitude
Gregariousness
Growth
Guidance
Happiness
Harmony
Health
Heart
Helpfulness
Heroism
Holiness
Honesty
Honor
Hopefulness
Hospitality
Humility
Humor
Hygiene
Imagination
Impact
Impartiality
Independence
Individuality
Industry
Influence
Ingenuity
Inquisitiveness
Insightfulness
Inspiration
Integrity
Intellect
Intelligence
Intensity
Intimacy
Intrepidness
Introspection
Introversion
Intuition
Inventiveness
Investing
Involvement
Joy
Judiciousness
Justice
Keenness
Kindness
Knowledge
Leadership
Learning
Liberation
Liberty
Lightness
Liveliness
Logic
Longevity
Love
Loyalty
Majesty
Making a difference
Marriage
Mastery
Maturity
Meaning
Meekness
Mellowness
Meticulousness
Mindfulness
Modesty
Motivation
Mysteriousness
Nature
Neatness
Nerve
Noncomformity
Obedience
Open-mindedness
Openness
Optimism
Order
Organization
Originality
Outdoors
Outlandishness
Outrageousness
Partnership
Patience
Passion
Peace
Perceptiveness
Perfection
Perseverance
Persistence
Persuasiveness
Philanthropy
Piety
Playfulness
Pleasantness
Pleasure
Poise
Polish
Popularity
Potency
Power
Practicality
Pragmatism
Precision
Preparedness
Presence
Pride
Privacy
Proactivity
Professionalism
Prosperity
Prudence
Punctuality
Purity
Rationality
Realism
Reason
Reasonableness
Recognition
Recreation
Refinement
Reflection
Relaxation
Reliability
Relief
Religiousness
Reputation
Resilience
Resolution
Resolve
Resourcefulness
Respect
Responsibility
Rest
Restraint
Reverence
Richness
Rigor
Sacredness
Sacrifice
Saintliness
Satisfaction
Science
Security
Self-control
Selflessness
Self-reliance
Self-respect
Sensitivity
Serenity
Service
Sharing
Shrewdness
Significance
Silence
Silliness
Simplicity
Sincerity
Skillfulness
Solidarity
Solitude
Sophistication
Soundness
Speed
Spirit
Spirituality
Spontaneity
Spunk
Stability
Status
Stealth
Stillness
Strength
Structure
Success
Support
Supremacy
Surprise
Sympathy
Synergy
Teaching
Teamwork
Temperance
Thankfulness
Thoroughness
Thoughtfulness
Thrift
Tidiness
Timeliness
Traditionalism
Tranquility
Transcendence
Trust
Trustworthiness
Truth
Understanding
Unflappability
Uniqueness
Unity
Usefulness
Utility
Valor
Variety
Victory
Vigor
Virtue
Vision
Vitality
Vivacity
Volunteering
Warmheartedness
Warmth
Watchfulness
Wealth
Willfulness
Willingness
Winning
Wisdom
Wittiness
Wonder
Worthiness
Youthfulness
Zeal

Those Extraordinary Questions: The Full List

The Big List of 400 Values

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