May 4 -- Last Class (via Zoom)
Page 123.
Will reading and writing survive given the seduction of video and audio?
Marti Hearst
Professor, School of Information
UC Berkeley
Page 215.
Is a single world language and culture inevitable?
Mark Pagel
Professor of evolutionary biology
University of Reading
Page Infinity.
If I give this seminar next year, how can I make it better? How to elicit more interaction? Find better questions (not in book)?
Bill Press
Professor of computer science and integrative biology
University of Texas at Austin
April 27 (via Zoom)
Page 19.
Will the process of discovery be completed in any of the natural sciences?
Mary Catherine Bateson
Professor emerita of anthropology
George Mason University
Page 67.
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 Poincare conjecture can
tell us the universe's shape)?
Keith Devlin
Mathematician
Stanford University
Page 293.
Can behavioral science crack the ultimate challenge of getting people
to durably adopt much healthier lifestyles?
Eric Topol
Professor of molecular medicine
Scripps Research Institute
April 20 (via Zoom)
Page 151.
Can we create technologies that help equitably reduce the amount of conflict in the world?
Jon Kleinberg
Professor of computer science
Cornell University
Page 99.
Can we acquire complete access to our unconscious minds?
Joel Gold
Professor of psychiatry
New York University
Page 294.
What will time with artifacts that simulate the emotional response of being with
another person do do our human capacity to handle the surely rougher, more frictional,
and demanding human intimacies on offer?
Sherry Turkle
Professor of the social studies of science and technology
MIT
April 13 (via Zoom)
Page 143.
What might the last fully human's statement be at their last supper?
Lorraine Justice
Dean and Professor of industrial design
Rochester Institute of Technology
Page 131.
Does every mathematical symmetry have a manifestation in the physical world?
Daniel Hook
Chief executive officer
Digital Science
Page 288.
Why is Homo sapiens the sole nonextinct species of hominin?
Timothy Taylor
Professor of the prehistory of humanity
University of Vienna
April 6 (via Zoom)
Page 68.
Why is there such widespread public opposition to science and scientific reasoning the the United States,
the world leader in every major branch of science?
Jared Diamond
Professor of geography
UCLA
Page 177.
How will the world be changed when battery storage technology improves at the same exponential
rate seen in computer chips in recent decades?
John Markoff
Science reporter
The New York Times
Page 73.
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 the environment here on Earth?
Freeman Dyson
Physicist
Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton
March 30 (via Zoom)
Page 226.
Will blockchain return us to the golden age of ownership of information licenses
that can be resold like books and records?
Jordan Pollack
Professor of complex systems and chair of computer science
Brandeis University
Page 194.
If we discover another intelligent civilization what should we ask them?
Yuri Milner
Venture capitalist and science philanthropist
Page 160.
Has consciousness done more good or bad for humanity?
Joseph Ledoux
Professor of psychiatry
New York University
March 9
Discuss survey results.
Minilecture on ranked voting methods. Condorcet methods. Kemeny-Young. Arrow's impossibility theorem.
(19 voters, 13 choices, best orderings honor 571 preferences out of 876, 65.1%)
loyalty to: best worst average in 2000 tied orderings
nuclear family 1 2 1.486 +- 0.500
self 1 2 1.514 +- 0.500
extended family 3 3 3.000 +- 0.000
friends 4 4 4.000 +- 0.000
a philosophy or morality 5 5 5.000 +- 0.000
the human species 6 6 6.000 +- 0.000
society 7 8 7.512 +- 0.500
city/hometown 7 9 7.859 +- 0.929
an ethnicity 8 9 8.628 +- 0.483
a geographical region 10 10 10.000 +- 0.000
school/team 11 11 11.000 +- 0.000
nation 12 12 12.000 +- 0.000
a religion 13 13 13.000 +- 0.000
Page 325.
How does the past give rise to the future?
Carl Zimmer
science reporter
New York Times
Page 146.
Is there any observational evidence that could shake your faith or lack thereof?
Brian G. Keating
Professor of Physics
University of California, San Diego
March 2
Page 4.
Are people who cheat vital to driving progress
in human societies?
Alun Anderson
former Editor-in-Chief
New Scientist
Page 74.
Why are there no trees in the ocean?
George Dyson
Science historian, author
Page 82.
Will humans ever embrace their own diversity?
Daniel L. Everett
Dean of Arts and Sciences
Bentley University
This question led to a discussion of individuals' hierarchy of values. The class voted by individual preference-ordered lists.
Analysis by the Kemeny-Young algorithm gave the results listed above.
February 24
Page 52.
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?
Jerry A. Coyne
Professor of Ecology and Evolution
University of Chicago
Page 179.
Will it ever be possible to download the information stored in the human brain?
Mario Livio
Astrophysicist
Page 81.
Will civilization collapse before I die?
Dylan Evans
Founder and CEO, Projection Point
February 17
Page 20.
What is the hard limit on human longevity?
Gregory Benford
Professor of Physics and Astronomy
UC Irvine
(also science fiction author)
movie
Page 31.
Which questions should we not ask and not try to answer?
Nick Bostrom
Professor of Applied Ethics
Oxford University
Page 212.
What can humanity do right now that will make the biggest
difference over the next billion years
Toby Ord
Philosopher, Oxford University
February 10
Bill P. out of town. No class today.
February 3
Page 75.
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 M. Eagleman
Neuroscientist, Stanford
Page 134.
Why is the world so beautiful?
Nicholas Humphrey
Professor emeritus of psychology
London School of Economics
Page 184.
Why are people so seldom persuaded by clear evidence and rational argument?
Tim Maudlin
Professor of philosophy
New York University
January 27
Page 98.
How much time will pass between the last minute before artificial superintelligence
and the first minute after it?
Bruno Giussani
European director and global curator, TED
Page 168.
Where were the laws of physics written before the universe was born?
Andrei Linde
Professor of physics, Stanford
Recipient of first Fundamental Physics Prize
