From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
Trying to figure out how we fit into the cosmos is old, it's a basic human question.
The heart is a fascinating machine. It beats 3 billion times in a typical human lifetime, consumes so much energy, and does so much work that if you attached a heart to a typical swimming pool – the heart would empty the pool in about a week.
Whatever you think it is, it self-evidently exists, because the universe means something to each of us. But I would argue that whatever it is, it's an emergent property. So it exists here on Earth because there are complex biological systems. Without those complex biological systems, it doesn't exist. There is no meaning. We bring meaning to it.
Right now, biological evolution is not the main engine of change in the human condition. Instead, social and technological development, which occur on shorter timescales, are the predominant change-makers.
The brain's adaptability is astounding. The brain is continuously rewiring; it's different now than it was just 30 seconds ago. That is fascinating and offers great promise.
The only way for you to discover something new is to acknowledge the ocean of ignorance in which you are just an island. Experts have a problem with that – they want to get prizes, and get recognised by their colleagues and peers as being very smart. So, when something new comes along... an anomaly... it often gets dismissed for the sake of reputation management.
An appreciation of entropy is necessary to grasp that we are not entitled to wellbeing, progress, comfort, or health. The forces of the universe are- at best, indifferent- at worse, antipathetic- to our interests. Left to their own devices, things get worse.
Our brains consist of about 100 billion nerve cells and neurons, with a potential for making anywhere from tens to hundreds of trillions, some even say a quadrillion, connections known as synapses. Due to a phenomenon known as neuroplasticity, our neural network continually restructures itself. Each time we learn something new or encounter a fresh experience, we trigger a reconfiguration of our brains.
The iron in the haemoglobin in your blood was cooked up in the heart of a massive star that blew up about 8 billion years ago. We understand now in pretty good detail, how intimately connected we are with the cosmos.
Right now, biological evolution is not the main engine of change in the human condition. Instead, social and technological development, which occur on shorter timescales, are the predominant change-makers. In particular, it seems that we are gaining capabilities to directly modify human nature—through genetic selection, gene therapy, cognitive enhancement drugs, life extension treatments.
There's an interesting over-representation of physicists within the existentialist community. Physicists, especially astronomers and cosmologists have had a glimpse of how vast the universe is, and the potential value of it, versus our planet.
When discussing consciousness with my three sons, I describe it as an emergent phenomenon. Imagine 80,000 people in a stadium, each one representing a neuron. The collective roar you hear when you approach the stadium might be likened to consciousness.