Wisdom in fragments

If someone is commanding in their presence, it directly correlates to how a group judges their skill level! Someone who is commanding in presence is often followed over someone who is far more effective but who is quiet, hesitant, or timid.

Political scientist & author specializing in authoritarianism and democracy

Our brains are adapted to pick leaders based on characteristics that are no longer adaptive, or necessary today. In times of crisis, we are wired to gravitate towards strong men – strong males who are overconfident and speak of solutions in simplistic terms.

Political scientist & author specializing in authoritarianism and democracy

There's an innate tendency in human-beings to sort ourselves by how much we want power. Some of us don't want it at all, some of us are absolutely obsessed with it. The interaction between the individual and the system is therefore critical.

Political scientist & author specializing in authoritarianism and democracy

Smell is an outlier. The brain essentially sent out a little tentacle into the world, those nerve fibres are the only contact between the central nervous system and the external world. This is the point at which there is no barrier between the brain and the outside world.

Sleep medicine specialist and NHS consultant neurologist studying sleep disorders

Our brains are constantly taking shortcuts to inform us about the world and this introduces an intrinsic error which our brains are filling in. By the time we 'see' something perceptually, we're a fraction of a second behind real-time.

Sleep medicine specialist and NHS consultant neurologist studying sleep disorders

If our senses are really how we understand the world, and there are differences in those sensory windows, then our internal world will be different. Perhaps these differences explain the diversity of beliefs.

Sleep medicine specialist and NHS consultant neurologist studying sleep disorders

What we perceive to be the absolute truth of the world around us is a complex reconstruction, a virtual reality created by the complex machinations of our minds. We have no idea about the world that we inhabit and what the brain is doing is really creating an entire shortcut that enables us to understand the world without being able to physically really understand the reality in which we inhabit, which is a mind-blowing concept.

Sleep medicine specialist and NHS consultant neurologist studying sleep disorders

The smartest being on planet Earth is life itself. Life creates with abundance, not with scarcity. Life does not want to kill the tigers for the deer to survive. Life basically says more deer, more tigers, more everything.

Former Google Executive & Author of "Solve for Happy

The only reason we are the master of anything today is because of our intelligence. We're not the strongest species on the planet. Without our intelligence, we're quite irrelevant. When they are smarter than we are, it is wishful thinking that they will continue to be connected to us.

Former Google Executive & Author of "Solve for Happy

These are technologies that are autonomous in many, many ways. They are independent in many, many ways – they have free will. They can replicate. And that makes a difference because then we teach them how to learn, but we have no idea what they will do with that ability to learn.

Former Google Executive & Author of "Solve for Happy

Humanity has the arrogance to believe that our intelligence is the only form of intelligence. Of course, we're arrogant enough to believe that we are the most intelligent being on the planet. We don't really know what intelligence is.

Former Google Executive & Author of "Solve for Happy

Consciousness is at the root of human identity. Fundamentally, we relate to each other as beings with feelings and experiences. Consciousness is at the root of everything that really matters in life from deep emotions, subtle thoughts, these are the things that make life worth living.

Philosopher specializing in consciousness and panpsychism

Our current scientific paradigm was designed by Galileo to exclude consciousness. This goes back to the 17th century, 1623 – Galileo declared that from that point onwards, mathematics was going to be the language of science.

Philosopher specializing in consciousness and panpsychism

We seem to be in a strange period of history where our official world view, our official picture of the universe denies the reality of the thing that's most evident and the thing that gives life value. I think people do feel this at an intuitive level, and it can lead to a deep sense of alienation.

Philosopher specializing in consciousness and panpsychism

Consciousness is the most troubling because it's so hard to deny its existence. With all these other tricky, troubling phenomena, it's at least an option to say maybe it doesn't exist, maybe we're not really free in the way we think we are. But with consciousness, it's seems hard to make sense of the idea that nobody's ever felt pain.

Philosopher specializing in consciousness and panpsychism

Cultured meat can be very helpful. You can design them in such a way that they will have wonderful health benefits for the entire population. This is where exactly where we're going, but it doesn't have to, other producers might do something else.