From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
We write for the same reason that we walk, talk, climb mountains or swim the oceans- because we can… We have some impulse within us that makes us want to explain ourselves to other human beings… That's why we paint, that's why we dare to love someone- because we have the impulse to explain who we are.
We have the unusual paradox of being both highly individualistic, yet in essence social. We exist in what I describe as a collective survival exercise.
Quantum mechanics is a consistent mathematical structure, not that difficult to understand in itself, which nature has chosen. The confusing thing is that nature chose something that doesn't feel intuitive to us. It has a reputation for being mystifying mainly because of its history rather than what it really is as a theory.
Most astronomers are surprised, but biologists look at the history of life on Earth. Many biologists I speak to would say it's almost incomprehensible that something as complex as us has even appeared at all—we might just be very lucky.
We have to be aware of our cognitive fallacies to build some immunity to our cognitive traps. One simple thing we can all do is work on our own confirmation bias from time to time. I try to read things by people I disagree with for example, because I want to hear their best arguments and see whether my beliefs and values stand-up to them.
Our ability to reach unity in diversity will be the beauty and the test of our civilisation.
We flee from affliction the way an animal flees from death. There's a sense in which it's perfectly natural that our response to difficulty in life is aversive. We're only going to be able to live well with the difficulties of life if we face up to them, because they're difficult.
We scrutinise a photograph with a sense that we are scrutinising the actual objects themselves, although they are distanced from us in time and space.
When I got better, even simple things like being able to wake-up, go for a walk, speak, and observe life, felt viscerally stunning and good. I found a state of being – a state that gave me perspective and feeling about life and my place in it.
Looking back, it was one of the best things that could've happened to me.
There is no such thing as true-altruism (even philanthropists get something out of giving!). What is this individuals' payoff from working with you?
Technology isn't a 'thing,' it's a social structure that people act upon the universe through. The social structure has incentives, roles and governance which determine the meaning and effect of the technology, not the engineering itself.