From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
It's becoming increasingly clear that we don't yet know how simple an organism can be and still be conscious. There's now quite good evidence that bees not only learn tasks but can watch another bee perform one and then learn it themselves. Twenty or twenty-five years ago, no one would have believed that possible.
Intelligence is the ability to solve problems. For me intelligence is a property of life. Even the most humble unicellular living organism must be intelligent to solve the problems of everyday life. Human intelligence is, for want of a better phrase, a degree of magnitude greater than the intelligence of a Paramecium or, better, of a Chlamydomonas; but the difference is just quantitative and not qualitative.
Those who have the most meaningful, purpose filled lives tend to dream so big – that those dreams will rarely be completed in a lifetime. What keeps you going is the beauty you encounter at every juncture of the path.
If we treat the mind and body as one unit, then wherever we put the mind, we necessarily put the body—and that opens up enormous possibilities for control.
I see it as my moral obligation in this world to help these people unlock their potential so they can start working on humanity's grand challenges.
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.
You can take a form of identity that's been historically associated with repression and hierarchy, and make it more egalitarian – that's what we've been trying to do with gender. Let me be clear, I'm not in favour of the abolition of gender, but I do think there's a lot of work we need to do in order to find more equality.
You need to know the reason you're there at that surgical table with a knife in your hand. You have to be clear that you are using these sophisticated tools (tools which can cause a lot of harm) to fundamentally and primarily help that entity, that child in front of you.
the printing press helped democratise Europe by providing space for discussion and agreement among politically engaged citizens, often before the state had fully democratised.
If one aspires to make a positive impact on the world, shouldn't we strive for innovative solutions, perhaps even for a disease as formidable as cancer?
We were approaching the technological simulation of consciousness, when the creative process of knowing will be collectively and corporately extended to the whole of human society.
written word is the base of culture, the spine. The other limbs and torso that attach to the spine, still depend upon the spine. Without the written word, there can be no other form of communication….