From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
I used to believe in the concept of permanent healing, but my views have evolved. Nothing is permanent; however, each round of healing lightens our load and elevates us energetically. Life will inevitably reactivate old wounds, but these moments don't engulf us as they once did.
We're not really creating a specific artefact—we're setting a direction for a process. There's no upper limit to that process; we're simply saying we'll create something capable of becoming smarter and smarter.
Time is a very valuable thing, when you contribute your time to others- you've contributed something of great value.
Having grown up and worked in this environment, I strongly believe there is a solution to everything as long as you are not willing to accept a status quo and constantly look for better results.
We wouldn't want to live in a world of full transparency. That is a world where I can see into your brain, and you into mine. Perhaps one day this will be possible… we will be able to plug into each other's brains, and I will experience the world as you, and you as me…. A hive-mind… I just hope I'm not around when that technology arrives.
They described, for example, taste as if it were just electrical signals in the brain, but there's no way such signals alone can produce the sensation of taste. That's the hard problem of consciousness: qualia—the sensations and feelings through which we know the world and ourselves—bear no resemblance to electrical impulses, and physics offers no explanation for how one could give rise to the other.
The laws of cause and effect which govern our universe don't care about our beliefs – so we'd better find out what those laws are and try and align our beliefs to them to eliminate guesswork. The consequences if we don't? we'll get sick, we'll starve, our machines will break down.
Humankind has become a force in the biosphere as powerful as many natural forces of change, stronger than some, and sometimes as mindless as any.
If you love yourself – and feel good about yourself, it will help you enhance your future, life, and relationships. Loving yourself makes you feel worthy and if you love yourself, you're far more likely to love others.
Everything we do in one sense or another is consummatory. We consume religious narratives, we consume literature, we consume friendships. Our mate choices are the ultimate form of consumer choice.
After each strike the drone would be updated with information about the actual destruction caused. If it did more damage than expected, then it could use this information to restrict its choice of weapon in future engagements.
Purpose and meaning are inextricably tied to suffering and difficulty. If you tell me a pursuit that you view as meaningful and important, I can guarantee it won't be easy. If it was easy, it wouldn't be meaningful or important. We reserve the notion of meaning for things that have difficulty.