To arrive at the edge of the world's knowledge, seek out the most complex and sophisticated minds, put them in a room together, and have them ask each other the questions they are asking themselves.
Published on Edge.org (https://www.edge.org)

Home >

2001 : WHAT QUESTIONS HAVE DISAPPEARED? [1]

In the News [ 2 ] [2]
  |  
Contributors [ 89 ] [3]   |   View All Responses [ 92 ] [4]
[5]
Andy Clark [5]
Professor of Cognitive Philosophy, Department of Philosophy and Department of Informatics, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK; Author, Surfing Uncertainty: Prediction, Action, and the Embodied Mind
Why Is There Something Instead of Nothing?

This is a question that the ancients asked, and one that crops up a few times in 20th century philosophical discussions. When it is mentioned, it is usually as an example of a problem that looks to be both deep and in principle insoluble. Unsurprisingly, then, it seems to have fallen by the scientific, cosmological and philosophical waysides. But sometimes I wonder whether it really is insoluble (or senseless), or whether science may one day surprise us by finding an answer.

ANDY CLARK is Professor of Philosophy and Cognitive Science at the University of Sussex, UK. He was previously Director of the Philosophy/Neuroscience/Psychology Program at Washington University in St. Louis. He is the author of Microcognition: Philosophy, Cognitive Science and Parallel Distributed Processing, Associative Engines, and Being There: Putting Brain, Body and World Together Again.

Return to Table of Contents [3]

Links:
[1] https://www.edge.org/annual-question/what-questions-have-disappeared
[2] https://www.edge.org/inthenews/what-questions-have-disappeared
[3] https://www.edge.org/contributors/what-questions-have-disappeared
[4] https://www.edge.org/responses/what-questions-have-disappeared
[5] https://www.edge.org/memberbio/andy_clark