The Edge Question 2018 - 3

 

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Julia ClarkeJulia
John A. Wilson Professor and HHMI Professor, Jackson School of Geosciences, University of Texas at Austin

 

 

 

 

What would comprise the most precise and complete sonic representation of the history of life?

 

 

 

 


Tyler CowenTyler
Holbert L. Harris Chair of Economics, George Mason University; Distinguished Senior Fellow, F. A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics; General Director, Mercatus Center

 

 

 

 

How far are we from wishing to return to the technologies of the year 1900?

 

 

 

 


Jerry A. CoyneJerry A.
Professor Emeritus, Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Chicago; Author, Why Evolution is True; Faith Versus Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible.

 

 

 

 

If science does in fact confirm that we lack free will, what are the implications for our notions of blame, punishment, reward, and moral responsibility?

 

 

 

 


James CroakJames
Artist

 

 

 

 

Why do we experience feelings of meaning in a universe without purpose?

 

 

 

 


Molly CrockettMolly
Assistant Professor of Psychology, Yale University; Distinguished Research Fellow, Oxford Centre for Neuroethics

 

 

 

 

Is technology changing the nature of moral emotions?

 

 

 

 


Helena CroninHelena
Co-Director of LSE's Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science; Author, The Ant and the Peacock: Altruism and Sexual Selection from Darwin to Today

 

 

 

 

Can natural selection's legacy of sex differences in values be reconciled with the universal values of the Enlightenment?

 

 

 

 


Oliver Scott CurryOliver Scott
Senior Researcher, Director, The Oxford Morals Project, Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology, University of Oxford

 

 

 

 

Why be good?

 

 

 

 


David DalrympleDavid
Research affiliate, MIT Media Lab

 

 

 

 

Could the thermodynamic prophecy of an increasingly entropic universe be fulfilled by the cosmic flourishing of intelligent life?

 

 

 

 


Kate DarlingKate
Research Specialist, MIT Media Lab; Fellow, Harvard Berkman Center

 

 

 

 

What future progressive norms would most forward-thinking people today dismiss as too transgressive?

 

 

 

 


Luca De BiaseLuca
Journalist; Editor, Nova 24, of Il Sole 24 Ore

 

 

 

 

If we want to make a real and effective science-based policy, should we change politics or science?

 

 

 

 


Stanislas DehaeneStanislas
Neuroscientist; Collège de France, Paris; Author, Consciousness and the Brain

 

 

 

 

Is our brain fundamentally limited in its ability to understand the external world?

 

 

 

 


Daniel C. DennettDaniel C.
Philosopher; Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy, Co-Director, Center for Cognitive Studies, Tufts University; Author, From Bacteria to Bach and Back

 

 

 

 

How can an aggregation of trillions of selfish, myopic cells discover the unwitting teamwork that turns that dynamic clump into a person who can love, notice, wonder, and keep a promise?

 

 

 

 


Emanuel DermanEmanuel
Professor, Financial Engineering, Columbia University; Author, Models.Behaving.Badly

 

 

 

 

Are accurate mathematical theories of individual human behavior possible?

 

 

 

 


David DeutschDavid
Physicist, University of Oxford; Author, The Beginning of Infinity; Recipient, Edge Computation Science Prize

 

 

 

 

Are the ways qualia relate to computation, creativity to free will, risk to probability, morality to epistemology, all the same question?

 

 

 

 


Keith DevlinKeith
Mathematician; Executive Director, H-STAR Institute, Stanford; Author, Finding Fibonacci

 

 

 

 

Can we develop a procedure that, in principle, would tell us whether or not our universe is a simulation (analogous to the way the now proven Poincaré Conjecture can tell us the universe’s shape)?

 

 

 

 


Jared DiamondJared
Professor of Geography, University of California Los Angeles; Author, The World Until Yesterday

 

 

 

 

Why is there such widespread public opposition to science and scientific reasoning in the United States, the world leader in every major branch of science?

 

 

 

 


Chris DiBonaChris
Open Source and Public Sector, Google

 

 

 

 

Will a computer ever really understand and experience human kindness?

 

 

 

 


Rolf DobelliRolf
Founder, Zurich Minds; Journalist; Author, The Art of Thinking Clearly

 

 

 

 

Does this question exist in a parallel universe?

 

 

 

 


P. Murali DoraiswamyP. Murali
Professor of Psychiatry, Translational Neuroscience Division, Duke University Health System

 

 

 

 

How will we know if we achieve universal happiness?

 

 

 

 


Freeman DysonFreeman
Physicist

 

 

 

 

Is it ultimately possible for life to bend the shape of the universe to fit life's purposes, as we are now bending the shape of our environment here on earth?

 

 

 

 


George DysonGeorge
Boat designer; Author, Turing’s Cathedral and Darwin Among the Machines

 

 

 

 

Why are there no trees in the ocean?

 

 

 

 

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