Is it worth dreaming impossible dreams? Think about it. What is the alternative? Should you not dream at all, or only dream, reasonable dreams? It is, I believe our nature to yearn for the impossible, and fail, or against all odds and all expectations, even our own, achieve it. Achieving impossible goals is what we […]
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Intelligence augmentation is the ability to complement our biological natural faculties of reasoning with new ones based on cultural and technological advances. Even something as fundamental as speaking, and understanding speech is not entirely just biological. From speech, to writing, the printing press, and electronic communications, the process has been long and important. It vastly
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What does it mean for Elon Musk to start from first principles? When does he address a given technological challenge? Can we take inspiration from the approach and apply it to other problem sets in front of us? Too rarely if ever people running established processes ask themselves: “If I went back to the drawing
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Even if you are not a science fiction author, you are now living in a science fictional world, where your daily life is unthinkable. If you were to meet yourself from four months ago, and give updates, even in vague terms about today, you would not believe what you are hearing. However, in a new
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We are convinced, through the collective narrative leveraging our scientific understanding, that we think with our brains. While that is true, there is much more: some of us think with our stomach, an sculptor will think with her hands, a ballet dancer with her entire body. Our proprioception extends feedback loops outside of the body,
I am often asked what is the role of parents, and teachers in an era of rapid change. How can they know that they are doing the right thing in their roles? What is the best way to provide an example, while exposing the new generations to the stimulation of the new? The short answer
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In the thousands of years that we have built human societies we haven’t become better people. But still, there have been common decisions that we can doubtlessly call morally superior: outlawing slavery, child labor, and many others. The difference is represented by technology, whose development gives rise to new levels of understanding what is possible.
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A naturalistic outlook offers the thrill of an unending exploration. The tools of science and reason have evolved to explore and understand the world and ourselves. We don’t know everything, but we are learning every day. I believe in this quest. I also believe that it is useful to test audacious hypotheses and that the
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Self-awareness, and introspection are uniquely evolved human capabilities. Recognizing our own identity and states of mind brings us to question how well we are coping with our challenges. A dogmatic attitude will rigidly pretend that all is well, that all assumptions are valid, and that there is no need to worry. A more thoughtful and
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What is the maximum duration of human life? Will we extend it radically? When, as often happens, I am asked this question, I always look at the billions of years that have gone before me and that will follow me. Those who ask that question are often thinking at a more comfortable time interval, an addition of a
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