FeedThe Unsolved Riddles of Reality
Friday, July 01, 2005 → by Danieru
"In a special collection of articles published beginning 1 July 2005, Science Magazine and its online companion sites celebrate the journal's 125th anniversary with a look forward -- at the most compelling puzzles and questions facing scientists today."Are these the questions pursing the lips of the 21st century scientist? 125 of them, 1 for each year of publication, below are the top 25. Click for super-science-question-magnification...
What Is the Universe Made Of?
What is the Biological Basis of Consciousness?
Why Do Humans Have So Few Genes?
To What Extent Are Genetic Variation and Personal Health Linked?
Can the Laws of Physics Be Unified?
How Much Can Human Life Span Be Extended?
What Controls Organ Regeneration?
How Can a Skin Cell Become a Nerve Cell?
How Does a Single Somatic Cell Become a Whole Plant?
How Does Earth's Interior Work?
Are We Alone in the Universe?
How and Where Did Life on Earth Arise?
What Determines Species Diversity?
What Genetic Changes Made Us Uniquely Human?
How Are Memories Stored and Retrieved?
How Did Cooperative Behavior Evolve?
How Will Big Pictures Emerge from a Sea of Biological Data?
How Far Can We Push Chemical Self-Assembly?
What Are the Limits of Conventional Computing?
Can We Selectively Shut Off Immune Responses?
Do Deeper Principles Underlie Quantum Uncertainty and Nonlocality?
Is an Effective HIV Vaccine Feasible?
How Hot Will the Greenhouse World Be?
What Can Replace Cheap Oil -- and When?
Will Malthus Continue to Be Wrong?
I wonder if this list will be shorter in another 125 years... Part of me thinks that the pursuit of scientific knowledge only produces different questions, unlike religion, which has been asking the same questions for thousands of years. Either way, questioning is what being human is all about.
I'd like to think that buried deep within the confines of The Huge Entity is a sapling of an idea destined to help answer one of the questions above, but more realistically The Huge Entity is probably a graveyard of questions rather than answers... Fancy picking through the corpses? You might find a question that interests you? For a list of previous posts on this site please browse the categories listed below...
Thanks BoingBoing!
Categories: Science, Consciousness, Reality, News, Perception, Future, Humanity, Evolution, Physics, Religion
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Check out this book The Invention of Modern Science for more insight.
In 100 years, a new scientific order will reveal new answers to many of those questions, but no doubt will open up even bigger cans of worms.
July 02, 2005 4:56 AM
for a de-bunking of the 'science will take humans to the next level of evolution/the spirit etc.' debate you MUST MUST MUST read Straw Dogs by John Gray - superb argument as to the nonsense of humanism.
when i read your post i was also reminded of the 'singularity' idea, a common talking point throughout the contemporary science/science fiction community. The Singularity Wiki explains this idea better than i ever could, here's a quote:
"The SIngularity is what happens when reality throws a divide-by-zero error or you extrapolate a curve to a straight line. Or something... What you need to understand is that after the SIngularity things will be cool. We'll all be PostHumans or UpLoading ourselves into our pocket calculators, there'll be lots of ArtificialIntelligence to help fight outbreaks of GreyGoo, and if there are annoying folks you don't want to have around you can just tell them to go TRanscend. It's the hot new topic for wish-fulfillment adventure and escapism. And there'll be jam for tea every day."
sounds cool to me, but i'm more inclined to think that humans will destroy modern civilisation before they transform it
July 02, 2005 7:21 AM
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