The Last Unknowns: Deep, Elegant, Profound Unanswered Questions About the Universe, the Mind, the Future of Civilization, and the Meaning of Life
By John Brockman and Daniel Kahneman
2/5
()
About this ebook
Discover the universe's last unknowns—here are the unanswered questions that obsess "the world's finest minds" (The Guardian)
Featuring a foreword by DANIEL KAHNEMAN, Nobel Prize-winning author of Thinking, Fast and Slow
This is a little book of profound questions (only questions!)—unknowns that address the secrets of our world, our civilization, the meaning of life. Here are the deepest riddles that have fascinated, obsessed, and haunted the greatest thinkers of our time, including Nobel laureates, cosmologists, philosophers, economists, prize-winning novelists, religious scholars, and more than 250 leading scientists, artists, and theorists. In The Last Unknowns, John Brockman, publisher of Edge.org, asks "a mind-blowing gathering of innovative thinkers" (Booklist): "What is ‘The Last Question,’ your last question, the question for which you will be remembered?"
Featuring the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Guns, Germs, and Steel JARED DIAMOND • Nobel Prize-winning University of Chicago economist RICHARD THALER • Harvard psychologist STEVEN PINKER • religion scholar ELAINE PAGELS • author of Seven Brief Lessons on Physics CARLO ROVELLI • Booker Prize–winning novelist IAN McEWAN • neuroscientist SAM HARRIS • philosopher DANIEL C. DENNETT • MIT theorist SHERRY TURKLE • decoder of the human genome J. CRAIG VENTER • The Coddling of the American Mind author JONATHAN HAIDT • Nobel Prize-winning physicist FRANK WILCZEK • UC Berkeley psychologist ALISON GOPNICK • philosopher REBECCA NEWBERGER GOLDSTEIN • New York Times columnist CARL ZIMMER • MIT cosmologist MAX TEGMARK • Whole Earth founder STEWART BRAND • "Marginal Revolution" economist TYLER COWEN • Anatomy of Love author HELEN FISHER • Noble Prize-winning NASA physicist JOHN C. MATHER • psychologist JUDITH RICH HARRIS • Princeton physicist FREEMAN DYSON • musician BRIAN ENO • environmental scientist JENNIFER JACQUET • Duke economist DAN ARIELY • Oxford philosopher A. C. GRAYLING • Harvard cosmologist LISA RANDALL • anthropologist MARY CATHERINE BATESON • Emotional Intelligence author DANIEL GOLEMAN • Harvard genticist GEORGE CHURCH • Blueprint author NICHOLAS A. CHRISTAKIS • Stanford political scientist MARGARET LEVI • economist ALAN S. BLINDER • publisher TIM O'REILLY • theoretical cosmologist JANNA LEVIN • Serpentine Gallery owner HANS ULRICH OBRIST • Wired founding editor KEVIN KELLY • Cambridge astrophysicist MARTIN REES, and more than 200 others.
John Brockman
The publisher of the online science salon Edge.org, John Brockman is the editor of Know This, This Idea Must Die, This Explains Everything, This Will Make You Smarter, and other volumes.
Read more from John Brockman
This Will Make You Smarter: 150 New Scientific Concepts to Improve Your Thinking Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5What Have You Changed Your Mind About?: Today's Leading Minds Rethink Everything Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This Explains Everything: 150 Deep, Beautiful, and Elegant Theories of How the World Works Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Thinking: The New Science of Decision-Making, Problem-Solving, and Prediction in Life and Markets Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This Idea Must Die: Scientific Theories That Are Blocking Progress Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Universe: Leading Scientists Explore the Origin, Mysteries, and Future of the Cosmos Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Know This: Today's Most Interesting and Important Scientific Ideas, Discoveries, and Developments Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5What Should We Be Worried About?: Real Scenarios That Keep Scientists Up at Night Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Mind: Leading Scientists Explore the Brain, Memory, Personality, and Happiness Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This Idea Is Brilliant: Lost, Overlooked, and Underappreciated Scientific Concepts Everyone Should Know Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Is the Internet Changing the Way You Think?: The Net's Impact on Our Minds and Future Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Culture: Leading Scientists Explore Civilizations, Art, Networks, Reputation, and the Online Revolution Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5What Is Your Dangerous Idea?: Today's Leading Thinkers on the Unthinkable Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Life: The Leading Edge of Evolutionary Biology, Genetics, Anthropology, and Environmental Science Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5What We Believe but Cannot Prove: Today's Leading Thinkers on Science in the Age of Certainty Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This Will Change Everything: Ideas That Will Shape the Future Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5What Are You Optimistic About?: Today's Leading Thinkers on Why Things Are Good and Getting Better Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5By the Late John Brockman Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to The Last Unknowns
Related ebooks
This Will Change Everything: Ideas That Will Shape the Future Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5What We Believe but Cannot Prove: Today's Leading Thinkers on Science in the Age of Certainty Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Mind: Leading Scientists Explore the Brain, Memory, Personality, and Happiness Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Culture: Leading Scientists Explore Civilizations, Art, Networks, Reputation, and the Online Revolution Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The Greatest Story Ever Told--So Far Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Is God a Mathematician? Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Four Realms of Existence: A New Theory of Being Human Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSimply Complexity: A Clear Guide to Complexity Theory Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Reinventing Discovery: The New Era of Networked Science Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This Idea Is Brilliant: Lost, Overlooked, and Underappreciated Scientific Concepts Everyone Should Know Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Know This: Today's Most Interesting and Important Scientific Ideas, Discoveries, and Developments Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5What Are You Optimistic About?: Today's Leading Thinkers on Why Things Are Good and Getting Better Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5What Should We Be Worried About?: Real Scenarios That Keep Scientists Up at Night Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Is the Internet Changing the Way You Think?: The Net's Impact on Our Minds and Future Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5What Is Your Dangerous Idea?: Today's Leading Thinkers on the Unthinkable Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5What to Think About Machines That Think: Today's Leading Thinkers on the Age of Machine Intelligence Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Why?: What Makes Us Curious Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nothing: Surprising Insights Everywhere from Zero to Oblivion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Evolution of Everything: How New Ideas Emerge Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Future Minds: The Rise of Intelligence from the Big Bang to the End of the Universe Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Universe: Leading Scientists Explore the Origin, Mysteries, and Future of the Cosmos Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Mind Wide Open: Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How We Know What Isn't So Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Nature of the Future: Dispatches from the Socialstructed World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Innate: How the Wiring of Our Brains Shapes Who We Are Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Adventures in Memory: The Science and Secrets of Remembering and Forgetting Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How Intelligence Happens Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Second Kind of Impossible: The Extraordinary Quest for a New Form of Matter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Human Instinct: How We Evolved to Have Reason, Consciousness, and Free Will Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Social Science For You
All About Love: New Visions Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dumbing Us Down - 25th Anniversary Edition: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Come As You Are: Revised and Updated: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Men Explain Things to Me Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fourth Turning Is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us about How and When This Crisis Will End Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A People's History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Like Switch: An Ex-FBI Agent's Guide to Influencing, Attracting, and Winning People Over Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of Witty Banter: Be Clever, Quick, & Magnetic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Close Encounters with Addiction Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5You're Not Listening: What You're Missing and Why It Matters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Just Mercy: a story of justice and redemption Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fervent: A Woman's Battle Plan to Serious, Specific, and Strategic Prayer Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Denial of Death Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Women Don't Owe You Pretty Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5100 Amazing Facts About the Negro with Complete Proof Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Human Condition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Verbal Judo, Second Edition: The Gentle Art of Persuasion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for The Last Unknowns
7 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Just the questions. No discussion, no tentative answers. Just a question and then the name and identity of the person asking it. Is this a joke?
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5On Twitter, long threads develop over a question asked by one person. The responses come from a large variety of people, usually with no expertise in the subject matter. In The Last Unknowns, John Brockman asked a gaggle of mostly distinguished academics to come up with a question that had no answer. The result is one short question per page, with the questioner’s name and credentials at the top. Often, the credentials are longer than the question. It’s twitter for the accomplished.Some work to game the system, just like on a twitter thread. Their questions are carefully crafted to be impossible or at least impossibly clever:David Chalmers, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, asks: How can we design a machine that can correctly answer every question, including this one? (Ha ha ha) Tyler Cowen, economic guru, asks: How far are we from wishing to return to the technologies of 1900? Rolf Dobelli of Zurich Minds asks: Does this question exist in a parallel universe?So academics can be fun people too. Here are some good ones:Alun Anderson: Are people who cheat vital to driving progress in human societies?Lisa Feldman Barrett: How does a single brain architecture create many kinds of human minds?Andrew Barron: What would a diagram that gave a complete understanding of imagination need to be?They can also be incomprehensible:Amanda Gefter: Is intersubjectivity possible in a quantum mechanical universe?And there the oldies but goldies, like: Why? and: I=we? For all their erudition, not very original I’m afraid.The majority of the questions are in two areas: the human mind, and the cosmos. There is only one question about surviving climate change, if that says anything about the concerns of the intelligentsia. Besides academics, there are a few artists and entertainers. I’m not sure of what use all this is. It seems to be a collection of questions to end conversations with.David Wineberg
Book preview
The Last Unknowns - John Brockman
Introduction
Interrogate Reality
After twenty years, I’ve run out of questions. So, for the finale to a noteworthy Edge project, can you ask The Last Question
?
Did I say twenty years
? My strange obsession with the idea of Question
goes back to 1968, when I first wrote about the idea of interrogating reality¹:
The final elegance: assuming, asking the question. No answers. No explanations. Why do you demand explanations? If they are given, you will once more be facing a terminus. They cannot get you any further than you are at present.² The solution: not an explanation: a description and knowing how to consider it.
Everything has been explained. There is nothing left to consider. The explanation can no longer be treated as a definition. The question: a description. The answer: not explanation, but a description and knowing how to consider it. Asking or telling: there isn’t any difference.
No explanation, no solution, but consideration of the question. Every proposition proposing a fact must in its complete analysis propose the general character of the universe required for the fact.³
Our kind of innovation consists not in the answers, but in the true novelty of the questions themselves; in the statement of problems, not in their solutions.⁴ What is important is not to illustrate a truth—or even an interrogation—known in advance, but to bring to the world certain interrogations . . . not yet known as such to themselves.⁵
A total synthesis of all human knowledge will not result in huge libraries filled with books, in fantastic amounts of data stored on servers. There’s no value any more in amount, in quantity, in explanation. For a total synthesis of human knowledge, use the interrogative.
The conceptual artist/philosopher James Lee Byars contacted me and suggested a collaboration of sorts which resulted in our taking daily walks in Central Park as Byars and I walked and talked, conversing only in interrogative sentences. Does it sound like fun? Want to try it?
James Lee soon began to develop his ideas, which led to The World Question Center
:
To arrive at an axiology 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.
On November 26, 1968, he launched The World Question Center
in a one-hour television program produced in Brussels at the studios of the Belgian national television network and broadcast live to a national audience. During the hour, he called numerous celebrated intellectuals such as composer John Cage, science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke, futurist Herman Kahn, artist Joseph Beuys, novelist Jerzy Kosinski, poet Michael McClure, and asked, in various ways, the following:
I’m trying to find hypotheses that people are working with that are reduced into some type of very simple single question with no explanation, hopefully, that’s important to them in their own evolution of knowledge. Might you offer one that’s personal?
For the 50th anniversary of The World Question Center,
and for the finale to the twenty years of Edge Questions, I turned it over to the Edgies:
"Ask ‘The Last Question,’ your last question, the question for which you will be