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Science's 125 Big Questions
Shadow Wrought writes "To celebrate their 125th anniversary Science is running a series of articles on the 125 Questions of Science. The top 25 each link to an article exploring the subject of the question in depth. Included are such questions as: Are we alone in the Universe? What are the limits of conventional computing? How did cooperative behavior evolve?"
Really? I'd think swapping them round might be a good idea. I won't comment on the ordering of biology vs physics though, as it's hard to fairly rank the two.
Why am I sitting here asking questions instead of solving them?
The voice of the next generation. "In this tower, in my mind..." Babble - Tower
From a webpage on Molecular Insights into Human Brain Evolution by Jane Bradbury, the following quote applies:
"For natural selection to work, the costs of brain evolution must be outweighed by the advantages gained in terms of fitness. For many years, explains ecological psychologist Robin Dunbar (University of Liverpool, United Kingdom), "people thought that the ability to hunt or forage better was what drove the evolution of our brains. But a better diet had to come before we could grow a bigger brain." Dunbar believes instead that brain evolution in primates and more generally in mammals "has been driven by the need to manage social relationships, and in primates, in particular, to coordinate coherence in social groups through time and space". More complex social interactions, he says, mean that individuals are better able to pool resources to solve problems like finding food, and so they survive better."
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
What, no room for: Yes, but does it run linux?
If you look, they chose to ask very specific questions about biology and very general questions about physics. That very first question on the list, "what is the universe made of?", could have been easily split into five to ten different specific questions; similarly the list in general contained a number of groups of five to ten biology questions that are in a similar enough category they possibly could have been in some way collated. If they'd done either of these things the balance of the list would have seemed quite different even though the article as a whole was asking the exact same things.
But the way they did it makes sense to me, since it seems (to me) like right now biology has a good grasp on the big picture but is a little confused about specifics, whereas physics is absolutely drowning in specifics and at one of those points where they need some general answers about how all of these specifics fit together.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Probably because Science is mainly a biology magazine nowadays. APL would have a very different selection.
And, as another of the respondents pointed out, the physics questions are much broader.
Martin Gardner says that the superultimate question is: Why does the universe exist?
Or, put another way: Why is there something rather than nothing?
Perhaps this is more of a philosophical or metaphysical question, but I think it fits in well with the great scientific questions.
If you think about it, you'll realize that things would be alot simpler if nothing existed at all. Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing? It's a pretty overwhelming thought -- a good reminder that we still don't know much about the fundamental rules of nature. As Gardner said, "the night is large".
The most rabid believers in American Exceptionalism are the exact same people whose policies are destroying it.
Why I can't I get a date?
I feel ya man. It's hard to comprehend the reason for asking if we are alone in the universe when in fact many of us are alone in our own lives. The limits of conventional computing seem more finite when you realize that computers are more or less just conduits to other people who are alone as well. Questions about "cooperative behavior" and "quantum uncertainty" seem only to pick at the withering soul drowning in the sea of loneliness.
Thanks for ruining my day.
Are we alone? Almost certainly not; there's no reason it should have happened here and not elsewhere in this insanely large universe. Will we ever find out? Maybe not... how many technologically sophisticated cultures are there actively broadcasting their presence, in the wavelengths we're watching, close enough that we can hear them?
Me (Blog)
Dark matter and the biological basis of consciousness are well below the big question: What is knowledge? What is consciousness, and what is truth? This should be answered before the question of what the biological basis of consciousness can be known. We don't even know what consciousness is, so why do we look for its biological basis first?
(The answer to the last question is: We didn't. But we haven't found any good answer yet, unless we believe in Plato et al. But science is, metaphorically speaking, a house of cards built in the air. And I'm saying that with no disrespect to science. (And yes, I'm a bit drunk, but I'm still serious.))
To "solve" a question, wouldn't it need to be asked first?
ymmv
Why the fuck didn't you just spell it altruism? Huh?
Is it because you such a sad and pathetic person that you had to use an "accepted variant spelling" in the hopes that people would point out your "spelling error", and then you, in turn, could point out that it IS an "accepted variant spelling"? To make you feel smarter of some such shit?
That's just fucking weak dude. And everyone who is reading this will know that you are a sad little man. This post is +1 Insightful, your post is -1 Pathetic.
OK, guys...
Here's the answer to the "why can't I get a date" thing.
All you need to do to get a date is to come across as a cocky, arrogant, rude asshole whenever you talk to women. I don't pretend to understand why, but women eat that shit up. (it doesn't hurt to lay off the computer talk, either....)
Now, if you're looking for a quality, intelligent woman to fall in love with and marry, then things get a little more complicated. The above advice will, however, at least get you laid.
(Yes, I know it's a sad state of affairs, but it does work.)
A possible answer is the anthropic one, we wouldn't be here otherwise.
But in that case, why does our distant past appear to have been in a state of even lower entropy, even before there was life?
And why do we have all of these other arrows of physics?
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Yet the mystery remains. "It is and has been" leaves one hollow, no?
Clearly there must be a answer.
Well, I can see that you would like there to be more of an answer, and I can understand some of the reasons to want more of an answer, but I don't think that there needs to be a better answer to your question. At least, not an answer that's discoverable from this existence.
I suspect that you, like many, would like for the world to be a little more magical or fantastic than it appears, and are hoping for a conclusive answer which fulfills that desire.
To me, "It is and has been." is an answer that releases me from what I see as a blind alley of escapism: looking for the Truth based on a perspective outside the universe. Godel's incompleteness theorem states that in any consistent system, there will exist statements that are unprovable if all you can use to prove them are facts from within the system. We're simply not going to be able to answer many questions, no matter how carefully we observe events within our own universe.
As for leaving me hollow, I find that there are many ways to deal with the answer: "That's not knowable." The plain, old, mundane universe is a fantastic place, and I get a great deal of satisfaction from learning as much as I possibly can about it. There's magic and wonder in the details of biology, botany, kitchen chemistry, geology, astronomy, etc.
But that's my take on it, and clearly, you don't need to be satisfied with the simple answer I gave. The world would be a rather boring place if everyone agreed with me, wouldn't it?
Regards,
Ross