I went to a talk at Harvard last night to promote a new book from the Edge website (www.edge.org). The Edge is a website where the most brilliant thinkers of our time discuss things.

At the talk were John Brockman (who started the Edge), Daniel Dennett (philosopher from Tufts who researches conscienceness), MIT Quantum physicist Seth Lloyd, Harvard pyschology professor Daniel Gilbert, Harvard evolutionary biologist Marc Hauser, and Harvard psychology professor Elizabeth Spelke. Brockman talked about how this guy 30 years ago thought the best way to gain knowledge was not to read lots of books but to get the smartest people together in a room and have them ask each other the questions that they were asking themselves. That eventually turned into the “World Question Center” where Brockman asks hundreds of scientists a thought provoking question each year. The 2004 question was “What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it?” and they just released a book of the answers, which is what the talk was about. On the Edge website, you can also see everyone’s answers to “What is your dangerous idea?”, the 2005 question.

Anyway, the talk was very intriguing. Hauser talked about how all of us are very much the same, genes provide the opportunity for lots of variation and your environment and culture selects it. Lloyd talked about how science can never really be proven, all you can do is run experiments over and over again until you are convinced. This was an interesting one, its funny how people believed for so long that the world was flat, the earth is the center of the universe, etc. I wonder what misguided scientific thoughts we have now that we will soon replace? Lloyd also mentioned that all atoms are really calculating things, with spins and charges changing based on collisions and things, and so at its core, the universe is really running a program and calculating an answer (similar to the hitchiker’s guide to the galaxy i think, anyway, Lloyd has an upcoming book about this).

Gilbert and Dennett both talked about consienceness. Gilbert talked about how the only thing that you can really prove is your existence. You know what its like to be you. You can’t really know for sure what its like to be anything else. He made the point that we feel moral obligations to beings that we feel that we know what its like to be them. We dont want to hurt other people or dogs, but we dont care as much about ants, trees, or rocks being harmed, since we don’t know what its like to be them. He brought up a vision of the future when robots become sentient and seem like us, and suddenly say I am me, I want civil rights.

Dennett talked in a similar way about the difference between us and animals. First he asked if we could know what its like to be a beehive or an anthill. Or a rabbit. We feel like we could know whats its like to be a single animal but not many, but apparently the rabbit brain is very separated and may not be that different from a pair of oxen or a beehive. He didnt feel that we could know what its like to be a dog either. Someone asked him about dogs being excited and Dennett pointed out that dogs have been selected and breeded to show human traits, to be like us, and be our companions. So they aren’t representative of other animals and they’re possibly not really feeling these things. Dennett also brought up how language may be the difference between us and animals. Gilbert and Hauser disagreed saying that animals can communicate with gestures and things. Dennett countered by saying it wasn’t our ability to talk but the fact that it allowed us to try to deceive others, disguise our true feeling and intentions. This ability means we must have a theory of minds, we can understand how others think and react to what we do.

Anyway, lots of crazy talk, makes me wonder about what the universe really is, what is consienceness, and what is going on in the brain. I think I want to get some of Daniel Dennett’s books on consienceness as well.