It is often said that technology is value neutral – what determines whether it is good or evil depends on the uses that people make of it. Once touted as the great power equalizer and democratizer of information and influence, the World Wide Web is now seen by many as a threat to personal autonomy […]
Three Bridges West, a San Francisco film company has completed a second video of selected interviews on topics in human consciousness and the cosmos, this one entitled Élan Vital. It is a remarkable and beautiful meditation on the possibility of a driving force, a field of purposefulness, of love, flowing through the universe. The first […]
Modern physics and math struggle with fundamental inconsistencies. The problem rests with something deeper and even more fundamental – our faith. And, to paraphrase Socrates, “the unexamined faith is not worth believing.” Introduction The contrast between science and religion is often characterized as a battle between fact and faith. More thoughtful writers and scientists take […]
Two Gen-Tech entrepreneurs probed the ethical frontiers of privacy and consent for personal genomic data and genetic engineering at the Long Now Boston conversation this month: DNA – Our Past is Our Future. How can you safely and securely protect your own genetic data? Or, do you value the benefits of genetic research enough to […]
In 1960, Eugene Wigner, in his paper titled The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences, observed: “The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve.” In 2009, Mario Livio released a book asking a […]
