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What is the Last Question?
After twenty years, I’ve run out of questions. So, for the finale to a noteworthy Edge project, can you ask "The Last Question"?
284 pages, Unbound
Published November 1, 2018
1 person is currently reading
13 people want to read
About the author
John Brockman
67 books615 followersJohn Brockman is an American literary agent and author specializing in scientific literature. He established the Edge Foundation, an organization that brings together leading edge thinkers across a broad range of scientific and technical fields.
He is author and editor of several books, including: The Third Culture (1995); The Greatest Inventions of the Past 2000 Years (2000); The Next Fifty Years (2002) and The New Humanists (2003).
He has the distinction of being the only person to have been profiled on Page One of the "Science Times" (1997) and the "Arts & Leisure" (1966), both supplements of The New York Times.
He is author and editor of several books, including: The Third Culture (1995); The Greatest Inventions of the Past 2000 Years (2000); The Next Fifty Years (2002) and The New Humanists (2003).
He has the distinction of being the only person to have been profiled on Page One of the "Science Times" (1997) and the "Arts & Leisure" (1966), both supplements of The New York Times.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
June 29, 2019
List of 284 questions - some of them kind of daffy or parochial ("will we ever be able to predict earthquakes?", "What would comprise the most precise sonic representation of the history of life?"), some of them profound, about half of them interminably nerdsniped by this thing called consciousness, exactly 12 of them about what I'd answer. ("Will AI make the Luddites right?", "Is it possible to control a system capable of evolving?", "What can humanity do right now that will make the biggest difference over the next billion years?", "Can an increasingly powerful species survive the actions of it's most extreme individuals?")
A few of them are answered already (to my satisfaction), e.g. "Why are people seldom persuaded by clear evidence and rational argument?", "Is love really all you need?", "Are feelings computable?", "Why do even the most educated people today feel that their grip on what they can truly know is weaker than ever before?", "Was agriculture a wrong turn?". But then the list is an accurate picture of how compartmentalised and undiffused much of the greatest knowledge is among intellectuals.
(But the prompt is not "what's the most important question?" nor "what question do we most need answered?" so ignore my judging.)
Too broad for PhDs, often too broad for entire careers, but inspiring and sharpening anyway.
A few of them are answered already (to my satisfaction), e.g. "Why are people seldom persuaded by clear evidence and rational argument?", "Is love really all you need?", "Are feelings computable?", "Why do even the most educated people today feel that their grip on what they can truly know is weaker than ever before?", "Was agriculture a wrong turn?". But then the list is an accurate picture of how compartmentalised and undiffused much of the greatest knowledge is among intellectuals.
(But the prompt is not "what's the most important question?" nor "what question do we most need answered?" so ignore my judging.)
Too broad for PhDs, often too broad for entire careers, but inspiring and sharpening anyway.
Displaying 1 of 1 review