Welcome to the Werbos
World!
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6
MegaChallenges for the 21st Century · Key Challenges To Basic Scientific Understanding: 1.
What is Mind? (how to build/understand
intelligence) ·
Intelligence up to
the subsymbolic level, ordinary neural nets today ·
Symbolic/semiotic
intelligence and beyond 2.
How does the Universe work? (Quantum
physics...) 3.
What is Life? (e.g., quantitative systems
biotechnology) · 4. Sustainable
growth on Earth ·
Global sustainable
energy/environment & mid-term survival ·
“yin
sustainability,” e.g. population, related women’s issues, peace 5. Cost-effective sustainable space
settlement 6. Human potential -- growth/learning in brain, soul,
integration (body) |
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Welcome! This web site is not about me, but about the real world as I see it. As I look ahead to our common future, I see six main megachallenges ahead of us – as listed above. You can click anywhere on that list, or on the subchallenges. The artwork is just a pictorial representation of the same six. If you were looking instead for information on the Werbos family, click here. For a bio of Paul Werbos, click here. The six megachallenges fall into two big groups: (1) challenges to our objective, clear understanding of the foundations of our life and our world; and (2) challenges to protect and improve the future condition of humanity. The second set of challenges calls us all to protect the future of humanity and life in general in three places – earth, outer space and inner space. These three challenges include everything. They are really just a kind of bookkeeping device, to focus our attention more clearly on the future of humanity in general. Better understanding will be crucial to our ability to address the humanity challenges effectively. You can see that by looking at each of the six challenges, and seeing how strong the connections are between them. I have also discussed these connections in two global talks given in 2006 in South Korea arranged by the “State of the Future” Millennium Project of the United Nations system; click here to see the (1 meg) talk for futurists, or click here to see the (1 meg) talk for science policy people. The views on this web page are my own personal views. (None of the organizations I work with would take such strong positions across all of the issues I discuss here!) These views are all very different from the standard conventional wisdoms which you would find in any of the hundreds of self-confident cultures which criss-cross the earth. But in fact – the conventional wisdoms all contradict each other. The more one probes deeply, and tries to resolve the contradictions, the more one ends up seeing things quite differently. Richard Clark (U.S. National
Security advisor under In addressing all six of these challenges – even the challenge of enhancing subjective human experience – I try to take a systematically rational approach. This means that I try to define a clear goal in each case, and work out a concrete strategy designed to maximize progress towards that goal. For example, I ask: how can we find a rational strategy to understand how the universe works better than we do today? If we push sheer logic to the limit, without any regard to conventional wisdom, where does it point to? How can we unify our understanding of how it all works? I like to believe that the resulting strategies are a lot more vigorous, focused and viable than the fuzzy, ineffective vision papers we see coming out of most of the policy community. Yet some policy makers, like bean counters, do more harm than good by going to the opposite extreme, when they apply “rationality” to the wrong goals or blind themselves to important aspects of human life. What kind of rationality do we really want, in making global policy decisions? Click here for my view… Thank you very much for considering these views… and for thinking hard about the challenges which belong to all of us… |
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