Without scientific intuition, without the belief that "it should be arranged this way," there would be no crazy theories or great discoveries. Therefore, scientists often have to accept many hypotheses on faith.
For twenty years, beginning in 1991, Edge Foundation founder John Brockman, an advocate for science and technology research, has asked the world's leading intellectuals: “Great minds sometimes guess the truth before the facts or arguments emerge to support it. The great philosopher Denis Diderot called this ability "the spirit of divination."
What do you believe when you cannot prove it? Scientists shared their hypotheses on various topics - from the mystery of love to another life in the Universe. It turned out that the authorities are not at all ashamed to believe even what looks like sheer absurdity. We, in turn, asked the same question to our specialists.
INTELLECTUAL EVOLUTION WILL PROVIDE SOLARIS
Director of the Research Institute of Gerontology Academician of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences Vladimir Shabalin:
- Today, biological evolution has been replaced by intellectual evolution. The brain is what interests Nature today. She is interested in its development and improvement. In order for us to develop the brain, evolution has even given us a unique opportunity to age later: according to the WHO age classification, the current 44-year-old is young, and earlier he was considered an old man. And the size of the older age group from 60 to 90 years old is growing 4 - 5 times faster than the total population. After all, they are the owners of a developed brain, intelligence, experience, finally!
So evolution shows its interest in the qualitative development of the intellectual properties of mankind. And in the future, I think, the brain will merge with the computer, and we will become biorobots. One way or another, but as a result of intellectual evolution, not quite people or not people at all will be created - creatures that are very far from the currently known biological forms. And in the future, perhaps, Solaris will appear - a thinking ocean of the planet, like science fiction writer Stanislav Lem. Intellectual matter will merge into a single governing body of the biosphere. I believe in it, but I cannot prove it.
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TRUE LOVE IS
David Bass, professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Texas, an expert in the evolutionary psychology of human mating strategies:
- I believe in true love. Over the 20 years of my scientific career, I have researched a wide variety of phenomena, from the most ingenious ways men and women manipulate each other to the most diabolical forms of sexual cheating. But all these dark sides of human nature did not shatter my faith in true love. It is rare - very few are fortunate enough to survive it. The roads of "ordinary" love are well-trodden, and its signs are well studied: hypnotic attraction, obsession with the image of a loved one, sexual tension. But true love goes its own way. It is difficult to define, it eludes scientific measurement, it avoids any standard.
GOD PLAYS DICE
Professor of theoretical physics at Stanford University, author of the book "Introduction to the theory of black holes" Leonard Susskind:
- If I flip a coin a million times, then, for sure, heads will NOT come up a million times. I'm not passionate, but I'm so sure of this that, without hesitation, I would bet my salary for a whole year or my soul on it. I am absolutely convinced that the laws of large numbers - that is, the theory of probability - will work and will not give me offense. All science is built on these laws. But I cannot prove it and I really have no idea why they work. Perhaps this is why Einstein said that God does not play dice. Probably still plays.
FREEZE YOUR BODY BECOME IMMORTAL
Biophysicist, director of the first cryostorage in Russia Igor Artyukhov:
- One of the ways to gain immortality will be cryonics - freezing the remains of the deceased. At present, cryostorage houses contain about 200 bodies, including twenty in Russia. The main thing is to wait for the correct defrosting technology so that they return to life as healthy people. Here we hope for nanomedicine: micro-robots launched into the body will be able to completely restore body and brain cells.
FAITH IS HIDDEN IN US IN THE BRAIN
Sam Harris, Ph. D. from Stanford University and Ph. D. in Neuroscience from UCLA, author of The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Mind:
- 44 percent of Americans believe that in the next 50 years, Jesus will return to earth to judge the living and the dead. But what does it mean to believe? I think faith is a process independent of the content of what we believe in. I think our understanding of God is no different from our understanding of numbers, penguins, or tofu. However, I believe that the neural processes that make a statement true are based on more fundamental reward-related activity in the frontal lobes of the brain - perhaps the same regions responsible for how pleasant or unpleasant tastes and smells are. For example, it is possible that truth is beauty and beauty is truth, and not only in a metaphorical sense. And false statements disgust us in the truest sense of the word. Therefore, we believe in the beautiful, but not in the ugly.
THE CLONE OF A GENIUS WILL NEVER APPEAR
Professor, Doctor of Medical Sciences, Head of the Department of Medical Genetics at the First Moscow State Medical University I. M. Sechenova Aliy Asanov:
- We will never create clones of ourselves. The reason is that a person is a certain result of the interaction between his genetics and many environmental factors. For example, we can reproduce an exact genetic copy of Mozart if we find his bones. But it will not be possible to repeat his life path - from pneumonia suffered in infancy to his first love. Namely, various little things become the contents of the piggy bank of genius. It will also not be possible to create a one hundred percent double and any other person. Therefore, humanity will refuse the idea of cloning. Only animals will be cloned - for the sake of meat, milk.
SHOULD LIVE NOT PRESENT BUT THE FUTURE AND THE PAST
Doctor of Psychology, winner of the highest award of the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain Kai Krause:
- I have always believed, but I cannot prove that slogans like “here and now”, “live in the present” are a delusion. Quite the opposite: I believe that the most important thing is what was BEFORE and what will be AFTER. It is important to foresee the moment and remember it, but not the moment itself.
The German language has a beautiful word Vorfreude. This is not just "pleasure" or even "anticipation." This is "pre-enjoyment", a moment "to joy", so to speak, "pre-happiness." This word describes the connection with time, the joy of waiting for the next moment, impatience. And when the moment passes, before you have time to blink an eye, only a memory will remain of it. So live in the eternal blessing of anticipation, cherish hope, dream of something that doesn't exist yet. And at the same time, bring memories to life, appreciate them, share them.
AND ALSO: OPPONENT OPPONENTS
ABOUT THE UNIVERSE
Professor at Tufts University (Medford, USA), physicist, cosmologist Alexander Vilenkin:
- There are many reasons for believing in the infinity of the universe. And if so, then it consists of an infinite number of regions like ours. Such a picture deprives our civilization of the opportunity to claim uniqueness: there are innumerable people like us, scattered throughout the cosmos.
Paul Steinhardt, PhD in Physics from Princeton University:
- I am convinced that our Universe did not arise by chance. Its life is governed by the invariable laws of physics, and these laws are special cases of a certain unified theory. Thus, the universe is extremely simple. And there is no need to invent an infinite number of universes of all kinds in order to explain the structure of a single universe.
ABOUT THE TIME
Professor of Physics at the University of Marseille, author of the book "Quantum Gravity" Carlo Rovelli:
- I am absolutely sure: time does not exist. Humanity has invented it as comfortable, but wobbly, misleading limitations that our minds use to somehow order reality.
Physicist, author of the book "Three Ways to Quantum Gravity" Lee Smolin:
- I believe in the existence of time, I believe in causality. I also doubt that there was no time before the Big Bang. In my opinion, our story began long before him.
ABOUT CONSCIOUSNESS
Daniel Dennett, Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Center for Cognitive Research at Tufts University, author of The Interpretation of Consciousness, Darwin's Dangerous Idea and The Evolution of Freedom:
- I believe, but so far I cannot prove that mastery of human language (oral or written) is a necessary prerequisite for consciousness. Consequently, animals and children who cannot yet speak are not conscious. In other words, they are incapable of suffering or enjoyment, they are incapable of experiencing and intellectually comprehending it.
Alan Andersen, former editor-in-chief of New Scientist magazine:
- I believe that bees, butterflies and cockroaches are conscious, able to survive stress and may even die from it. Of course, their consciousness is not the same as human consciousness. Rather, the world is full of many different kinds of consciousness. I call consciousness the sensation of how we see the world and its interconnections.