What Will Change Everything?

One of the more interesting parts of every new year is the annual Edge question, where a whole bunch of really smart people respond to a scientific or philosophical question. This year's question is "What game-changing scientific ideas and developments do you expect to live to see?" Among the responders are three of the "Four Horsemen" of atheism -- sorry Christopher Hitchens.

Richard Dawkins predicts that mankind will break the species barrier, meaning that two different species will somehow be combined to form one that does not currently exist. The most likely way this will happen, he predicts, is if human and chimpanzee DNA is combined to recreate an Australopithecus, which was an extinct common ancestor of both humans and chimps. That would be pretty amazing, not to mention creepy as hell.

Daniel Dennett isn't very sure about what will happen, but he's confident that change will start coming at a rapid pace:

Will universities and newspapers become obsolete? Will hospitals and churches go the way of corner grocery stores and livery stables? Will reading music soon become as arcane a talent as reading hieroglyphics? Will reading and writing themselves soon be obsolete? What will we use our minds for? Some see a revolution in our concept of intelligence, either because of "neurocosmetics" (Marcel Kinsbourne) or quantum-computing (W. H. Hoffman), or "just in time storytelling" (Roger Schank). Nick Humphrey reminds us that when we get back to basics — procreating, eating, just staying alive — not that much has changed since Roman times, but I think that these are not really fixed points after all.

Our species' stroll through Design Space is picking up speed. Recreational sex, recreational eating, and recreational perception (hallucinogens, alcohol), have been popular since Roman times, but we are now on the verge of recreational self-transformations that will dwarf the modifications the Romans indulged in. When you no longer need to eat to stay alive, or procreate to have offspring, or locomote to have an adventure — packed life, when the residual instincts for these activities might be simply turned off by genetic tweaking, there may be no constants of human nature left at all. Except, maybe, our incessant curiosity.

And Sam Harris thinks advantages in neuroimaging will lead to "true lie detection," which would have some highly disturbing ramifications:

The greatest transformation of our society will occur only once lie-detectors become both affordable and unobtrusive. Rather than spirit criminal defendants and hedge-fund managers off to the lab for a disconcerting hour of brain scanning, there may come a time when every courtroom or boardroom will have the requisite technology discretely concealed behind its wood paneling. Thereafter, civilized people would share a common presumption: that wherever important conversations are held, the truthfulness of all participants will be monitored. Well-intentioned people would happily pass between zones of obligatory candor, and these transitions will cease to be remarkable. Just as we’ve come to expect that many public spaces will be free of nudity, sex, loud swearing, and cigarette smoke—and now think nothing of the behavioral changes demanded of us whenever we leave the privacy of our homes—we may come to expect that certain places and occasions will require scrupulous truth-telling. Most of us will no more feel deprived of the freedom lie during a press conference or a job interview than we currently feel deprived of the freedom to remove our pants in a restaurant. Whether or not the technology works as well as we hope, the belief that it generally does work will change our culture profoundly.

Well, these guys have thoroughly freaked me out. However, among the many responders are some more optimistic answers. There is a lot to sift through, and I still haven't gotten through many of the answers yet, but what I've seen so far is very engaging. I recommend checking it out if you have some spare time.