The Cortical Column

I've always wondered about the properties of intelligence of extraterrestrial life (ET). The question is similar to Nagel's "What is it like to be a bat? (Google)," except perhaps more extreme. The Drake Equation tells us there are likely to be roughly 3 other civilizations in our galaxy alone (Edge Foundation). In our search for ET we typically look for Earth-like planets, based on their spectroscopic profile ...

I always love the questions that the Edge Foundation's World Question Center comes out with. This time, they asked 88 leading scientists, thinkers and visionaries "What is your formula? Your algorithm? Your equation?" Although you may not agree with all of the responses, it's well worth going through them. Here are my favorites: Max Tegmark tells us why there are three dimensions of space and one of time, with ...

Narrated by cosmologist Martin Rees, the fantastic video "Are we Real?" entertains the beginnings and ends of our current knowledge of reality. From brain science to the many-worlds interpretation (MWI) of quantum physics, it paints a picture that is often easy to forget. That the true nature of our universe may literally be inaccessible to us. The MWI prohibits communication between alternate worlds, so it might be that ...