1. Death. 150,000 people die every day. That is a lot of suffering and lost economic and cultural value. If you equate one person with one book, each year we lose 3 times the equivalent of the Library of Congress.
2. Existential risk
3. (@7:03) Suboptimality of life: illness, pain, hunger, emotional suffering, injustice, poor relationships, limits to intellectual and emotional capacity, absence of creativity etc. This is the section that most of the talk expands on.

Kids will take a chance. If they don't know, they'll have a go. They're not frightened of being wrong. If you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original. And by the time they get to be adults, most kids have lost that capacity. They have become frightened of being wrong. And we run our companies like this, by the way. We stigmatize mistakes. And we're now running national education systems where mistakes are the worst thing you can make. And the result is that we are educating people out of their creative capacities. Picasso once said this. He said that all children are born artists. The problem is to remain an artist as we grow up. I believe this passionately, that we don't grow into creativity, we grow out of it. Or rather, we get educated out if it. So why is this?

Every education system on earth has the same hierarchy of subjects. Every one. Doesn't matter where you go. At the top are mathematics and languages, then the humanities, and the bottom are the arts. And in pretty much every system too, there's a hierarchy within the arts. Art and music are normally given a higher status in schools than drama and dance. There isn't an education system on the planet that teaches dance every day to children the way we teach them mathematics. Why? Why not? I think this is rather important. I think math is very important, but so is dance. Children dance all the time if they're allowed to, we all do. Truthfully, what happens is, as children grow up, we start to educate them progressively from the waist up. And then we focus on their heads. And slightly to one side. The whole purpose of public education throughout the world is to produce university professors.

There's something curious about professors in my experience -- not all of them, but typically -- they live in their heads. They live up there, and slightly to one side. They're disembodied, you know, in a kind of literal way. They look upon their body as a form of transport for their heads, don't they? (Laughter) It's a way of getting their head to meetings. If you want real evidence of out-of-body experiences, by the way, get yourself along to a residential conference of senior academics, and pop into the discotheque on the final night. And there you will see it -- grown men and women writhing uncontrollably, off the beat, waiting until it ends so they can go home and write a paper about it.

If you think of it, the whole system of public education around the world is a protracted process of university entrance. And the consequence is that many highly talented, brilliant, creative people think they're not, because the thing they were good at at school wasn't valued, or was actually stigmatized.

It's a process of academic inflation. And it indicates the whole structure of education is shifting beneath our feet. We need to radically rethink our view of intelligence.

She's been responsible for some of the most successful musical theater productions in history, she's given pleasure to millions, and she's a multi-millionaire. Somebody else might have put her on medication and told her to calm down.

Our education system has mined our minds in the way that we strip-mine the earth: for a particular commodity. And for the future, it won't serve us. We have to rethink the fundamental principles on which we're educating our children. There was a wonderful quote by Jonas Salk, who said, "If all the insects were to disappear from the earth, within 50 years all life on Earth would end. If all human beings disappeared from the earth, within 50 years all forms of life would flourish." And he's right.

1. Follow your passion
2. Work. Successful people have fun working. Don't be a workaholic, be a workafrolic.
3. Become damn good at something. There's no magic; it's practice, practice, practice.
4. Focus on one thing
5. Push yourself
6. Serve
7. Ideas. There's no magic to them: listen, observe, be curious, ask questions, problem solve, make connections
8. Persist through CRAP (Criticis, Rejection, Assholes and Pressure)

"'I'm writing a book on magic,' I explain, and I'm asked, 'Real magic?' By real magic, people mean miracles, thaumaturgical acts, and supernatural powers. 'No,' I answer. 'Conjuring tricks, not real magic.' Real magic, in other words, refers to the magic that is not real, while the magic that is real, that can actually be done, is not real magic."
-- Lee Siegel, Net of Magic

Now, that's the way a lot of people feel about consciousness.

But I'm not going to explain it all to you. I'm going to do what philosophers do. Here's how a philosopher explains the sawing the lady in half trick. The philosopher says, "I'm going to explain to you how that's done. You see, the magician doesn't really saw the lady in half." (Laughter) "He merely makes you think that he does." And you say "Yes, and how does he do that?" He says, "Oh, that's not my department, I'm sorry".
-- Daniel Dennett

If you work on one neuron, that's called neuroscience. If you work on two neurons, that's called psychology.

 It's not how big your share is 
 It's how much you can share 
 It's not the fights you dreamed of 
 It's those you really fought 
 It's not what you've been given 
 It's what you do with what you've got 

 What's the use of two strong legs 
 if you only run away? 
 And what's the use of the finest voice 
 If you have nothing good to say 
 What's the use of strength and muscle 
 if you only push and shove 
 And what's the use of two good ears 
 if you can't hear those you love 

Now, there's a typical scientific journal, the Quarterly Review of Biology. And I'm going to put together, as guest editor, a special issue on the question, "Did an asteroid kill the dinosaurs?" And the first paper is a standard scientific paper presenting evidence, "Iridium Layer at the K-T Boundary, Potassium-Argon Dated Crater in Yucatan, Indicate That an Asteroid Killed the Dinosaurs." Perfectly ordinary scientific paper. Now, the next one, "The President of The Royal Society Has Been Vouchsafed a Strong Inner Conviction" -- (Laughter) -- "... That an Asteroid Killed the Dinosaurs." (Laughter) "It Has Been Privately Revealed to Professor Huxtane That an Asteroid Killed the Dinosaurs." (Laughter) "Professor Hordley Was Brought Up to Have Total and Unquestioning Faith" -- (Laughter) "... That an Asteroid Killed the Dinosaurs." "Professor Hawkins Has Promulgated an Official Dogma Binding on All Loyal Hawkinsians That an Asteroid Killed the Dinosaurs." (Laughter) That's inconceivable of course.

People are always going on about, "How did September the 11th change you?" Well, here's how it changed me. Let's all stop being so damned respectful. Thank you very much. (Applause)

• the brain is too complicated: not really. The neocortex may have 30 billion cells, but it's very regular; it seems to repeat itself over and over.
• "brains can't understand brains". That's nothing more than a "Zen" statement. We understand our liver, which is also a bunch of cells.
• there is a lot of unexplained and/or counter-intuitive data. But that was the case too with the evidence for heliocentrism (people got burned at the stake for claiming that), evolution (we share a common ancestor with the plant in the lobby), and plate tectonics (mountains float).

• those that want the power to remove copyrighted content whether or not there's a judgment of fair use,
• and copyright abolitionists - a generation that rejects the very notion of what copyright is supposed to do

In fundamental physics, a beautiful or elegant theory is more likely to be right than a theory that is inelegant.

In 1957, [we] put forward a partial theory of the weak force, in disagreement with the results of 7 experiments. It was beautiful so we dared to publish it, believing that all those experiments must be wrong.

In fact, they were all wrong.

We believe there is a unified theory underlying all the regularities. Steps toward unification exhibit the simplicity. Symmetry exhibits the simplicity. And then there is self-similarity across the scales

So we don't have to assume these principles as separate metaphysical postulates. They follow from the fundamental theory. They are what we call emergent properties. You don't need something more to get something more. That's what emergence means.

it's critically important to realize that. [...] People keep asking that when they read my book, The Quark and the Jaguar. And they say, "Isn't there something more beyond what you have there?" Presumably, they mean something supernatural. Anyway, there isn't. You don't need something more to explain something more. Thank you very much.

• Heart disease can be reverted
• Prostate and breast cancer progress can be stopped and reverted

• "Well, someone has to"
• We are not creating anything new; we are merely rearranging what nature has already provided (genes, molecules)
• Seriously, if you could make plants with higher yield, that grow better in harsher conditions, so you could feed Earth's growing population; if you could build bacteria that make gasoline out of CO2, wouldn't you?

The lines are going to blur (and they already are) between therapy and enhancement, between treatment and prevention, and between need and desire - that's really the central one.

"The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them: both glory and danger alike. And yet notwithstanding, they go out and they meet it"
- Thucydides

After all, if you are completely healthy and you have heterosexual sex, the risk of infection in one intercourse is one in 1,000.

1. Ultrasound imaging revealed male foetus grasping its penis "in a fashion resembling masturbation movements".
2. Orgasm can be triggered without genitals. Kinsey interviewed one woman who could get it from having her eyebrow stroked. Another got it from brushing her teeth (it wasn't the toothpaste or stimulating the gums, but the entire experience). Roach interviewed another woman who could think herself to orgasm.
3. Brain-dead people (beating-heart cadavers) can have an orgasm if their sacral nerve root is stimulated. See also the creepy Lazarus sign
4. (BS)
5. Orgasm from intercourse was documented to stop hiccups in one Israeli man.
6. Debunked: orgasm was prescribed for fertility for women, based on the belief that contractions pulled the semen in (they don't). But for males, masturbation helps eliminate old sperm that loses its motility.
7. Pig farmers in Denmark saw 6% more piglets given birth by sows who had an orgasm at the time of insemination. A DVD is being sold with a video demonstration of the technique.
8. Female animals don't express orgasm pleasure very evidently because they mostly use the upper part of their face (the ears). Primates use their mouths.
9. Masters and Johnson, in the 1950s developed an "artificial coition machine" - a penis with a camera on it, attached to a motor.
10. Alfred Kinsey calculated the average distance traveled by ejaculated semen from 300 men. Most sloped out. The record was 8 ft.

• mathematics is the language of science
• music is the language of emotions

So, in science, two false approaches blight progress. One is well known: untestable theories. But the more important one is "explanationless" theories. Whenever you're told that some existing statistical trend will continue, but you aren't given a hard-to-vary account of what causes that trend, you're being told a wizard did it. When you are told that carrots have human rights because they share half our genes -- but not how gene percentages confer rights -- wizard. When someone announces that the nature-nurture debate has been settled because there is evidence that a given percentage of our political opinions are genetically inherited, but they don't explain how genes cause opinions, they've settled nothing. They are saying that our opinions are caused by wizards, and presumably so are their own. That the truth consists of hard to vary assertions about reality is the most important fact about the physical world. It's a fact that is, itself, unseen, yet impossible to vary. Thank you. (Applause)

I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

"If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

There is a saying that whatever true thing you can say about India, the opposite is also true.

We actually don't choose between experiences; we choose between memories of experiences. And, even when we think about the future, we don't think of our future normally as experiences. We think of our future as anticipated memories.

Imagine that your next vacation you know that at the end of the vacation all your pictures will be destroyed, and you'll get an amnesic drug so that you won't remember anything. Now, would you choose the same vacation?

another reason we cannot think straight about happiness is that we do not attend to the same things when we think about life, and we actually live.

• they're both the same size and shape - designed to fit the human hand
• the axe had been made the same way for 30,000 generations; no progress; no innovation. The mouse is obsolete after 5 years.
• the axe is made of one substance; the mouse is made of a confection of materials and ideas. Ideas come together and "have sex" through the uniquely human habit of exchange. ~"Nobody ever saw a dog make a fair exchange of a bone with another dog." -- Adam Smith
• the axe was made by its user, for himself. Thh mouse was made for the user by other people - millions of them if you include all the participants in the product development chain. Some animals also work for each other (e.g. ants), but it only happens within a colony, because there is a reproductive division of labor.
• who knew how to make it? The axe maker. But nobody on the planet alone knows how to make a computer mouse. None of us can even make a pencil by themselves. "Through exchange and specialization, is we've created the ability to do things that we don't even understand."

• suppose Adam takes 4 hours to make a spear and 3 hours to make an axe, for a total of 7 hours
• suppose Oz takes 1 hours to make a spear and 2 hours to make an axe, for a total of 3 hours

• Oz makes two spears - takes him 2 hours
• Adam makes two axes - takes him 6 hours

IQ is completely irrelevant. What's relevant to a society is how well people are communicating their ideas, and how well they're cooperating, not how clever their individuals are.

Q: What are your core values?

Capable, generous men do not create victims; they nurture victims. There is another way of nurturing victims, which is to police perpetrators. And that is something that has been in my character for a long time.

1. If a choice affects you, then you should be the one making it. But in Asian cultures, it is more important to follow the choice of the elderly. Anglo-American kids were 2.5 times as involved when they chose what puzzles to solve, vs. when a teacher or their parent chose for them. Asian-American kids performed best when they were told their mothers chose for them.
2. The more choices you have, the more likely you are to make the best choice. But in Eastern Europe, residents of formerly communist countries believe there are too many choices among products, may of them being irrelevant, and some associate making a choice with fear ("dilemmas"). For example, seven different types of soda were perceived as one choice: soda. If water and fruit juice were added to the 7 sodas, they perceived only 3 choices. A number of Iyengar's studies showed that when people have 10 or more choices, they make poorer decisions, be it healthcare, investments, or other critical areas.
3. You must never say no to choice. But in cases of children born with cerebral anoxia, which has no chance of survival, in the US doctors give the parents a choice: remove the child off life support, or keep her, in which case she may still die in a few days, and if she survives, she would remain in a permanent vegetative state. A year later, Amreican parents had a much harder time coping with the loss, even reaching depression. In France, the doctors made the decision (to remove life support), and the parents coped better ("She was here for so short, but she taught us so much"). American parents felt they were "part of an execution". But none of the American parents would have delegated the choice to the doctor.

Thank you for your remarks. I appreciate your criticism of my country, and I take it as a sign that we're among friends and can speak candidly to one another. And what we're here to do is not to talk about [off-topic subject]. What we're here to do is to see if we can figure out a [solution to Y]"

1. You actually won't fall in love with your baby in the first minute; the love grows. In an act of heresy, the speakers charted their love for the child. It was more intense after five years. (04:50)
2. "You can't talk about how lonely having a baby can be."

   I did expect it to be difficult, have sleepless nights, constant feedings, but I did not expect the feelings of isolation and loneliness that I experienced. And I was really surprised that no one had talked to me, that I was going to be feeling this way. And I called my sister whom I'm very close to -- and had three children -- and I asked her, "Why didn't you tell me I was going to be feeling this way, that I was going to have these -- feeling incredibly isolated?" And she said -- I'll never forget -- "It's just not something you want to say to a mother that's having a baby for the first time."

   And it's hard not to think that part of what leads to this sense of isolation is our modern world. So Alisa's experience is not isolated. So your 58 percent of mothers surveyed report feelings of loneliness. Of those, 67 percent are most lonely when their kids are zero to five -- probably really zero to two. In the process of preparing this, we looked at how some other cultures around the world deal with this period of time, because here in the Western world, less than 50 percent of us live near our family members, which I think is part of why this is such a tough period.

3. "You can't talk about your miscarriage" 15 to 20 percent of all pregnancies result in miscarriage. And I find this astounding. In a survey, 74 percent of women said that miscarriage, they felt, was partly their fault, which is awful. And astoundingly, 22 percent said they would hide a miscarriage from their spouse.
4. "You can't say that your average happiness has declined since having a child. The party line is that every single aspect of my life has just gotten dramatically better ever since I participated in the miracle that is childbirth and family." Chart by Daniel Gilbert in "Stumbling on Happiness", based on four independent studies and labeled "The Most Terrifying Chart Imaginable for a New Parent": precipitous drop in marital happiness after childbirth, and broader happiness doesn't rise again until your first child goes to college.

1. We don't have any internal clue that we're wrong (much like the Looney Tunes coyote who chases a bird off a cliff and keeps running until it realizes it's in mid air)
2. There is strong social pressure to not be wrong, cultivated since elementary school.

1. We assume they're ignorant (so we may supply them with facts)
2. If they don't start agreeing with us, we assume they're idiots
3. If we figure out they're actually pretty smart, and have the same facts that we do, and still don't agree with us, we assume they're evil.

[...] to me, if you really want to rediscover wonder, you need to step outside of that tiny, terrified space of rightness and look around at each other and look out at the vastness and complexity and mystery of the universe and be able to say, "Wow, I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong."