Warning: dangerous ideas!

Edge Magazine asks big thinkers a big question once a year. This year’s question is “what is your most dangerous idea?”.

Many of the answers, unfortunately, are somewhat dull encapsulations of the thinker’s pet hypothesis (in other words: “If you like my idea, buy my book!”), and there are some that are just meandering blahblahblah (Kai, I’m taking to you). There are a small handful of truly interesting dangerous ideas, and two stand out for me.

Carlo Rovelli says

What the physics of the 20th century says about the world might in fact be true.

I love quantum mechanics, because it’s proof that scientists have a sense of humour, and are willing to openly accept the completely ridiculous in an effort to understand the world. Some of the things that quantum mechanics says are completely preposterous – and Schrödinger tried to prove how silly things were by designing a thought experiment about a dead cat. Now he’s regarded as a primo thinker on the subject. Go figure.

So now. What if they’re all correct? What if the world works that way? How weird would that be.

Eric Fischl says:

The unknown becomes known, and is not replaced with a new unknown.

What if we know it all? No more mystery, nothing else to figure out. What will happen to the world? What will all the researchers do? What will all the artists do? Fischl makes a great analogy that pushes all my buttons – he talks about a painting by Vermeer that talks to him about the mystery of the unknown. What if we knew it all? That’s a dangerous idea.