The World Question Center!

This is something I stumbled across when looking around for Ideolect ideas and views...If you have time to nerd out it's pretty awesome!

Here's the link :http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/wqc/index.html

"James Lee inspired the idea that led to the Reality Club (and subsequently to Edge), and is responsible for the motto of the club. He believed that to arrive at an axiology of societal knowledge it was pure folly to go to a Widener Library and read 6 million volumes of books. (In this regard he kept only four books at a time in a box in his minimally furnished room, replacing books as he read them.) This led to his creation of the World Question Center in which he planned to gather the 100 most brilliant minds in the world together in a room, lock them behind closed doors, and have them ask each other the questions they were asking themselves.

The expected result, in theory, was to be a synthesis of all thought. But between idea and execution are many pitfalls. James Lee identified his 100 most brilliant minds (a few of them have graced the pages of this Site), called each of them, and asked what questions they were asking themselves. The result: 70 people hung up on him."

That was in 1971. New technologies equal new perceptions. The Internet and email now allow for a serious implementation of Jimmy Lee's grand design and I am pleased to note that among the contributors are Freeman Dyson and Murray Gell-Mann, two names on his 1971 list of "the 100 most brilliant minds in the world."

For the first anniversary edition of Edge I asked a number of the third culture thinkers to use the interrogative. I have asked "the most subtle sensibilities in the world what questions they are asking themselves."

I am pleased to present The World Question Center.

Some excerpts:

"What makes a soul? And if machines ever have souls, what will be the equivalent of psychoactive drugs? of pain? of the physical / emotional high I get from having a clean office?"

ESTHER DYSON
President, Edventures Holdings, Inc; publisher ofRelease 1.0 Newsletter; author of Release 2.0.

"The best questions were asked long ago. For example, Fermi's question, 'Where are they?', and Blake's question, 'How do you know but ev'ry bird that cuts the airy way is an immense world of delight, clos'd by your senses five?' My question is, 'What goes on inside the head of a baby?' "

FREEMAN DYSON
Physicist, Institute for Advanced Study; author ofDisturbing The Universe; From Eros To Gaia.

"Why not trees in the oceans?"

GEORGE DYSON
Leading authority in the field of Russian Aleut kayaks; author of Baidarka; Darwin Among The Machines.