Biochemic Machinery Is Imminently Important

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Even something so small can have a kind of biochemic machinery that's capable of doing some pretty sophisticated calculations, and lots of them. So i try to give a glimpse of how that machinery works in one of the chapters of future stories. It's absolutely fascinating. You actually do a really good job for a non biologist. Maybe that's why, since you're not a biologist, you do areally good job of describing it in ways that are understandable to non scientists like myself, i hope. We could not live if every cell in our body was not making these sort of calculations to insure its own survival.

What does the future hold? And how do we make sure we're making the best decisions for ourselves? In today's episode with David Christian, you will discover answers to these questions and much more!

"What are the skills involved in trying to think about the future? To construct future stories that are closer to the truth than other future stories? Because if we don't do that. We die." - David Christian

David Christian is a distinguished Professor of History at Macquarie University and Director of the school's Big History Institute. David co-founded the Big History Project with Bill Gates and has delivered keynotes at conferences around the world, including the Davos Economic Forum. His Ted Talk has been viewed millions of times and he is the author of many books and articles.

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Also From the Interview with David Christian...

His book, Future Stories: What's Next
The questions leading him to write about the future
How we are always thinking about and telling ourselves stories about the future
Thinking about the philosophy and science of time
The two metaphors of time being like a river and a map
How time is an important concept for complex entities
Punctuated equilibrium refers to trends from the past to predict changes in the future
How time is experienced in 3 ways: natural, psychological, and social time
The best predictions of the future depend on finding the most powerful trends of the past
The four possible scenarios for the future of humanity

David Christian links:

David's Website

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Ted Talk

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If you enjoyed this conversation with David Christian, check out these other episodes:

Big History of Everything with David Christian (2019)

What We Know But Don't Believe with Steve Hagen

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