听
As a child, what did you want to do when you grew up?
Advertisement
I wrote a science 鈥渂ook鈥� about the human body when I was 8 years old. I think I always wanted to explain things.
In your latest book, you say that making mistakes is good. Why?
Consider the alternative: if we never made any mistakes and followed the rules perfectly, we would never visit anywhere new. Breaking rules and making mistakes push the boundary of human knowledge.
How did you end up in neuroscience?
The brain is the last and greatest mystery in science. No other thing has been studied so deeply and is so poorly understood. When you look at a brain from the outside, you just see a wet mass full of densely packed nerve cells. How can this be the origin of game-changing ideas, great symphonies, language, love and art? We have no idea. Is there a greater enigma on Earth?
How has your field of study changed in the time you have been working in it?
When I started, neuroscience was dominated by biochemistry and molecular biology. But it turns out that biology alone cannot explain how the brain works. We need support from mathematics and information science to understand how the brain actually creates thoughts and organises information. We know that there are mathematical principles and rules that guide its processing, but we have no clue what they are.
What鈥檚 the best piece of advice anyone ever gave you?
When I was 17, my teacher said: 鈥淚t鈥檚 the mistakes we make that distinguish us from unimaginative computers.鈥� Since then, I鈥檝e remembered that learning from failures is more important than avoiding them. Done is better than perfect.
If you could have a conversation with any scientist, living or dead, who would it be?
Probably Richard Feynman, about encouraging people to think scientifically. In our times, it is more necessary than ever to think critically and challenge our opinions.
If you could send a message back to yourself as a kid, what would you say?
Dude, the most valuable thing you have is your brain. Wear a helmet!
What scientific development do you hope to see in your lifetime?
The first aircraft tried to mimic a bird鈥檚 wings. Of course, that didn鈥檛 work out. Artificial intelligence is in the same position. Copying the brain is a dead end: we need to find the principles that make it work and replicate them.
What鈥檚 the best thing you鈥檝e read or seen in the past 12 months?
I recently played with my 2-year-old neighbour, who learned the name of a particular spider at first sight. That鈥檚 when I realised that human thinking is fundamentally different to any kind of computer.
鈥淭he most important message I鈥檇 send to my past self? 鈥楧ude, your brain is valuable. Wear a helmet!鈥欌��
Do you have an unexpected hobby, and if so, please will you tell us about it?
I throw boomerangs because I love the idea that the things you throw away will eventually come back to help you 鈥� if you do it cleverly.
How useful will your skills be after the apocalypse?
When something bad happens, people always look for somebody to explain how or why, so that they can understand it and ensure it doesn鈥檛 happen again. Of course, explaining that before it happens would be the better approach.
OK, one last thing: tell us something that will blow our minds鈥�
In a thousand years, no one will remember anything about life today because our electronic storage devices are non-durable. We鈥檙e a lost generation. People will look back to the present鈥揹ay dark ages and wonder what we fools were up to.
