Where Is Science Leading Us?

This book charts the evolution of the sciences and technologies that have shaped our modern age like nothing else in the last 60 years. As well as describing many exciting developments, it will also highlight the challenges and dangers of the technologies that have emerged from them. While science and technology have brought about enormous and often astonishing improvements in our quality of life, they have often also brought with them considerable risks, including the risk of human extinction. We place particular emphasis on the aspects that directly impact us as human beings: Artificial Intelligence (AI), enhancements of our brains/minds through innovative neuro-technologies, and the integration of nanotechnology into our bodies for early disease detection and elimination. What philosophical implications arise from these transformations? Authored by two theoretical physicists who are also experts in economics and capital markets - a rather rare combination - the book will explainthe developments of modern science and the resulting technologies. It also examines the current state of play and emerging developments in a manner accessible to non-scientists. Based on their own experience and the analysis, the authors also propose ways in which science can progress more harmoniously in future.

Discusses the historical links between Science, Philosophy and Ethics Reviews science's contribution to the most significant transformations in global society in the last sixty years Proposes ways of favouring more harmonious advances in science

Autorentext

Dr. Lars Jaeger hat Physik, Mathematik, Philosophie und Geschichte in Bonn und Paris studiert und mehrere Jahre in der theoretischen Physik im Bereich der Quantenfeldtheorien und Chaostheorie (Universität Bonn, Max-Planck-Institut für Physik komplexer Systeme Dresden) geforscht. Er lebt seit fünfundzwanzig Jahren in der Nähe von Zürich, wo er zwei eigene Unternehmen aufgebaut hat, die mit mathematischen Methoden globale Kapitelmärkte modellieren. Die Begeisterung für die Naturwissenschaften und die Philosophie hat ihn nie losgelassen, so dass er bereits zahlreiche Bücher dazu geschrieben hat. Prof. Dr. Michel Dacorogna erhielt seine Habilitation, seinen Doktortitel und seinen Master of Science in Theoretischer Physik von der Universität Genf und war Postdoc an der University of California in Berkeley. Heute ist er Partner bei Prime Re Solutions, einem Unternehmen, das Finanzinstitute in versicherungsmathematischen und wirtschaftlichen Fragen berät. Er forscht auf dem Gebiet der Versicherungsmathematik, des Kapitalmanagements und der Risiken, und stellt der Geschäftsleitung und den Kunden Modelle und Kapitalmanagementtechniken vor.

Inhalt

Publicly backed science in competition with private companies. Science as part of capitalism.- Philosophy in science is over, and why we need to reinstall it.- Promising and scary developments in future technologies, an overview.- Physics from 1960 to Today, And what we do not know yet.- Computers, nanotechnology, internet and many other technologies. What benefits and challenges physics brought us and will bring us in the future?.- Biology from 1953 to 2023: Major breakthroughs and their ethical issues. How biology became the centre of science and today also lies at the centre of ethical concerns.- Brain research since the 1990s. Significant progress in understanding human (self-)consciousness or a scientific attack on something outside of science?.- Artificial Intelligence from its origins via today to the future. Significant progress in understanding, replicating, and changing us humans or solely technological advances contained to optimising certain processes?.- The path towardsmodern mathematics. More and more abstraction as well as more and more concrete applications.- Astronomical research. The oldest science in history with the newest results of all sciences.- The future of sciences/technologies? From utopian optimism to dystopian pessimism (and possibly back).- The myth of the optimally functional invisible hand. Why and how research projects and future technologies should be discussed, respectively governed by the public domain?.- Science, Technology and Spirituality. What science can do for society, how society has to shape technology - and how spirituality can set a frame for this shaping process?.