Unleash your imagination. Shape the future.

Deforestation of our tropical rain forests, global warming, human overpopulation, Corona pandemic. 

"Is this the end of times...?"

I like reading books.

How the end of time looks like is described more precisely in the book “Brief Answers to the Big Questions”. It is a small book written by Stephen Hawking, where he answers such big questions.

In all its smallness it is a great book, because it is not a theoretical book. Well, partly it is, because questions like what’s inside a black hole, and whether people can time-travel, most people don’t consider as very practical.

Its greatness comes from Hawking explaining the answers to the big questions in laymen’s wording, and making clearer why it is important to at least try to answer such Big Questions. Hawking does a great job, not only in answering these more theoretical questions but also the practical, more urgent ones, like “will we survive on earth”, “will AI outsmarten us” and “how should we shape our future.”

There are two levels in this book that inspire me.

There is the personal level, where Hawking describes, that he was only an average student wasting his time, until he was diagnosed with ALS. The fact that he expectedly was given only a short time to live, gave urgency to his life. Living on borrowed time, made him rise above himself.

Deforestation of our tropical rain forests, global warming, human overpopulation, Corona pandemic. 

Our world is ill. We are living in borrowed time too.

Hawking became dependent on technology, to stay mobile, to communicate. Mobility, communication, the same technology that is severely impacting our earth. However, in his book he emphasizes again and again, the importance of technology as a means to face our current challenges: we should fly to the moon again, colonize Mars, and go even further. As a means to motivate and inspire young people, to keep them curious, asking questions and seeking answers. To explore, to discover, to make new breakthroughs.

There is irony in the fact that our world became ill due to the effects of technology, and will depend on the same technology to survive. Irony and a risk too.

Nowadays, people take technology just for granted.

When you look around you, much of what we have achieved in our current society is based on the work of scientists. Our technology, our digital reality, our daily-life utilities like cars, airplanes, television, internet and smartphones.

The majority of people don’t listen to the scientists that were at the origin of these technological breakthroughs, don’t trust what they are saying, blinded by their own believes fed by fake news, even denying that we ever went to the moon. Hawking stands up and takes responsibility as a scientist and as a human, warning us for the dangers ahead, and sharing his professional and personal opinions on what we should do.

It’s this second level of inspiration, that made me change my mind.

Personally I was never that concerned about these big questions. I like reading books. 

I was more interested in other big questions, trying to understand where our universe came from, whether other intelligent life in the universe would be intelligent enough not to contact us, whether we could predict the future. You know, mathematics and physics can be real fun.

Somewhere in between then and now, I changed my mind.

Deforestation, global warming, human overpopulation, ..., it’s like the back of the moon, you know it’s there but you never (bother to) look at it. Technology has made it possible to go to the back of the moon. Technology also made it possible to look at the downside of our human achievements.

I’ve changed my mind.

Hawking’s warning is not to limit ourselves by our (lack of) imagination, not being able to imagine how worse things can get, thinking only linear instead of non-linear. The immense progress made by scientists came from their unlimited imagination, “boldly going where no one had gone before.”

It’s time to stand up, take our responsibility and face together our current challenges.

 

Hawking ends his book with famous last words:

"Unleash your imagination. Shape the future.”