The Questions I Always Think About
Richard Hamming suggests that you should think of what the important problems are, and list them.
From Hamming, You and Your Research
Most great scientists know many important problems. They have something between 10 and 20 important problems for which they are looking for an attack.
Making a list like this even if your problems aren’t generally considered important is still good. At least it forces you to work on things that you actually want to solve.
I thought hard about what I am trying to solve, and tried Hamming’s exercise above. In no particular order, here are the questions I am most obsessed about:
How can we do very good natural science at home?
How did the first biological cell form, and what physical processes keep things alive?
How would a person quickly defend themselves from a really bad pandemic?
If a future artificial intelligence knows everything, then what value do I bring as a human in society?
How will the public trust what is true in the future?
How can I make money as efficiently as possible, so that I am comfortable?
How can I be the best partner / father / family member / friend to my circle / future circle?
The questions have a mix of interestingness and urgency. For example, the pandemic problem is very urgent, but the technical solutions to that may not be interesting. This is different that with the cool biophysics of a proto-cell, which is super interesting but its immediate urgency is unclear. They also mix between personal and societal questions.
Right now I’m happy with this portfolio so I’m gonna just keep working.