Remember what happened thirty years ago? It seems that everything is the same: people lived in families, went to work, traveled, studied ... But still it was completely different. Life was much slower, and interests and dreams were somehow simpler. And sixty years ago? Oh, it wasn't like that at all, you say. And a hundred years ago?

Every year technologies develop faster and faster, and people get used to them in a matter of days. We can no longer imagine our life without the Internet, mobile phones, tomographs, high-speed trains, live broadcasts. And all this and much more appeared in just thirty years.

Let's discuss the changes that might happen at 21 century and turn our perception of reality upside down.

1. Information overload. Every year computers have more and more memory, and processor speeds are growing rapidly. Already today, information about the majority of the inhabitants of the Earth can be found on the network: social networks, smartphones, video cameras, banking transactions leave marks on people's activities. And with the advent of "smart watches", "smart glasses", "smart clothes" and other gadgets, information about users is becoming more and more.

In the near future, scientists predict either the collapse of the Internet, or the transition to quantum computers that have phenomenal speed and will be able to assimilate the existing volumes of information.

2. Cultivation of chimeras and gene therapy. Already, research is being carried out in the field of "repair" of aging cells. Scientists also grow organs with the human gene in animals (mainly pigs). So far, there are restrictions on the creation of such bodies. But what if they are removed?

People will have an endless supply of cheap organs for transplants, which will reduce mortality. In the future, it will be possible to track down potential illnesses in babies and transplant organs from birth. This will lead to the emergence of a generation whose representatives will live more than a hundred years.

3. 3d printers. This technology appeared not so long ago, but has already demanded popularity and widespread use. A couple of years ago, Internet users were shocked by a working Kalashnikov assault rifle printed on 3 d -printer, and today houses are already being built using this technology in China.

Not so long ago, scientists were able to print on biological 3 d human skin printer. In the future, it will be possible to print any organs. This could lead to people having access to endless transplants and body modifications and being able to live much longer.

4. Robots. Very soon, robots will appear everywhere and will replace people in many professions. However, the creation of artificial intelligence has faced insurmountable difficulties. Therefore, most likely, robots will be used to automate actions and processes, as well as to merge with a person (artificial body parts to improve physical performance).

5. The transition of the Internet reality into a living reality. The development of computer technology leads to a decrease in the size of components and an increase in their power. It has already become possible to insert processors into all surrounding objects, which makes them "smart".

Today, augmented reality glasses are being created, where a clock, phone, navigator, messages are displayed on the lens. In the near future, such glasses will allow you to correspond, see information about people around you, change the colors of objects, their shape.

6. Controlling the power of thought. Yes, yes, even today tomographs monitor brain activity and understand the direction of a person’s thoughts. In the future, it will be possible to create objects that can be controlled with the help of thoughts: a person will be able to give commands from a distance to make coffee, move furniture, turn on the TV, etc.

7. Space travel. Much to the regret of science fiction writers and dreamers, humanity still does not conquer the stars. It turned out that space flights are very expensive, and their practical application does not pay off. Today, the destiny of astronautics is commercial launches and experiments on the ISS. But by 2030, NATO and Roscosmos promise to launch a man to Mars.

Who knows, maybe at the end of the century, families will choose between a weekend in Hawaii or on the Moon, and ships will overcome the Earth's gravity using a space elevator (a giant elevator that will deliver cargo directly into geostationary orbit).

Not so long ago, an NBIC center was opened at the Kurchatov Institute in Moscow. NBIC (NanoBioInfoCogno) is an abbreviation that means the combination of nano and bioengineering technologies, information and computer technologies, as well as cognitive resources aimed at artificial intelligence in one chain. Russian biologist, linguist and psychologist, professor of St. Petersburg University Tatyana Chernigovskaya became the Deputy Director of the Center. Recently, Professor Chernigovskaya gave a lecture in Washington, DC, at the Russian Cultural Center, “Convergence of sciences – how will brain research change life in the 21st century? Cognitive science as convergent knowledge”.

Cognitive science is an interdisciplinary scientific field that combines psychology, linguistics, epistemology, artificial intelligence theory, neurophysiology, the purpose of which is to unravel and describe how a person thinks, why he speaks, how he understands what others say, and what in this time happens in the brain.

According to Tatyana Chernigovskaya, “we are the way we are, and our civilization, good or bad, is like that because we have such a brain. All that we have done on this planet, and what we will do, is because we have such a brain. We cognize the world, we see it this way, we have such a picture of the world, because we have such a brain. It follows from this that we should at least try to find out what kind of brain it is, what it can do, because the picture of the world that we build depends on it.

We bring to your attention fragments from the lecture of Tatyana Chernigovskaya.

How does a small child learn their first language?

It is still a mystery how a child manages to learn a language. A child is anything but a tape recorder. It has a genetic basis, special mechanisms that allow a child to learn a language without teachers, rules and textbooks.

Our brain is a very complex musical instrument.

Some scholars argue that music has the same structure as the syntax of language.

human genes?

Do humans have genetic mechanisms that distinguish us from all other creatures on the planet?

“You shouldn’t think about our smaller brothers too arrogantly”

You should not think that somewhere down there are animals that can’t do anything at all, and then immediately people, and this gap is insurmountable.

Mirror systems: "not to see the tiger when there is a cat"

The Italian scientist Giacomo Risolatti made a remarkable discovery - he discovered "mirror" neurons.

Where is my mind?

Many functions that we performed ourselves are now performed by different devices and mechanisms for us. In 2009, the American linguist and philosopher Jerry Fodor wrote the article "Where is my mind?".

What are we afraid of?

Anna Toporkova | 26 December 2015

OverviewVisual look

Modern man. Who is he? What does he want from life? What does he believe in? How is he different from the people who lived before him?

A person in the 21st century has a huge number of very different opportunities: thanks to the Internet, we can do things that our ancestors never dreamed of. Think about whether people could dream of hearing and seeing their friends who are on the other side of the Earth, at any time to get access to the necessary information? For us, it has become commonplace. We are dependent on our gadgets, without which we feel insecure and helpless. Live communication is gradually fading away, indeed, it’s easier to write to a neighbor from the third floor than to go up the whole floor! In some cases, online communication helps out a lot, but you can’t limit yourself to it. Is it more pleasant to look at an emotionless screen or at a friend's joyful smile? The choice is quite simple, but for some reason, the majority prefers option 1.

You can write whatever you like. What the tongue does not dare to say in a personal conversation will not seem so wild on the Internet. Unfortunately, the reality is that the Internet turns us into zombies who are able to express their opinions exclusively on social networks. The tragedy of modern man is Internet addiction and, as a result, the extinction of individuality.

A culture of speech. The lack of literacy and the worst thing is the desire for it. What for? We have autocorrect! But our gadgets cannot correct oral speech! Therefore, read books, articles written competently and concisely, listen to the radio (and not only songs), write real paper letters to friends living far away (this is doubly pleasant for them and useful for you). Competent speech is your calling card, hardly anyone will like it if you distort words. Your speech can create a favorable (or not so) impression that is difficult to change later (as practice shows).

What is the top priority for people right now? A family? No. Career? Yes, but not really. Money? Yes!

It is surprising how recently the syndrome of thirst for material goods has become aggravated. The primary role in choosing a profession is given to wages. Of course, this is important, but how can you build your future according to the principle: I work where they pay more? A well-paid job is great, but a job you love is much better! First of all, you need to choose what your soul aspires to, then it will bring twice as much pleasure (and money, by the way). An unhappy person is one who does not mind his own business. How can you do something every day that you hate? This is some kind of execution!

We gradually forget our history. And all why? The love of American films, the lack of good history teachers, the unwillingness to learn this subject (which is natural: who will have the desire to learn what they cannot properly present to us) exterminate in us the need to know our roots. Reading Russian classics is also gradually fading away, and yet it describes the main events of Russian history, moreover, they are incredibly interesting! Have you ever wondered why this or that work is called the cultural heritage of Russia? Not just like that! And this stupid stereotype: allegedly what is called a classic is infinitely boring and boring. It's just a reason not to read. You need to overcome this prejudice and sit down for a good book!

There is a reassessment of values. Of course, this process began a long time ago, but it seems to me that we saw it so clearly and clearly only in the 21st century. People put career above family, they prefer money to friendship, online communication to live communication, they are looking for profit in everything. Insincerity and greed spread with surprising speed. And the worst thing is that we simply do not see all this, thinking that it will affect us and bypass us. But look at your friends. Look at yourself. What drives you when you do something?

Now almost every sane person is interested in this issue and wants to know as much as possible about how what are the main human problems in the 21st century exist right now. But due to the lack of correct and reliable information, not everyone can know exactly what the main problems of a person exist, because of which there are even more problems that are no longer so easy to deal with. Therefore, today we will analyze this issue with you, citing only the most important and reliable methods, in order not only to find out what are main problems of a person in the 21st century, but also to start fighting and winning with them correctly.

First what you need to understand what are the main human problems that exist in our world, and start fighting and winning with them, you need to create a sufficiently powerful motivation. Without motivation, not only will you not be able to find the main problems of a person at all, you will not be able to start defeating them, achieving success and happiness in life. Therefore, you need to create a motivation and a goal for yourself in order to find what the main problems of a person are and start fighting with them. Since these problems will interfere with you throughout your life, and the sooner you start to deal with them, the easier and faster you will get rid of them and go about your business, achieving success and happiness in life.

Thinking

Main human problems of the 21st century necessarily associated with wrong thinking. It is by getting rid of the wrong thinking, by changing it, that you can solve many of your problems that prevent you from starting to achieve your goals. And also wrong thinking is exactly what prevents you from achieving success and happiness in life. So think about whether you have the right mindset. Perhaps you are tormented in vain over what are the main problems of a person, since all your problems can be hidden precisely under your wrong thinking. Start correcting this by creating for yourself a normal outlook on life, core values, goals and dreams. And in order to realize all this, build yourself a powerful and strong motivation. And soon you will change your thinking to a more successful one, and you will be able to solve all the most important human problems.

Money

As you know, in our world there are exactly two main ones related to money. problems of humanity, this is not enough money, or there is too much of it. It is these two problems that prevent a person from developing and achieving success. But it is not the money itself that is to blame, but their wrong owners. After all, the person himself chooses what kind of problem he will have with money, since it is impossible to get rid of two problems with money, one of the problems is always present without fail. Your task is only to determine what problem you will own. But for this, first of all, you need to change your attitude to money, and understand what is stopping you. Since people with wrong thinking and views on money will feel the problem with money much more painfully than normal people. And if you decide that you want to have too much money, and not be poor, then it's great if you still have an adequate attitude towards money, and then the most important problems of a person for you will already be solved.

Loneliness

As you know, every person wants to have some attention to himself and have communication with people with whom he wants to communicate, but this is not always possible. And loneliness turns into the main problems of a person, with which, just like with all problems, you need to fight by changing your way of thinking and views on this problem. Since it has been proven by many, it is those people who have the right outlook on life, having their own opinion, firmly standing on their ideas, never encounter these problems. And they have no desire to know what the main problems of a person are, since they have already dealt with them a long time ago, thanks to a simply correctly developed system of life and main priorities. Of course, a person cannot live without problems at all, but there are such wise and smart people that they quickly deal with any problem, as they have overcome the most important problems of a person.

Courage and determination

Also, for success and happiness, the main problems of a person prevent this from being achieved, namely, the lack of courage and determination of a person on the way to his goal. Therefore, you need to engage in self-development and regularly engage in yourself. And then you will develop sufficient determination and be able to cultivate courage. But this requires only regular classes, which make a person better and more successful.

That's all that we were going to sort out with you about what are the main problems of a person that you may have or have. But by applying all the methods and tips above in practice, you can get rid of absolutely any problems that will arise in your path, since you have learned what the main problems of a person are and were able to solve them, becoming successful and happy.

As the pace of change increases, the very idea of ​​a person, his essence, his cognitive structures is changing. Forget programming - the best skill kids should learn is rethinking. "The Invention of the Bicycle". What will the next 30 years be like for humanity? What awaits us in 2050?

Part one: change is the only constant

Humanity is facing unprecedented revolutions, all of our old stories are crumbling and no new ones are emerging to replace them. How do we prepare ourselves and our children for a world of such unprecedented transformation and radical uncertainty? A child born today will be 30 years old in 2050. If all goes well, he will live to see 2100, and maybe remain an active citizen into the 22nd century. What to teach a child to survive and thrive in the world of 2050 or the 22nd century? What skills will he need to get a job, understand what is happening around him and find his way in the labyrinth of life?

Unfortunately, no one knows what the world will be like in 2050 - let alone 2100. We cannot answer these questions. Of course, people have never been able to accurately predict the future. But today it is more difficult than ever to do this, because once technology allows us to change the bodies, brains and minds of people, we will no longer be able to be sure of anything - even that which previously seemed unshakable and eternal.

A thousand years ago, in 1018, there were many things in the future that people did not know about, but they were sure that the basic features of human society would remain unchanged. If you lived in China in 1018, you would not know that by 1050 the Song Empire would fall, the Khitans would invade from the north, and a plague would kill millions of people. But you would know that in 1050, most people will still grow rice and make yarn, rulers will rule over people, men will dominate women, life expectancy will be about 40 years, and the human body will remain the same. So in 1018, poor Chinese parents taught their children how to grow risk or spin silk, while rich parents taught how to read Confucius, write beautifully, or fight on horseback—and girls were taught to be humble and helpful. Obviously, in 1050, these skills were still needed.

In contrast, today we have no idea what China or the rest of the world will look like in 2050. We don't know how people will make a living, how armies and bureaucrats will function, what gender relations will be. Some people are likely to live much longer than they do today, and the human body itself will undergo unprecedented changes thanks to bioengineering and brain-computer interfaces. Much of what children learn today will not make sense by 2050.

At present, too many schools are engaged in the antics of information. In the past, this made sense because information was scattered and even a slow trickle of information was carefully censored. If you lived in a small provincial town in Mexico City in 1800, it would be difficult for you to know more about the big world. Radio, television, daily newspapers, or public libraries did not exist. Even if you were educated and had access to a private library, you could only read novels and religious literature there. The Spanish Empire carefully censored all the texts that were printed on its territory, and passed very few from the outside. The same would be true if you lived in Russia, India, Turkey or China. When modern schools appeared that taught everyone to read and write and gave basic knowledge of geography, history and biology, this was a significant improvement.

In contrast, in the 21st century, we are drowning in huge amounts of information that even censors do not try to block. Instead, they are busy spreading misinformation or distracting us with irrelevant details. If you lived in a small town in Mexico and had a smartphone, you would spend many lives just reading Wikipedia, watching TED talks and online courses. No government can hide information from you that it doesn't like. On the other hand, people are very easy to deceive. People from all over the world are one click away from information on the bombing of Aleppo or melting glaciers in the Arctic, but there are too many controversial points to choose what to believe.

In such a world, the last thing a teacher should give his students is more information. There are too many of her. Instead, people need the ability to make sense of information, to tell the difference between important and unimportant, and, above all, to combine pieces of information into a coherent picture of the world.

In truth, this has been the ideal of Western liberal education for centuries, but so far many Western schools have lived up to it rather poorly. Teachers allowed themselves to ironically interpret the data, instead of encouraging students to "think for themselves." Because of their fear of authoritarianism, liberal schools were particularly horrified by grand narratives. They assumed that as long as we give students a lot of data and a set of freedom, students will create their own picture of the world, and even if this generation cannot synthesize all the data into a coherent and meaningful history of the world, there will be plenty of time to create a good synthesis in the future. Now we've run out of time. The decisions we will make in the next few decades will change the future of life itself, and we will be able to make those decisions based only on our present view of the world. If this generation fails to build a coherent picture of the cosmos, the future of life will be decided at random.

Part two: the temperature is rising

In addition to information, most schools also place too much emphasis on providing students with a set of predefined skills, such as solving differential equations, writing computer code in C++, identifying chemical elements in a test tube, or translating from Chinese. But we have no idea what the world and job market will be like in 2050, so we don't know what specific skills people will need. We can force children to write C++ or speak Chinese and find that by 2050 AI can program software much better than humans, and the new Google Translate is better at translating than any human being.

What are we to teach? Many pedagogy experts believe that students should develop the “four Cs”: critical thinking, communication, collaboration (learning to work together), and creativity (meaning being creative). The most important will be the ability to cope with change, learn new things and maintain peace of mind in unusual situations. To keep pace with the world in 2050, you will not only need to invent new ideas and products - you will need to reinvent and reinvent yourself, over and over again.

As the pace of change increases over time, not only the economy is changing, but the very meaning of “being human” is changing. In 1848, the Communist Manifesto proclaimed that "everything solid melts in the air." Marx and Engels, however, mostly thought about social and economic structures. By 2048, physical and cognitive structures will also melt into thin air - clouds of data bits.

In 1848, millions of people lost their jobs on the farms and went to the big cities to work in factories. But when they got to a big city, they did not have to change their gender or add a sixth sense. And if they found work in some textile factory, they could expect to stay in that profession for the rest of their lives.

By 2048, people may face a migration to cyberspace, with floating gender and new sensitive experiences that computer implants provide. If they find work and meaning in designing modern fashion in a 3D virtual reality game, ten years from now, not only this profession, but all jobs that require the same level of artistic creativity, may simply fall into the hands of AI. Therefore, at 25, you will present yourself on a dating site as “a twenty-five-year-old straight woman who lives in London and works in a fashion store.” At 35, you will already be “a gender-undecided person who is undergoing age clarification, whose neocortical activity mostly takes place in the virtual world of New Cosmos, and whose lifelong goal is creativity in the field of fashion, which no designer has dared to do before. this." At 45, both definitions for a dating site and self-definition will be different. All you have to do is wait until the algorithm finds (or creates) the perfect match for you. When it comes to creating fashion projects, the algorithms will surpass you so much that your dubious achievements of the past years will only make people laugh. And yet, at 45, you have many decades of radical change ahead of you.

Please don't take this scenario seriously. No one can predict the specific changes that await us. Any particular scenario will be in the milk. If someone describes the world of the middle of the 21st century to you, and it seems completely fantastic to you, this most likely will not be true. But if someone describes the world of the middle of the 21st century to you and it does not sound fantastic, it will definitely not be true. We don't know the details, but all we know for sure is that change is inevitable.

Such profound changes may well transform the basic structure of life, making short duration its feature. Since time immemorial, life has been divided into two complementary parts: a period of study followed by a period of work. In the first part of life, you accumulated information, developed skills, put together a picture of the world and created a stable personality. Even if at 15 you spend most of the day working in your family's rice field, you are learning how to cultivate rice, how to build relationships with greedy merchants from the big city, and how to solve problems with other villagers. In the second part of your life, you rely on your accumulated knowledge and skills to navigate the world, earn a living, and contribute to society. Of course, even at 50 you continue to learn new things about rice, about traders and about conflicts, but these are all small tweaks to well-honed skills.

By the middle of the 21st century, accelerating change coupled with increased life expectancy will render this traditional model obsolete. Life will come apart at the seams and there will be less and less duration between different periods of life. "Who am i?" will become an extremely frequent and important question.

Most likely it will be associated with a lot of stress. Change is almost always stressful, and after a certain age, most people just don't like change. When you are 15, your whole life changes. Your body grows, your mind develops, your relationships deepen. Everything is in motion, everything is new. You are reinventing yourself. For most teenagers, this is scary, but at the same time exciting. New horizons are opening before you, you are ready to conquer the whole world. You prefer stability. You've invested so much in your skills, your career, your personality, and your worldview that you don't want to start all over again. The harder you work at something, the harder it is to quit and do something else. You can enjoy new experiences and minor changes, but most people in their 50s don't want to change their personality deeply.

There are neurobiological reasons for this. Although the adult brain is more flexible and changeable than once thought, it is still not as malleable as the teenage brain. Rewiring neurons and weaving synapses is a hell of a lot of work. But in the 21st century, you can hardly afford stability. If you try to cling to some stable person, job, or picture of the world, you risk being left behind. Given that life expectancy will increase, you may have to spend many decades as an ignorant ancient man. To stay fit - not just economically, but socially - you will need the ability to continually learn and reinvent yourself, especially at such a young age of 50.

As everything weird becomes the new normal, your past experiences, as well as the past experiences of all of humanity, will become less reliable guides. People, as individuals and humanity as a whole, will increasingly deal with things that they have never encountered before. Like superintelligent machines, designer bodies, algorithms to manipulate your emotions, fast-paced climate change, and having to change jobs every ten years. What to do when you get into a completely unexpected situation? How to act when you are drowned by the flow of information and there is absolutely no way to absorb and analyze it? How to live in a world where deep uncertainty is not a bug, but a feature?

In order to survive and thrive in such a world, you will need flexibility of mind and great reserves of emotional balance. You will have to constantly face the unknown and give up what you know well. Unfortunately, teaching kids to welcome the unknown and keep them sane is far more difficult than teaching them physics or the causes of World War I. You cannot learn flexibility of thought by reading a book or listening to a lecture. Teachers themselves lack the mental flexibility that the 21st century will require because they themselves are a product of the old education system.

The Industrial Revolution bequeathed to us the theory of the assembly line. In the center of the city, there is a large concrete building divided into many identical rooms, each with desks and chairs. On a call, you enter one of these rooms with 30 other children born in the same year as you. Every hour adults come in and start talking. They are paid for by the government. One of them tells about the shape of the Earth, the other about the past of man, the third about the human body. You can laugh at this model all you want, and almost everyone will agree that, regardless of a person's past achievements, they are no longer relevant. But we have no other alternative. Especially one that could be implemented in a rural area of ​​Mexico City.

Part Three: Hacking People

The best advice I could give to a 15 year old stuck in an outdated school somewhere in Mexico City, India, or Alabama is: don't rely too much on adults. Most of them think normally, but do not understand the world. Before, adults could be relied upon because they knew the world well, and the world was slowly changing. But the 21st century will be different. Due to the increasing pace of change, you can never be sure whether adults are trying to tell you timeless wisdom or outdated bias.

What to rely on then? On technology? But this is an even riskier bet. Technology can help a lot, but it also takes too much power over your life, you become a hostage to this agenda. Thousands of years ago humans invented agriculture, but this technology enriched a tiny elite while enslaving the majority. Many people worked day and night carrying buckets of water and picking corn under the hot sun. This can happen to you too.

There is nothing wrong with technology. If you know what you want out of life, technology can help you get there. But if you don't know what you want from life, technology is the easiest way to shape your goals for you and take control of your life. Moreover, technology understands people better, and you are more likely to serve them, and not they you. Have you seen all these zombies roaming the streets with smartphones stuck to their faces? Do you think they control technology, or do you think technology controls them?

Can you trust yourself then? As biotechnology and machine learning improve, manipulating people's deepest emotions and desires is becoming easier, and following the heart is more dangerous than ever. When Coca-Cola, Amazon, Baidu or the government knows what strings to pull on your soul, can you keep the difference between yourself and the result of their marketing specialists?

To succeed in such a difficult task, you will need to work very hard to get to know your operating system better. Know who you are and what you want from life. This is, of course, relatively old advice: know yourself. For thousands of years, philosophers and prophets have urged people to know themselves. But in the 21st century, this advice will be more relevant than ever, because unlike the days of Lao Tzu and Socrates, today you have serious opponents. Coca-Cola, Amazon, Baidu and the government are trying to hack you. Not your smartphone, computer or bank account - they want to hack into your organic operating system. You have probably heard that we live in the era of computer hackers, but this is only half the truth. We live in the era of hacking people.

Algorithms are watching you. They watch where you go, what you buy, who you meet. Soon they will be watching your steps, your breathing and your heartbeat. They rely on big data and machine learning to get to know you better and better. And once these algorithms know you better than you know yourself, they can take control and manipulate you without you even knowing it. You will live in The Matrix or The Truman Show. Your identity will be limited by the algorithms that control you.

Of course, you can be happy giving all authority to algorithms and trusting them to decide something for you and for the rest of the world. If so, relax and enjoy the ride. You don't have to do anything. The algorithms will take care of everything. If you want to maintain control over your personal existence and future life, you need to move faster than the algorithms, than Amazon and the government, and get to know yourself before they do. Leave all illusions behind. They are very heavy.

Aug 28, 2018 Gennady