Science is the only reserve for global development – Peres

Science is the only reserve for global development – Peres
16 September 2011

Science is the only reserve for global development in the modern world, as it is capable of turning into a key driver for effective search of responses to global challenges, Shimon Peres, President of the State of Israel, stated in his special speech at the 8th Yalta Annual Meeting of YES.

“The old economy was based on accumulating and multiplying of wealth. And the economists in their works tried to analyze what can make an individual rich and, respectively, happy. Nowadays, this kind of analysis is no longer relevant. Knowledge, neither material resources, nor money, nor water but knowledge determines the future of the world”, he emphasized. “If you would like to look into the future, don’t visit exchanges, visit laboratories.”

Speech of President of Israel Shimon Peres on 8th Yalta Annual Meeting

     
in English in Ukrainian

 

Holding up Israel as an example – this is the country that has achieved unprecedented economic success while it does not possess considerable natural resources including water resources. Science became the key factor underlying the success of Israel. “We are not supermen, we merely approach production from scientific perspective,” President Peres accented.

According to the President of Israel, the next 10 years will see a real revolution in science, and, correspondingly, in industry. It will be connected with electronics and cybernetics, on the one hand, and research into human brain and behavior, on the other hand.

“We have been using our intellect so far to create an artificial intellect. But we fail to research ourselves, we do not employ our intellect to understand how our brain works. We do not know what makes us happy or upset. What makes us extremists or normal people,” President Peres said. According to him, the science has not yet approached understanding of these processes. However, nanotechnologies open the way to answer the mysteries of human brain and so, in the long view, to build a universal interface between human brain and a computer.

Scientists create the capital that in principle differs from the one described by Adam Smith and Marx. “No one can manage scientists. When a scientist is subject to customs clearance, no one can look what he brings in his head”, President Peres mentioned. Moreover, scientists communicate in modern social networks thus creating “the greatest reserve of alternative solutions”.

The 8th Yalta Annual Meeting entitled “Ukraine and the World: Common Challenges, Common Future”, organized by the Yalta European Strategy (YES) in partnership with the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, will take place in Livadia Palace, Ukraine from 15th to 18th of  September 2011.

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