To start 2002, Edge editor John Brockman asks each of the usual suspects to pose an important question and explain/justify its relevance. Here's a sampling.

Ray Kurzweil asks the fundamental, "Who am I? What am I?" Brian Greene ponders the concepts of space and time. Brian Eno asks, "Why do we decorate?" Danny Hillis asks, "Why do people like music?" Steven Pinker wonders what truly shapes the human mind. John Markoff: "can wealth be distributed?" MIT's Seth Lloyd wonders if the universe is actually a quantum computer. Gregory Benford wonders if wormholes might be real. Richard Dawkins: "how different could life have been?" Actor Alan Alda wonders, "what is the nature of fads?" George Dyson: "where are They (the aliens)?" Freeman Dyson: "why am I me?" Douglas Rushkoff: "why do we tell stories?" Daniel Dennett wonders how the brain encodes semantic information. and many more.