PANDORA challenge

Despite of the extension of Sapiens’ frontal cortex and the forecasting ability of the mathematical models it develops, in many senses Sapiens is a baby-species [1]: it uses words before knowing their meaning, experiments with tools before assessing the consequences, destroys entire worlds before understanding the reason for their very exist- ence. It is on the verge of leaving the planet Earth, it has gained control over biological, emotional and willpower knobs and yet the ‘big question’ is: Is Sapiens ready for it? If not, how can we get prepared? If yes, what is the toolbox we will carry along? PANDORA challenge aims to create a center for advanced studies on science, tech- nology, society and advanced research in human education at large at the University of Bari. It stems from a seed-project funded in 2021 to promote contamination of different disciplinary scholars interested to the theme of spaces at large. The original acronym, that synthetized the idea of creating a Polymathic Agora and New Dimensional Obser- vatory on Research in Aerospace, can embrace a broader scope by changing the last word with Anthropogenetics, thus comprising both opportunities/challenges presented by the exploration of the outer space and those encountered while investigating the unknowns of the inner space. PANDORA will contribute to elaborate the governance of the transition from a hu- man society biologically adapted and rationally educated to living on Earth to a human- ity potentially free from the current constraints imposed by the biology, culture and ecology of this planet. This contribution is meant to be a signal sent to the community interested and in- volved in educational and training processes at all levels, with the hope of receiving numerous responses about the way to stimulate self-reflective attitude on transforma- tional questions in the higher education programs. Paraphrasing the title of Nobel Prize winner R.P. Feynman's famous lecture [2], we could say “There's Plenty of Room at the Top: An Invitation to Enter a New Field of Humanity". There is a great deal of enthusiasm about the outer space [3]. Is it because of the innate curiosity of mankind, or is it due to the endemic irresponsibility of human society, unable to develop a systemic vision capable of preserving the conditions of life on the host planet? Either case, while physicists explore the theoretical possibilities of breaching the space-time constraints of the observable universe [4], biologists question the perfection that we often recognize to Nature's solutions to the problems of adaptation of living beings on this planet, that has come in a few billion years of trials and errors in virtually 34 stationary conditions. Will we try to reproduce (artificially) similar conditions else- where? Will we try to substitute (artificially) our vital functions to survive on different planets? Will we accept the changes in our anatomy and physiology necessary to adapt them to life in other conditions? In the meanwhile, other spaces are opening at the horizon, the nearest dealing with the geometry of Artificial Intelligence and Gene Editing, but quantum and nano tech- nologies will soon appear as new players on the ground, questioning Human on the direction to take - Species or Being, Super- or Trans-. Education programs often lag behind societal transformations that are driven by technology even before politics. The faster the technology changes, the wider the divide with formal education becomes. The university plays a special role in the model of innovation (quadruple helix): not only it is the place where knowledge is elaborated and transferred, it is the place where knowledge is created in the first instance. The relative weight of creation, elaboration and dissemination is today unbalanced in favor of creation/research with little attention to foster critical thinking and contam- ination among researchers and even less effort devoted to adequate teaching methods to the learning profile of new generations and to promote scientific citizenship rights. Together with the specialized training needed to keep the pace with the fast-changing world, PANDORA aims to becoming the place where the contamination between dis- ciplinary knowledges takes place, leaven for the formation of future generations and future teachers, possibly in strict collaboration with the Teaching Learning Centre and Service and the Digital Education Hub that the host university is programming in the next years. If, on the one hand, the opening of Pandora's box releases unstoppable currents that push towards unknown spaces, on the other hand the basic scientific knowledge even of people with a diploma of higher education, and who are, like everyone else, called to navigate these spaces, are largely inadequate. Along with research coordination and education advocacy, PANDORA will stimulate and fuel the student’s and public aware- ness on science-based thinking and decision making. The ‘big question’ asked before does not have a single answer. It is a generative question calling for interpretations and declinations, deconditioning and rethinking, im- agination and vision. In the near future, if not tomorrow, the equation proposed by Y. N. Harari [5] B x C x D = AHH (Biological knowledge x Computing power x Data availability = Ability to Hack Humans) will begin to unfold its countless solutions out of the Pandora’s box of life adapted on Earth. PANDORA calls on the most collaborative and curious minds, willing to consider possible solutions without dogmatic prejudices, to imagine a future for humanity based on the technology we glimpse, but also on the new science we can discover. MD acknowledges the Horizon EuropeSeed 2021 funding from the University of Bari “Aldo Moro” awarded to the PANDORA project, coordinated by Prof. Francesco Giordano.