---
title: Unresolved questions across disciplines
date: 2026-05-07T20:45:58+08:00
categories:
  - links
---

I asked Claude: "What are the most effective and impactful ways you can help me?" One of its ideas was to ask it:

> What are the three questions this field has not resolved, where the disagreement is substantive and not just semantic? Who represents each position most forcefully?"

<!-- https://claude.ai/chat/0999b5d7-06bc-40ec-81eb-2e15be23f159 -->

![](https://files.s-anand.net/images/2026-05-07-unresolved-questions-across-disciplines.avif) <!-- https://chatgpt.com/c/69fc8ed1-5248-83ea-9322-c62889c8d667 -->

So I posed this question about several subjects. This is a great way to discover the frontiers of knowledge in a field.

- [Mathematics](https://claude.ai/share/03ccf372-1735-420a-9f6d-067ebe135af8) <!-- https://claude.ai/chat/d257e632-8c22-4243-8f5d-ffc8d34b89b4 -->
  - Are mathematical objects (numbers, sets, complex numbers) real, independent of human minds? Or useful fiction? Do we discover or invent them?
  - Is there _one_ true set theory or a multiverse of equally valid set theories, e.g. where the continuum hypothesis is true vs false?
  - Are theorems true or false, even if we can't prove them?
- [Biology](https://claude.ai/share/1152e888-10a2-4a24-a805-973906eda1b3) <!-- https://claude.ai/chat/be92b6ae-9c04-4f07-97a0-20730bf04727 -->
  - Does natural selection operate at a gene, individual, or group level?
  - Does evolution proceed through gene mutation + selection, or do we need to add epigenetics, niche construction, and developmental bias?
  - Which came first - RNA or mitochondria?
- [Physics](https://claude.ai/share/6054648c-2bca-433e-b18b-61924a6dcc75) <!-- https://claude.ai/chat/2b6e4c7f-7001-4fd7-99a5-1b97cf804888 -->
  - What actually happens when a quantum system is measured?
  - When a black hole evaporates, is the information about what fell in preserved (and how) in the Hawking radiation, or destroyed?
  - Why does the universe have a strong entropy increase toward the future but not the past?
- [Computer science](https://claude.ai/share/e15e4544-48a0-43d8-b276-8737af37406e) <!-- https://claude.ai/chat/83c66b33-e18b-4574-9a94-b62785092a39 -->
  - Is P really equal to NP?
  - Can fault-tolerant quantum computers actually be built?
  - Can we really achieve AGI with computation?
- [Finance](https://claude.ai/share/58a53c0c-af89-4d71-9147-c10b660fe93b) <!-- https://claude.ai/chat/02f84cc5-f1b5-4ef6-b6b3-bef38f9d660b -->
  - Do asset prices track underlying value or market narrative / noise?
  - Why is the historical US equity premium (~6%) so high that it implies a ~30–40x risk aversion?
  - Is financial instability inevitable in capitalism, or is it due to external shocks?
- [Psychology](https://claude.ai/share/d63da084-6364-4062-a96d-4b64d515b636) <!-- https://claude.ai/chat/3ec2bb1c-804c-4df9-9fdd-2c559aa9a5dc -->
  - Are emotions hard-wired (hence discovered) or constructed from more primitive ingredients?
  - Does trauma hide the memory that we recover later, or are these recovered pieces fabricated?
  - In psychotherapy, do specific techniques work? Or is it just the relationship?
- [History](https://claude.ai/share/6be781dd-6fec-4efb-85a6-d199cbda72c6) <!-- https://claude.ai/chat/2f7d46a8-6282-4986-90cc-89c611675897 -->
  - Were the atomic bombings of Japan militarily necessary?
  - Was the Holocaust planned from the start, or did it emerge from bureaucratic chaos?
  - Did the Industrial Revolution raise or lower living standards for ordinary workers?
- [Geography](https://claude.ai/share/26a665bb-60d8-4154-8ef2-143376ca32e4) <!-- https://claude.ai/chat/c0a4c5ca-2ee9-436d-9a84-7a9f74b19c7d -->
  - Does physical geography cause big changes to human outcomes in the long run?
  - Are places about a geographic location or about the flow of capital, people, and power that flow through?
  - Are local, regional, national, ... really nested ways of organizing society, or an ineffective way of thinking about geography?