Understanding ourselves is the most complex problem that mankind has ever addressed. Figuring out whether time can flow backwards or how life came into being is a cinch in comparison. Part of the problem is that a human brain is the most complex object that we have encountered in the universe. However, neuroscientists are inching towards the conclusion that a human brain is just a biological computer, so it must contain an algorithm that generates each human action. The logic of self-destruction is a project devoted to decoding this algorithm.
The project is based around an unconventional multi-disciplinary argument. It starts with the counterintuitive assumption that a human is a robustly logical computational device, and then demonstrates that we can still account for everything a human does, including the utterly bonkers stuff. Humans can outthink their own biology and that makes them self-referencing mechanisms, and even when they are rational they can come up with some curious outcomes.
The project is a radical reappraisal of human nature. By treating humanity as a giant logic puzzle, it asks important questions about how we should regulate ourselves and whether our species will survive.