MS: I hesitate to call myself a philosopher because I have never taken a philosophy course and have never studied it in any formal way. The Sri Lankan education system is very narrow and deep. So in school and college I learned a huge amount of physics and mathematics but essentially nothing else. I have not even read completely the works of great philosophers, just bits and pieces here and there. What I have tried to do is create a coherent personal philosophy and to do that I have approached it from the world of science, in which I am more comfortable. I think that physics and biology give one valuable, perhaps even essential, tools for understanding the world. I have learned physics systematically, of course, but biology and especially evolution I have had to study on my own, having never taken a course in them either. So perhaps I am a 'natural philosopher' in the very old-fashioned sense of the term, someone who tries to make sense of the world using the tools of science.
 
It is hard to identify the specific contributions of various influences in one's life but I'll give it a shot. My mother and my late father and (and extended family in general) are generally very easy-going people. They are religious (mostly Protestant Christian) and have a very tolerant and inclusive mindset. Most importantly, they have a sense of humor and do not recoil from jokes and other forms of irreverence targeted at anything, even religion (including their own) and other sacred cows. So although I grew up adopting their religious attitudes and beliefs, the atmosphere surrounding me encouraged intellectual openness.
 
The other key influences that I can pinpoint are my middle school math teacher Ivan Jansze and my high school math and physics teacher G. Y. Sahayam, both of whom instilled in me a deep appreciation for the beauty of proofs and a sense of wonder at the ability of science to systematically build up knowledge and explain things in a coherent way. As a result, I have always had the desire to unify different areas of thought into one coherent philosophy. I find it hard to compartmentalize discordant knowledge structures or to ignore things that don't fit. 
 
During my college years, I was influenced by Reverend Arnold Cooper, my parish priest, who died just last year. He was a wonderful man who felt that I had a calling for the ministry, and who also instilled in me a modern and liberal theological attitude that encouraged me to question and seek answers and not try to dodge tough questions.
 
MLU: While other researchers highlighted on this website work to make machines more intelligent, your efforts focus on making humans more intelligent. We all grow up with unsubstantiated beliefs. What can we do to clear our heads of false biases, and shed our erroneous preconceptions?
 
MS: I think you have to be curious and self-reflective. I also think you have to have the ability to realize when an answer is not really an answer but simply a way of disguising ignorance. I think you also have to overcome the fear that comes with wondering if your questions are going to take you into 'forbidden' areas, things that you have grown up taking for granted and do not really wish to challenge.
 
For example, studying physics and biology and evolution has made me realize that all the things that tend to separate us (nation, race, religion, ethnicity, language) are silly and superficial. Just think of the implications of the fact that every single person who lives on Earth right now likely shares at least one common ancestor who lived merely a thousand or so years ago. Think further that all the people who lived just five thousand years ago are the common ancestors of every one of us today. And as we go back in time even further we find common ancestors with all the species. How can that knowledge not create a sense of universal oneness? Knowing that, how can anyone think that one ethnic group or religion or nation, groupings that formed more recently, is intrinsically superior to another?