Reinventing the Sacred

October 3, 2007 (Wednesday) / 5:00 pm6:30 pm

Rainey Auditorium, Penn Museum, 3260 South Street

Reinventing the Sacred

Stuart Kauffman

Director, Institute for Biocomplexity and Informatics
University of Calgary

Science since Newton and Laplace has attempted to reduce all phenomena to particles (or strings) in motion. This reductionism has failed to describe the origins of life, agency, meaning, or consciousness, nor can it predict the way the biosphere or human culture will evolve in the future. We live in an “emergent universe” instead, a biosphere of ceaseless creativity blossoming with ever-erupting origins.

Biologist Stuart Kauffman discusses the first glimmerings of a vision in which the “sacred” is re-defined as the creativity of the universe.