VIDEOS
William Grassie, Big History: The New Narrative, 8:37
David Christian, The What and Why of Big History, 21:53.
Bob Bain, Big Questions about Big History in US schools, 42:09.
Joel Primack is a professor of physics and astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His wife, Nancy Abrams, is a specialist in the history and philosophy of science. Together they deliver this motivational TEDx talk, which calls for a cosmological, Big History perspective as a means to solving some of our most difficult…
What of human civilization would survive on a much-transformed planet, as some day it surely will be? Our best strategy is to distribute the hard won discoveries and inventions of science, technology, history, and culture as broadly as possible throughout the world.
What knowledge of science, culture and civilization would you most want to pass on to the surviving humans as they faced the prospect of adapting to a new environment and rebuilding their lives over many generations?
Humans now consume some 18 trillion watts of energy in a variety of forms. Every aspect of our contemporary lives depends on this tremendous flow of energy.
We argue about truth, beauty, and goodness based on competing religious, nationalistic, ethnic, and ideological stories. What intellectual tools can help to mediate between these competing narratives?
The four dimensions in the Great Matrix of Being give us four ways of measuring reality — by time, by scale, by energy density flow, and by thresholds of emergent complexity. All phenomena can be located within this Matrix.