{"id":11219,"date":"2013-06-04T08:27:52","date_gmt":"2013-06-04T15:27:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/?p=11219"},"modified":"2013-06-12T08:37:42","modified_gmt":"2013-06-12T15:37:42","slug":"purpose-and-the-universe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/2013\/06\/04\/purpose-and-the-universe\/","title":{"rendered":"Purpose and the Universe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On Sunday I was privileged to give the keynote address at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.americanhumanist.org\/\">American Humanist Association annual conference<\/a>. Even better, people actually showed up for the talk, which for a Sunday morning event is pretty sweet. <\/p>\n<p>The talks were live-streamed, and naturally some enterprising young humanist (thanks <a href=\"https:\/\/www.preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/2013\/06\/04\/purpose-and-the-universe\/#comment-7295910552604263368\">Carl Wong<\/a>!) captured them and put them on YouTube. So here is mine; don&#8217;t forget to check out the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/beag00\/videos?view=0&#038;flow=grid\">others<\/a> (or directly from <a href=\"http:\/\/conference.americanhumanist.org\/live\/\">the AHA site<\/a>).<\/p>\n<div class=\"lyte-wrapper\" title=\"Purpose and the Universe by Sean M. Carroll, Ph.D (with HD slides) at the 2013 AHA Conference\" style=\"width:640px;max-width:100%;margin:5px;\"><div class=\"lyMe\" id=\"WYL_bcqd3Q7X_1A\" itemprop=\"video\" itemscope itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/VideoObject\"><div><meta itemprop=\"thumbnailUrl\" content=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/bcqd3Q7X_1A\/hqdefault.jpg\" \/><meta itemprop=\"embedURL\" content=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/bcqd3Q7X_1A\" \/><meta itemprop=\"duration\" content=\"PT1H16M14S\" \/><meta itemprop=\"uploadDate\" content=\"2013-06-08T20:54:12Z\" \/><\/div><div id=\"lyte_bcqd3Q7X_1A\" data-src=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/bcqd3Q7X_1A\/hqdefault.jpg\" class=\"pL\"><div class=\"tC\"><div class=\"tT\" itemprop=\"name\">Purpose and the Universe by Sean M. Carroll, Ph.D (with HD slides) at the 2013 AHA Conference<\/div><\/div><div class=\"play\"><\/div><div class=\"ctrl\"><div class=\"Lctrl\"><\/div><div class=\"Rctrl\"><\/div><\/div><\/div><noscript><a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/bcqd3Q7X_1A\" rel=\"nofollow\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/bcqd3Q7X_1A\/0.jpg\" alt=\"Purpose and the Universe by Sean M. Carroll, Ph.D (with HD slides) at the 2013 AHA Conference\" width=\"640\" height=\"340\" \/><br \/>Watch this video on YouTube<\/a><\/noscript><meta itemprop=\"description\" content=\"Sean speaks at 2:48. This NEW, edited version displays Sean Carroll&#039;s lecture slides in HD resolution. (Select HD and go fullscreen to view.) Sean Carroll speaks at 2:48. Q&amp;A at 58:16 Sean Carroll&#039;s Summary: The idea of a &quot;purpose&quot; or &quot;reason why&quot; has a strong hold on the human imagination, and has a special resonance when we think about the universe itself. However, modern science has gradually eroded the role of purpose in our best understanding of nature. This represents an important step forward in human understanding, as we can see how apparently purposeful features of reality arise through undirected laws of nature. But it represents a challenge for questions of morality and meaning. I will argue that purposes can be created or emergent even when they are not fundamental, and that this perspective has important consequences for how we live our lives. Sean Carroll is an author and theoretical physicist at Caltech. http:\/\/www.preposterousuniverse.com\/ http:\/\/www.americanhumanist.org\/ Recorded 6\/2\/13. Sean Carroll was the keynote speaker at the 2013 American Humanist Association annual Conference. To donate to me via PayPal, use the email beag12@yahoo.com. Thanks!\"><\/div><\/div><div class=\"lL\" style=\"max-width:100%;width:640px;margin:5px;\"><\/div><\/p>\n<p>My talk was similar to ones I had given before at TAM and at Skepticon, but about half of it was new. The general idea is the relationship between everyday human concerns of meaning and morality and the underlying laws of physics. For this one, I used the framing device of &#8220;purpose&#8221; &#8212; what is it, and where does it come from? The universe itself doesn&#8217;t have a purpose, nor is there one inherent in the fundamental laws of physics. But teleology (movement toward a goal) can plausibly be a useful concept when we invent the best description of higher-level phenomena, and at the human level there are purposes we can create for ourselves. All part of the &#8220;poetic naturalism&#8221; bandwagon I hope to get launched, although I didn&#8217;t specifically use that term.<\/p>\n<p>My actual slides aren&#8217;t always crystal clear from the above view, so I also put them on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.slideshare.net\/seanmcarroll\/purpose-and-the-universe\">Slideshare<\/a>. Enjoy!<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.slideshare.net\/slideshow\/embed_code\/22406443\" width=\"476\" height=\"400\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Sunday I was privileged to give the keynote address at the American Humanist Association annual conference. Even better, people actually showed up for the talk, which for a Sunday morning event is pretty sweet. The talks were live-streamed, and naturally some enterprising young humanist (thanks Carl Wong!) captured them and put them on YouTube. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,25,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-humanity","category-philosophy","category-science-and-society"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11219"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11219\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11229,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11219\/revisions\/11229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}