{"id":12938,"date":"2016-11-23T11:33:33","date_gmt":"2016-11-23T19:33:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/?p=12938"},"modified":"2016-11-23T11:33:33","modified_gmt":"2016-11-23T19:33:33","slug":"gifford-lectures-on-natural-theology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/2016\/11\/23\/gifford-lectures-on-natural-theology\/","title":{"rendered":"Gifford Lectures on Natural Theology"},"content":{"rendered":"

In October I had the honor of visiting the University of Glasgow to give the Gifford Lectures on Natural Theology<\/a>. These are a series of lectures that date back to 1888, and happen at different Scottish universities: Glasgow, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, and St. Andrews. “Natural theology” is traditionally the discipline that attempts to learn about the nature of God via our experience of the world (in contrast to by revelation or contemplation). The Gifford Lectures have always interpreted this regime rather broadly; many theologians have given the talks, but also people like Neils Bohr, Arthur Eddington, Hannah Arendt, Noam Chomsky, Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins, and Steven Pinker. <\/p>\n

Sometimes the speakers turn their lectures into short published books; in my case, I had just written a book that fit well into the topic, so I spoke about the ideas in The Big Picture<\/em><\/a>. Unfortunately the first of the five lectures was not recorded, but the subsequent four were. Here are those recordings, along with a copy of my slides for the first talk. It’s not a huge loss, as many of the ideas in the first lecture can be found in previous talks I’ve given on the arrow of time<\/a>; it’s about the evolution of our universe, how that leads to an arrow of time, and how that helps explain things like memory and cause\/effect relations. The second lecture was on the Core Theory and why we think it will remain accurate in the face of new discoveries. The third lecture was on emergence and how different ways of talking about the world fit together, including discussions of effective field theory and why the universe itself exists. Lecture four dealt with the evolution of complexity, the origin of life, and the nature of consciousness. (I might have had to skip some details during that one.) And the final lecture was on what it all means, why we are here, and how to live in a universe that doesn’t come with any instructions. Enjoy!<\/p>\n

(Looking at my YouTube channel makes me realize that I’ve been in a lot of videos<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Lecture One: Cosmos, Time, Memory (slides only, no video)<\/strong>
\nSlideshare<\/a>
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