The Accidental Universe: The World You Thought You Knew | Alan Lightman | Talks at Google
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 19 ต.ค. 2014
- Prof. Alan Lightman of M.I.T. visited Google's office in Cambridge, MA to discuss his book, "The Accidental Universe: The World You Thought You Knew."
“Alan Lightman brings a light touch to heavy questions. Here is a book about nesting ospreys, multiple universes, atheism, spiritualism, and the arrow of time. Throughout, Lightman takes us back and forth between ordinary occurrences-old shoes and entropy, sailing far out at sea and the infinite expanse of space .... In this slight volume, Lightman looks toward the universe and captures aspects of it in a series of beautifully written essays, each offering a glimpse at the whole from a different perspective: here time, there symmetry, not least God. It is a meditation by a remarkable humanist-physicist, a book worth reading by anyone entranced by big ideas grounded in the physical world.” - Peter L. Galison, Professor, Harvard University
Alan Lightman is a novelist, essayist, physicist, and educator. Currently, he is Professor of the Practice of the Humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). cmsw.mit.edu/alan-lightman/ - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
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This made me fall into a deep sleep. While asleep, I had a dream that I was falling asleep. While I was asleep in my dream, I had another dream. In that dream, I was also sleeping.
Looks like a good scenario for "Inception 2". Calling Di Caprio... :)
Great lecture and great book. Alan is a prolific writer and knows how to communicate in an interesting and palatable way to helping bridge science, religion and the humanities.
Thanks Alan, many years ago you inspired me to write my book. You also inspire what I teach in both my dance and yoga classes. I hope one day you'll take a look at what I am trying to achieve with dance. Thanks for another enlightening talk.
Dr. Lightman Although I’ve enjoyed reading your many essays and poetry, I hope by now ( 2022 ) you’ve abandoned your belief in the physical universe and have embraced the mental universe. The Universe is immaterial - mental and spiritual. Live, and enjoy.
Concluding: there are things that we know, and there are things that we believe.
... and things we believe we know :)
I listened to Accidental Universe last night in one session. It was something very special, and I never thought I'd have my own view on Science and Religion so clearly and gracefully articulated. Glad there are Science loving Atheists/Agnostics who think like I do.
Hi I respect everything he said but I don't agree with all of it. I respect what you said too. It's very interesting how we see so many topics from so many different aspects. I think disagreeing with each other is a good thing as we can learn from each other. I am the opposite to being an atheist. I was an atheist for many years though. My belief in the Lord is not from any spiritual book like the bible that has been written or by any other new age spiritual book that has been written. I am speaking from experience. When you die briefly and feel the Lord that is when you know the Lord is real. It doesn't matter how much neurological research one does. When you feel the Lord for real then all of that scientific research goes out of the window. I wish I could explain it better but I am not great with words. I can only describe my experience and the knowledge that came from that natural experience.
@@lw938 There is an aspect of "being human" that I don't think science was ever built to provide answers to. I have met people who are religious, that I genuinely find tiresome. It's as if they surrender the responsibility to think for themselves, perhaps it just feels a lot easier and safer, to abdicate the responsibility to a higher power, but in my experience, such people often behave like immature children, and do not conduct themselves with either grace or honesty. That said, I just don't feel that some ones religious position, or lack of it, is in itself any measure of the quality of the person. It's what we do, and don't do, that really matters. Like choosing not to be cruel when you could have been -not because you expect any reward for it, but because that's what being a good human is all about. If by some miracle, humanity makes it to the stars, I only hope that we will do it as a species I can feel proud to have been a part of. All that said, I understand what you are saying, choosing religion is not about science, and what it can and can't prove -I totally get that.
Good talk.
the connection he describes with the birds he says cannot be explained by science. True it didn't need a god but anthropologists and psychologists can easily explain why he had that emotional (spiritual) response
With all due respect to the speaker, he vastly underestimates just how much science can test and explain, and much of what he claims is the domain of spirituality is really just gaps in his knowledge of science. Approaches like game theory and evolutionary psychology already explains why we have the kinds of ethics and morality that we do. He conflates uncertainty within decision-making - whether to steal or kill, by his examples - with uncertainty about decision-making - as in we don't know how to approach the problem. There's natural uncertainty about stealing and killing because we do not have the ability to fully predict the consequences of our actions, but that doesn't mean we don't have the ability to weigh the costs and benefits that we can foresee. And if it's uncertainty we're worried about, I trust statistics to deal with it more reliably than spirituality.
Not to mention that his claim that morality and ethics belong in the realm of religion. Nothing could be further from the truth. I'd claim it is the exact opposite; good rules for morality and ethics comes from compassion, reasoning and continuous public debate. Morality and ethics in a society is constantly changing while religion usually oppose change to their tenets and doctrines.
The fact that people look to religion (instead of philosophy) for morality is a huge problem. It's one of the reasons we have world problems like ISIS and that HIV is spreading so rampant on the African continent. The latter issue is directly related to the Catholic church favoring abstinence and no sex before marriage over a healthy view on sexuality and claiming that the use of contraceptives is against the faith. Also let's not forget what "morality" views many religions have on women's status in society, how to treat apostates, non-believers or believers of different faiths or homosexuals.
giving too much respect to religion so as not to hurt too many feelings. Sean Carroll's talks are much better in this respect
I dont believe in any religion myself but i always have question on accidental world.
Cant cover all million of thing in this comment but will point out few.In beginning there was nothing accidentally.by accident there was big bang which created billions of gallaxies and planets accidentally.earth was burning in the beginning out of expolsion.as we know when thing burn they become ash but by accident earth formed billion of elements then just being a ball of ash.by accident there were all the laws gravity,laws of physics,laws of thermodynamics than being nothing out random explosion.then by accident there all the gases then water by accident.by accident it had atmosphere which also protect us from meteors burns them in midair before they hit us again accident.by accident in puddle there were enough right element to form single bacteria and by accident it was "self replicating" just think about that.it could not be self replicating bacteria after becoming a bacteria in soup but in accidents everything is possible.then all chain started.its became fish them fish came out of water.but still it had to rely on water food.but no by accident trees and plants evolved that had fruits and vegetables and trees and plants dont eat their fruit themself yet it was there to be eaten by fish by accident.if you imagine trillion of species lived on earth since first bacteria today there would be no single space left it could be dead bodies lying around everywhere but no by accident earth's nature has it own extremly efficient recycling system what grows into it goes back into it and becomes dirt by accident again.these are only very few accidents i am telling here.there are million more accidents i mean how many accidents can happen.someone need write book on accidents and name should be "God of accidents".
I know you can always deny everything by calling it fallacy and give explanations how it happened.i have good faith in science too because of science i know all those thing but buy figuring out how things happened and how mechanism of a engine works does not eliminates the idea of creator and it can not change the fact that accident doesnt happen for good and does not happen all the time to create complex univers and life we know today.
Not arguing mate.this what i think not claiming i am right but still after watching thousand of debates,videos and reading still cant find a conclusion.anyways it was nice talking to you merry christmas and have a great year ahead.
you might be right, but why should i listen to you over Lightman, after knowing about his credentials? He seems like a very smart man whose ideas are unassailable relative to the common man.
TH-cam audio is bad
Universe is just a matter system
An answer or comment to sckchui and Madsy9. There have always been moral theorists trying to handle ethics scientifically, which means according to the leading scientific paradigm of their time or by resurrecting an old or establishing a new paradigm. Among them you find Thomas Hobbes and Baruch ds Spinoza. On the other hand lots of utopian/dystopian literature and SF is about real testing moral laws and social organisation forms, about social experiments. Immanuel Kant, who was extraordinarily skilled in the hard science of his time and who established the groundbreaking theory of science, didn't handle ethics in this way, BUT he developed an analogical approach by the categorical imperative. By using it or obeing this one law/criterion of the good action, the decision maker does the social testing by an hypothetical experiment in every action-decision (in principle). Then she does not decide by a judgement about if the resulting society in which everyone acts according to this decision (which becomes a law), is good or bad or pleasant or not, but he or she decides by avoiding contradictions of the decision (or action) to itself. Example: When everyone is lying, then there is no consent of truth anymore, according to which any thing can even be "a lie". With Kant there is a hypothetical, scientific testing of moral decisions not relying on the methods of ruler and clock and even not pure psychology or fiction. This ethics is neither materialistic nor spiritual, but neutral against these worldviews
As a reference to the commonality of life amongst species, this is a better story than your eyeballing the Osprey story - www.beliefnet.com/inspiration/home-page-news-and-views/wild-elephants-mourn-death-of-famed-elephant-whisperer.aspx
I don't think this talk is representing either science or religion adequately.
watch Sean Carroll's youtube called god is not a good theory. Much better
Disappointed to see he is relating science and religion, and not science and spirituality. He brings the idea that science is impersonal, and religion personal; but he has chosen to limit his idea of religion to the Western religions, leaving behind the already more already discussed among physicists and a more interesting analysis with the impersonal religions of the East. The western religions are a less evolved concept of “god” and are circumscribed to the psychological projection of parental authorities in our lives. They are in essence psychologically immature.
It’s not challenging for science to have religion who only relies on belief; when it could be challenged instead by the “practices” of spirituality instead which are based on “experience” rather than belief. This aspect of spirituality opens up a much broader challenging question for science to investigate, even more so because it would find itself on the same level of inquiry; that of an empirical quality.
A lot can be thought about or rather can be deduced about the separation of the physical and spiritual universe. Islam separates the two. The physical universe is an illusion or a fleeting moment and the spiritual realm is everlasting and beyond the reach of Humans physically.
And how the hell can you possibly know all this?
you have it backwards. We can reliably demonstrate the predictable material universe, but the so-called 'spiritual realm' has no concrete working definition and no demonstrated mechanism for it to exist (except in our mind). Just because we can imagine something doesn't mean it exists. We can imagine dragons, unicorns and pixies, but that doesn't provide evidence for their existence. The same for a spiritual realm. Watch Sean Carroll's youtube videos on life after death, or god.
Boring, stuttering with too many ums and ahs.
Oh my! You move me to tears. Let me shed a tear for you and your bullshit bird thingy. WTF? This babel that comes out of his mouth is so disrespectful of all thinking people. Different type of truth? You mean the truth = say whatever you want and we will respect you? Come on.... This is purely a waste of time....