Time, the Universe and You

Catalog description

Astronomer Carl Sagan wrote, "Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people." And the evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins has written that "We are survival machines - robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes." How well does this scientifically informed picture of who we are fit with our everyday conception of our lives as filled with significant (as well as insignificant) events in time? Does our sense of "living in time" survive scientific scrutiny? This course will survey historical and present-day understandings of the physical and chronological universe, explore the place of humanity in its immensity, and ask whether the scientific conceptions that emerge are compatible with our everyday experience of time.