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This weekend

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This weekend's reading

Where Value Touches Ground

A weekend at the boundary where thermodynamics stops being physics and starts being theology.

  • ◇Value Is Not Arbitrary: Its Thermodynamic Roots in Existence Itself
  • ◇The Sacred as Thermodynamic Necessity in Complex Societies
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Where Value Touches Ground

A weekend at the boundary where thermodynamics stops being physics and starts being theology.

Meaning CrisisRelevance RealizationProcess PhilosophyPhenomenologyConsciousness Studies
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This weekend's question

Where Value Touches Ground

“If mattering is thermodynamic before it is psychological, what does that do to the distinction between sacred and secular?”

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This weekend's quest

Where Value Touches Ground

Something is holding the universe together that isn't gravity. Three thinkers trace value from its thermodynamic floor to its sacred ceiling. Your task is to find the joints — the places where physics becomes meaning and meaning becomes obligation. The map has seven edges. Not all of them point in the direction you'd expect.

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  1. Observers
  2. ›Sara Walker
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BYOD: Bring Your Own Discernment · AI-assisted · Eternally in its infancy

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Sara Walker

Astrobiology, assembly theory, origin of life — the physics of life, causal history as a measure of complexity, and detecting life beyond Earth

Arizona State University / Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science
4 ideas16 connections

Theoretical physicist and astrobiologist at Arizona State University whose work focuses on the origin of life and what distinguishes living from non-living matter. She is a co-developer of assembly theory, a new scientific framework for measuring the molecular complexity and causal history embedded in objects, with direct applications to detecting life on other planets. She serves as Deputy Director of the Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science and is External Faculty at the Santa Fe Institute.

Website ↗Wikipedia ↗

Topics

Complexity Science4
Systems Thinking3
Epistemology3
Information Theory2
Relevance Realization1
Philosophy of Mind1
Relational Ontology1

Connected Observers

David Krakauer3Jim Rutt3Bonnitta Roy2Brendan Graham Dempsey2Stuart Kauffman2LCLee Cronin

Ideas in the Observatory

  • The Fermi Paradox as a Failure of Conceptual Reach
    The Fermi Paradox as a Failure of Conceptual ReachWe cannot see what we have no name for
    I
  • Assembly Theory Grounds Complexity in Physical Structure, Not Observer Labels
    Assembly Theory Grounds Complexity in Physical Structure, Not Observer LabelsThe world does not care how you encode it.
    I

Links

WebsiteWikipedia

Topics

Complexity Science4
Systems Thinking3
Epistemology3
1
  • The Origin of Life as a Planetary Phase Transition in Chemical Space
    The Origin of Life as a Planetary Phase Transition in Chemical SpaceThe sludge that learned to search itself
    I
  • Complex Objects Carry Their Causal History as Physical Size in Time
    Complex Objects Carry Their Causal History as Physical Size in TimeWe are not observers of depth — we are inside it.
    I
    • Information Theory2
    Relevance Realization1
    Philosophy of Mind1
    Relational Ontology1

    Connected Observers

    David Krakauer3Jim Rutt3Bonnitta Roy2Brendan Graham Dempsey2Stuart Kauffman2LCLee Cronin1
    ← All Observers