7.5: Journey of the Universe- A Shared Evolutionary Story
- Page ID
- 41916
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\(\newcommand{\avec}{\mathbf a}\) \(\newcommand{\bvec}{\mathbf b}\) \(\newcommand{\cvec}{\mathbf c}\) \(\newcommand{\dvec}{\mathbf d}\) \(\newcommand{\dtil}{\widetilde{\mathbf d}}\) \(\newcommand{\evec}{\mathbf e}\) \(\newcommand{\fvec}{\mathbf f}\) \(\newcommand{\nvec}{\mathbf n}\) \(\newcommand{\pvec}{\mathbf p}\) \(\newcommand{\qvec}{\mathbf q}\) \(\newcommand{\svec}{\mathbf s}\) \(\newcommand{\tvec}{\mathbf t}\) \(\newcommand{\uvec}{\mathbf u}\) \(\newcommand{\vvec}{\mathbf v}\) \(\newcommand{\wvec}{\mathbf w}\) \(\newcommand{\xvec}{\mathbf x}\) \(\newcommand{\yvec}{\mathbf y}\) \(\newcommand{\zvec}{\mathbf z}\) \(\newcommand{\rvec}{\mathbf r}\) \(\newcommand{\mvec}{\mathbf m}\) \(\newcommand{\zerovec}{\mathbf 0}\) \(\newcommand{\onevec}{\mathbf 1}\) \(\newcommand{\real}{\mathbb R}\) \(\newcommand{\twovec}[2]{\left[\begin{array}{r}#1 \\ #2 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\ctwovec}[2]{\left[\begin{array}{c}#1 \\ #2 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\threevec}[3]{\left[\begin{array}{r}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\cthreevec}[3]{\left[\begin{array}{c}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\fourvec}[4]{\left[\begin{array}{r}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \\ #4 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\cfourvec}[4]{\left[\begin{array}{c}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \\ #4 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\fivevec}[5]{\left[\begin{array}{r}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \\ #4 \\ #5 \\ \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\cfivevec}[5]{\left[\begin{array}{c}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \\ #4 \\ #5 \\ \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\mattwo}[4]{\left[\begin{array}{rr}#1 \amp #2 \\ #3 \amp #4 \\ \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\laspan}[1]{\text{Span}\{#1\}}\) \(\newcommand{\bcal}{\cal B}\) \(\newcommand{\ccal}{\cal C}\) \(\newcommand{\scal}{\cal S}\) \(\newcommand{\wcal}{\cal W}\) \(\newcommand{\ecal}{\cal E}\) \(\newcommand{\coords}[2]{\left\{#1\right\}_{#2}}\) \(\newcommand{\gray}[1]{\color{gray}{#1}}\) \(\newcommand{\lgray}[1]{\color{lightgray}{#1}}\) \(\newcommand{\rank}{\operatorname{rank}}\) \(\newcommand{\row}{\text{Row}}\) \(\newcommand{\col}{\text{Col}}\) \(\renewcommand{\row}{\text{Row}}\) \(\newcommand{\nul}{\text{Nul}}\) \(\newcommand{\var}{\text{Var}}\) \(\newcommand{\corr}{\text{corr}}\) \(\newcommand{\len}[1]{\left|#1\right|}\) \(\newcommand{\bbar}{\overline{\bvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\bhat}{\widehat{\bvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\bperp}{\bvec^\perp}\) \(\newcommand{\xhat}{\widehat{\xvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\vhat}{\widehat{\vvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\uhat}{\widehat{\uvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\what}{\widehat{\wvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\Sighat}{\widehat{\Sigma}}\) \(\newcommand{\lt}{<}\) \(\newcommand{\gt}{>}\) \(\newcommand{\amp}{&}\) \(\definecolor{fillinmathshade}{gray}{0.9}\)Our biggest challenge to realizing this broader perspective in the United States and some other Western-influenced societies is hyper-individualism and an elevation of personal liberties over a sense of the common good. The unanswered question is how to move from a narrow devotion to individual rights toward embracing a larger sense of responsibility for the flourishing of life. We need to articulate and imagine a common well-being that is not hegemonic or totalizing, but inviting, energizing, inclusive, and participatory.
Journey of the Universe has this possibility of bringing humans together in a shared evolutionary story that respects differences. Journey is a multimedia project created over 10 years by Brian Thomas Swimme, John Grim, and me; it consists of an Emmy award–winning film, a book from Yale, a series of 20 conversations with scientists and environmentalists, and online courses. This project acknowledges that we humans are part of a vast unfolding universe, dwelling in a living Earth community, and ideally contributing to its continuity. Journey embraces an anthropocosmic worldview in which humans are seen as belonging to and dwelling within the cosmos and the Earth (Figure 7.5.1). It begins with the “great flaring forth” 14 billion years ago and traces the emergence of Earth, of life, and of humans. It concludes with our current ecological challenges.
Journey of the Universe narrates the 14-billion-year story of the universe’s development, from the great flaring forth at the universe’s inception to the emergence of simple molecules and atoms to the evolution of galaxies, stars, solar systems, and planetary life of greater complexity and consciousness. This is a story that inspires wonder as we begin to understand such complexity through science and appreciate such beauty through poetry, art, history, philosophy, and religion.
Journey of the Universe is a cosmology, although not just in the scientific sense of the study of the early universe. Rather, it is a cosmology in the sense of being an integrated story that explains where both humans and other lifeforms have come from. All cultures have had such stories. We now have the capacity to tell a comprehensive story drawing on astronomy and physics to explain the emergence of galaxies and stars, geology and chemistry to understand the formation of Earth, biology and botany to envision life’s evolution, and anthropology and the humanities to trace the rise of humans.
Journey draws on all these disciplines to narrate a story of universe, Earth, and human evolution that is widely accessible and allows for a comprehensive sense of mystery and awe to arise. This is in alignment with the call of the environmental ethicist J. Baird Callicott to “reintegrate science and its epistemology into the wider culture by expressing the new nature of Nature as revealed by the sciences, in the grammar of the humanities.” Such an approach expands the human perspective beyond an anthropocentric worldview to one that values life’s complexity and sees the role of humans as critical to the further flourishing of the Earth community. While humans are gifted with the creativity of symbolic consciousness, we know that different kinds of self-organizing creativity abound in the universe and Earth—the formation of galaxies and stars, the movement of tectonic plates, the chemistry of cells, the biological complexity of photosynthesis, the migrating patterns of birds, fishes, turtles, and caribou. Creativity is also closely aligned with chaos and destruction as the universe unfolds on the edge of a knife.
Such a cosmological perspective is both ancient and modern—embedded in certain aspects of world philosophies and religions and revealed anew in the scientific story of the universe. Thus science along with philosophy and religion help us to recognize ourselves as participating in a larger integrated whole. In this spirit, images and metaphors from the wisdom traditions of the world religions and philosophies are woven into Journey of the Universe.
Journey of the Universe thus weaves together scientific discoveries in astronomy, geology, and biology with humanistic insights concerning the nature of the universe. It is in the lineage of Thomas Berry’s call for a “New Story.” Berry felt we needed to bring science and the humanities together in an integrated cosmology that would guide humans into the next period of the flourishing of human-Earth relations. This perspective affirms that “the universe is a communion of subjects, not a collection of objects,” as Thomas Berry often observed.