Episodes

4 items

Cover image for What’s Strong Emergence?

Here’s the claim: each level of the scientific hierarchy — physics, chemistry, biology, psychology — has its own special laws that can never be explained by deeper laws...

video

What’s Strong Emergence?

Episode 05

Season 19

26:48

Watch

Cover image for Complexity from Simplicity?

Our universe began with a swirling, seething plasma-everything, everywhere, all the same. Today we have galaxies, stars, planets, people. How did such structure come about?

video

Complexity from Simplicity?

Episode 09

Season 09

26:45

Watch

Cover image for Do General Principles Govern All Science?

Are there “general principles” that encompass all sciences, that explain even beyond the sciences? What would that mean about our world and about us?

video

Do General Principles Govern All Science?

Episode 04

Season 10

26:46

Watch

Cover image for How Can Emergence Explain Reality?

Does ordinary stuff have mysterious properties? Take anything; find all its parts; combine those parts any way you like. What do you expect? Nothing at all like what you...

video

How Can Emergence Explain Reality?

Episode 10

Season 03

26:46

Watch

Topic Series

8 items

Are there ‘general principles’ that encompass all sciences, which have explanatory strength from physics to biology? Could such general principles even explain...

playlist

Do General Principles Govern All Science?

Topic Series

5 videos

42:17

Watch

Cover image for Is the World Self-Organizing?

Are the laws of nature or physics blind in that they seek no direction and have no ‘purpose’? That’s the scientific paradigm. But the world works so well:...

playlist

Is the World Self-Organizing?

Topic Series

8 videos

1:28

Watch

Cover image for What is Complexity in the Cosmos?

Our universe began with a swirling, seething plasma—everything, everywhere, all the same. Today we have galaxies, stars, planets, people. How did such structure come about?...

playlist

What is Complexity in the Cosmos?

Topic Series

9 videos

1:32:33

Watch

Cover image for Is Emergence Fundamental?

How critical is emergence in how the world works? Emergence happens when the behavior of composite things is more complex than the additive behaviors of all its constituent...

playlist

Is Emergence Fundamental?

Topic Series

8 videos

1:28

Watch

Cover image for Why is Emergence Significant?

Emergence is how the world works differently at various levels or hierarchies of organization. It’s what happens when the whole becomes more than the sum of all its...

playlist

Why is Emergence Significant?

Topic Series

7 videos

1:05:51

Watch

Cover image for Can Emergence Explain Reality?

Is emergence a mystery? Does ordinary stuff have mysterious properties? Take anything; find and separate all its parts and catalogue their properties. Then recombine those...

playlist

Can Emergence Explain Reality?

Topic Series

7 videos

1:10:17

Watch

Cover image for How Complexity and Emergence Create a Cosmos?

The universe began as a simple hot bath of particles and forces. How then the vast diversity of things we find on earth today? Much depends on the principles of...

playlist

How Complexity and Emergence Create a Cosmos?

Topic Series

8 videos

1:10:11

Watch

Cover image for What is Strong Emergence?

The world works at different levels — fundamental physics, physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, sociology — with each level having its own rules and regularities. ...

playlist

What is Strong Emergence?

Topic Series

5 videos

45:52

Watch

Roundtables

Cover image for How Does Order Arise in the Universe?

Two Nobel laureates – a biologist and a physicist – take on the big questions. One of the greatest challenges facing science at the beginning of the 21st century is how...

video

How Does Order Arise in the Universe?

Roundtable

26:11

Watch

Contributors

44 items

David Albert

Professor of Philosophy and Director of the M.A. Program in The Philosophical Foundations of Physics, Columbia University

Denis Alexander

Emeritus Director, Faraday Institute for Science and Religion, Cambridge

Peter Atkins

Professor Emeritus of Chemistry, University of Oxford

Francisco Ayala

Former University Professor, Professor of Biological Sciences, Professor of Philosophy, University of California, Irvine

Sean Carroll

Research Professor of Physics, Caltech

Gregory Chaitin

Professor, Universidad de Buenos Aires; Mathematician (Emeritus), IBM

Raissa D’Sousa

Professor, Computer Science, UC Davis; President, Network Science Society

Paul Davies

Regents' Professor, Arizona State University

David Deutsch

Visiting Professor, Centre for Quantum Computation, Clarendon Laboratory, University of Oxford

George Ellis

Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Complex Systems, University of Cape Town

Murray Gell-Mann

Nobel Laureate in Physics; Professor Emeritus of Theoretical Physics, Caltech

Stuart Kauffman

Professor Emeritus of Biochemistry, Univesity of Pennsylvania; Santa Fe Institute

Seth Lloyd

Professor, Mechanical Engineering and Physics, MIT

Tim Maudlin

Professor of Philosophy, New York University

Don Page

Professor of Physics, University of Alberta

Martin Rees

Astronomer Royal, Cosmologist, University of Cambridge

Max Tegmark

Professor of Physics, MIT

Geoffrey West

Distinguished Professor and former President, Santa Fe Institute

Frank Wilczek

Nobel Laureate in Physics; Templeton Prize recipient; Emeritus Professor of Physics, MIT; Distinguished Professor in Physics, Arizona State University

Stephen Wolfram

Founder and CEO, Wolfram Research

Like this? Share it!

Complexity and Emergence

Episodes

What’s Strong Emergence?

Complexity from Simplicity?

Do General Principles Govern All Science?

Topic Series

Do General Principles Govern All Science?

Is the World Self-Organizing?

What is Complexity in the Cosmos?

Roundtables

How Does Order Arise in the Universe?

Contributors

David Albert

Denis Alexander

Peter Atkins

Francisco Ayala