The first session
Sunday, September 13.
One short video of ten to fifteen minutes, then we think it through out loud. The room picks the direction, so here is what is queued up for each one. Watch any of them here, before or after, or not at all.
In person · free · all welcome Sunday, September 13 12:00 – 1:30 PM Ethical Society of Mid Rivers 117 Triad Center West, O'Fallon, MOChoose one direction to explore
Cosmos & Physics
Space, time, matter, energy, and the structure of reality.
Featured voice
Roger Penrose
Mathematical physicist, University of Oxford · Nobel Prize in Physics 2020
Sir Roger Penrose is a British mathematical physicist and emeritus professor at the University of Oxford. He shared the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics for showing that black holes are a direct consequence of Einstein's general relativity, work that grew out of the singularity theorems he developed in the 1960s with Stephen Hawking. His ideas run from twistor theory and the Penrose tilings to conformal cyclic cosmology, the proposal that our Big Bang continues an earlier universe, which is the crazy idea of this video. His books The Emperor's New Mind and The Road to Reality have shaped how a generation thinks about physics, mathematics, and mind.
One story in four connected parts, about 15 minutes, that play straight through: the idea in one breath, Penrose explaining it in a 2025 conversation, the same idea with his own slides from a 2021 lecture, and why he holds it against the crowd.
We close on this If the Big Bang was not the beginning, what would count as one?
Choose one direction to explore
Life & Biology
Evolution, cells, DNA, consciousness, and living systems.
Featured voice
Michael Levin
Developmental and synthetic biologist, Tufts University · maker of the xenobots
Michael Levin is a developmental and synthetic biologist at Tufts University, where he is the Vannevar Bush Distinguished Professor of Biology and directs the Allen Discovery Center. His lab studies bioelectricity, the voltage patterns cells use to decide what to build, which his group has rewritten to make flatworms grow two heads and frogs regrow legs. In 2020 his team, with Josh Bongard's at the University of Vermont, made xenobots, the first living robots assembled from frog cells, followed in 2023 by anthrobots made from human cells. He is also associate faculty at Harvard's Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering.
One story in two connected parts, about 13 minutes, that play straight through: one minute of the actual xenobots filmed at the University of Vermont, then Levin on what they are and why they matter. Everything else he has said on camera stays in reserve for later sessions.
We close on this If the body plan is stored somewhere other than the genes, what else have we been looking for in the wrong place?
Choose one direction to explore
Earth & Ecology
Climate, ecosystems, biodiversity, and our place in nature.
Featured voice
Suzanne Simard
Professor of forest ecology, University of British Columbia
Suzanne Simard is a professor of forest ecology at the University of British Columbia and one of the world's leading researchers on how forests work underground. Her 1997 paper in Nature showed that trees of different species trade carbon through shared fungal networks, the work that gave us the phrase 'wood wide web'. Her later research on mother trees, the old hubs that connect and supply a forest's seedlings, changed how ecologists and foresters picture a stand of trees, as a community rather than a set of competitors. Her 2021 memoir Finding the Mother Tree became an international bestseller.
One video for the first session. The rest of her talks stay in reserve for later sessions.
We close on this Where is the line between a network that shares resources and a community that cooperates?
Come and argue with it.
Watching alone is fine. Watching and then talking is the whole point.
Sunday, September 13 · 12:00 – 1:30 PM · Ethical Society of Mid Rivers · 117 Triad Center West, O'Fallon, MO