Het Wereldbeeld-lezing: Big History and the Future of Humanity

Lecture by Fred Spier, senior lecturer (UHD) at the University of Amsterdam and author of Big History and the Future of Humanity (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010). Fred Spier has done pioneering work in the field of big history. He teaches Big History at the University of Amsterdam, the University of Leiden and the Amsterdam University College.

This lecture is organized by Het Wereldbeeld, an initiative of faculty and students of the University of Amsterdam. Het Wereldbeeld is partially supported by Leidenhoven College.

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Date: Monday June 6, 2011, 20.00-22.00. Location: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Summary

In this lecture, I advance an explanatory scheme for all of history from the beginning of the Universe until life on Earth today (big history). My scheme is based on the ways in which energy levels as well as matter and energy flows have made possible both the rise and demise of complexity in all its forms.

Big History places the human past within the history of life, the Earth, and the Universe. In doing so, this emerging field of historical study provides us with an overview of the known past in its entirety, from the beginning of time until the present day. In Big History and the Future of Humanity, Spier presents a simple theoretical approach that not only makes big history accessible, but reveals what the future may hold for humanity. This original new approach interprets big history as the history of the rise and demise of complexity in all its myriad forms, from the greatest galaxy clusters to the tiniest sub-atomic particles. While focusing on energy flows through matter and the circumstances that produce complexity, the author traces the emergence and decline of all the major forms of complexity that have existed, including human societies and their products. Breathtaking in scope, Big History and the Future of Humanity offers provocative new insights into the origins and development of life and serves as an invitation to ponder humans' place in the cosmos in a fascinating new way.