Course Schedule and Catalog

Department: University Courses

Grade Mode: Standard Letter

Course Type: Lecture

Credit Hours: 3

Description: WAYS THE WORLD IS WEIRD: PHILOSOPHICAL LESSONS OF MODERN PHYSICS ***** The "philosophy of physics" may sound abstruse or even intimidatingly technical, but the path we will investigate is one already well-trodden by all of us. This course is not so much in physics as about physics: about how the world astonishingly differs from our expectations. These expectations seem trivial, obvious and beyond dispute. Consider: all events are caused, time flows forwards, the past is fixed, the future is open, the world is a mechanism made of autonomous bits existing independently of human thought. In a non-technical yet scientifically rigorous, philosophically motivated, writing intense context, drawing on accessible essays from philosophers, scientists and popular authors, we will come to see that contemporary physics gives us food reason to question every one of these commonplace ideas. *****