The Shape of History

By Stuart A. Kauffman

Theoretical Biologist & MacArthur Foundation Fellow

The Nature of Nature

A New Understanding

A documentary Trilogy

presented by The Shape of History, LLC

Introduction

This series of groundbreaking documentary programs will take us on a journey through cosmic history and terrestrial biology to explore our evolving understanding of our universe – and humankind’s place within it.
It will be a journey across a mindscape whose contours have been drawn and redrawn many times, as new knowledge was discovered and new paradigms became accepted.

universeToday, each of the branches of what used to be called Natural Philosophy appear to be in transition once more.  The fundamental and familiar concepts of space, time, matter, energy, and even life itself are now under intense review – and the implications of these new perspectives are profound.

Day by day it has become ever clearer that simply naming the parts of the natural world in ever greater detail doesn’t adequately explain how its rich complexity emerged, or how those parts interact with each other to create new phenomena, new organisms, and new functional relationships.

From the quantum realm to the vastness of the cosmos, and from the simplest intracellular processes to our bewilderingly diverse ecosystems, the key to appreciating the true Nature of Nature appears to lie in a better understanding of how the parts relate to each other, and to the whole that they comprise.

This series will explore this revolutionary perspective and show how it not only changes our view of the universe but also our view of our species’ role on planet earth. It was conceived by MacArthur Fellow Dr Stuart Kauffman. Dr. Kauffman has been described as “the ultimate Renaissance man.” His published books and articles span a staggering variety of disciplines including medicine, evolutionary biology, genetics, natural philosophy, physics, mathematics, economics, and theology.

ocean fishHis companions on this journey of discovery – and re-discovery – will include a number of preeminent scientific thinkers whose research has taken them to those places where our knowledge confronts our ignorance, and who address some of the most perplexing attributes of our everyday world – complexity, evolution, consciousness, and humankind’s destiny on planet earth.

In these programs, they will show us that the “Nature of Nature” appears to be more complex and intriguing than we ever imagined.

Television Series
Overview: