Astroseminar 2018 – 1. How does something new come into being?

Picture: NASA

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Prof. Dr. Harald Lesch, Munich University                           

5 April 2018

Everything new is born from chaos. New properties in natural systems can only come about through irreversible changes. This irreversibility is one of the key elements in nature. No two moments are the same, and each macroscopic system is unique.  Our perception of the cosmos having universal and unchangeable laws that apply to everything in nature is erroneous. Nature is an irreversible system engaged in a continuous process of self-organisation, whose laws we understand in broad outlines, but whose interaction with continuously changing conditions forces us to discover entirely new perspectives. The idea of strict causality, hatched in the determinist days of the 19^th and 20^th centuries, has bequeathed us industrialisation and global environmental catastrophes that have resulted in terms such as Anthropocene, climate change and resource depletion. Physics especially, as the foundation of all natural sciences, began to develop a marginally causal, only partially deterministic, systemic/organic perception of nature and its relationship to and with humankind a long time ago. But this paradigm shift has failed to permeate industry, government and philosophy in any convincing way to the present day.

Harald Lesch is an astrophysicist, natural philosopher, science journalist, television presenter and Professor of Physics at LMU Munich and of natural philosophy at the Munich School of Philosophy.

• ATTENTION: The events will be held from 15:30–17:00 at the Air Force Conference Centre, Wahn Air Force Base
  Information on entry times and parking on the barracks grounds will be published in good time on dlr.de/en.
• To register, please contact Petra Naoum (tel: +49 203 / 601-3896) or send an e-mail: Petra.Naoum@dlr.de
• For any questions on the topics of the Astroseminar, contact Manfred Gaida (tel: +49 228 / 447-417)
• For an overview of past seminars visit http://www.volkssternwarte-bonn.de/wordpress/archiv/