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"Apprehending the Sacred Quality of Nature in an Age of Scientific Materialism" a free IRAS Webinar

Gregory Derry, Professor Emeritus of Physics at Loyola University Maryland, examines how science plays a central role in our culture, accompanied by a rise in scientific materialism. This materialism, in turn, threatens to drain the meaning and sacred quality of our encounter with nature. The argument of this presentation is that the acceptance of the validity of scientific materialism need not contradict the reality of the sacred in the world. These are complementary propositions that are both true despite their apparent contradiction. Emphasis will be placed on Niels Bohr’s epistemological analysis of complementarity to resolve contradictions in quantum theory and how Bohr’s argument needs to be generalized so that it’s appropriate to the present case outside the empirical sciences. Several examples will be included to demonstrate how such complementarity works in particular cases.
5:00 PM ET
4:00 PM CT
2:00 PM PT
10:00 PM London, UK

Mar 14, 2023 04:00 PM in Central Time (US and Canada)