Closer To Truth

CONSCIOUSNESS - Is the self an illusion? Decades roll by; every molecule of my body changes many times. Yet I sense myself the same-continuous, a unity. How can this be?

COSMOS - The universe works for us because of deep physical laws. But if the values of these laws would much change, then all we see and know could not exist.

COSMOS - Is time the ultimate stage on which all events play? Some physicists and philosophers say No -- time is an Illusion; time is not real. How can that be?

MEANING - Judaism, Christianity and Islam teach the ‘resurrection of the body’, the person brought back to life. But isn’t a ‘body’ out of place in a nonphysical hereafter? Isn’t a body a burden throughout eternity? Moreover, how to resurrect a body?

MEANING - What kind of God would create hell? Does the truth of Christianity, Judaism and Islam depend on the reality of Hell? Does the nature of Hell offer Insight into what that God would be like?

MEANING - Judaism, Christianity and Islam each proclaim a resurrection of the dead, a bodily reconstruction of all people from all time. How would it work? Does it make sense?

CONSCIOUSNESS - Humankind has learned so much, so fast. What are the risks of scientific knowledge? Look to the future. Artificial intelligence. Genetic engineering. Benefits? Dangers?

COSMOS - Scientists split on whether the universe confirms or denies God. Though most leading scientists do not believe in God, some do. What can we learn from the dispute?

COSMOS - Why is an observer key to quantum physics? Does the act of observation affect what exists and what happens in the external world? Why is Observation in the quantum world a mystery?

COSMOS - How things start helps reveal what things are. How to conceive the beginning of the universe? What are latest theories? Are they all speculation? What’s the recent evidence?

COSMOS - The observable universe may contain two trillion galaxies and there may be innumerable universes. Is there ultimate unification, a final theory? Search for deep harmony. Discern deep meaning.

CONSCIOUSNESS - What makes me a self? I see. I hear. I feel. How can separate perceptions bind together into a coherent mental unity? How can all be me? And how does my self persist through time?

COSMOS - Some think metaphysics is ancient nonsense; others that it's the bizarre occult. Real metaphysics asks the most profound questions, seeks the deepest truths.

COSMOS - It is the Holy Grail of physics: All the particles and forces of nature unified and explained by equations so simple that you can print them on your tee shirt. Are we getting there?

COSMOS - I look up and I look down and I chill with awe. I look up to the universe and envision hundreds of billions of galaxies. I look down to the atom and imagine minuscule, infinitesimal particles and forces. This is reality.

COSMOS - Of all human knowledge, the most stunning may be multiple universes—very many universes, perhaps an infinite number of universes. Are multiple universes—the ‘multiverse’—scientific fact, theory or speculation?

COSMOS - The expanding universe is humanity's monumental discovery. Beginning with something infinitesimally small, the universe has become something majestically large. How could this happen? What could this mean?

COSMOS - How does metaphysics contribute to our understanding of the world? It asks the most profound questions: What kinds of things exist? How does causality work? Sound too abstract? How about: Does God exist? Are you a soul?

COSMOS - Call all-that-exists "something." Why is there "something" rather than "nothing"? The question haunts me. Why is there anything at all?

COSMOS - Are there revolutionary discoveries yet to be made? Radical revelations and shocking secrets? Does physical reality go beyond what we know today? Far beyond?

CONSCIOUSNESS - Parapsychologists are sure ESP is real. Skeptics are sure it is not. But if ESP is real, would ESP need to go beyond physical laws, reaching into unknown non-physical realms?

CONSCIOUSNESS - Episode Synopsis Our human sense is that our will is fully free. Our scientific sense is that every action is determined by a prior action. Free will versus determinism is a big question, affecting morality, responsibility, even consciousness.

MEANING - The tension between human free will and God’s knowledge of the future threatens both. It’s called God’s ‘foreknowledge’—God knowing now what will happen later—and one need not believe in God to appreciate the puzzles.

CONSCIOUSNESS - Since God (supposedly) knows everything and can never be wrong, including about future events, how could those future events not come to pass? If we cannot do other than what God knew prior, how then free will?

CONSCIOUSNESS - For God to be God, God must be infallible and know the future perfectly, including all my actions from birth to death. For my will to be free, my actions must not be constrained. But if God knows the future - if God literally knows now what I am going to do later - then how are my actions later not constrained? How then free will?