Is There Purpose in the Universe?
October 12-17, 2025
Oratorio di Barottoli
How did the universe come into existence? Why does it seem so “fine-tuned” for life and, on our planet at least, intelligent life, to exist? (Or is the whole story of “fine-tuning” a red herring?) Is there a cosmic plan? Is there a cosmic planner? Or are such notions anthropomorphic projections of confused humans? Is there a scientific case for panpsychism? How can we formulate a scientific notion of cosmic consciousness? Or are we in need of a new kind of science in order to include such ideas? Are we in need of rewriting the mythos of humanity?
These are questions that by their very nature venture into many ways of knowing, from scientific to religious and from philosophical to indigenous cultures. Together, you bridge across various ways of knowing to explore these questions and how they may (or not) lead us into a universal sense of spiritual awakening and self-transcendence.
PARTICIPANTS
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Heather Demarest (PhD, Rutgers, 2013) was born and raised in Boulder and graduated from CU with degrees in both philosophy (summa) and physics (summa). She earned a BPhil in philosophy from Oxford and a PhD in philosophy from Rutgers. Her graduate work was on the laws of nature. After four years as an Assistant Professor at the University of Oklahoma, she is very happy to be back home in Boulder! She works on metaphysical implications of current physics. She is also the director of the Committee on the History and Philosophy of Science. Most recently, her work is on the way in which special and general relativity inform philosophical notions of time, personal identity, and causation. She has also done research on the retention of undergraduate women in philosophy. She spends her free time hiking and biking with her husband Zak and their three kiddos.
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Christof Koch is a Meritorious Investigator at the Allen Instituteand the ChiefScientist of the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation, the former president of the Allen Institute for Brain Science, and a former professor at the California Institute of Technology. His latest book, about consciousness and mystical experiences, is Then I am Myself the World (2024).
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Jenann Ismael is the William H. Miller III Professor of Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University , co-founder with Sean Carrol of the Natural Philosophy Forum and member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She specializes in philosophy of physics. Her work ranges from foundations of physics to the philosophy of mind. She has written about foundations of quantum mechanics, symmetry, probability and probability, the nature of time, life, mind, self and agency.
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Rabbi Geoffrey A. Mitelman is the Founding Director of Sinai and Synapses, an organization that bridges the worlds of science and religion, incubated at Clal – The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership. His work has received multiple grants from the John Templeton Foundation and Templeton Religion Trust. His writings on the intersection of science and faith have appeared in Striving to Be Human, Seven Days, Many Voices, A Life of Meaning, These Truths We Hold, and in media outlets such as The Huffington Post, Nautilus, The Wisdom Daily, and Orbiter.
He has served as adjunct professor at the Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion and at the Academy for Jewish Religion, and is recognized internationally as a speaker, educator, and scholar-in-residence. Ordained at the Hebrew Union College, he received the Cora Kahn Prize for outstanding oratory. A graduate of Princeton University, he was awarded multiple honors in Biblical and Judaic Studies. From 2007 to 2014, he served as Rabbi at Temple Beth El of Northern Westchester. He lives in Westchester County with his wife, fiber artist Heather Stoltz, and their two children. -
Carlo Rovelli is a theoretical physicist focusing on quantum gravity and how modern science redefines philosophical questions. He has written global best sellers (among these 'Seven Brief Lessons on Physics’, translated in more than 40 languages, ‘The Order of Time’, and 'Helgoland', on quantum teory.) In 2019 he promoted the Peace Dividend Initiative, involving 60 Nobel Laureates in asking for a worldwide collaborative military expenses reduction. He is member of the Institut Universitaire de France, honorary professor of the Beijing Normal University, Honoris Causa Laureate of the Universidad de San Martin and of the Mons University, member of the Académie Internationale de Philosophie des Sciences. He has been awarded the 1996 Xanthopoulos Award for “the best relativist under forty” and the 2024 Lewis Thomas Prize for Writing About Science. He has been included in the 2019 list of the 100 most influential “Global Thinkers” by Foreign Policy magazine and in the 2021 list of The World’s 50 Top Thinkers by Prospect magazine.
ESSAYS & ARTICLES
Coming Soon!
