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The Dawn of a Mindful Universe: A Pathway towards a Biocentric Global Ethics
This article presents arguments for a biocentric worldview based on the rarity and uniqueness of planet Earth as confronted with trillions of other worlds in our galaxy alone. This cosmic outlook comes from recent astronomical knowledge concerning the distribution of exoplanets and the growing understanding of the interconnectedness and codependence of all life on Earth, past and present. Confronting the uniqueness of Earth’s biosphere and its current fragile state due to centuries of aggressive human presence, the biocentric worldview proposes an ethics of belonging that takes life center stage as humanity struggles to chart its path toward a sustainable future.
- Zygon
December 2025
The Dawn of a Mindful Universe: A Pathway towards a Biocentric Global Ethics
https://doi.org/10.16995/zygon.18699
This article presents arguments for a biocentric worldview based on the rarity and uniqueness of planet Earth as confronted with trillions of other worlds in our galaxy alone. This cosmic outlook comes from recent astronomical knowledge concerning the distribution of exoplanets and the growing understanding of the interconnectedness and codependence of all life on Earth, past and present. Confronting the uniqueness of Earth’s biosphere and its current fragile state due to centuries of aggressive human presence, the biocentric worldview proposes an ethics of belonging that takes life center stage as humanity struggles to chart its path toward a sustainable future.
- Zygon
December 2025
Reality Is Not a Simulation and Why It Matters
The idea that we are living in a simulation has become commonplace. Elon Musk, for example, thinks it is almost certain we are living in a simulation. But the simulation hypothesis comes up against insurmountable problems, and is, in the end, an excuse for us not to sort out our real moral failings, writes Marcelo.
- IAI News
January 4, 2023
Covid-19 Will Change Us as a Species
With the Covid-19 pandemic striking full force across the globe, it's easy to stare in disbelief at the growing number of deaths. But the pandemic is here, and it will get worse before it gets better. How much worse depends on all of us. That's where the good news comes in.
- CNN
March 26, 2020
The Blind Spot
It’s tempting to think science gives a God’s-eye view of reality. But we forget the place of human experience at our peril.
* With Adam Frank and Evan Thompson
- Aeon
January 8, 2019
The Blind Spot
It’s tempting to think science gives a God’s-eye view of reality. But we forget the place of human experience at our peril.
With Adam Frank and Evan Thompson
- Aeon
January 8, 2019
https://aeon.co/essays/the-blind-spot-of-science-is-the-neglect-of-lived-experience
How Much Can We Know?
The reach of the scientific method is constrained by the limitations of our tools and the intrinsic impenetrability of some of nature’s deepest questions.
- Nature
May 9, 2018
We Have Pushed Physics Too Far
Parallel universes are a non-answer to a premature question.
- Nautilus
January 2017
Casting Into the Unknown
What can fly-fishing teach us about theoretical physics? More than you might guess.
- The Chronicle of Higher Education
August 21, 2016
A Crisis at the Edge of Physics
Do physicists always need empirical evidence to confirm their theories?
- The New York Times
June 7, 2015
The Mystery Is Out There
Here is a question you don’t think about everyday: where did the stuff you’re made of come from? We know we are made of cells, and cells are made of molecules, and molecules are made of different atoms. But where do the atoms come from?
- KidSpirit Online
October 14, 2014
Why We Matter - to the Multiverse and Back
So goes the bad karma of science: the more we learn about the universe, the less important we become. Is this really what modern science is telling us?
- Slate
September 18, 2014
Does Consciousness Compute? ($)
Is reality something "out there"—something we simply perceive through our senses? Or is it something "in here"—derivative of the inner workings of the brain?
- The Chronicle of Higher Education
September 8, 2014
There’s So Much That Science Will Never Be Able to Explain
If there is a final truth out there, it’s beyond us. Science works under strict boundaries, and as hard as we may try, we can’t go beyond them. To know all answers, we need to start by knowing all questions. And that is simply impossible. Our view of the world will always be incomplete.
- The Washington Post
July 14, 2014
Emergent Spatiotemporal Complexity in Field Theory
The origin of spatiotemporal order in physical and biological systems is a key scientific question of our time.
- Complexity and the Arrow of Time
August 2013
We Are Unique
Modern science, traditionally considered guilty of reducing our existence to a pointless accident in an indifferent universe, is actually saying the opposite
- This Will Make You Smarter: New Scientific Concepts to Improve Your Thinking
March 2012
Giving Up the Ghost
Are physicists wasting their time hunting for a theory that unites the forces of nature? Marcelo, once an enthusiast in the quest, wonders if it’s just wishful thinking.
- COSMOS
January 27, 2011
The Asymmetry of Life
Look into a mirror and you'll simultaneously see the familiar and the alien: an image of you, but with left and right reversed.
- Seed
September 7, 2010
Empirical Incompleteness and the Search for a Theory of Everything
As the high-energy physics community gears up for the flood of new data from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), now may be a good time to ponder the existence of a theory of everything or, more bombastically, a final theory.
- Physics Today
September 2010
The Imperfect Universe: Goodbye, Theory of Everything
Fifty-five years after Einstein's death, the hunt for an elusive unified field theory continues.
- New Scientist
May 10, 2010