Imagine Science Film Festival
Fri, October 18, 2019, to Fri, October 25, 2019
Theme – Emergence: Organic life arose incidentally from basic chemical interactions. Consciousness is a product of the coordinated activity of one hundred billion neurons. This is the phenomenon of emergence, the ability of simple parts, acting together, to give rise to complicated properties unobserved in the parts alone. By this process, complexity appears spontaneously at every level of the universe, not an anomaly but a basic and deeply ingrained trait of all that exists. By this process, discreet atoms erect elaborate structures, ecosystems form and refine, and coordinated efforts bring about unforeseen and powerful effects. If simple components can be imagined, even expected, to accomplish so much, then this suggests a path forwards in uncertain times. Against universal entropy, even the individually inconsequential possess the synthetic power to collectively effect change. And on planet Earth, in 2019, this may be no small matter.