What Really Matters?
Fred Provenza, BEHAVE

Excerpt from Program:
"Contemporary thinking in science has analogs in mythologies that have instructed civilizations from around the world down through the centuries, and both have implications for the urban-rural divide and the management of natural resources. Our attempts to cling to fixed forms - ecologically, socially, economically - ignore the fact that the only constant in life is change: from death comes life and endless transformation. In the process of exploiting existing niches, life creates new niches such that all things enjoy their moment in the sun only to be ushered off by the next suite of participants in the game. Ironically, when people with different values cooperate, we expand the diversity of options upon which to act, thereby increasing the likelihood of prolonging and enjoying our moment in the sun. In that sense, the courage to "love your enemies" is the courage to transcend tradition, and it is the source of creativity. In the end, all boundaries are self-imposed. We construct them and thereupon, paradoxically, find we're trapped within them. The challenge for the urban-rural divide today, as at all times, is to transcend the boundaries we create."
--Fred Provenza

Presentation Outline:

• Science & Prediction
• Methods of Science
• Classical Physics
• Relativistic Physics
• Newton & Einstein
• Quantum Physics
• Self-Organizing Systems
• The Unity of All Things
• Ancient Cultures
• Buddism, Hinduism, Taoism What is Emptiness?
• The Dynamism of All Things
• Science
• Predicting
• Adapting
• Leadership and the New Science
• Chocolates or Destiny?
• We Are All Weeds on Our Way to Extinction