From The Royal Institution.

In his final lecture, Richard Dawkins examines the genesis of ‘purpose’ within the universe and relates this to the development of consciousness within the human brain.

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This lecture was filmed at the Ri on 5 December 1991.

This series of lectures was originally an exclusive for our Science Supporters, as part of our project to upload all our archived Christmas Lectures to Youtube. Get early access to the rest of the archive by signing up as a YouTube channel member, and help us bring science to more people: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYeF244yNGuFefuFKqxIAXw/join

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Humans have grown up in the universe continually searching for purpose. We once believed that complex organisms adhered to some sort of grand design, similar to the way in which our own tools were created from.

We designed and created our own tools for specific purposes.

In reality, nature exists without purpose and any meaning we place upon it is created solely within our own brains and these, in turn, are products of evolution, not design.

In his final lecture, Richard Dawkins examines the genesis of ‘purpose’ within the universe and relates this to the development of consciousness within the human brain. Dawkins demonstrates that the brain recreates an internal model of our external reality in a similar way to the virtual reality ‘worlds’ created by computers.

He examines the limitations of the mind to generate a true representation of our external reality, demonstrating its susceptibility to confusion, error and illusion.

He argues that as we begin to move forward and model the universe scientifically we will become less prone to indoctrination, irrationality and superstition. Ultimately Dawkins calls for us to focus our attention on a greater group purpose, in which there is limitless potential as seen in the examples of space exploration and the human genome project.

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About the 1991 CHRISTMAS LECTURES
The world-famous evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins presents the CHRISTMAS LECTURES on "our own growing knowledge of how life grows up in the universe."

Just as children grow up to be adults, so too does life gradually evolve on a planet over thousands of generations, to move from “nonliving simplicity” to become “living complexity”.

Combining beautiful writing with a range of illuminating demonstrations, the series featured a variety of wildlife, a virtual reality Lecture Theatre, and special guests – including the late Douglas Adams reading an excerpt from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Find out more about the Ri CHRISTMAS LECTURES here: https://www.rigb.org/christmas-lectures

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