Seattle Atheist Church

The next installment of The Story of Us by the blogger and illustrator Tim Urban of Wait But Why!

A single cell is itself a giant—a magical living giant made up of trillions of non-living atoms—and an animal is a higher-level giant made up of trillions of cells. This concept—a bunch of smaller things joining together to form a giant that can function as more than the sum of its parts—is called emergence. Pretty soon after cells started joining together to form animals, some of the animals discovered that they could go up another level of emergence and form even bigger giants made up of multiple animals. We can visualize it as a tower. If you look around, you’ll see them everywhere—schools of fish, packs of wolves, colonies of ants, waddles
of penguins. Groups like these represent floors of Emergence Tower above that of the individual animal level.

Since the dawn of human evolution, humans have been forming giants called tribes. Combining emergent properties made the human tribe an incredible survival machine that allowed the species to stay afloat and thrive in a relentless natural world.

For most early humans, forming into giants with other humans wasn’t just an advantage, it was a necessity.

This week's speaker will be Jack.

After the talk, we'll have a group discussion to explore the ideas presented, and to share related thoughts, resources, and personal experiences.

Fanfiction is fan-written fiction about existing characters and worlds created by other writers, usually from popular media such as TV, movies, or bestselling books. When did people start writing fanfiction? Why do people write it? What needs does fanfiction fill that aren't met by writing about characters you make up from scratch?

This week's speaker will be Eva-Lise Carlstrom.

After the talk, we'll have a group discussion to explore the ideas presented, and to share related thoughts, resources, and personal experiences.