A Contemplation on Impermanence: From Philosophy to Biology to Physics

From philosophy to biology to physics, exploring why things change—and what that means for us.

Impermanence is one of the most ancient and universal truths: everything that arises, eventually fades. In this session, we’ll take a contemplative journey through the many faces of impermanence—from the fall of leaves to the death of stars, from memory and identity to ecosystems and civilizations.

Drawing from the insights of Marcus Aurelius, Buddhist philosophy, Alan Watts, and Vedanta, we’ll explore how humans have tried to understand the fleeting nature of life. We’ll also look at how impermanence is embedded in the natural world—from evolutionary processes that rely on death and change, to the physical constraints that shape life through information, memory, and entropy.

This won’t be a lecture in the traditional sense. Think of it as a meditative inquiry—part philosophical, part scientific, part personal. Together, we’ll reflect on the patterns that persist, the forms that fade, and what we might learn from both.

Whether you’re wrestling with change in your own life or simply curious about the deep structures of nature, this is a space to pause, reflect, and explore the one constant we all share: that everything changes.