Panel - Human Existence Doesn't Matter (And What Is It Anyhow?) (Festival of Dangerous ideas)

With the threat of climate change and damage to other elements of the biosphere, we may be in the process of creating a world where human existence is marginalised and modern civilisation is crushed. Even if we manage to cling to the more hospitable corners of this grave new world, nuclear war, bioterrorism or malicious use of nanotechnology or artificial intelligence could render human beings extinct. From the point of view of the universe, human existence doesn’t matter. Are we doomed to come round to this perspective ourselves, or will we inevitably cling to our human-centred picture of world?Rebecca Newberger Goldstein received her doctorate in philosophy from Princeton University. Her award-winning books include the novels The Mind-Body Problem and 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A work of fiction, and her latest nonfiction effort, Plato at the Googleplex.Francesca Minerva is a philosopher and medical/bio ethicist. She is currently the Deputy Director of CAPPE Melbourne (Centre of Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics).Huw Price is the Bertrand Russell Professor of Philosophy at Cambridge University and co-founder of the Centre for Study of Existential Risk.

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