Why? The Purpose of the Universe

Philip Goff is Professor of Philosophy at Durham University, UK. His research focuses on consciousness and the ultimate nature of reality. Goff is best known for defending panpsychism, the view that consciousness pervades the universe and is a fundamental feature of it. On that theme, Goff has published three books, Consciousness and Fundamental Reality (2017), Galileo's Error: Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness (2020), and a co-edited volume, Is Consciousness Everywhere? Essays on Panpsychism (2022). Goff has published many academic articles, as well as writing extensively for newspapers and magazines, including Scientific American, The Guardian, Aeon, and the Times Literary Supplement.

It takes a sort of cosmic chutzpah to announce that your book is going to explain the purpose of the universe, and that predisposed me in its favour before I even began to read the text. But what I enjoyed most was the author's calm and level-headed approach to that fundamental question: Why? I suppose it's the question most young people begin with when they start to develop intellectual curiosity, as well as being the source of every system of religion and of science as well. Philip Goff explains that 'purpose' is not some emotional human need with little ultimate importance, but a quality that seems to be built into the very nature of things. It's nothing less than thrilling to follow his argument, and to regain that sense of connectedness that's so important not just to our well-being, but to our very survival.

• 1: What's the point of living? 2: Why science points to purpose 3: Why consciousness points to purpose 4: Why the omni-God probably doesn't exist 5: Where does purpose come from? 6: Why are we here? 1: What's the point of living? 2: Why science points to purpose 3: Why consciousness points to purpose 4: Why the omni-God probably doesn't exist 5: Where does purpose come from? 6: Why are we here?