"On the Anthropic Principle" by Frederick Turner

Mea culpa: "The Neural Lyre" was published in 1983, not 1994. Don't know why I said that! 

Read today's poem here

Topics discussed in this episode include:

-William Paley's watchmaker analogy

-Problems with teleological arguments

-Brandon Carter's Anthropic Principle

-Multiverse/many worlds theory

-John Archibald Wheeler's Participatory Anthropic Principle

-"It from bit"

-George Berkeley's Idealism

-Vedanta Hinduism

-"The Anthropic Cosmological Principle" 

-Barrow and Tipler's Final Anthropic Principle

-"The Last Question" by Isaac Asimov

-Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's theology of the noosphere and omega point

-"Everything That Rises Must Converge" by Flannery O'Connor

-Turner's essay, "The Neural Lyre" 

-Turner's book, "Natural Classicism"

-Turner's epic poems: The New World, Genesis, Apocalypse

-The transtemporal community of humanity

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My favorite poetry podcasts for:
Sharp thoughts and cutting truths (Matthew): Sleerickets
Lovely introspection and sensitive reflection (Alice): Poetry Says
The landscape of Ohioan poetry (Jeremy): Poetry Spotlight

Supported in part by The Ohio Poetry Association
Art by David Anthony Klug

List of the most common metrical feet:
Iamb: weak-STRONG (u /)
Trochee: STRONG-weak (/ u)
Anapest: weak-weak-STRONG (u u /)
Amphibrach: weak-STRONG-weak (u / u)
Dactyl: STRONG-weak-weak (/ u u)
Cretic: STRONG-weak-STRONG (/ u /)
Pyrrhic: weak-weak (u u)
Spondee: STRONG-STRONG (/ /)