Great Course - Big History

My latest Great Course was
Big History: The Big Bang, Life on Earth, and the Rise of Humanity taught by Professor David Christian, D. Phil, Oxford University, Macquarie University.

Several of the Great Courses I have taken have been History in one form or another. It's clear that, to truly get a comprehensive understanding of a subject, one must often consider its context, which means learning some history. This was true for some of the science courses, and certainly true of the music courses.

Well, this course is advertised as a History course, but it is also much more than that.

"Big History" looks at the history of everything, from the beginning of the Universe to today. On the way, you cross disciplines from Cosmology to Astronomy to Physics to Chemistry to Geology to Biology to Archaeology before ever reaching what people typically call History.

Dr. Christian has several thematic elements in this long course, so I will mention three which made the material interesting and meaningful, but I will also recommend this course in its entirety, because I cannot possibly hope to convey all the ways in which various disciplines shed light on others.

Complexity: The "history" of the universe, right down to the modern age, has shown that -- while the second law of thermodynamics (increasing entropy) is true when considered universally, there are points at which complexity increases, rather than breaks down. It is in those increases in complexity that "stuff happens." Stars are more complex than random gases. A stars complexity produces effects which the gases of which it is made do not, when on their own. One of the effects is the creation of other elements. Another effect is the creation of energy.

Throughout Big History, we see more complexity giving rise to new capabilities which did not exist before the new complexity arose. Stars. Planets. Life. Societies. It's all very instructive, and sometimes there are striking parallels between rises in very different kinds of complex arrangements of matter.

Collective Learning: Dr. Christian argues that the differentiating feature for humanity, as compared with all other animals, is not tool making/use (as was once accepted) nor is it communication per se. It is our ability to use communication to learn from one another in a collective, lasting way. The progress we've made as a species, toward mastering more and more of the energy which is put into our environment, and using that energy to enhance our species's success in the world, is a direct result of collective learning.

Thresholds: The course is organized around eight major thresholds, each of which represents an increase in complexity. They are, for my future reference, and to whet your appetite:

• Creation of the Universe - 13 billion years ago (13.7, I think is the number he uses frequently)
• Creation of the first Complex objects - Stars - 12 billion years ago
• Creation of chemical elements inside dying stars
• Creation of planets- Earth is roughly 4.5 billion years old, and its the only planet we can currently study closely
  
• Creation of life on Earth - 3.8 billion years ago
• Creation of homo sapiens - ~250,000 years ago
• Appearance of agriculture - 11,000 years ago
• Modern Revolution - 300 years ago

Within each major threshold, subordinate thresholds exist, as well. The structure of the course provides a wonderful framework which leads us through the scientific disciplines I listed above, and also lets us see the parallels as complexity increases. Furthermore, the huge scope of Big History pulls us away from the typical study of history with a regional or national emphasis, and shows us important aspects of life, the universe and everything (with respect, Mr. Adams) which we typically miss when focusing very closely on a particular time period or population.

I can't recommend this course highly enough. Oh, if you cannot abide a purely scientific view, you might be annoyed at times, but you will learn something. And if you want your history to be focused, well, this might not be for you. and, I suppose, if you know a great deal about one specific scientific discipline or another you might be frustrated by the summaries which Dr. Christian has to use of your expertise. But for an overview of the knowledge we have gleaned by our collective learning during these 250,000 years of humankind's existence, this is a superb piece of work.