Jim talks with Brendan Graham Dempsey, picking up on a disagreement they had on Facebook about the teleology of the universe. They discuss Aristotle's influence on the topic, Terrence Deacon's work on naturalizing teleology, the distinction between purpose & goal-directed behavior, cosmic teleology, Telhard de Chardin's "Omega Point," Whitehead's relational teleology, Ilya Prigogine's dissipative structures, energy efficiency comparisons between organisms & stars, the cosmic imperative of entropy production, energy rate density as a complexity measure, whether entropy is the goal or a byproduct of complexification, origin of life as contingent or necessity, Alexander Bard's emergence vectors, questioning of the heat death hypothesis, cosmic expansion possibly preventing maximum entropy, Webb telescope findings, Lee Smolin's evolutionary universe theory, philosophical implications of cosmological narratives, the deepening of interiority in cosmic evolution, Nick Chater's "The Mind Is Flat" argument, the importance of intersubjectivity, language's role in human experience, AI development & emotions, critique of transhumanism, the need to defend your emergence vector, and much more.