Metanexus 2009 conference was held in Phoenix, AZ, July 18-21 on the theme of "Cosmos, Nature, and Culture."

No one knows for sure, but it is estimated that there are something like 10 to the power of 24 stars in the universe. When talking about numbers so unimaginably large, our world seems cosmically insignificant. But as far as we know, we're the only ones who count—in two senses of the word: We alone can count the stars, and it seems to count for something that we do. As Aristotle begins his Metaphysics, "All men by nature desire to know." There is something within us—manifested as it is in the entire spectrum of human endeavor, from the sciences, to philosophy, to religion, to the arts, to ethics—that demands we pursue the whole story of the whole cosmos if we are to be whole persons, in order to know who we are, where we are from, where we are going, and how we should live.

As Carl Sagan wrote, "the Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be. Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us—there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation, as if a distant memory, of falling from a height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries." If we are truly to understand the cosmos and our place in it, as well as our relation to each other and to the divine, we must adopt rich transdisciplinary approaches that deeply respect yet cut across the various fields of knowledge, institutional boundaries, cultural borders, and religious traditions that frame our intellectual and spiritual pursuits.

Join us for the 10th international Metanexus Conference when philosophers, biologists, physicists, cosmologists, neuroscientists, cognitive scientists, theologians, scholars in religious studies, and other researchers and educators will discuss these and other profound questions of cosmos, nature, and culture in a rapidly evolving and complex world.

Among the attendees will be representatives of the Metanexus Global Network of multidisciplinary Local Societies from more than 40 countries.