Physis is a hypothetical, experimental utopian society originally presented for our Honors First-Year Seminar class entitled “Brave New Worlds”, based on the dystopian novel of the same name. Included in our presentation is the logistics of how running an independent, intentional community would function, including topics such as rules, housing, finances, etc. The overall purpose of our presentation is to showcase the benefits and challenges associated with creating the perfect utopia.
Physis goes beyond creating a utopia. This intentional community is the result of a project-based approach to FYS design that led group members to identify problems that needed solved as opposed to being given the tasks. This project examined almost every aspect of daily life and forced us to reconsider why we, as a society, are still continuing certain practices and if those practices still make the most sense from an ethical and practical standpoint. Our objectives for this presentation were to reveal the values we as a society consider the most important. We were given the opportunity to start a society from the very beginning and implement what we believed to be the best practices for the entire community, some of which included current practices and others were completely new. One method that we found particularly successful was introducing a topic, doing individual research, then discussing it as a group. What we discovered is that there are many practices in our current society that are impractical or deeply unreasonable and should be reconsidered.