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'The Tao of Physics' is Fritjof Capra's classic exploration of the connections between Eastern mysticism and modern physics. An international bestseller, the book's central thesis, that the mystical traditions of the East constitute a coherent philosophical framework within which the most advanced Western theories of the physical world can be accommodated, has not only withstood the test of time but is ever more emphatically endoresed by ongoing experimentation and research. Fritjof Capra addresses recent scientific developments in this, the third edition, in the form of a chapter-length afterword on 'The Future of the New Physics'. 'The parallels are indeed most striking' SIR BERNARD LOVELL 'In the role of interpreter of the 'philosophy' of physics today, Dr Capra has few equals' JOHN GRIBBIN, 'TES'
Havana's Instituto de Filosofia's First Biennial International
Seminar on the Philosophical, Epistemological and Methodological
Implications of Complexity Theory, was held in January 2002 in
Havana, Cuba's capital city. The seminar was aimed at familiarizing
Cuban researchers and professors in a more direct way with some of
the current trends - and widespread scope - of the expanding field
of complexity thinking, affording them the possibility of personal
contacts with some of the people engaged in that effort. The
seminar was attended by specialists from fifteen countries, ranging
from Chile to Australia along the West-East axis, and from Norway
to South Africa along the North-South one. There were participants
from developed and underdeveloped countries. This book contains
selected papers from the 'Complexity 2002' seminar, edited by
Fritjof Capra (author of 'The Tao of Physics', 'The Web of Life: A
New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems' and 'The Hidden
Connections: A Science for Sustainable Living'), Alicia Juarrero
(author of 'Dynamics in Action'), Pedro Sotolong, and Jacco van
Uden (author of 'Complexity and Organization'). The papers have
been organized in four parts: I. Sources of Complexity: Science and
Information; II. Philosophical, Epistemological and Methodological
implications; III. Organizational Implications; IV. Global and
Ethical Implications. The papers in Part I can be said to approach
the phenomenon of complexity at a very basic level. Here the issues
being addressed revolve around the very fundamental question of why
the complexity sciences are so important: What are the most
fundamental lessons to be learned from studying complex systems?
Papers included in Part II engage in a broader, philosophical
investigation of some of the most general ontological,
epistemological and methodological implications of the complexity
approach, showing how very old questions are currently being
reformulated and/or reinterpreted in the light of complexity
thinking. Papers that appear in Part III address various important
issues about the links between complexity and social,
organizational, business and management questions. Finally, Papers
in Part IV return once again to more global implications of
Complexity thinking, this time dealing with Ethical and
Globalization issues of contemporary world.
Theatre is a primal language that used to be spoken by everyone;
everyone included the "living community."
Weaving together Systems Theory and the groundbreaking work of
Fritjof Capra, Theatre of the Oppressed and the revolutionary work
of Augusto Boal, and his own 25 years of practical experience in
community-based popular theatre, David Diamond creates a
silo-busting book that embraces the complexity of real life.
Some of the questions Theatre for Living asks and attempts to
answer: From a perspective of biology and sociology, how is a
community a living thing? How do we design a theatre practice to
consciously work with living communities to help them tell their
stories? How do we accomplish this without demonizing those
characters with whom we disagree? Must we constantly do battle to
defeat an endless stream of oppressors, or can we imagine a world
in which we stop creating them? Why is this important? What should
we be on the look-out for (both positive and negative) when doing
this work? What practical games and exercises can we use to awaken
group consciousness?
Who will be interested in Theatre for Living? Artists; community
development workers; educators; activists; people working in social
services, mediation and conflict resolution; health care
professionals; anyone with an interest in finding new ways to
approach the intersection of culture and social justice.
"Zero Emissions" has become a definitive term in the debate on
sustainable development. While considered a utopian target by some,
the concept describes what business and industry of the future must
aim to achieve: no pollution and no waste. This volume presents
findings from the research work of over 2000 scientists undertaken
under the banner of ZERI (Zero Emissions Research Initiative), a
business foundation working jointly with UNDP (United Nations
Development Programme) in a number of developing countries. Gunter
Pauli feels that if we are serious about creating jobs, generating
more income and eliminating pollution, we have to build on the
assets we have instead of continuing to analyze the problems we
face. The volume examines how the adoption of Zero Emissions
concepts not only reduces pollution and waste but can contribute
significantly to the generation of income and jobs - specifically
for those who need them most - the rural poor in less developed
countries.
Recent scientific discoveries indicate that all of life – from the most primitive cells, up to human societies, corporations and nation-states, even the global economy – is organized along the same basic patterns and principles: those of the network. However, the new global economy differs in important aspects from the networks of life: whereas everything in a living network has a function, globalism ignores all that cannot give it an immediate profit, creating great armies of the excluded. The global financial network also relies on advanced information technologies – it is shaped by machines, and the resulting economic, social and cultural environment is not life-enhancing but life-degrading, in both a social and an ecological sense. Capra demonstrates conclusively how tightly humans are connected with the fabric of life and makes it clear that it is imperative to organize the world according to a different set of values and beliefs, not only for the well-being of human organizations, but for the survival and sustainability of humanity as a whole.
Winner of the 2017 Nautilus Silver Award! This fresh perspective on
crucial questions of history identifies the root metaphors that
cultures have used to construct meaning in their world. It offers a
glimpse into the minds of a vast range of different peoples: early
hunter-gatherers and farmers, ancient Egyptians, traditional
Chinese sages, the founders of Christianity, trail-blazers of the
Scientific Revolution, and those who constructed our modern
consumer society.Taking the reader on an archaeological exploration
of the mind, the author, an entrepreneur and sustainability leader,
uses recent findings in cognitive science and systems theory to
reveal the hidden layers of values that form today's cultural
norms. Uprooting the tired cliches of the science-religion debate,
he shows how medieval Christian rationalism acted as an incubator
for scientific thought, which in turn shaped our modern vision of
the conquest of nature. The author probes our current crisis of
unsustainability and argues that it is not an inevitable result of
human nature, but is culturally driven: a product of particular
mental patterns that could conceivably be reshaped. By shining a
light on our possible futures, the book foresees a coming struggle
between two contrasting views of humanity: one driving to a
technological endgame of artificially enhanced humans, the other
enabling a sustainable future arising from our intrinsic
connectedness with each other and the natural world. This struggle,
it concludes, is one in which each of us will play a role through
the meaning we choose to forge from the lives we lead.
Over the past thirty years, a new systemic conception of life has
emerged at the forefront of science. New emphasis has been given to
complexity, networks, and patterns of organisation, leading to a
novel kind of 'systemic' thinking. This volume integrates the
ideas, models, and theories underlying the systems view of life
into a single coherent framework. Taking a broad sweep through
history and across scientific disciplines, the authors examine the
appearance of key concepts such as autopoiesis, dissipative
structures, social networks, and a systemic understanding of
evolution. The implications of the systems view of life for health
care, management, and our global ecological and economic crises are
also discussed. Written primarily for undergraduates, it is also
essential reading for graduate students and researchers interested
in understanding the new systemic conception of life and its
implications for a broad range of professions - from economics and
politics to medicine, psychology and law.
Here is the book that brought the mystical implications of
subatomic physics to popular consciousness for the very first
time--way back in 1975. This special edition celebrates the
thirty-fifth anniversary of this early Shambhala best seller that
has gone on to become a classic. It includes a new preface by the
author, in which he reflects on the further discoveries and
developments that have occurred in the years since the book's
original publication. "Physicists do not need mysticism," Dr. Capra
says, "and mystics do not need physics, but humanity needs both."
It's a message of timeless importance.
As we move into the 1980s, there is an increasing awareness that
our civilization is going through a profound cultural
transformation. At the heart of this transformation lies what is
often called a "paradigm shift"-a dramatic change in the thoughts,
perceptions, and values which form a particular vision of reality.
The paradigm that is now shifting comprises a large number of ideas
and values that have dominated our society for several hundred
years; values that have been associated with various streams of
Western culture, among them the Scientific Revolution of the
seventeenth century, The Enlightenment, and the Industrial
Revolution. They include the belief in the scientific method as the
only valid approach to knowledge, the split between mind and
matter, the view of nature as a mechanical system, the view of life
in society as a competitive struggle for survival, and the belief
in unlimited material progress to be achieved through economic and
technological growth. All these ideas and values are now found to
be severely limited and in need of radical revision.
Over the past thirty years, a new systemic conception of life has
emerged at the forefront of science. New emphasis has been given to
complexity, networks, and patterns of organisation, leading to a
novel kind of 'systemic' thinking. This volume integrates the
ideas, models, and theories underlying the systems view of life
into a single coherent framework. Taking a broad sweep through
history and across scientific disciplines, the authors examine the
appearance of key concepts such as autopoiesis, dissipative
structures, social networks, and a systemic understanding of
evolution. The implications of the systems view of life for health
care, management, and our global ecological and economic crises are
also discussed. Written primarily for undergraduates, it is also
essential reading for graduate students and researchers interested
in understanding the new systemic conception of life and its
implications for a broad range of professions - from economics and
politics to medicine, psychology and law.
Current health policy is required to respond to a constantly
changing social and political environment characterised,
particularly in Europe, by ageing populations, increased migration,
and growing inequalities in health and services. With health
systems under increasing strain there is a sense that we need to
seek new means of determining health policy. Much political debate
focuses on managerial issues such as the levels of health funding
and the setting and missing of targets. Meanwhile our moral
imperatives, our values and principles, go relatively unexamined.
What are these values? Can we agree their validity and salience?
How do we manage the paradox of competing goods? Can we find new
ways of talking about, and resolving, our conflicting values and
competing priorities in order to create sound, appropriate, and
just health policies for the 21st Century? Written by leading
health policy makers and academics from many countries,
"Constructive Conversations about Health" examines in depth the
underlying values and principles of health policy, and posits a
more enlightened public and political discourse. The book will be
invaluable for those involved in health policy making and
governance, politicians, healthcare managers, researchers,
ethicists, health and social affairs media, health rights and
patient participation groups. 'The literature on health policy is
vast. On offer are models of health services, economic theory,
management theory, disquisitions on ethical principles, social
analyses, literally thousands of publications. In a globalised and
electronically networked world, this literature has already
generated its own particular language, a policy jargon replete with
terms that look deceptively familiar, terms that will be much in
evidence in what now follows, terms whose meanings require our
closest attention.' - Marshall Marinker.
Description: At the root of many of the environmental, economic,
and social crises we face today is a legal system based on an
outdated and ultimately destructive worldview. In this
groundbreaking book, bestselling author, physicist, and systems
theorist Fritjof Capra and distinguished legal scholar Ugo Mattei
show how, by incorporating concepts from modern science, the law
can be updated to reflect a more accurate view of how the world
works and become a progressive force. Capra and Mattei trace the
fascinating parallel history of law and science to show how the two
disciplines have always influenced each other - until recently.
Science now sees the world as being made up of interconnected
networks. But law is stuck in a mechanistic, 17th century paradigm
that views the world as discrete individual parts. This has led to
a disregard for the health of the whole - for example, elevating
the rights of individual property owners over the good of the
community. But Capra and Mattei outline the basic concepts and
structures of a legal order consistent with the ecological
principles that sustain life on this planet.
Leonardo da Vinci was a brilliant artist, scientist, engineer,
mathematician, architect, inventor, and even musician - the
archetypal Renaissance man. But he was also a profoundly modern
man. Not only did Leonardo invent the empirical scientific method
over a century before Galileo and Francis Bacon, but Capra's decade
- long study of Leonardo's fabled notebooks reveals that he was a
systems thinker centuries before the term was coined. At the very
core of Leonardo's science, Capra argues, lies his persistent quest
for understanding the nature of life. His science is a science of
living forms, of qualities and patterns, radically different from
the mechanistic science that emerged 200 years later. Because he
saw the world as an integrated whole, Leonardo always applied
concepts from one area to illuminate problems in another. His
studies of the movement of water informed his ideas about how
landscapes are shaped, how sap rises in plants, how air moves over
a bird's wing, and how blood flows in the human body. His
observations of nature enhanced his art, his drawings were integral
to his scientific studies, and he brought art, science, and
technology together in his beautiful and elegant mechanical and
architectural designs. Capra describes seven defining
characteristics of Leonardo da Vinci's genius and includes a list
of over forty discoveries he made that weren't rediscovered until
centuries later. Capra follows the organizational scheme Leonardo
himself intended to use if he ever published his notebooks. So in a
sense, this is Leonardo's science as he himself would have
presented it. Obviously, we can't all be geniuses on the scale of
Leonardo da Vinci. But his persistent endeavor to put life at the
very center of his art, science, and design and his recognition
that all natural phenomena are fundamentally interconnected and
interdependent are important lessons we can learn from. By
exploring the mind of the preeminent Renaissance genius, we can
gain profound insights into how to address the complex challenges
of the 21st century.
For more than three decades, David Orr has been one of the leading
voices of the environmental movement, championing the cause of
ecological literacy in higher education, helping to establish and
shape the field of ecological design, and working tirelessly to
raise awareness of the threats to future generations posed by
humanity's current unsustainable trajectory. "Hope Is an
Imperative" brings together in a single volume Professor Orr's most
important works, including classics such as "What Is Education
For?" one of the most widely reprinted essays in the environmental
literature, "The Campus and the Biosphere", which helped launch the
green campus movement, and "Loving Children: A Design Problem",
which renowned theologian and philosopher Thomas Berry called 'the
most remarkable essay I've read in my whole life'. The book
features thirty-three essays, along with an introductory section
that considers the evolution of environmentalism, section
introductions that place the essays into a larger context, and a
foreword by physicist and author Fritjof Capra. "Hope Is an
Imperative" is a comprehensive collection of works by one of the
most important thinkers and writers of our time. It offers a
complete introduction to the writings of David Orr for readers new
to the field, and represents a welcome compendium of key essays for
long-time fans. The book is a must-have volume for every
environmentalist's bookshelf.
Havana's Instituto de Filosofia's First Biennial International
Seminar on the Philosophical, Epistemological and Methodological
Implications of Complexity Theory, was held in January 2002 in
Havana, Cuba's capital city. The seminar was aimed at familiarizing
Cuban researchers and professors in a more direct way with some of
the current trends - and widespread scope - of the expanding field
of complexity thinking, affording them the possibility of personal
contacts with some of the people engaged in that effort. The
seminar was attended by specialists from fifteen countries, ranging
from Chile to Australia along the West-East axis, and from Norway
to South Africa along the North-South one. There were participants
from developed and underdeveloped countries. This book contains
selected papers from the 'Complexity 2002' seminar, edited by
Fritjof Capra (author of 'The Tao of Physics', 'The Web of Life: A
New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems' and 'The Hidden
Connections: A Science for Sustainable Living'), Alicia Juarrero
(author of 'Dynamics in Action'), Pedro Sotolong, and Jacco van
Uden (author of 'Complexity and Organization'). The papers have
been organized in four parts: I. Sources of Complexity: Science and
Information; II. Philosophical, Epistemological and Methodological
implications; III. Organizational Implications; IV. Global and
Ethical Implications. The papers in Part I can be said to approach
the phenomenon of complexity at a very basic level. Here the issues
being addressed revolve around the very fundamental question of why
the complexity sciences are so important: What are the most
fundamental lessons to be learned from studying complex systems?
Papers included in Part II engage in a broader, philosophical
investigation of some of the most general ontological,
epistemological and methodological implications of the complexity
approach, showing how very old questions are currently being
reformulated and/or reinterpreted in the light of complexity
thinking. Papers that appear in Part III address various important
issues about the links between complexity and social,
organizational, business and management questions. Finally, Papers
in Part IV return once again to more global implications of
Complexity thinking, this time dealing with Ethical and
Globalization issues of contemporary world.
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