The Web of Life

	
Deep Ecology

"The Web of Life, a New Scientific Understanding of
Living Systems", by Fritjof Capra, 1996

"In 1944 the Austrian physicist Erwin Schrodnger wrote
a short book entitled 'What is Life?' in which he
advanced a clear and compelling hypothesis about the
molecular structure of genes. This book stimulated
biologists to think about genetics in a novel way
and in so doing opened a new frontier of science,
molecular biology."

"During subsequent decades, this new field generated a
series of triumphant discoveries, culminating in the
unraveling of the gentic code. However these discoveries
did not bring biologists any closer to answering the question
posed in the title of Schrodinger's book. Nor were they able
to answer the many associated questions that have puzzled
scientists and philosophers for hundreds of years: How
did complex structures evolve out of a random collection of
molecules? What is the relationship between mind and brain?
What is consciousness?"

"Molecular Bioloists have discovered the fundamental building
blocks of life, but this has not helped them to understand
the vital integrative actions of living organisms."...

[Since 25 years ago]..."a new language for understanding these
complex, highly integrative systems of life has indeed emerged.
Different scientist call it by different names --'dynamical
systems theory', 'the theory of complexity', 'nonlinear dynamics',
'network dynamics', and so on. Chaotic attractors, fractals,
dissipative structures, self-organization, and autopoietic
networks are some of its key concepts."
...
"However, to date nobody has proposed an overall systhesis
that integrates the new discoveries into a single context and thus
allows lay readers to understand them in a coherent way.
This is the challenge and promise of 'The Web of Life'."
...
"The intellectual tradition of systems thinking and the models
and theories of living systems developed during the early decades
of the [20th] century, form the conceptual and historical roots
of the scientific framework discussed in this book. In fact the
systhesis of curent theories and models I propose here may be
seen as an outline of an emerging theory of living systems that
offers a unified view of mind, matter, and life."
....
"There are solutions to the major problems of our time, some of
them are even simple. But they require a radical shift in our
perceptions, our thinking, our values. And indeed, we are now at
the beginning of such a fundamental change of worldview in science
and society, a change of paradigms as radical as the Copernican
revolution."
(end of quote from Fritjof Capra)

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