Fritjof Capra

Life is much less a competitive struggle for survival than a triumph of cooperation and creativity.

Summary

Fritjof Capra (1939 - ) is an Austrian-born American physicist. He has done research on Particle Physics and Systems Theory, and has written popular books on the implications of science, notably The Tao of Physics, subtitled An Exploration of the Parallels Between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism, which makes the assertion that physics and metaphysics are both inexorably leading to the same knowledge.

His works all share a similar subtext: that there are hidden connections between everything. In his most recent book The Web of Life he offers a synthesis of the theory of complexity, Gaia Theory, Chaos Theory, Santiago Theory of Cognition and other approaches to organisms, social systems and ecosystems.

He is also a founding director of the Center for Ecoliteracy in Berkeley, California, which promotes ecology and systems thinking in primary and secondary education.

He was influential in the development of Biocentric Culture (see Vital Unconscious and Biocentric Principle).

Ideas

• Paradim Shift - New concepts in physics have brought about a profound change in our worldview from the mechanistic worldview of Rene Descartes (Cartesian) and Isaac Newton (Newtonian) to an holistic, ecological view.
• Theory of Living Systems - A theoretical framework for ecology.

Paradigm Shift

The new paradigm may be called a holistic worldview, seeing the world as an integrated whole rather than a dissociated collection of parts. Capra's new vision includes:

• Life is at its very centre,
• The Systems View of Life, Mind, Consciousness, and Evolution - one of our greatest challenges is to build and nurture sustainable communities.
• A holistic approach to health and healing,
• An integration of Western and Eastern approaches to psychology and psychotherapy,
• A new conceptual framework for economics and technology,
• An ecological and feminist perspective which is spiritual in its ultimate nature and will lead to profound changes in our social and political structures.
• Ecoliteracy - Capra coined the term to describe our awareness of the ecosystem.
• Deep Ecology - a framework for future human societies.

Theory of Living Systems

This theory is only now fully emerging but it has its roots in several scientific fields that were developed during the first half of the twentieth century - organismic biology, Gestalt Psychology, Ecology, Systems Theory, and Cybernetics.

• In all these fields scientists explored living systems, which means integrated wholes whose properties cannot be reduced to those of smaller parts. Although we can distinguish parts in any living system, the nature of the whole is always different from the mere sums of its parts.
• Examples of living systems abound in nature. Every organism - animal, plant, microorganism, or human being - is an integrated whole, a living system. Parts of organisms - leaves, or cells - are again living systems.
• Throughout the living world, we find systems nesting within other systems. And living systems also include communities of organisms. These may be social systems - a family, a school, a village - or ecosystems.All these living systems are wholes whose specific structures arise from the interactions and interdependence of their parts.
• Systems theory tells us that all living systems share a set of common properties and principles of organization.
• This means that systems thinking can be applied to integrate academic disciplines and to discover similarities between phenomena at different levels of scale - the individual child, the classroom, the school, the district, and the surrounding human communities and ecosystems.