[Introduction]
p.14-15 the behavior of a given system... is influenced not only by its constituents and
its surroundings but also by all other physical systems that can exist under some circumstance in this world, that is, by
everything possible... This is holism with a vengeance!
[Fritjof Capra, The Role of Physics in the Current Change in
Paradigms, 144-155]
p.144-145 The dramatic change in concepts and ideas that happened in physics during the first three decades
of this century [reference to the twentieth century] has been widely discussed by physicists and philosophers for more than
fifty years... The intellectual crisis of quantum physicists in the 1920's is mirrored today by a similar but much broader
cultural crisis. The major problems of our time... are all different facets of one single crisis, which is essentially a crisis
of perception. Like the crisis in quantum physics, it derives from the fact that most of us, and especially our large
social institutions, subscribe to the concepts of an outdated world view... At the same time researchers... are developing
a new vision of reality... What we are seeing today is a shift of paradigms not only within science
but also in the larger social arena...
The social paradigm now receding had dominated our culture for several hundred years, during which
it shaped our modern Western society and has significantly influenced the rest of the world... This paradigm consists of...
the view of the world as a mechanical system, the view of the body as a machine... During recent decades all these assumptions
have been severely limited and in need of radical revision.
Indeed, such a revision is now taking place.
p.146 In science, the language of systems theory, and especially the theory of living systems,
seems to provide the most appropriate formulation of the new ecological paradigm (Capra, 1983, Chapter 9).
Since living systems cover such a wide range of phenomena... the theory provides a common framework and language for
biology, psychology, medicine, economics, ecology, and many other sciences, a framework in which the so urgently
needed ecological perspective is explicitly manifest.
p.146-149 I would now like to specify what I mean by the systems approach. To do so, I
shall identify five criteria of systems thinking that, I claim, hold for all the sciences... 1. Shift from the
Part to the Whole... The properties of the parts can be understood only from the dynamics of the whole. In fact,
ultimately there are no parts at all. What we call a part is merely a pattern in an inseparable web of relationships... 2.
Shift from Structure to Process... In the new paradigm, every structure is seen as the manifestation of an underlying
process. The entire web of relationships is intrinsically dynamic... 3. Shift from Objective to "Epistemic" Science...
In the new paradigm, it is believed the epistemology - the understanding of the process of knowledge - has to be included
explicitly in the description of natural phenomena... As Heisenberg... put it, "What we observe is not nature itself, but
nature exposed to our method of questioning." ... 4. A shift from 'Building" to "Network" as a Metaphor of Knowledge...
In the new paradigm, the metaphor of knowledge as a building [fundamental laws, fundamental principles,
basic building blocks, and so on - the edifice of science is built on a firm foundation] is being replaced by that of the
network. Since we perceive reality as a network of relationships, our descriptions, too, form an interconnected network
of concepts and models in which there are no foundations... Things exist by virtue of their mutually consistent relationships...
5. Shift from Truth to Approximate Descriptions... If everything is connected to everything else,
how can you ever hope to understand anything? ... What makes it possible to turn the systems approach into a scientific theory
is the fact that there is such a thing as approximate knowledge. This insight is crucial to all of modern science... In the new paradigm, it is recognized that all scientific concepts and theories are limited and approximate.
Science can never provide any complete and definitive understanding. Scientists do not deal with
truth in the sense of a precise correspondence between the description and the described phenomena. They deal with
limited and approximate descriptions of reality. [JLJ - radical and revolutionary in concept - redefining the entire
concept of what exactly is science. Directly applicable to game theory. It's great that we have people like Fritjof Capra.]
p.149-150 A living system is defined as a self-organizing system, which means that its order is
not imposed by the environment but is established by the system itself... For self-organizing systems, the
pattern of organization is characterized by a mutual dependency of the system's parts, which is necessary and sufficient
to understand the parts.
p.150 The two main characteristics of a dissipative structure [self-organizing
system] are (1) that it is an open system, maintaining its pattern of organization through continuous exchange
of energy and matter with its environment; and (2) that it operates far from thermodynamic equilibrium
and thus cannot be described in terms of classical thermodynamics.
p.151 The organizing activity of living, self-organizing systems, finally, is cognition,
or mental activity. This implies a radically new concept of mind... Mental process is defined as the organizing
activity of life. This means that all the interactions of a living system with its environment are cognitive,
or mental interactions.
p.152 One of the most important insights of the new systems theory is that life and cognition are
inseparable. The process of knowledge is also the process of self-organization, that is, the
process of life. Our conventional model of knowledge is one of a representation or an image of independently existing
facts, which is the model derived from classical physics. From the new systems point of view, knowledge is part of
the process of life, of a dialogue between object and subject.
Knowledge and life, then, are inseparable, and, therefore, facts are inseparable from values.
[Contemporary Physics and Dialectical Holism, Errol Harris, p. 156-174]
p.159 "the world," says Heisenberg (1959), "... appears as a complicated tissue
of events, in which connections of different kinds alternate or overlap or combine and thereby determine the texture of the
whole"
p.161 every genuine whole will be governed by a principle of organization, or order, determining
the nature and interrelation of its parts, to which they must confirm if the unity of the system is to be maintained.
p.163 [no part] can be isolated from the web of relations in which it stands to the others without
distortion of the system, which would distort its own character. Any attempt to isolate a single constituent
leads either to a false or inadequate description, which requires for its correction integration of the separated
constituent with its neighbors... Each partial element is, therefore, in a state of tension.
p.164 The organizing principle universal to the whole, therefore, manifests itself both in each
part and in the whole scale of forms, as the law of its progression and as the structure of its product.
p.165 the whole explains the part, and not vice versa.
p.169 no whole or system can be really complete or fully explicit unless and until it becomes aware
of itself as a whole
