Fritjof Capra - The web of life (1996)

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Before the 1940s the terms "system" and "systems thinking" had been used by several scientists, but it was Bertalanffy's concepts of an open system and a general systems theory that established systems thinking as a major scientific movement

Fritjof Capra
The structure of the human brain is enormously complex. It contains about 10 billion nerve cells (neurons), which are interlinked in a vast network through 1,000 billion junctions (synapses). The whole brain can be divided into subsections, or sub-networks, which communicate with each other in a network fashion. All this results in intricate patterns of intertwined webs, networks of nesting within larger networks.

Fritjof Capra
Tektology was the first attempt in the history of science to arrive at a systematic formulation of the principles of organization operating in living and nonliving systems.

Fritjof Capra
The Buddhist doctrine of impermanence includes the notion that there is no self... It holds that the idea of a separate, individual self is an illusion, just another form of maya, an intellectual concept that has no reality. To cling to this idea of a separate self leads to the same pain and suffering (duhkha) as the adherence to any other fixed category of thought.

Fritjof Capra
A major clash between economics and ecology derives from the fact that nature is cyclical, whereas our industrial systems are linear. Our businesses take resources, transform them into products plus waste, and sell the products to consumers, who discard more waste...

Fritjof Capra
The so-called free market does not provide consumers with proper information, because the social and environmental costs of production are not part of the current economic models.... an ecological tax reform would be strictly revenue neutral, shifting the tax burden from income taxes to "eco-taxes." …the taxes would be added to existing products, forms of energy, services, and materials, so that prices would better reflect true costs.

Fritjof Capra
With the subsequent strong support from cybernetics, the concepts of systems thinking and systems theory became integral parts of the established scientific language, and led to numerous new methodologies and applications — systems engineering, systems analysis, systems dynamics, and so on.

Fritjof Capra
These, then, are some of the basic principles of ecology—interdependence, recycling, partnership, flexibiility, diversity, and, as a consequence of all those, sustainability... the survival of humanity will depend on our ecological literacy, on our ability to understand these principles of ecology and live accordingly.

Fritjof Capra
The more complex the network is, the more complex its pattern of interconnections, the more resilient it will be.

Fritjof Capra
The principle of flexibility... suggests a corresponding strategy of conflict resolution.... the community will need stability and change, order and freedom, tradition and innovation.... these unavoidable conflicts are much better resolved by establishing a dynamic balance.

Fritjof Capra
A diverse community is a resilient community, capable of adapting to changing situations.

Fritjof Capra
In the end, the aggressors always destroy themselves, making way for others who know how to cooperate and get along. Life is much less a competitive struggle for survival than a triumph of cooperation and creativity.

Fritjof Capra
Economics emphasizes competition, expansion, and domination; ecology emphasizes cooperation, conservation, and partnership.

Fritjof Capra
The more we study the major problems of our time, the more we come to realise that they cannot be understood in isolation. They are systemic problems, which means that they are interconnected and interdependent.

Fritjof Capra
There is no self-awareness in ecosystems, no language, no consciousness, and no culture; and therefore no justice and democracy; but also no greed or dishonesty.

Fritjof Capra
Understanding ecological interdependence means understanding relationships. It requires the shifts of perception that are characteristic of systems thinking—from the parts to the whole, from objects to relationships, from contents to patterns.... Nourishing the community means nourishing those relationships.

Fritjof Capra
Partnership—the tendency to associate, establish links, live inside one another, and cooperate—is one of the hallmarks of life.

Fritjof Capra
Lack of flexibility manifests itself as stress.... stress will occur when one or more variables of the system are pushed to their extreme values, which induces increased rigidity throughout the system.

Fritjof Capra
In the Germany of the l920s, the Weimar Republic, both orga­nismic biology and Gestalt psychology were part of a larger intellectual trend that saw itself as a protest movement against the increasing fragmentation and alienation of human nature. The entire Weimar culture was characterized by an antimechanistic outlook, a "hunger for wholeness". Organismic biology, Gestalt psychology, ecology, and, later on, general systems theory all grew out of this holistic zeitgeist.

Fritjof Capra