Dr. Fritjof Capra
Field of reference: Biology, Ecology
Description: How viruses contribute to balance inside the ecosystems and other samples of how organisms (ex. coral) integrate harmoniously into their surroundings.
“Although the structure and functioning of viruses is now well known, their basic nature still remains intriguing. Outside living cells a virus particle cannot be called a living organism; inside a cell it forms a living system together with the cell, but one of a very special kind. It is self-organising, but the purpose of its organization is not the stability and survival of the entire virus-cell system. Its only aim is the production of new viruses that will then go on to form living systems of this peculiar kind in the environments provided by other cells.The special way in which viruses exploit their environment is an exception in the living world. Most organisms integrate themselves harmoniously into their surroundings, and some of them reshape their environment in such a way that it becomes an ecosystem capable supporting large numbers of animals and plants. The outstanding example of such ecosystem-building organisms are corals, which for a long time were thought to be plants but are more appropriately classified as animals. Coral polyps are tiny multicellular organisms that join to form large colonies and, as such, can grow massive skeletons of limestone. Over long periods of geological time many of these colonies have grown into huge coral reefs, which represent by far the largest structures created by living organisms on earth. These massive structures support innumerable bacteria, plants, and animals; encrustin organisms living on top of the coral framework, fishes and invertebrates hiding in its nooks and crannies, and various other creatures that cover virtually all the available space on the reef. To build these densely populated ecosystems the coral polyps function in a highly coordinated way, sharing nervous networks and reproductive capabilities to such an extent that it is often difficult to consider them individual organisms."
| שייך לנושאים: 1-13 - חינוך אינטגרלי, -מקורות מדעיים, הטבע, 2. הטבע כמערכת |
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Dr. Fritjof Capra
Field of reference: Biology, Ecology
Description: The entire planet is one giant integrated system
“As the notion of an independent physical entity has become problematic in subatomic physics, so has the notion of an independent organism in biology. Living organisms, being open systems, keep themselves alive and functioning through intense transactions with their environment, which itself consists partially of organisms. Thus the whole biosphere - our planetary ecosystem - is a dynamic and highly integrated web of living and nonliving forms. Although this web is multilevel, transactions and interdependencies exist among all its levels.Most organisms are not only embedded in ecosystems but are complex ecosystems themselves, containing a host of smaller organisms that have considerable autonomy and yet integrate themselves harmoniously into the functioning of the whole. The smallest of these living components show an astonishing uniformity, resembling one another quite closely throughout the living world, as vividly described by Lewis Thomas."
| שייך לנושאים: 1-13 - חינוך אינטגרלי, -מקורות מדעיים, הטבע, 2. הטבע כמערכת |
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Dr. Marek Roland-Mieszkowski
Field of reference: Physics, Biology
Description: There are undiscovered laws of nature which are responsible for "self-organization" of the biosphere.
“It is obvious that the entropy of the Biosphere is decreasing continuously (at least it was before the industrial revolution and deforestation).This means that the matter involved in the formation of the Biosphere is getting more and more organized (less random). It was pointed out by many that life seems to defy the II Law of Thermodynamics, which states, that entropy of any system should be increasing [4-7]. Several attempts were made to explain this striking phenomenon on the basis of the "Theory of Complexity", which suggest, that there are undiscovered laws of nature which are responsible for "Self- Organization" of organisms and the Biosphere [4-7]. This paper explains the principles responsible for the formation and maintenance of life on Earth."
| שייך לנושאים: 1-13 - חינוך אינטגרלי, -מקורות מדעיים, הטבע, 2. הטבע כמערכת |
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Gottfried Leibniz
Field of reference: Philosophy
Description: From his famous work "Monadology". Reality has a single source.
“Reality cannot be found except in One single source, because of the interconnection of all things with one another. ... I maintain also that substances, whether material or immaterial, cannot be conceived in their bare essence without any activity, activity being of the essence of substance in general."
| שייך לנושאים: 1-13 - חינוך אינטגרלי, -מקורות מדעיים, הטבע, 2. הטבע כמערכת |
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Sir Norman Angell
Field of reference: Interdisciplinary
Description: Man is but a part of nature's living organism and must adapt to its interpendent laws. p 188 in the book.
“The individual in his sociological aspect is not the complete organism. He who attempts to live without association with his fellows dies. Nor is the nation the complete organism. If Britain attempted to live without cooperation with other nations, half the population would starve. The completer the cooperation, the greater the vitality; the more imperfect the cooperation, the less the vitality. Now, a body, the various parts of which are so interdependent that without coordination vitality is reduced or death ensues, must be regarded, in so far as the functions in question are concerned, not as a collection of rival organisms, but as one. This is in accord with what we know of the character of living organisms in their conflict with environment. The higher the organism, the greater the elaboration and interdependence of its part, the greater the need for coordination.If we take this as the reading of the biological law, the whole thing becomes plain; man's irresistible drift away from conflict and towards cooperation is but the completer adaptation of the organism (man) to its environment (the planet, wild nature), resulting in a more intense vitality.Man's general way of thinking of the totality, i.e. his general world view, is crucial for overall order of the human mind itself. If he thinks of the totality as constituted of independent fragments, then that is how his mind will tend to operate, but if he can include everything coherently and harmoniously in an overall whole that is undivided, unbroken and without border (for every border is a division or break) then his mind will tend to move in a similar way, and from this will flow an orderly action within the whole."
| שייך לנושאים: 1-13 - חינוך אינטגרלי, -מקורות מדעיים, הטבע, 2. הטבע כמערכת |
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