Fritjof Capra The Web Of Life

[Leto Corrales]

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Over the past 30 years, Capra has been engaged in a systematic exploration of how other sciences and society are ushering in a similar shift in worldview, or paradigms, leading to a new vision of reality and a new understanding of the social implications of this cultural transformation.

I was trained as a physicist and spent twenty years, from 1965-85, doing research in theoretical high energy physics at several European and American universities. From my early student years, I was fascinated by the dramatic changes of concepts and ideas that occurred in physics during the first three decades of the twentieth century. In my first book, The Tao of Physics (Capra, 1975), I discussed the profound change in our worldview that was brought about by the conceptual revolution in physics - a change from the mechanistic worldview of Descartes and Newton to a holistic and ecological view.

In my subsequent research and writing, I engaged in a systematic exploration of a central theme: the fundamental change of world view, or change of paradigms, that is now also occurring in the other sciences and in society; the unfolding of a new vision of reality, and the social implications of this cultural transformation. To connect the conceptual changes in science with the broader change of worldview and values in society, I had to go beyond physics and look for a broader conceptual framework. In doing so, I realized that our major social issues - health, education, human rights, social justice, political power, protection of the environment, the management of business enterprises, the economy, and so on - all have to do with living systems; with individual human beings, social systems, and ecosystems.

With this realization, my research interests shifted from physics to the life-sciences. Using insights from the theory of living systems, complexity theory, and ecology, I began to put together a conceptual framework that integrates four dimensions of life: the biological, the cognitive, the social, andthe ecological dimension. I presented summaries of this framework, as it evolved over the years, in several books, beginning with The Turning Point (Capra, 1982), and followed by The Web of Life (Capra, 1996) and The Hidden Connections (Capra, 2002).

In my new book, The Systems View of Life, coauthored with Pier Luigi Luisi, professor of biochemistry at the University of Rome, I offer a grand synthesis of this unifying vision (Capra and Luisi, 2014). At the very heart of it, we find a fundamental change of metaphors: from seeing the world as a machine to understanding it as a network.

We have discovered that the material world, ultimately, is a network of inseparable patterns of relationships. We have also discovered that the planet as a whole is a living, self-regulating system. The view of the human body as a machine and of the mind as a separate entity is being replaced by one that sees not only the brain, but also the immune system, the bodily organs, and even each cell as a living, cognitive system. And with the new emphasis on complexity, nonlinearity, and patterns of organization, a new science of qualities is slowly emerging.

The systems view of life, not surprisingly, includes a new systemic understanding of evolution. Rather than seeing evolution as the result of only random mutations and natural selection, we are beginning to recognize the creative unfolding of life in forms of ever-increasing diversity and complexity as an inherent characteristic of all living systems. Although mutation and natural selection are still acknowledged as important aspects of biological evolution, the central focus is on creativity, on life's constant reaching out into novelty.

This marked the emergence of a universal ancestor - the first bacterial cell - from which all subsequent life on Earth descended. The descendants of the first living cells took over the Earth by weaving a planetary bacterial web and gradually occupying all the ecological niches.

In this majestic unfolding of life, all living organisms continually responded to environmental influences with structural changes, and they did so autonomously, according to their own natures (ibid., pp. 134ff.). From the beginning of life, their interactions with one another and with the nonliving environment were cognitive interactions (ibid., pp. 141ff.). As their structures increased in complexity, so did their cognitive processes, eventually bringing forth conscious awareness, language, and conceptual thought.

When we look at this scenario - from the formation of oily droplets to the emergence of consciousness - the question naturally arises: what about the spiritual dimension of life? Is there any room for the human spirit in this new vision of prebiotic and biotic evolution?

Since respiration is indeed a central aspect of the metabolism of all but the simplest forms of life, the breath of life seems to be a perfect metaphor for the network of metabolic processes that is the defining characteristic of all living systems (Ibid., pp. 134ff.). Spirit - the breath of life - is what we have in common with all living beings. It nourishes us and keeps us alive.

It is evident that this notion of spirituality is very consistent with the notion of the embodied mind that is now being developed in cognitive science (see Varela et al., 1991). Spiritual experience is an experience of aliveness of mind and body as a unity. Moreover, this experience of unity transcends not only the separation of mind and body, but also the separation of self and world. The central awareness in these spiritual moments is a profound sense of oneness with all, a sense of belonging to the universe as a whole.

This sense of oneness with the natural world is fully borne out by the new systemic conception of life. As we understand how the roots of life reach deep into basic physics and chemistry, how the unfolding of complexity began long before the formation of the first living cells, and how life has evolved for billions of years by using again and again the same basic patterns and processes, we realize how tightly we are connected with the entire fabric of life.

Spiritual experience - the direct, non-intellectual experience of reality in moments of heightened aliveness - is known as a mystical experience because it is an encounter with mystery. Spiritual teachers throughout the ages have insisted that the experience of a profound sense of connectedness, of belonging to the cosmos as a whole, which is the central characteristic of mystical experience, is ineffable - incapable of being adequately expressed in words or concepts. Thus we read in the Kena Upanishad (see Hume, 1934):

This encounter with mystery, so the mystics tell us, is often accompanied by a deep sense of awe and wonder together with a feeling of great humility. Scientists, in their systematic observations of natural phenomena, do not consider their experience of reality as ineffable. On the contrary, we attempt to express it in technical language, including mathematics, as precisely as possible. However, the fundamental interconnectedness of all phenomena is a dominant theme also in modern science, and many of our great scientists have expressed their sense of awe and wonder when faced with the mystery that lies beyond the limits of their theories. Albert Einstein, for one, repeatedly expressed these feelings, as in the following celebrated passage (Einstein, 1949).

When we discuss the relationship between science and spirituality, it is important to distinguish between spirituality and religion. Spirituality is a way of being grounded in a certain experience of reality that is independent of cultural and historical contexts. Religion is the organized attempt to understand spiritual experience, to interpret it with words and concepts, and to use this interpretation as the source of moral guidelines for the religious community.

There are three basic aspects to religion: theology, morals, and ritual (see Capra and Steindl-Rast, 1991). In theistic religions, theology is the intellectual interpretation of the spiritual experience, of the sense of belonging, with God as the ultimate reference point. Morals, or ethics, are the rules of conduct derived from that sense of belonging; and ritual is the celebration of belonging by the religious community. All three of these aspects - theology, morals, and ritual - depend on the religious community's historical and cultural contexts.

With the new emphasis on purely intellectual theological knowledge came a hardening of the language. Whereas the Church Fathers repeatedly asserted the ineffable nature of religious experience and expressed their interpretations in terms of symbols and metaphors, the scholastic theologians formulated the Christian teachings in dogmatic language and required from the faithful to accept these formulations as the literal truth. In other words, Christian theology (as far as the religious establishment was concerned) became more and more rigid and fundamentalist, devoid of authentic spirituality.

The awareness of these subtle relationships between religion and spirituality is important when we compare both of them with science. While scientists try to explain natural phenomena, the purpose of a spiritual discipline is not to provide a description of the world. Its purpose, rather, is to facilitate experiences that will change a person's self and way of life. However, in the interpretations of their experiences mystics and spiritual teachers are often led to also make statements about the nature of reality, causal relationships, the nature of human consciousness, and the like. This allows us to compare their descriptions of reality with corresponding descriptions by scientists.

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