Chapter 1 WHY SYSTEMS PHILOSOPHY? Some reasons, for synthetic philosophy generally The persistent theme of this study is the timeliness and the necessity of ...

The world's foremost systems philosopher presents a new scientific theory to explain how the universe defies our current understanding of fundamental physical laws.

Provides the foundations of a genuine unified field theory.

This book offers an original hypothesis capable of unifying evolution in the physical universe with evolution in biology; herewith it lays the conceptual foundations of ?transdisciplinary unified theory?. The rationale for the hypothesis is presented first; then the theoretical framework is outlined, and thereafter it is explored in regard to quantum physics, physical cosmology, micro- and macro-biology, and the cognitive sciences (neurophysiology, psychology, with attention to anomalous phenomena as well). The book closes with a variety of studies, both by the (...) author and his collaborators, sketching out the implications of the hypothesis in regard to brain dynamics, cosmology, the concept of space, phenomena of creativity, and the prospects for the elaboration of a mature transdisciplinary unified theory. The Foreword is written by philosopher of science Arne Naess, and the Afterword is contributed by neuroscientist Karl Pribram. (shrink)

Taking the view that understanding the meaning behind the complex formulas of science is more important than ever, this work attempts to explain the systems view of the world as the paradigm of the latest scientific developments.

Evolution in the sense of the new paradigm embraces not only the emergence of biological species but also development in the cosmos and in history. It means ?grand synthesis,? or general theory of evolution. Its roots lie in the search for meaning that inspired systematic thought since its inception: its historical antecedents go back to the Ionian natural philosophers. Today the evolutionary paradigm frames invariant scientific concepts that appear in specific transformations in the physical, the biological, and the human and (...) social disciplines. The new general laws of evolution exhibit overarching orders that encompass nature as well as humanity and respond to a perennial search for unity and meaning in experience. (shrink)

The thesis advanced in this paper is that human experience encompasses not only elements registered by the exteroceptive and interoceptive senses, but also elements received intuitively, in a direct and spontaneous mode. Findings at the cutting edge of quantum physics and brain research support the hypothesis that the brain can receive information not only through nerve-signals conducted from the senses but also through quantum resonance at the level of cytoskeletal structures. Confirmation of this hypothesis would provide a physical foundation for (...) the spontaneous intuitions that surface occasionally in consciousness. Recognizing that some varieties of intuitions are bona fide perceptions of the world beyond the brain and body would enlarge our view of the scope of human experience and support assumptions about the existence of subtle informational ties between humans, as well as between humans and nature. Keywords: apprehension—intuition—information—nonlocality—quantum physics—quantum brain theory. (shrink)

Explores the truth of human existence and human consciousness, presenting a view of our lives as an infinite existence in spacetime and beyond spacetime to resolve the paradoxes of our commonly held scientific conceptions of the nature of the cosmos and show a way toward a sustainable global civilization.

Illustrates how the theory of evolution can be expanded into a source of social guidance.

The conflict between science and religion is not irremediable: the world concept of science is changing, and the change brings about a rapprochement with religious beliefs in some fundamental areas. One such area is the question of original creation. Recent findings regarding the nature of the universe show the improbability of its having arisen in the course of a random process. The perennial religious intuition of a transcendental act of creation is a logical entailment of the randomly entirely improbable fine (...) tuning of the natural laws and processes that the observed universe manifests. (shrink)

To overcome sociopsychologism and historical relativism, the growth of science is deduced from the combined effect of postulated invariant controls, in the form of enduring ideals of science, in their interaction with nature. The thus constituted "cybernetics-of-science" concept permits extrapolation from present to future states of science. The ideal scientific theory is the goal or target toward which the scientific process is oriented, by virtue of its invariant controls. The form of the ideal theory can thus be extrapolated, and some (...) speculative hypotheses advanced as to its contents, taking those of the recently emerged constructs of science as basis which best accord with the predicted form of the theory. (shrink)

The rift between science and religion needs to be assessed not merely on pragmatic grounds, on the basis of the effect of scientific versus religious beliefs on people's behavior, as John Caiazza's essay does, but also and above all in regard to the cogency of the respective beliefs in reference to what we can reasonably assume is the true face of reality. About such truth value, the conflict is not irremediable; there are elements of belief regarding the nature of reality (...) that are strikingly similar regardless of whether one arrived at them on the basis of faith in revealed knowledge or on the basis of knowledge acquired by reasoning from or in reference to experience. Two such items are selected here by way of example: belief that in certain states of mind and consciousness individuals can experience union with something larger or deeper than themselves, and belief that the universe we inhabit is the result of an original creative act. (shrink)

Originally published in 1971 Evolution - Revolution is an interdisciplinary volume examining inquiry around the central topic of evolution and revolution. Containing contributions from a number of eminent academics of the time, the book addresses the meaning and application of evolution and revolution in the context, not of what things are, or even how they behave, but how they become. The broad interdisciplinary range of essays explores this concept through the idea of development and change and argues that both change, (...) and development must be measured against concepts of flux and that which endures. The editors of the book suggest that these are the 'invariants' which contemporary thinkers are beginning to accept as the process-counterparts of Platonic 'immutables'. Thus this volume examines the two 'immutables' of evolution and revolution. The book covers the concept through essays in science, philosophic concepts of rationalism and existentialism, art and religion. P>. (shrink)

First Published in 1970. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This article represents a concerted Laszlo effort. What you will find here is a collection of autobiographical reflections written by Ervin Laszlo that speaks to his involvement with the field of systems thinking and his impact on it, interspersed with comments and illustrative examples on points of special interest. As such, this essay should be read as a reflection piece?one in which a new generation of Laszlos muse on the power and inspiration of the vision that has served as a (...) platform not only for them but for many others in the systems community as well. To understand Ervin Laszlo and his contributions to the systems view of the world, one must place him in context?both ontologically and epistemologically. This narrative will do both, first presenting a chronological overview of his personal history up to the present and subsequently exploring the world of ideas and ideals that he traversed (and continues to traverse with unrelenting momentum). However, this narrative will inevitably be nonlinear, and bits and pieces of his adventure in thought are woven into his chronological development and vice-versa. (shrink)

Dr. Laszlo’s hypothesis (2009) is in my opinion appealing on many levels. He proposes that phenomena of apparent transpersonal communication between human beings are due to the intermediary of information-carrying holograms in the reactive quantum vacuum produced by human brain activity. He also suggests that valid information regarding the world in general is available through the same mechanism, on the grounds that all material objects “excite the ground state of the [zero point] fi eld” and produce further such holograms. On (...) this hypothesis we are literally immersed in a sea of information, with the capacity for accessing that information as well as producing more of it by our own thought processes. (shrink)