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.I read up on theseschools, paying special attention to Bertrand Russell and Alfred Ayeramong the British philosophers, Edmund Husserl and the phenomenol-ogists of the continental schools, and Henri Bergson and Alfred NorthWhitehead among the naturalistic process philosophers.I concludedthat neither the formal analysis of experience nor the introspectivemethod of the phenomenologists leads to a meaningful concept of thereal world.These schools ultimately get bogged down in what philoso-phers call the "ego-centric predicament." It appears that the more sys-tematically one investigates one's immediate experience, the less easy itis to get beyond it to the world to which that experience presumablyrefers.We are logically obliged to take the initial leap of assuming theobjective existence of the external world, and then to create the schemein light of which our experience makes sense as the human experienceof that world. 172 Exploring the Informed UniverseIn Beyond Scepticism and Realism, I contrasted the "inferential"approach that starts from one's own experience with the alternative"hypothetico-deductive" method that envisages the nature of the worldand explores how our observations accord with it.I concluded that,ideally, the overlap between these distinct and sometimes seeminglycontradictory approaches is what gives the most reliable informationabout the real nature of the world.I identified some areas of overlap,but did not stop there: I wanted to get on with my quest, and began toexplore the bold hypothetico-deductive approach.To my considerablerelief, I found that this approach had been adopted by many greatphilosophers and practically all theoretical scientists, from Newton andLeibniz to Einstein and Eddington.Einstein stated the principal premise of the naturalistic approach."We are seeking," he said, "for the simplest possible scheme of thoughtthat will bind together the observed facts." The simplest possiblescheme, I realized, cannot be inferred from observations: as Einsteinsaid, it needs to be imaginatively envisaged.One must search for andcodify the relevant observations, but one cannot stop there.Whileempirical research is necessary, the creative task of putting together theresulting data in ways that they make sense as meaningful elements ofa coherent system cannot be neglected.It is the principal challenge fac-ing the inquiring mind.The attempt to "create the simplest possiblescheme of thought that will bind together the observed facts" (and by"observed facts" I meant all the facts needed to make sense of theworld) defined my intellectual agenda for the next four decades.The scheme I first envisaged rested on the organic metaphysics ofWhitehead.In this conception, which dated originally from the 1920s,the world and all things in it are integrated and interacting "actual enti-ties" and "societies of actual entities." Reality is fundamentallyorganic, so living organisms are but one variety of the organic unitythat emerges in the domains of nature.My subsequent readings in cos-mology and biology confirmed the soundness of this assumption.Life,and the cosmos as a whole, evolves as integrated entities within a net-work of constant formative interaction.Each thing not only "is," it also An Autobiographical Retrospective 173"becomes." Reality, to cite Whitehead, is process, and an integrativeevolutionary process at that.The question I asked was how I could identify the evolving entitiesof the world in such a way that they would make sense as elements inan organically integral universe.Colleagues at Yale called my attentionto the work of Ludwig von Bertalanffy in the area of "general systemtheory." Bertalanffy was attempting to integrate the field of biology inan overall scheme that would lend itself to further integration withother domains of natural science, and even with the human and socialsciences.His key concept was "system," conceived as a basic entity inthe world.Systems, he argued, appear in similar ("isomorphic") waysin physical nature, living nature, as well as the human world.This wasmost helpful: it supplied the conceptual tool I was looking for.I readBertalanffy, then met with him and developed the concept of what wejointly decided to call "systems philosophy."Introduction to Systems Philosophy (1972) was a painstakinglyresearched book - it took five years to write - and when it was pub-lished I was tempted to rest for a while on my laurels.But I was not sat-isfied.I needed to find an answer in leading-edge science not only tohow systems are constituted and how they relate to each other, but alsoto how they change and evolve.Whitehead's metaphysics gave me thegeneral principles and Bertalanffy's general system theory clarified therelations between systems and environments.What I still needed wasthe key to understanding how these relations can lead to integrative andon the whole irreversible evolution in the biosphere, and in the universeas a whole.To my surprise, the key was furnished by a discipline about whichI knew little at the time: nonequilibrium thermodynamics.I reached thisconclusion on the basis of my brief but intense friendship with ErichJantsch, who died unexpectedly a few years later.He directed my atten-tion to the work, and subsequently to the person, of the Russian-bornNobel laureate thermodynamicist Ilya Prigogine.The latter's concept of"dissipative structures" that are subject to periodic "bifurcations" fur-nished the evolutionary dynamic I needed.After discussing this concept 174 Exploring the Informed Universewith Prigogine, my work focused on what I called "general evolutiontheory." The basic kind of entity that populates the world transformedin my thinking from Whitehead's "organism" and Bertalanffy's "gen-eral system" to Prigogine's nonlinearly bifurcating "dissipative struc-ture," an evolving thermodynamically open system.The world began tomake more and more sense.Apparently, the sense I made of the world also intrigued scholars infields other than systems theory and philosophy.While teaching andresearching at the State University of New York at Geneseo, to my sur-prise I received a phone call from Richard Falk, of PrincetonUniversity's Center of International Studies.Falk, one of the foremost"world system" theorists of the time, asked me to come to Princeton tolead a series of seminars on the application of my systems theory to thestudy of the international system.I assured him that I knew next tonothing about the international system and had only vague notions ofhow my theory would apply to it.But Falk was not to be deterred.Heand his colleagues, he said, would see to the application of my theory ifI would come and discuss that theory with them.This I agreed to do.The experience of my Princeton seminars was intellectually reward-ing as well as exciting: it opened new vistas.I found a new and intenselypractical application for general system theory, systems philosophy, andgeneral evolution theory: human society and civilization.Society andcivilization, I realized in the mid-1970s, are undergoing a process ofirreversible transformation.The human world is growing beyond thebounds of the nation-state system to the limits of the globe and thebiosphere.This called for rethinking some of our most cherishednotions about how societies are structured, how they operate, and howthey develop [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.I read up on theseschools, paying special attention to Bertrand Russell and Alfred Ayeramong the British philosophers, Edmund Husserl and the phenomenol-ogists of the continental schools, and Henri Bergson and Alfred NorthWhitehead among the naturalistic process philosophers.I concludedthat neither the formal analysis of experience nor the introspectivemethod of the phenomenologists leads to a meaningful concept of thereal world.These schools ultimately get bogged down in what philoso-phers call the "ego-centric predicament." It appears that the more sys-tematically one investigates one's immediate experience, the less easy itis to get beyond it to the world to which that experience presumablyrefers.We are logically obliged to take the initial leap of assuming theobjective existence of the external world, and then to create the schemein light of which our experience makes sense as the human experienceof that world. 172 Exploring the Informed UniverseIn Beyond Scepticism and Realism, I contrasted the "inferential"approach that starts from one's own experience with the alternative"hypothetico-deductive" method that envisages the nature of the worldand explores how our observations accord with it.I concluded that,ideally, the overlap between these distinct and sometimes seeminglycontradictory approaches is what gives the most reliable informationabout the real nature of the world.I identified some areas of overlap,but did not stop there: I wanted to get on with my quest, and began toexplore the bold hypothetico-deductive approach.To my considerablerelief, I found that this approach had been adopted by many greatphilosophers and practically all theoretical scientists, from Newton andLeibniz to Einstein and Eddington.Einstein stated the principal premise of the naturalistic approach."We are seeking," he said, "for the simplest possible scheme of thoughtthat will bind together the observed facts." The simplest possiblescheme, I realized, cannot be inferred from observations: as Einsteinsaid, it needs to be imaginatively envisaged.One must search for andcodify the relevant observations, but one cannot stop there.Whileempirical research is necessary, the creative task of putting together theresulting data in ways that they make sense as meaningful elements ofa coherent system cannot be neglected.It is the principal challenge fac-ing the inquiring mind.The attempt to "create the simplest possiblescheme of thought that will bind together the observed facts" (and by"observed facts" I meant all the facts needed to make sense of theworld) defined my intellectual agenda for the next four decades.The scheme I first envisaged rested on the organic metaphysics ofWhitehead.In this conception, which dated originally from the 1920s,the world and all things in it are integrated and interacting "actual enti-ties" and "societies of actual entities." Reality is fundamentallyorganic, so living organisms are but one variety of the organic unitythat emerges in the domains of nature.My subsequent readings in cos-mology and biology confirmed the soundness of this assumption.Life,and the cosmos as a whole, evolves as integrated entities within a net-work of constant formative interaction.Each thing not only "is," it also An Autobiographical Retrospective 173"becomes." Reality, to cite Whitehead, is process, and an integrativeevolutionary process at that.The question I asked was how I could identify the evolving entitiesof the world in such a way that they would make sense as elements inan organically integral universe.Colleagues at Yale called my attentionto the work of Ludwig von Bertalanffy in the area of "general systemtheory." Bertalanffy was attempting to integrate the field of biology inan overall scheme that would lend itself to further integration withother domains of natural science, and even with the human and socialsciences.His key concept was "system," conceived as a basic entity inthe world.Systems, he argued, appear in similar ("isomorphic") waysin physical nature, living nature, as well as the human world.This wasmost helpful: it supplied the conceptual tool I was looking for.I readBertalanffy, then met with him and developed the concept of what wejointly decided to call "systems philosophy."Introduction to Systems Philosophy (1972) was a painstakinglyresearched book - it took five years to write - and when it was pub-lished I was tempted to rest for a while on my laurels.But I was not sat-isfied.I needed to find an answer in leading-edge science not only tohow systems are constituted and how they relate to each other, but alsoto how they change and evolve.Whitehead's metaphysics gave me thegeneral principles and Bertalanffy's general system theory clarified therelations between systems and environments.What I still needed wasthe key to understanding how these relations can lead to integrative andon the whole irreversible evolution in the biosphere, and in the universeas a whole.To my surprise, the key was furnished by a discipline about whichI knew little at the time: nonequilibrium thermodynamics.I reached thisconclusion on the basis of my brief but intense friendship with ErichJantsch, who died unexpectedly a few years later.He directed my atten-tion to the work, and subsequently to the person, of the Russian-bornNobel laureate thermodynamicist Ilya Prigogine.The latter's concept of"dissipative structures" that are subject to periodic "bifurcations" fur-nished the evolutionary dynamic I needed.After discussing this concept 174 Exploring the Informed Universewith Prigogine, my work focused on what I called "general evolutiontheory." The basic kind of entity that populates the world transformedin my thinking from Whitehead's "organism" and Bertalanffy's "gen-eral system" to Prigogine's nonlinearly bifurcating "dissipative struc-ture," an evolving thermodynamically open system.The world began tomake more and more sense.Apparently, the sense I made of the world also intrigued scholars infields other than systems theory and philosophy.While teaching andresearching at the State University of New York at Geneseo, to my sur-prise I received a phone call from Richard Falk, of PrincetonUniversity's Center of International Studies.Falk, one of the foremost"world system" theorists of the time, asked me to come to Princeton tolead a series of seminars on the application of my systems theory to thestudy of the international system.I assured him that I knew next tonothing about the international system and had only vague notions ofhow my theory would apply to it.But Falk was not to be deterred.Heand his colleagues, he said, would see to the application of my theory ifI would come and discuss that theory with them.This I agreed to do.The experience of my Princeton seminars was intellectually reward-ing as well as exciting: it opened new vistas.I found a new and intenselypractical application for general system theory, systems philosophy, andgeneral evolution theory: human society and civilization.Society andcivilization, I realized in the mid-1970s, are undergoing a process ofirreversible transformation.The human world is growing beyond thebounds of the nation-state system to the limits of the globe and thebiosphere.This called for rethinking some of our most cherishednotions about how societies are structured, how they operate, and howthey develop [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]