Earth Talk: Fritjof Capra - The Systems View of Life

A talk given at Schumacher College (UK), Dartington on May 7th 2014.

The great challenge of our time is to build and nurture sustainable communities, designed in such a manner that their ways of life, physical structures, and technologies do not interfere with nature's inherent ability to sustain life. To do so, requires a new ecological understanding of life, as well as a new kind of "systemic" thinking.

In this lecture, Fritjof Capra describes that such a new understanding of life in terms of complexity, networks, and patterns of organization, has recently emerged at the forefront of science. He will emphasize, in particular, the new conception of the nature of mind and consciousness, which is one of the most radical philosophical implications of the systemic understanding of life; and the urgency of this new understanding for dealing with our global ecological crisis and protecting the continuation and flourishing of life on Earth.

Fritjof Capra was speaking as part of his short course running at Schumacher College.

[libbystewart]

Every indigenous community knows this and has been trying to teach us this for decades, if only we'd listen.

[bermawandacardjanggi]

I had a lot of discussion about Fritjof Capra's works, with my father who is a scientist and engineer himself. The one I remember the best is his "Tao of Physics" . Those were some of the best memories with my father, in my life.

[MatthewKingPhD]

Fritjof Capra accidentily stated that consciousness emerged 4 billion years ago with the Great Apes. Of course, this was likely an innocent mistake. Earth has been around approximately 4.5 billion years and the earliest ancestors of hominids evolved approximately 18 million years ago. I'm bringing this up so that anyone watching the video doesn't take that statement as fact. The evolutionary tree of the Hominoidea (emphasis on family Hominidae): after an initial separation from the main line by the Hylobatidae (gibbons) some 18 million years ago, the line of Pongidae broke away, leading to the orangutan; later, the Hominidae split into the tribes Hominini and Gorillini. Thus, his statement in this video that Great Apes evolved consciousness 4 billion years ago was clearly a mistake. Happy watching!

[speaksistereasy]

I half way through reading "Synergetics" by Buckminster Fuller it seems very similar to what Capra talks about here -

[YuriRadavchuk]

Life as a process of cognition. Wow. What a wonderful notion, it helps a lot to understand more of evolution. It is indeed more efficient to look at life by  this concept. Why do we need some peculiar random mutations, if there is much reliable instrument like cognition.
I stopped @ 15:00 to reflect upon Fritjofs words.
So, we can imagine how two different processes emerge in life and instead of seeing them through lens of struggle and survivor, we may look at them in the communication process, in the interaction process toward each other to coexist beneficially.

But what are the causes of conflicts in the processes of cognition at any level? Why do conflicts arise and grow, if life is self-cognizant and self-fixing system or entity?

[EwaMasowska]

Thank you for sharing this very inspireing ideas. It seems that   the "cognitive process"  and the cognitive ability of human's mind   are similar to the  meaning  of the soul.  In Slavic languages "the soul" has a very wide meaning  and  represents the spiritual, emotional, psychical  part of human's activity as well as the cognition. Anyway there are links between values, emotions,  creativity,  cognition, conscience, mind and soul.  The net of this ideas   participate in a cognitive process  and constitutes   dualistic  concept  of   humans nature  (body and soul). Is the soul replaced by   cognition? 

[md]

Randomness is complexity that has not yet been understood

[ChrisPotgieter]

Nature will continue to sustain life...should mankind become a threat to that ability, mankind will be eliminated by those same sustainability mechanisms....time for mankind to let go of its self entitled, self appointing and self promoting Master of the Universe badge

[PeterFritzWalter]

I have received the book from Amazon and I must laud it. It's the best what I ever could get my hands on about systems theory, very carefully researched and written, very comprehensive, very complete— and a fantastic bibliography on top of it. The authors have pulled all the registers to make a complex subject comprehensible even for graduate students. But the book is also an enrichment of any professional library! I will review it in my new book 'Fritjof Capra and the Systems View of Life' that I will publish on Amazon before the end of the year.

[emuahemuah]

a great message of utmost importance which seriously needs to improve on delivery. We can't just rely on a few intellectual elites scattered around the globe to change the world. We need to connect to the masses to implement all these theories. How about some drawings, animations and infographics? Or hiring someone with a more compelling way to speak?

[PeterFritzWalter]

Very grateful for this lecture, especially as I am now reviewing the very book he is presenting and write a short biographical book about Fritjof Capra which contains a review of all his published books! Capra is one of the few scientists in the world who is able to think beyond the particular discipline that is his scientific specialization. In addition, he is able to explain complex realities in a language that every intelligent listener can understand, which is a sign of genius, in my view. For you can only explain something in easy words and a general language that you really have understood. I would never have understood the writings of Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela, was it not through the books of Fritjof Capra, especially his book 'The Web of Life (1997).'

[raycosmic]

Wholes are ever greater than the sum of their constituents.

Life is top down, not bottom up.

Life functions consciously and unconsciously simultaneously. Therefore, consciousness is how something does something (adverb) - not what something is (noun). Reification is a logical fallacy.

[alauc]

Capra does know what is life much better than many others, because he connects faith and science.

[ladyblackstardust]

Glad I found this. So admire and have affection for Fritjoff Capra since forever!

[luckyyuri]

The talk was really good and the things mentioned are of crucial importance to our existence. One thing stands out as probably wrong though, he made too much of a strong link between consciousness and mammalian self-awareness. By many cognitive scientists this would be wrong. A bat, a snake, a frog and a shark are most probably conscious as well.

[arendpsa]

The challenge is how to bridge the gap between academia and the masses? This systems view has to be taught from Kindergarten all the way thru Academia, which means it may take a generation to sink in. Without the help of our political leaders, UN, NGO's, IMF or World Bank, the process of convincing everyone could be too slow as we are in fact standing at a tipping point.

[TheNoblot]

time for arts & sciente to Blend perception & understanding 🤗🎨🖼🎼🩰

[martin]

"Quantity of Mass" is in fact a Holographic System in that the Mass Inertia of  a piece of "Matter" is dependent on the Mass Inertia of the whole Universe, Mach's Principle.

[Bad-Bunny]

All right I have no idea what's going on lol

[suzannehale]

Love this video. Thank you Fritjof. So rich, will listen again and again. : -)