Cambridge University Press The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision

Having been blown away by The Web of Life so many years ago, I was eager to grab this one. And only 150 pages into it, I am chewing it up like a Christmas feast. One of the most remarkable features of Capra's work is his ability to summarize bodies of knowledge, disciplines and schools, and deal with them chronologically while painting a panoramic view over thousands of years of scientific study. He can then swoop into the core of any science in question and capture its essence in only a few pages or even a few paragraphs. The book is coherent, extremely well organized, and very well written. A delight to read.

Fritjof Capra has been a consistently interesting and deservedly popular thinker for many years now. I have always been impressed by the clarity and economy with which he has been able to communicate complex ideas, often in considerable depth, to a general audience. Equally, I have always been impressed by the breadth of his intellectual interests and his rare ability to combine these wide-ranging interests into coherent and far-reaching syntheses. Now, together with his co-author Pier Luigi Luisi, who has himself made significant contributions to the discussion of the emergence of life (see, e.g., Luisi's The Emergence of Life: From Chemical Origins to Synthetic Biology ), Capra and Luisi have outdone themselves. Their 500 page book The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision (with many words per page, given its large-page format) is, purely and simply, a magnum opus, it really is. It surely represents the culminating statement of Capra and his co-author's work over several decades now on the development of a scientifically-informed unified vision of the world that incorporates and integrates the biological, ecological, cognitive, philosophical, social, political, and even the spiritual dimensions of life. The last time I read such an all-embracing, well-informed, and richly rewarding synthesis as this was when I read Charles Birch and John Cobb's The Liberation of Life : From the Cell to the Community (also from Cambridge University Press) - and that was published back in 1981! If you want to understand the major cultural shift that we have been undergoing over the last several hundred years (right across the physical, life, and social sciences) from a mechanistic worldview to the emergence of what the authors term a 'systems' worldview - a worldview that sees the world around us in terms of networks, patterns, and complex, mutually interacting, living or life-like systems rather than in terms of discrete building blocks that interact in linear, sequential ways that are open to precise forms of prediction and control - then this is now THE book to read. As the authors show, this shift in worldview has major implications for almost everything that ought to matter to us - from the very practical ways in which we need to attend to the manifold problems that are pressing in upon us in the ecological and socio-political realms to the ways in which we can find an approach to our inner, spiritual lives that is consistent with our best scientific understandings. You get the idea. I cannot praise this book enough. Capra and Luisi have done us all a great service. I cannot see how anyone could spend even just a few hours with this book and not come away considerably the richer for it. Spend considerably longer with it and you will undoubtedly come away knowing a lot more about various areas of interest to you than you do now - not to mention more inspired to work for changes in directions that will enable us to sustain the web of life on this planet. Every critically-minded reader will find their own quibbles here and there of course, but c'mon ... the comprehensive breadth and depth of scholarship displayed in this book, all communicated clearly and economically (often with aid of pictures, inset boxes, and diagrams), is simply outstanding. Warwick Fox - author of Toward a Transpersonal Ecology: Developing New Foundations for Environmentalism , A Theory of General Ethics: Human Relationships, Nature, and the Built Environment , and On Beautiful Days Such as This: A philosopher sings the blues and restores his soul in Greece .

Not through the entire book yet. But: Very well written, well structured. The idea of connectedness is delivered and argued from various angles. A really very good read. Looking forward to continuing. And possibly re-reading from time to time.

This is a refreshing look at life based on a simple premise: that life is a self-regulating network in which essential properties arise not from the constituent parts themselves, but from the configuration of relationships within the integrated system as a whole. The authors guide us through an incredible range of scientific disciplines, revealing the uncanny ramifications of this subtle change in perspective. In the systems view, the parts have no meaning as isolated entities; they are defined only by their interconnections; they are inseparable patterns within the larger web. This approach is an eye-opening contrast to the mainstream viewpoint of reductionistic analysis, and the authors explain how reductionism had shaped our culture to the detriment of the environment we cohabit. The Systems View of Life treats readers to a rational expansion of self towards unity with the fabric of life and oneness with the universe, much like the monism of Advaita Vedanta or Monistic Idealism. Every distinction we presuppose as individuals, as nations, and as a species breaks down under this unflinching scrutiny. When we let go of our individual pride, we allow room instead for inclusive cooperation. Nothing less than this kind of fundamental shift of identity will prepare us to face the multifaceted global crises we have created for the biosphere. This book exhibits the systems view of life within the context of numerous academic disciplines including: history, philosophy, economics, physics, genetics, mathematics, ecology, biology, evolution, chemistry, cognitive linguistics, spirituality, sociology, medicine, and climatology. It is written for undergraduates but approachable to casual readers willing to delve deep into several different scientific fields. It is not an easy read, nor is it short, but the vision is beautiful, and the elevated viewpoint is worth every page. My only serious critique is that the systemic solutions to our global threats proposed in the last chapter seem generally unrealistic. However, to be fair, I couldn’t do better. The very notion of “I” is an emergent property arising from the simultaneous occurrence and resonance of feelings, memories, and thoughts, so that the “I” is not localized anywhere, but rather is an organized pattern without a center. When we look at the world around us, we find that we are not thrown into chaos and randomness but are part of a great order, a grand symphony of life. Every atom in our body was once a part of previous bodies - living or nonliving - and will be a part of future bodies. In this sense, our body will not die but will live on, again and again, because life lives on. Moreover, we share not only life’s molecules, but also its basic principles of organization with the rest of the living world. And since our mind, too, is embodied, our concepts and metaphors are embedded in the web of life together with our bodies and brains. Indeed, we belong to the universe, and this experience of belonging can make our lives profoundly meaningful.”

It's a good and original book but it should contain a detailed description of the limitations of the presented theory. Paper and volume overall quality is poor and could be improved.