Brazko
Well-Known Member
Here's an Excerpt from The Tao of Physics by FritJof Capra:
"deep Ecology", was founded in the early 1970s by the Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess. Deep ecology does not see the world as a collection of isolated objects, but rather as a network of phenomena that are fundamentally interconnected and interdependent. It recognizes the intrinsic value of all living beings and views humans--in the celebrated words attributed to Chief Seattle--as just one particular strand in the web of life. This is a philosophy that engenders a very profound sense of connectedness, of context, of relationship, of belonging.
At this deep level, ecology merges with spirituality because the experience of being connected with all of nature, of belonging to the universe, is the very essence of spirituality. On the other end of the spectrum, ecology is grounded scientifically in the Theory of living systems. So, the question naturally arises: What can the emerging scientific theory of living systems tell us about spirituality?
Well, systems science says little about spirituality. But, interestingly, it can say something about the nature of the human spirit. Part of that new theory of living systems is a radically new understanding of mind and consciousness, which I discussed in some detail in The Web of Life. In a nutshell, the new theory asserts that cognition (the process of knowing) is identical with the process of life at all levels of living systems. According to this theory, known as the Santiago theory of cognition, mind is not a thing but a process. Mind is the process of cognition, which is none other than the process of life, and consciousness is an elaborate form of this process.
The Santiago theory provides, in my view, the first coherent scientific framework that fully overcomes the Cartesian split between mind and matter. Mind and Matter no longer appear to belong to two separate categories but are seen as representing two complimentary aspects of the phenomenon of life: the process aspect and the structure aspect. Mind is the process of life, the process of cognition. The brain (and indeed the entire body) is the structure through which the process manifests itself.
Fritjof Capra
"deep Ecology", was founded in the early 1970s by the Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess. Deep ecology does not see the world as a collection of isolated objects, but rather as a network of phenomena that are fundamentally interconnected and interdependent. It recognizes the intrinsic value of all living beings and views humans--in the celebrated words attributed to Chief Seattle--as just one particular strand in the web of life. This is a philosophy that engenders a very profound sense of connectedness, of context, of relationship, of belonging.
At this deep level, ecology merges with spirituality because the experience of being connected with all of nature, of belonging to the universe, is the very essence of spirituality. On the other end of the spectrum, ecology is grounded scientifically in the Theory of living systems. So, the question naturally arises: What can the emerging scientific theory of living systems tell us about spirituality?
Well, systems science says little about spirituality. But, interestingly, it can say something about the nature of the human spirit. Part of that new theory of living systems is a radically new understanding of mind and consciousness, which I discussed in some detail in The Web of Life. In a nutshell, the new theory asserts that cognition (the process of knowing) is identical with the process of life at all levels of living systems. According to this theory, known as the Santiago theory of cognition, mind is not a thing but a process. Mind is the process of cognition, which is none other than the process of life, and consciousness is an elaborate form of this process.
The Santiago theory provides, in my view, the first coherent scientific framework that fully overcomes the Cartesian split between mind and matter. Mind and Matter no longer appear to belong to two separate categories but are seen as representing two complimentary aspects of the phenomenon of life: the process aspect and the structure aspect. Mind is the process of life, the process of cognition. The brain (and indeed the entire body) is the structure through which the process manifests itself.
Fritjof Capra