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Whenever the essential nature of things is analysed by the intellect, it must seem absurd or paradoxical. This has always been recognized by the mystics, but has become a problem in science only very recently.

Fritjof Capra

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Fritjof Capra
Age: 85
Born: 1939
Born: February 1
Environmentalist
Physicist
Writer
Vienna
Austria
Things
Seem
Recently
Science
Recognized
Nature
Absurd
Become
Intellect
Seems
Accounts
Problem
Essential
Analysed
Must
Whenever
Mystics
Always
Essentials
Paradoxical

More quotes by Fritjof Capra

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Our Western science, ever since the 17th century, has been obsessed with the notion of control, of man dominating nature. This obsession has led to disaster.
Fritjof Capra
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During periods of relaxation after concentrated intellectual activity, the intuitive mind seems to take over and can produce the sudden clarifying insights which give so much joy and delight.
Fritjof Capra
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In the end, the aggressors always destroy themselves, making way for others who know how to cooperate and get along. Life is much less a competitive struggle for survival than a triumph of cooperation and creativity.
Fritjof Capra
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The term paradigm, from the Greek paradeigma (pattern), was used by Kuhn to denote a conceptual framework shared by a community of scientists and providing them with model problems and solutions
Fritjof Capra
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Modern physics has... revealed that every sub-atomic particle not only performs an energy dance, but also is an energy dance a pulsating process of creation and destruction.
Fritjof Capra
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One of the key insights of the systems approach has been the realization that the network is a pattern that is common to all life. Wherever we see life, we see networks.
Fritjof Capra
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A sustainable human community is designed in such a manner that its ways of life, technologies, and social institutions honor, support, and cooperate with nature's inherent ability to sustain life.
Fritjof Capra
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In Hinduism, Shiva the Cosmic Dancer, is perhaps the most perfect personification of the dynamic universe. Through his dance, Shiva sustains the manifold phenomena in the world, unifying all things by immersing them in his rhythm and making them participate in the dance - a magnificent image of the dynamic unity of the Universe.
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Genuine mental health would involve a balanced interplay of both modes of experience, a way of life in which one's identification with the ego is playful and tentative rather than absolute and mandatory, while the concern with material possessions is pragmatic rather than obsessive.
Fritjof Capra
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The creativity and adaptability of life expresses itself through the spontaneous emergence of novelty at critical points of instability. Every human organization contains both designed and emergent structures. The challenge is to find the right balance between the creativity of emergence and the stability of design.
Fritjof Capra
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Bells theorem dealt a shattering blow to Einsteins position by showing that the conception of reality as consisting of separate parts, joined by local connections, is incompatible with quantum theory... Bells theorem demonstrates that the universe is fundamentally interconnected, interdependent, and inseparable.
Fritjof Capra
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For children, most importantly, being in the garden is something magical.
Fritjof Capra
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Science does not need mysticism and mysticism does not need science but man needs both.
Fritjof Capra
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Organizations need to undergo fundamental changes, both in order to adapt to the new business environment and to become ecologically sustainable.
Fritjof Capra
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Zen phrase says The instant you speak about a thing you miss the mark.
Fritjof Capra
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Knowledge cannot be separated from a certain way of life which becomes its living manifestation. To acquire mystical knowledge means to undergo a transformation one could even say that the knowledge is the transformation.
Fritjof Capra
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If physics leads us today to a world view which is essentially mystical, it returns, in a way, to its beginning, 2,500 years ago... This time, however, it is not only based on intuition, but also on experiments of great precision and sophistication, and on a rigorous and consistent mathematical formalism.
Fritjof Capra
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Mystics understand the roots of the Tao but not its branches scientists understand its branches but not its roots. Science does not need mysticism and mysticism does not need science but man needs both.
Fritjof Capra
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Subatomic particles have no meaning as isolated entities, but can only be understood as interconnections between the preparation of an experiment and the subsequent measurement.
Fritjof Capra
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Both the physicist and the mystic want to communicate their knowledge, and when they do so with words their statements are paradoxical and full of logical contradictions.
Fritjof Capra