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Doing work which has to be done over and over again helps us recognize the natural cycles of growth and decay, of birth and death, and thus become aware of the dynamic order of the universe. Ordinary work, as the root meaning of the term indicates, is work that is in harmony with the order we perceive in the natural environment.

Fritjof Capra

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Fritjof Capra
Age: 85
Born: 1939
Born: February 1
Environmentalist
Physicist
Writer
Vienna
Austria
Natural
Roots
Decay
Death
Ordinary
Root
Helping
Meaning
Perceive
Order
Birth
Helps
Become
Growth
Recognize
Done
Environment
Harmony
Indicates
Work
Term
Thus
Dynamic
Universe
Aware
Cycles

More quotes by 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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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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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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With the subsequent strong support from cybernetics , the concepts of systems thinking and systems theory became integral parts of the established scientific language, and led to numerous new methodologies and applications -- systems engineering, systems analysis, systems dynamics, and so on.
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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The more we study the major problems of our time, the more we come to realise that they cannot be understood in isolation. They are systemic problems, which means that they are interconnected and interdependent.
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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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The more complex the network is, the more complex its pattern of interconnections, the more resilient it will be.
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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Subatomic particles do not exist but rather show 'tendencies to exist', and atomic events do not occur with certainty at definite times and in definite ways, but rather show 'tendencies to occur'.
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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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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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 modern physics, the universe is experienced as a dynamic inseparable whole which always includes the observer in an essential way.
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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Tektology was the first attempt in the history of science to arrive at a systematic formulation of the principles of organization operating in living and nonliving systems.
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
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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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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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Before the 1940s the terms system and systems thinking had been used by several scientists, but it was Bertalanffy's concepts of an open system and a general systems theory that established systems thinking as a major scientific movement
Fritjof Capra