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The Organic Revolution in Science and Implications for
Science and Spirituality - "Future Visions" State of the World
Forum, September 4-10, New York
Mae-Wan Ho - Institute of Science in Society and Dept.
of Biological Sciences, Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA,
UK
1. The machine metaphor has dominated the west for at least two thousand
years before it was officially toppled by relativity theory and quantum
physics at the turn of the 20th century. Einstein's relativity theory
shattered the Newtonian universe of absolute space and time into a
profusion of space-time frames in which space and time are no longer
neatly separable. Furthermore, each space-time is tied to a particular
observer, who therefore, not only has a different clock, but also a
different map. Stranger still - for western science, that is, as it comes
as little surprise to other knowledge systems, or to the artists in all
cultures - quantum theory demanded that we stop seeing things as separate
solid objects with definite (simple) locations in space and time. Instead,
they are de-localised, indefinite, mutually entangled entities that change
and evolve like organisms.
2. Leading thinkers of the age such as Henri Bergson, Alfred North
Whitehead, J.S. Haldane and Joseph Needham were inspired to develop a
science of the organism appropriate to the new understanding of nature,
that would transform the entire knowledge system of the west. Whitehead,
in particular, declared that we cannot understand nature except as an
organism that participates fully in knowing. For me, that was perhaps the
most significant turning point. It was to re-affirm what we all knew in
our heart of hearts: that we are inextricably within nature; and that we
participate in shaping and creating nature, for better or for worse.
3. To participate fully is to do so with all of oneself: intellect and
feeling, body and spirit. That is the real meaning of the mutual
entanglement of 'observer' and the 'observed' in quantum theory. It
matters how we know or 'observe', not only because it changes the entire
character of our knowledge, but because the act of knowing transforms both
the knower and the known. That is why we must never know with violence,
but always with sensitivity and compassion.
4. The project to develop a science of the organism was interrupted and
eclipsed, however, by the rise of molecular biology since the 1950s.
Biology was taken back down the road of mechanical reductionism, to
culminate, today, in a genetic engineering technology that has the
potential to destroy all life on earth and to undermine every spiritual
and social value that makes us human. We need to reject reductionist
biology not just because of its inherent dangers, but because there are
positive, rational, life-enhancing, fulfilling and aesthetic reasons for
embracing the organic alternative.
5. Fortunately for us, the 'organic revolution' has survived. It has
been gathering momentum across the disciplines within the past 20 years,
from the study of nonlocal phenomena in quantum physics and nonlinear
dynamics in mathematics to complexity in ecosystems, the fluid genome in
the new genetics and consciousness in brain science. The message
everywhere is the same: nature is nonlinear, dynamic, interconnected and
interdependent. The linear, static paradigm of mechanistic science based
on interactions between separate, independent parts is a travesty of
organic reality.
6. All the elements for a science of the organism are there between the
disciplines, precisely as envisaged by the pioneer thinkers. I have put
some of the key elements together in my book, The Rainbow and The Worm,
The Physics of Organisms, first published in 1993 and in 2nd edition in
1998, which is patterned after Erwin Schrödinger's What is Life? It
attempts to explain organic wholeness and complexity based on contemporary
quantum physics and non-equilibrium thermodynamics. It gives new insights
into physiological regulation, bioenergetics and cell biology, many of
which were predicted by the pioneers. Also consistent with their vision,
the new science of the organism promises to restore all the qualities that
have been exorcised from life and nature, to reaffirm and extend our
intuitive, poetic, and even romantic notions of nature's unity.
7. From the organic perspective, there is no separation between science
and spirituality. This stems from the participatory knowing that it
entails, in which the knower places her undivided being within the known,
which is ultimately all of nature. And, like all participatory knowledge
common to indigenous traditions worldwide, it is an unfragmented whole, at
once intensely practical, aesthetic and spiritual. It is a coherent and
comprehensive knowledge system whereby one lives and whereby one
participates in co-creating reality along with all other beings.
8. There is a two-way connection between science and society. Science is
shaped by the politics of society and in turn reinforces it, unless we
consciously choose otherwise. The mechanistic paradigm projects a
Hobbesian-Darwinian view of nature as isolated atoms jostling and
competing in the struggle for survival of the fittest. And through the
self-fulfilling prophecy, it has created a dysfunctional social milieu and
a laissez-faire globalized economy which is destroying our planet and
failing to serve the physical and spiritual needs of the vast majority of
humanity. That was why fifty thousand took to the streets at the World
Trade Organization conference in Seattle in November, 1999.
9. Science shapes society not just through the technologies it creates,
but through values and assumptions that motivate human beings, define
social norms and inform the policies of nations. That is where I believe
the science of the organism may hold the key to a more sustainable and
spiritual world.
10. I take science, in the most general terms, to be any active
knowledge system shared by a society of human beings that gives both
meaning to their way of life and the means whereby to live sustainably
with nature. Science, therefore, has an overriding obligation to be
socially responsive and responsible. It is inseparable from the entire
culture of society and its highest moral values, which define the public
good. Sustainability is a moral imperative to achieve and safeguard the
manifold conditions of a healthy and fulfilling life for present and
future generations.
11. What does it mean to be an organism? To be an organism is to be
possessed of the irrepressible tendency towards being whole; towards being
part of a larger whole. One of the key concepts in understanding organic
wholeness is coherence, the ideal of which is quantum coherence. Quantum
coherence aptly describes the perfect coordination of living activities in
our body, and there is growing empirical evidence that it may indeed
underlie living organization, as described in my book.
12. To get a feeling for the organism, imagine an immense
super-orchestra, with instruments spanning the widest spectrum of
dimensions from molecular piccolos of 10-9 meter up to a bassoon or a bass
viol of a meter or more, performing over a musical range of seventy-two
octaves. Incredible as it may seem, this super-orchestra never ceases to
play out our individual lifelines, with a certain recurring rhythm and
beat, but in endless variations that never repeat exactly. Always, there
is something new, something made up as it goes along. It can change key,
change tempo, change tune perfectly, as it feels like, or as the situation
demands, spontaneously and without hesitation. What this super-orchestra
plays is the most exquisite jazz, jazz being to classical music what
quantum is to classical physics. One might call it quantum jazz. There is
a certain structure, but the real art is in the endless improvisations,
where each and every player, however small, enjoys maximum freedom of
expression, while maintaining perfectly in step and in tune with the
whole. There is no leader or conductor, and the music is written as it is
played.
13. What I have given is an accurate description of the totality of
molecular, cellular and physiological reality of the ideal, healthy
organism, which serves to illustrate the radical, paradoxical nature of
the organic whole. It is thick with activity over all scales, and both
local freedom and global cohesion are maximized, which is generally
thought to be impossible within the mechanistic paradigm. In the coherent
organism, global and local, part and whole, are mutually implicated and
mutually entangled from moment to moment. Each is as much in control as it
is sensitive and responsive.
14. When we extend this notion of mutual entanglement of part and whole,
as Whitehead did, to societies, ecosystems and ultimately to all of
nature, we begin to recover the profoundly holistic ecological traditions
of indigenous cultures worldwide. The coherence of organisms is
quintessentially pluralistic and diverse, and at every level. It is so,
from the tens of thousands of proteins and other macromolecules that make
up a cell to the many kinds of cells that constitute tissues and organs;
from the variations that characterize natural populations to the profusion
of species that make a thriving ecological community. And most of all, the
kaleidoscopic, multicultural earth that makes life enchanting and exciting
for us all.
15. Part and whole, individual and global are mutually entangled and
mutually sustaining. That is the basis of the universal moral imperative
that we do unto others what we would have others do unto us. It marks the
beginning of a genuinely new world order that celebrates and nurtures
individual diversity and freedom with universal love.
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