Environmental Philosophy and Ethics

14. Postmodern Science

2. Albert Einstein, 1879-1955

  • Challenges to mechanistic science.
  • 1905. Special theory of relativity. Velocity of Light.
  • 1915. General theory of relativity.
  • 1905-1911. Particle (quantum) structure of light. Jumps in energy levels.
  • 1927. Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle: Position and momentum of a particle can't both be known simultaneously.

3. Fritjof Capra

  • Elmwood Institute founder.
  • The Tao of Physics, 1975
  • The Turning Point, 1982
  • Paradigm shift to deep ecological worldview.
  • holism, instrinsic value, systems approach, male female equality.

4. Fritjof Capra

  • The Tao of Physics (1975).
  • Primacy of process over parts.
  • Bootstrap theory of particle physics--Goeffrey Chew.
  • Particles as energy fields.
  • Parallels with eastern philosophy.

5. Fritjof Capra

  • The Turning Point: Science, Society, and the Rising Culture (1982).
  • I Ching. "After a time of decay comes the turning point. . . . There is movement but it is not brought about by force."
  • Crisis and transformation.
  • New vision of reality: systems view of life.

6. David Bohm, 1917-1992

  • Wholeness and the Implicate Order (1980).
  • Explicate (mechanistic, 3-D) versus implicate order.
  • Enfolding-unfolding universe. 
  • Implicate to explicate order.
  • Holomovement: flow of energy; multidimensional.

7. James Lovelock, born 1919

  • Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth (1979).
  • Gaia hypothesis: "The biosphere is a self-regulating entity with the capacity to keep our planet healthy by controlling the chemical and physical environment."
  • Life maintains conditions favorable to its continuance.

8. Gaia Hypothesis

  • "The earth's living matter, air, oceans, and land form a complex system which can be seen as a single organism and which has the capacity to keep our planet a fit place for life."

9. Ilya Prigogine, 1917-2003

  • Prigogine and Stengers. Order out of Chaos: Man's New Dialogue with Nature (1984).
  • Most systems are open (biological and social) not closed (mechanical).
  • Dissipative structures: like whirlpools.
  • Far-from-equilibrium thermodynamics: small perturbations can cause breakup and reorganization.

10. Ilya Prigogine

  • From Being to Becoming: Time and Complexity in the Physical Sciences.
  • Far-from-equilibrium thermodynamics.
  • Reorganization of matter and energy.
  • New enzymes, new cellular structures, new societies.

11. Edward Lorenz, 1917-2008

  • The Butterfly Effect.
  • AAAS, December 29, 1972.
  • "Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly's Wings in Brazil set off a Tornado in Texas?"
  • Sensitive dependence on initial conditions.

12. Edward Lorenz

  • Weather patterns are chaotic, hence unpredictable.
  • Irregularity is a fundamental property of the atmosphere.
  • Most environmental and biological systems are nonlinear and chaotic.

13. James Gleick

  • Chaos: Making a New Science (1987).
  • New York Times editor.
  • Popularized chaos theory.
  • Fractals: Self-similar patterns within patterns.
  • Trees, coastlines, snowflakes, noise.

14. Ralph Abraham

  • Mathematician. U.C. Santa Cruz.
  • A founder of chaos theory.
  • "It's the paradigm shift of all paradigm, shifts."

15. Ralph Abraham

  • Chaos, Gaia, Eros (1994).
  • Dedicated to Hypatia, A.D. 370-415.
  • "This book is devoted to the Orphic tradition and to its recovery from the suppressions of the past 6000 years."

16. Ralph Abraham

  • Hesiod: "Chaos was born first . . . and after her came Gaia, the broad-breasted, the firm seat of all . . . and Eros, the fairest of the deathless gods."
  • Chaos revolution (1975); Gaia Hypothesis (1973); Erodynamics (1979).
  • Epochs: Static, Periodic, Chaotic.

17. Mitchell Waldrop

  • Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos (1992).
  • Santa Fe Institute, N.M.
  • Creation of a new science: origins of complex structures from galaxies to bacteria to societies and economies.

18. Murray Gell-Mann

  • Santa Fe Institute, born 1929.
  • Nobel Prize, 1969.
  • Predicted the existence of the quark.
  • Constituents of neutrons and protons.
  • Types: up, down, strange, charmed, top, bottom.
  • Evidence of top quark detected, 1994.

19. Murray Gell-Mann

  • The Quark and the Jaguar: Adventures in the Simple and the Complex (1994).
  • "The world of the quark has everything to do with a jaguar circling in the night." Arthur Sze.
  • Quark, a simple entity; Jaguar a complex organism; Society a complex adaptive system.

20. Stuart Kauffman

  • Santa Fe Institute; At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity. (1995)
  • The science of complex systems offers hope for a new story.
  • Emergence of life as a complex adaptive system.

21. Daniel Botkin

  • Discordant Harmonies (1990).
  • Nature as a Divine Order.
  • Earth as a Fellow Creature.
  • Nature as the Great Machine.
  • Plotinus: discordant harmony. The simultaneous movements of many tones, sometimes harsh, sometimes pleasing.