Living Systems

By: Fritjof Capra

Narrated by: Michael Toms

A new scientific understanding of life at all levels of living systems is currently evolving. At its heart is the awareness that everything is interconnected and interrelated. Out of this awareness comes the greatest challenge of our times--creating sustainable communities. While we have been told for decades that we live in the Information Age, Fritjof Capra says, "the idea that success in the 21st century will depend on access to information is hype; it's nonsense. There is enough information--we have an information overload. Success and survival in the 21st century will depend on ecological awareness and on new ideas of how to change our technology and ways of doing business. Our children need to learn values, ideas, knowledge and wisdom--not just how to use computers to access more and more information." Fritjof Capra, Ph.D., physicist and systems theorist, is a founding director of the Center for Ecoliteracy in Berkeley, California, which promotes ecology and systems thinking in primary and secondary education. He is on the faculty of Schumacher College, an international center for ecological studies in England, and frequently gives management seminars for top executives. Dr. Capra is the author of five international bestsellers, The Tao of Physics (Shambhala 1975), The Turning Point (Simon & Schuster 1982), Uncommon Wisdom (1988), The Web of Life (1996), and The Hidden Connections (Anchor 2004), and The Science of Leonardo (Doubleday 2007)

Topics explored in this dialogue include: how you can address the greatest challenge of our times, the role of the arts in deep ecology, how the shift from linear thinking to systems thinking in the sciences affects us now and in the future, understanding the complexity of living systems and life itself, why creativity is the driving force of evolution, what religion and deep ecology have in common, what's really behind the information age, and the mathematics of comp...

©1997 New Dimensions Foundation (P)2008 New Dimensions Foundation