Derrumbe y regeneración · Volumen I · Capítulo 2
La teoría de sistemas, un paradigma científico alternativo
706 referencias · Numeración 1–706
Leer el capítulo de muestra →
Jordi Pigem (2013) – La nova realitat: De l’economicisme a la consciència quàntica – Editorial Kairós – ISBN-13 : 978-8499882307 – 232 Págs.
“No som espectadors d’un món d’objectes, sino coautors i cocreadors d’un món de relacions.” (p. 117)Richard York (2006) – Ecological paradoxes: William Stanley Jevons and the paperless office – Human Ecology Review 13:143–147 – Department of Sociology, University of Oregon
“The Jevons Paradox is based on the observation that an improvement in the efficiency with which a natural resource is used is often associated with an increase in the consumption of that resource. Similarly, the paperless Office Paradox is based on the observation that the development of substitutes for a natural resource is not always associated with a decline in consumption of that resource, and in fact may occasionally lead to an increase in the consumption of that resource. These two paradoxes call into question whether technological advances alone will necessarily lead to conservation of natural resources.”William S. Jevons (1865) – The Coal Question – Macmillan and Co – http://oilcrash.net/
media/pdf/The_Coal_Q uestion.pdf –
“It is wholly a confusion of ideas to suppose that the economical use of fuel is equivalent to a diminished consumption. The very contrary is the truth.”Richard York, Lazarus Adua, Brett Clark (2022) – The rebound effect and the challenge of moving beyond fossil fuels: A review of empirical and theoretical research – WIREs Climate Change e782 https://doi.org/10.1
002/wcc.782 – Department of Sociology and Environmental Studies Program, University of Oregon; Department of Sociology, University of Utah
“We provide an overview of key empirical research, which establishes that large rebounds in energy consumption connected with rising energy efficiency are common across various units of analysis, including the national, subnational (e.g., states/provinces/cities; power plants), and household levels […] We emphasize the important distinction between direct effects, indirect effects, and economy-wide effects in regard to rebounds, particularly those connected with macro-structural forces, for understanding the causes and implications of the Jevons paradox.” Jay W. Forrester (1971) – Counterintuitive Behavior of Social Systems – Technology Review – Massachusetts Institute of Technology – http://www.constitut
ion.org/ps/cbss.pdf
“Concepts of feedback system behavior apply sweepingly from physical systems through social systems. Feedback system ideas were first developed and applied to engineering systems. Understanding closed-loop (feedback) systems has now reached practical usefulness in social systems.”Rudolf Carnap (1934,1997) – The Unity of Science – St Augustine’s Press – ISBN-13 : 978-1855063914 – 101 Págs.
“The essence of the matter in dispute can be stated as the question whether the natural laws which suffice to explain all inorganic phenomena can also be a sufficient explanation in the region of the organic. A negative answer to this question, such as supplied by vitalists, necessitates the formulation of specific and irreducible biological laws. The Viennese circle is of the opinion that biological research in its present form is not adequate to answer the question. We therefore expect the decision to be made in the course of the future development of empirical research. ” (p. 68)Karl J. Åström and P.R. Kumar (2014) – Control: A perspective – Automatica 50:3–43 https://doi.org/10.1
016/j.automatica.201 3.10.012 – Department of Automatic Control, Lund University; Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering – http://www.smp.uq.ed u.au/people/YoniNaza rathy/Control4406_20 14/resources/AstromK umarControlPerspecti ve2014.pdf
“Control is a field whose progress has been punctuated by several key theoretical contributions. These have involved a variety of mathematical sub-disciplines, such as complex analysis, differential equations, probability theory, differential geometry, optimization and graph theory. As such, control is currently one of the most mathematized fields of engineering.”George P. Richardson (1991) – Feedback Thought in Social Science and Systems Theory – University of Pennsylvania Press – Professor of Systems Science and Mathematics, State University of New York – ISBN-13 : 978-0812213324 – 380 Págs.
“When in 1947 Norbert Wiener christened the newly founded discipline (he had not known that in 1834 A.-M. Ampere had proposed cybernetiqne as a term for the science of government3), he made use of the Greek word for steersman, Kv$epvr}Tr\s. He had come upon this through the etymology of the word governor (English to govern-Latin gubernare-Greek nvpcpvav), the familiar term for the first popular feedback device. ” (p. 94)Mark Davidson (1983) – Uncommon Sense: The Life and Thought of Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1901-1972), Father of General Systems Theory – J. P. Tarcher, Inc. – ISBN-13: 978-0874771657 – 248 Págs.
“Biologist/philosoph
er Ludwig von Bertalanffy may be the least known major thinker and theoretician of the twentieth century. Bertalanffy left behind a precious legacy: a new way of «seeing» and thinking that he called General Systems Theory. GST shows us how to understand organic and organizational complexities and is a guide for effectively bringing about change.” Arthur Koestler (1978) – Janus: A Summing Up – Hutchinson – ISBN-13 : 978-0091321000 – 384 Págs.
“The holons which constitute a living organism or a social body are, as we have seen, Janus-like entities: the face turned towards the higher levels in the holarchy is that of a subordinate part in a larger system; the face turned towards the lower levels shows a quasi-autonomous whole in its own right. This implies that every holon is possessed of two opposite tendencies or potentials: an integrative tendency to function as part of the larger whole, and a self-assertive tendency to preserve its individual autonomy. ” (p. 57)Joanna Macy (1991) – Mutual causality in Buddhism and General Systems Theory: The Dharma of Living Systems – State University of New York – Adjunct Professor, California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco + Starr King School for the Ministry, Berkeley – ISBN-13: 978-0791406373 – 256 Págs.
“The system, then, is Janus-faced: as a whole it faces inward, as a subwhole it looks outward. As such, it is what system thinkers term a ‘holon’. Philosopher-novelist Arthur Koestler coined the term for this systemic property, adding to the Greek holes (whole) the suffix on, which, as in neutron or proton, suggests a particle or a part.” (p. 77)Thomas S. Kuhn (1962) – The Structure of Scientific Revolutions – University of Chicago Press
“… the act of judgment that leads scientists to reject a previously accepted theory is always based upon more than a comparison of that theory with the world. The decision to reject one paradigm is always the decision to accept another, and the judgment leading to that decision involves the comparison of both paradigms with nature and with each other.”Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1947,1968) – General System Theory: Foundations, Development, Applications – George Braziller – University of Alberta – 153 Págs. – https://monoskop.org
/images/7/77/Von_Ber talanffy_Ludwig_Gene ral_System_Theory_19 68.pdf – “There exist models, principles and laws that apply to generalized systems or their subclasses irrespective of their particular kind, the nature of the component elements, and the relations or «forces» between them. We postulate a new discipline called General System Theory. General System Theory is a logico-mathematical field whose task is the formulation and derivation of those general principles that are applicable to «systems» in general. In this way, exact formulations of terms such as wholeness and sum, differentiation, progressive mechanization, centralization, hierarchial order, finality and equifinality, etc., become possible, terms which occur in all sciences dealing with «systems» and imply their logical homology.” Fritjof Capra (1996) – La trama de la vida – Editorial Anagrama – ISBN-13: 978-8433973436 – 368 Págs.
“Desde el punto de vista de la historia del pensamiento sistémico, uno de los aspectos más importantes del estudio exhaustivo de los bucles de retroalimentación realizado por los cibernéticos, fue el reconocimiento de que describen patrones de organización. La causalidad circular de un bucle de retroalimentación no implica que los elementos del correspondiente sistema físico se encuentren dispuestos en círculo. Los bucles de retroalimentación son patrones abstractos de relaciones inmanentes en estructuras físicas o en actividades de organismos vivos. Por primera vez en la historia del pensamiento sistémico, los cibernéticos distinguieron claramente el patrón de organización de un sistema de su estructura física, distinción crucial para la teoría contemporánea de los sistemas vivos.” (p. 829)Alexander Bogdanov (1922,1980) – Essays in Tektology: The General Science of Organization – Intersystems Publications – Russian Academy of Sciences – ISBN13: 978091410506
0 – 314 Págs. – https://monoskop.org /images/5/51/Bogdano v_Alexander_Essays_i n_Tektology.pdf
“Systems inquiry is grounded in a philosophical base of a systems view of the world. It has formulated theoretical postulates, conceptual images and paradigms. and developed strategies and tools of systems methodology. Systems inquiry is both conclusion oriented (knowledge production) and decision oriented (knowledge utilization). It uses both analytic and synthetic modes of thinking and it enables u.s to understand and work with ever increasing complexities that surround us and which we are part of. ”Alexander Bogdanov (1922,1980) – Essays in Tektology: The General Science of Organization – Intersystems Publications – Russian Academy of Sciences – ISBN13: 978091410506
0 – 314 Págs. – https://monoskop.org /images/5/51/Bogdano v_Alexander_Essays_i n_Tektology.pdf
“Tektology deals with organizational experiences not of this or that specialized field, but of all these fields together. In other words, tektology embraces the subject matter of all the other sciences and of all the human experience giving rise to these sciences, but only from the aspect of method; that is, it is interested only in the modes of organization of this subject matter. ”George Gorelik (1980) – Bogdanov’s Tektology: Its Basic Concepts and Relevance to Modern Generalizing Sciences – Human Systems Management 1:327-337 https://doi.org/10.3
233/HSM-1980-1406 – University of British Columbia
“Bogdanov’s Tektology represents a unique contribution to the field of organizational theory and practice. It is a general organizational science which is concerned with universal structural regularities, general types of systems, general laws of their transformation and the basic laws of organization of any elements in nature, practice and cognition […] Solutions obtained by this method are only general solutions, since they refer only to those variables and parameters of the problem which were initially taken into account.”Alexander Bogdanov (1907,2001) – The Struggle for Viability – Xlibris Corporation – Russian Academy of Sciences – ISBN-13 : 978-1401041946 – 344 Págs.
“But this does not lessen the enormous significance of general solutions. They have a directing and governing role…. The regularity which governs the general model serves as the starting point and the main path for the investigation of special problems. These problems are solved by introducing complicating, special conditions and features one by one until the available information is thus exhausted.”
[Citado en George Gorelik (1983)]Vladimir Lepskiy and Elena Malakhova (2022) – Alexander Bogdanov’s tektology, anticipating the evolution of social systems control – Systems Research and Behavioral Science https://doi.org/ – Institute of Philosophy, Russian Academy of Sciences + National Research Nuclear University MEPhI (Moscow Engineering Physics Institute)
“Within the framework of our study, the individual aspects related to the trends in the development of control issues are considered separately. Our results suggest that Bogdanov’s ideas lay in foundation of contemporary concepts associated with leaving behind the opposition of ‘subject–object’ in control science and the transition to the consideration of equal relations between various active elements of systems and environment.”Örsan Şenalp and Gerald Midgley (2023) – Alexander Bogdanov and the question of unity: An emerging research agenda – Systems Research and Behavioral Science https://doi.org/10.1
002/sres.2923 – Institute of Logic, Language and Computation, Faculty of Humanities, University of Amsterdam + Centre for Systems Studies, Faculty of Business, Law and Politics, University of Hull; Centre for Systems Studies, Faculty of Business, Law and Politics, University of Hull; Department of Informatics, Faculty of Technology, Linnaeus University
“We propose a research agenda to support the recovery of Alexander Bogdanov’s philosophical and systemic thinking that culminated in his magnum opus, Tektology […] It is not unusual for these ideas to be grouped under the umbrella terms systems science or systems thinking, which are two ways to present a single systems paradigm, and we will explain why its “unity” is both necessary and problematic. Bringing Bogdanov’s work back to address the unity question can help us to progress toward unity in diversity.»Erich Jantsch (1980) – The Self-Organizing Universe: Scientific and Human Implications of the Emerging Paradigm of Evolution – Butterworth-Heineman
n – Center for Research in Management Science, University of California, Berkeley – ISBN-13 : 978-0080243122 – 343 Págs.
“Autopoiesis refers to the characteristic of living systems to continuously renew themselves and to regulate this process in such a way that the integrity of their structure is maintained […] In the more than 3000 million years before the appearance of the first multicellular organisms, three main levels of autopoietic existence appear: dissipative structures, prokaryotes and eukaryotes. In macroevolution, however, the identification of autopoietic levels is more difficult. Nevertheless it seems that the prokaryotes are matched on the macroscopic branch by the autopoietic Gaia system.” (p. 7,131)Ervin László (2021) – Understanding Oneness: How Science and Spirituality See the World – World Futures. The Journal of New Paradigm Research 77:155-162 https://doi.org/10.1
080/02604027.2020.18 71165 – The Laszlo Institute of New Paradigm Research – https://thelaszloins titute.com/wp-conten t/uploads/2021/03/Un derstanding-Oneness- How-Science-and-Spir ituality-See-the-Wor ld.pdf
“There is design behind the evolution of the universe, but it may not be design exercised by an extra-universal, transcendental Being. It could be, and most plausible is, not a consciously injected design, but a system of laws that together introduce nonrandomness into otherwise random processes […] The attractor at work in the universe appears to be a formative influence that orients the state of the universe toward forms and elements of integration, coherence, and order. This attractor is best described by the term Stanislav Grof used in regard to the orientation of the subconscious mind toward order: “holotropic” (made up of holos—meaning wholeness or whole in Greek—and tropein, meaning oriented in some direction). We can say that the universe at large is governed by a holotropic attractor, as manifested by its overall orientation toward coherence and wholeness. This attractor works statistically and not as a mechanical principle. Whenever there is an element of freedom in the selection among alternatives, there is a bias built into the universe that selects toward those alternatives that enhance coherence and wholeness. ”Ervin László (2020) – Reconnecting to Spiritual Experience: The Inner Path to Our Salvation – Watkins Magazine – https://www.watkinsm
agazine.com/reconnec ting-to-spiritual-ex perience
“The “fifth force” would account for some otherwise puzzling observations, including the presence of complex and coherent systems in the universe. The logical and minimally speculative assumption is that the “fifth force” is an attractor […] The attractor in question would be a fifth force, complementing and completing the action of the four known forces. Given that it produces a tendency—a tropism—toward the creation of coherent whole-systems in space and time, we call it the “holotropic attractor.” […] Regardless of under what label we apprehend it, we need to recognize that such a force exists in the universe. It complements the known forces of nature and accounts for the presence of the complex and coherent systems that we find in the universe.”Spyros Makridakis (1977) – The second law of systems – International Journal of General Systems 4:1-12 https://doi.org/10.1
080/0308107770896065 0 – University of Nikosia
“The SLS [second law of systems] postulates a natural tendency of both organic and inorganic matters to differentiate themselves from uniformity. This tendency results in a set of elements in mutual and lasting interaction, i.e., systems, with various degrees of organization. It was said that this organization is achieved because of some miraculous and mysterious «force» which causes the elements of a system to cohere. This «force» is universal inasmuch as it holds the elements of all known systems, from atoms to galactic clusters, together in «lasting» types of relationship. ”Illya Prigogine and G. Nicolis (1967) – On symmetry-breaking instabilities in dissipative systems – The Journal of Chemical Physics 46:3542 https://doi.org/10.1
063/1.1841255 – Faculté des Sciences de l’Université Libre de Bruxelles; Institute for the Study of Metals, The University of Chicago
“We demonstrate that for well‐defined values of the constraints such as the chemical affinities of the over‐all reactions and the constants involved, such systems can indeed become unstable. Such an instability is investigated following an example of autocatalytic reactions first proposed by Turing. The major feature of this instability is its symmetry breaking character. Indeed, beyond the transition point the stable steady state is inhomogenous, the diffusion compensating the differences in reaction rates.” The existence of such instabilities has far‐reaching consequences which are briefly discussed.»Adrian Bejan and Sylvie Lorente (2011) – The constructal law and the evolution of design in nature – Physics of Life Reviews 8:209–240 https://doi.org/10.1
016/j.plrev.2011.05. 010 – Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, Duke University; Laboratory of Materials and Durability of Constructions, University of Toulouse
“The constructal law accounts for the universal phenomenon of generation and evolution of design (configuration, shape, structure, pattern, rhythm). This phenomenon is observed across the board, in animate, inanimate and human systems. The constructal law states the time direction of the evolutionary design phenomenon. It defines the concept of design evolution in physics. Along with the first and second law, the constructal law elevates thermodynamics to a science of systems with configuration. In this article we review the more recent work of our group, with emphasis on the advances made with the constructal law in the natural sciences. Highlighted are the oneness of animate and inanimate designs, the origin of finite-size organs on animals and vehicles, the flow of stresses as the generator of design in solid structures (skeletons, vegetation), the universality and rigidity of hierarchy in all flow systems, and the global design of human flows. Noteworthy is the tapestry of distributed energy systems, which balances nodes of production with networks of distribution on the landscape, and serves as key to energy sustainability and empowerment. At the global level, the constructal law accounts for the geography and design of human movement, wealth and communications.”Edgar Morin (2014) – From the Concept of System to the Paradigm of Complexity – Man of the World – Director of Research at the Centre National de Recherche Scientifique – http://manoftheword.
files.wordpress.com/ 2013/07/morin-paradi gm-of-complexity.pdf
“In most natural physical systems, and in all biological systems, organization is active what one might call organizaction. That is, it includes the supply, storage, distribution, and control of energy, as well as its expenditure and dissipation through work. In a manner of speaking, organizaction produces both entropy […] and negentropy […] . Therefore, we obviously must conceive of the relation between entropy and negentropy in a complex manner-not as two terms in Manichaean opposition, but rather as bound inseparably one to the other This leads to the necessity of including, not excluding, the observer in the observation […] This, then, sets in motion a series of consequences which lead to the complexification of our very mode of perceiving/conceiving the phenomenal world […] We begin to catch a glimpse of a new form of rationality.” Heinz von Foerster (1960,2015) – Las semillas de la cibernética – Editorial Gedisa – ISBN-13 : 978-8474324143 – 224 Págs. – https://monoskop.org
/images/2/24/Von_Foe rster_Heinz_Las_semi llas_de_la_ciberneti ca_1991.pdf
“El efecto de la inclusión del sujeto observador y el desvío de la atención de las nociones a los usuarios de las nociones (lo cual enriquecía a las nociones mismas) transformó a la cibernética en una epistemología, una disciplina que tenía algo que decir no solamente sobre la estructura ontológica de la realidad sino sobre el conocimiento de esa realidad, sus límites y posibilidades, sus dificultades y condicionamientos.” (p. 24)Heinz von Foerster (1960) – Observing Systems – Intersystems Publucations – ISBN-13 : 978-0914105190 – 331 Págs.
“Von Foerster’s framework has two fundamental principles. First, we are to understand by cognition the described behaviour or a particular class of systems: those which satisfy for their components a specific kind of internal coherence (or eigenbehaviour). Second, we are to understand our own knowledge as resulting from similar kinds of mechanisms. These two levels are inextricably connected: the study of mechanisms proper of first order systems (those we study), and the study of how second-order systems (those we are) are reflected in such descriptions. This mutually specifying pair, and all its details, constitutes the space where cognition is to be properly understood. ”Fritjof Capra (1996) – La trama de la vida – Editorial Anagrama – ISBN-13: 978-8433973436 – 368 Págs.
“La teleología -del griego telos, «propósito»- afirma que el agente causal postulado por los vitalistas es determinista, que hay designio y propósito en la naturaleza. En su encarnizada oposición a los argumentos vitalistas y teleológicos, los mecanicistas se debaten aún con la vieja metáfora de Dios como relojero. La actualmente emergente teoría de los sistemas vivos ha trascendido finalmente el debate entre mecanicistas y vitalistas.” (p. 124-125)Edgar Morin (2014) – From the Concept of System to the Paradigm of Complexity – Man of the World, 03/12/2014 – Director of Research, Centre National de Recherche Scientifique – http://manoftheword.
files.wordpress.com/ 2013/07/morin-paradi gm-of-complexity.pdf
“We must conceive of organization as (a) the continual reorganization of a system tending toward disorganization; and (b) as continual self-reorganization-that is to say, not just organization, but auto-re-organization .” Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1950) – An Outline of General System Theory – The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 1:134-165 https://doi.org/10.1
093/bjps/I.2.134 – http://www.isnature. org/Events/2009/Summ er/r/Bertalanffy1950 -GST_Outline_SELECT. pdf
«General System Theory […] is a logico-mathematical discipline applicable to all sciences concerned with systems. The fact that certain principles have general applicability to systems explains the occurrence of isomorphic laws in different scientific fields. Just as Aristotelian logic was a fundamental organon for the classificatory sciences of antiquity, so may General System Theory define the general principles of dynamic interaction which appears as the central problem of modern science.”Christian de Quincey (2010,2022) – Naturaleza esencial: El alma de la materia – Ediciones Atalanta – Profesor de consciencia, espiritualidad y cosmología, Universidad John F. Kennedy + Cofundador, Wisdom Academy + Decano de Estudios de la Conciencia, University of Philosophical Research, Los Ángeles – ISBN-13 : 978-8412431551 – 464 Págs.
“Como sucede con la teoría contemporánea de sistemas, el «mecanicismo orgánico» de La ciencia y el mundo moderno no puede explicar la profundidad o dimensión interior de la experiencia o subjetividad en el mundo. ” (p. 261)Alexander László and Stanley Krippner (1998) – Systems Theories: Their Origins, Foundations, and Development – En: J.S. Jordan (Ed.), Systems Theories and A Priori Aspects of Perception. Amsterdam: Elsevier Science, 1998. Cap 3:47-74 – http://archive.synto
nyquest.org/elcTree/ resourcesPDFs/System sTheory.pdf
“The method proposed by systems theory is to model complex entities created by the multiple interaction of components by abstracting from certain details of structure and component, and concentrating on the dynamics that define the characteristic functions, properties, and relationships that are internal or external to the system. ”Dennis Sherwood (2002) – Seeing the Forest for the Trees: A Manager’s Guide to Applying Systems Thinking – Nicholas Brealey – ISBN-13 : 978-1857883114 – 228 Págs
“Systems thinking can help you tame the complexity of real-world problems by providing a structured way of balancing a broad, overall view with the selection of the right level of detail, truly allowing you to «see the forest for the trees». Only by taking a broad view can we avoid the twin dangers of a silo mentality-in which a fix ‘here’ simply shifts the problem to ‘there’-and organisational myopia-in which a fix ‘now’ gives rise to a much bigger problem to fix ‘then’.”Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen (1973) – Myths about energy and matter – Growth and Change 10:16-23 https://doi.org/10.1
111/j.1468-2257.1979 .tb00819.x – Visiting Benedum Professor of Energy Economics, Regional Research Institute, West Virginia University + Earhart Foundation
“We may brag about the power of science as much as we like, not only as much as we properly should; but all that science can do for this particular problem is to enable us to have, not a bird’s view, but a worm’s view of our existence. Like a worm, we can see only extremely little in front of us, and often not even that much.”The Biggest Ponzi Scheme In The History Of The World – The Economic Collapse, 23/06/2013 – http://theeconomicco
llapseblog.com/archi ves/the-biggest-ponz i-scheme-in-the-hist ory-of-the-world
“Did you know that you are involved in the most massive Ponzi scheme that has ever existed?”Sharon Astyk (2009) – Formulating a future: the case for antimodernism – Energy Bulletin, 12/04/2009 – Speaking Truth to Power – http://sharonastyk.c
om/2009/04/12/not-a- bug-an-undocumented- feature-the-case-for -anti-modernism-part -i/
“The whole and most fundamental premise of modernity is this that because progress always goes forward, there is no need to consider the future.”Gregory Bateson (1991) – A Sacred Unity. Further Steps to an Ecology of Mind – HarperCollins – ISBN-13 : 978-0062501004
“[A system is] any unit containing feedback structure and therefore competent to process information. ” (p. 260)Kelley E. Dugan et al (2022) – Systems thinking assessments in engineering: A systematic literature review – Systems Research and Behavioral Science 39:840-866 https://doi.org/10.1
002/sres.2808 – Department of Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Michigan – https://onlinelibrar y.wiley.com/doi/epdf /10.1002/sres.2808 – 4 autores
“Across disciplines, there are many different definitions of systems thinking, as well as numerous lists of systems thinking skills (Booth Sweeney & Sterman, 2000; Kordova & Frank, 2018; Rehmann et al., 2011; Tomko et al., 2017). One commonly cited definition describes systems thinking as “a discipline for seeing wholes. It is a framework for seeing interrelationships rather than things, for seeing patterns of change rather than static ‘snapshots.’ It is a set of general principles […] It is also a set of specific tools and techniques” (Senge, 1990, p. 68). Such general foundational definitions, combined with the development of systems thinking in several disciplines, had led to a proliferation of varying definitions of systems thinking.”Mario Bunge (2004) – How does it work? The search for explanatory mechanisms – Philosophy of the Social Sciences 34:182-210 https://doi.org/10.1
177/0048393103262 – Department of Philosophy, McGill University
“The twin concepts of system and mechanism are so central in modern science, whether natural, social, or biosocial, that their use has spawned a whole ontology, which I have called systemism. According to this view, every thing in the universe is, was, or will be a system or a component of one. For instance, the electron that has just been knocked off an atom on the tip of my nose is about to be captured by a molecule in the air. Likewise, the prisoner who just escaped from the county jail is about to be either recaptured or absorbed by a family or a gang. There are no permanent strays or isolates. ” (p. 190)Mario Bunge (1980) – Epistemología. Curso de actualización – Siglo XXI de España Editores – ISBN-13:978-96823208
04 – 275 Págs.
“Un sistema es un objeto complejo cuyas partes o componentes están relacionadas de modo tal que el objeto se comporta en ciertos respectos como una unidad y no como un mero conjunto de elementos. Y un sistema concreto es un sistema cuyos componentes son objetos concretos o cosas. ” (p. 99)Carlos de Castro (2019) – Reencontrando a Gaia. A hombros de James Lovelock y Lynn Margulis – Ediciones del Genal – Departamento de Física Aplicada, Universidad de Valladolid – ISBN-13: 97884179743
67 – 269 Págs.
“Margulis dirá que la entidad [np 117: En vez de sistema ella emplea el término entidad que entiendo que es mejor que sistema o estructura, pues estos parecen más objetos que procesos dinámicos. De ahí que, a la vez que empleamos términos como ecosistemas sería bueno utilizar también términos como ecoprocesos, etc.] autopoiética más pequeña es la bacteria, y la más grande es Gaia [np 118: Me atrevería a exclamar: «¡Touché, Margulis!]».” (p. 242,243)Thomas Homer-Dixon – World 3 at 50. What it got right, and what it got wrong – Canadian Association for the Club of Rome, 12/01/2022 – Cascade Institute – https://canadiancor.
com/dr-thomas-homer- dixon-world-3-at-50- what-it-got-right-an d-what-it-got-wrong- cacor-zoom-series/
“What is a “system”? A system consists of: 1. components 2. links between those components, 3. a persistent pattern of relationships among those links, 4. a flow of energy through the links that sustains the pattern, and 5. a boundary of some kind […] In representations of systems, links can stand for: Flows (of material, energy, and/or information between system components); Causal relationships (between state variables); or Semantic or intensional relations between meaningful mental states.”David Bohm (1985) – Hidden Variables and the Implicate Order – Zygon. Journal of Religion and Science 20:111-124 https://doi.org/10.1
111/j.1467-9744.1985 .tb00586.x – Emeritus Professor of Theoretical Physics, Birkbeck College, University of London
“Thus, classically, the whole is merely the result of the parts and their preassigned interactions, so that the primary reality is the set of parts while the behavior of the whole is derived entirely from those parts and their interactions. With the quantum potential, however, the whole has an independent and prior significance, such that, indeed, the whole may be said to organize the parts. In a certain sense, quantum wholeness is thus closer to the organized unity of a living being than it is to that obtained by putting together the parts of a machine. ”Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1950) – An Outline of General System Theory – The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 1:134-165 https://doi.org/10.1
093/bjps/I.2.134 – http://www.isnature. org/Events/2009/Summ er/r/Bertalanffy1950 -GST_Outline_SELECT. pdf
“Reality, in the modern conception, appears as a tremendous hierarchical order of organised entities leading a superposition of many levels, from physical and chemical to biological and sociological systems. Unity of science is granted, not by a utopian reduction of all sciences to physics and chemistry, but by the structural uniformities of the different levels of reality.”F. Günther and Carl Folke (1993 – Characteristics of Nested Living Systems – Journal of Biological Systems 1:257-274 https://doi.org/10.1
142/S021833909300017 3 – Department of Systems Ecology, Stockholm University + The Beijer International Institute of Ecological Economics, The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
“Life is an integrated process of nested living systems. We synthesize and discuss exergy capturing and accumulation of organizational exergy; the structuring of the system towards maximum entropy production and export of high entropy products; autopoiesis; emergent attractors or optimum operating points; characteristics of nested systems and holarcic levels; and the role of working and latent information. It is concluded that it is only possible to describe the livingness of a system in a continuous way and that living matter should be defined by the processes of which it is a part. Hence, from the perspective of self-organizing and nested living systems it is difficult to draw boundaries between living and non-living as well as human and non-human systems. Implications of this worldview is discussed in relation to environmental management.”Ken Wilber (2000) – Integral Psychology: Consciousness, Spirit, Psychology, Therapy – Shambala Publications – ISBN-13 : 978-1570625541 – 311 Págs.
“During the evolutionary process, that which is whole at one stage becomes a part of the whole of the next: whole atoms become parts of molecules, whole molecules become parts of cells, whole cells become parts of organisms […] normal and natural hierarchies can degenerate into pathological hierarchies, into dominator hierarchies. In these cases, an arrogant holon doesn’t want to be both a whole and a part; it wants to be a whole, period.” (p. 152)Gregory Bateson (1979,2013) – Espíritu y naturaleza – Amorrortu Editores – Catedrátio de Antropología, Universidad de California – ISBN-13 : 978-9505185351 – 256 Págs.
“La argumentación de este libro […] presupone que la ciencia es una manera de percibir y de conferir “sentido”, digamos así, a nuestros perceptos. Pero la percepción sólo opera sobre la base de la diferencia […] y toda percepción de diferencia está limitada por un umbral. Las diferencias demasiado pequeñas, o presentadas demasiado lentamente, no son perceptibles. No pueden alimentar la percepción […] En un momento cualquiera, el conocimiento será función de los umbrales de los medios de percepción con que contamos. ” (p. 39,40)Morris Berman (1981) – The Reenchantment of the World – Cornell University Press – ISBN-13: 978-0801492
259 – 368 Págs.
“The differences and transforms (coded versions) of differences are transmitted along closed loops or networks of pathways; the system is circular or more complex […] As Bateson says, all the phenomena we call thought, learning, evolution, ecology, and life occur only in systems that satisfy these criteria […] The circulation of information involves the reduction of randomness, a process that can also be called the creation of negative entropy (entropy is the measure of randomness of a system). If something is redundant, if it possesses a definite pattern, then it is not random and constitutes a source of information. Communication is thus the creation of redundancy, and redundancy is the central epistemological concept in cybernetic theory, which is the science of messages.” (p. 246, 247-249)Russell L. Ackoff (1971) – Towards a system of systems concepts – Management Science 17:661-671 https://doi.org/10.1
287/mnsc.17.11.661 – University of Pennsylvania
“An abstract system is one all of whose elements are concepts. Languages, philosophic systems, and number systems are examples […] In an abstract system the elements are created by defining and the relationships between them are created by assumptions (e.g., axioms and postulates). […] A concrete system is one at least two of whose elements are objects […] In concrete systems establishment of the existence and properties of elements and the nature of the relationships between them requires research with an empirical component in it. ”Richard Mattessich (1982) – The Systems Approach: Its Variety of Aspects – Journal of the American Society for Information Science 33:383-394 https://doi.org/10.1
002/asi.4630330609 – Distinguished Arthur Andersen Co. Professor Faculty of Commerce and Business Administration, University of British Columbia – https://www.academia .edu/23623219/The_sy stems_approach_Its_v ariety_of_aspects “Another decisive feature of this scheme is the classification of systems, according to their goal-oriented behavior, into state-maintaining, goal-seeking, purposive, and purposeful systems. While the first merely reacts (e.g., a simple thermostat system), the second responds by exercising choices of strategies but not of goals (e.g., an automatic pilot); the third pursues different goals, without, however, selecting the goal to be pursued (e.g., a computer programmed to play checkers); finally, the fourth displays will, and thus chooses its own goal (e.g., and organization). Ackoff adds a fifth type, the ideal-seeking system, which, after attaining its goal, proceeds to select another goal even closer to its standard of perfection. These distinctions are important to an understanding of systems and their evolution.” Arturo Rosenblueth, Norbert Wiener and Julian Bigelow (1943) – Behavior, Purpose, and Teleology – Philosophy of Science 10:18–24 https://doi.org/10.1
086/286788 – Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Harvard Medical School
“Purposeful active behavior may be subdivided into two classes: feed-back (or teleologi- cal) and non-feed-back (or non-teleological) The expression feed-back is used by engineers in two different senses […] Feed-back purposeful behavior may again be subdivided. It may be extrapolative (predictive), or it may be non-extrapolative (nonpredictive). ”Gyorgyi Szabo (2017) – The Laszlo Chronicle: A Global Thinker’s Journey from Systems to Consciousness and the Akashic Field – Select Books Inc – Dean of Graduate Studies, Ubiquity University + Executive Director, The Laszlo Institute of New Paradigm Research – ISBN-13 : 978-1590793961 – 320 Págs.
“Closed systems form only a small part of the universe and function like machines. Open systems exchange energy and matter—in other words, they exchange information with their environment. Social or biological systems are considered open systems and cannot be understood in mechanistic terms. ” (p. 48)Richard Mattessich (1982) – The Systems Approach: Its Variety of Aspects – Journal of the American Society for Information Science 33:383-394 https://doi.org/10.1
002/asi.4630330609 – Distinguished Arthur Andersen Co. Professor Faculty of Commerce and Business Administration, University of British Columbia – https://www.academia .edu/23623219/The_sy stems_approach_Its_v ariety_of_aspects
“Empirical Systems Research: […] Typical examples are the contributions by such authors as Parsons (1951, 1960, 1968), Kuhn (1974), and Cavallo (1979) in sociology and social science research; Kaplan (1957), Knorr and Verba (1961), Boulding (1961/1969), McCelland (1961), Rosencrance (1963), Hoos (1972), Krone (1980), and Rosenau (1980) in political science: Kohler (1929), Allport (1960), Rokeach (1960), Harvey (1961), Gochman (1962, 1966), and Piaget (1970) in psychology: Buckley (1967, 1968) in the behavioral sciences in general: Beer (1959, 1967, 1979), Payne et al. (1975), Knight (1979), and Checkland (1981) in the area of management: Boulding (1961/1969) and Aoki (1976) in economics: Bennet et al. (1978), States et” al. (1978), Mulholland (1978), DeSouza (1979), and Huggett (1980) in social ecology, geography, and environmental impact analysis: Fuller (1979) in architecture: Metzler (1977) in neuroscience: Johannides (1979) and Reisman (1979) in health care: O’Neil (1979) in education: Mannheim (1979) in transportation: Townley (1978) in information retrieval: and finally, anthologies of a more general nature, such as Emery (1969), Laszlo (1972b, 1973), and Optner (1973). But the major problems of empirical defined concepts (cf. Rapoport, 1980) and in imprecise systems research still lie in the relative scarcity of operationally defined concepts (cf. Rapoport, 1980) and in imprecise conceptualizations [as Amey (1980) illustrates, for example, with regard to the notion of «steady state»]. ”Arturo Rosenblueth, Norbert Wiener and Julian Bigelow (1943) – Behavior, Purpose, and Teleology – Philosophy of Science 10:18–24 https://doi.org/10.1
086/286788 – Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Harvard Medical School
“Many other lines of classification are available, which are independent of that developed above. Thus, behavior in general, or any of the groups in the table, could be divided into linear (i.e., output proportional to input) and non-linear. A division into continuous and discontinuous might be useful for many purposes. The several degrees of freedom which behavior may exhibit could also be employed as a basis of systematization. ”James Lovelock (1988,1993) – Las edades de Gaia: Una biografía de nuestro planeta vivo – Tusquets Editores – ISBN-13 : 978-8472236462 – 280 Págs.
“Prigogine no fue el primero en identificar las insuficiencias de la termodinámica del equilibrio. Tenía muchos predecesores ilustres, entre ellos los físico-químicos J.W. Gibbs, L. Onsager y K.G. Denbigh, que exploraron la termodinámica del estado estacionario. Sin embargo, fue el gran fisico Ludwig Boltzmann quien señaló verdaderamente el camino para entender la vida en términos termodinámicos. Cuando leí el libro de Schrödinger ¿Qué es la vida?, a primeros de los sesenta, me di cuenta por primera vez de que la vida planetaria se manifestaba por el contraste entre el estado cercano al equilibrio de la atmósfera de un planeta muerto y el desequilibrio exuberante de la Tierra. ” (p. 260)Eric D. Schneider y Dorion Sagan (2005) – La termodinámica de la vida: Física, cosmología, ecología y evolución – Tusquets Editores – National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminsitration – ISBN-13: 978-84-8383-052-9 – 438 Págs.
“Ahora podemos distinguir cuatro tipos de sistemas, cuyos comportamientos se correlacionan con su «distancia» respecto del equilibrio: 1. El estado de equilibrio […] 2. Sistemas casi en equilibrio. Éstos retornarán al estado de equilibrio si se les permite hacerlo […] 3. Sistemas cercanos al equilibrio. Se trata de sistemas que se mantienen fuera del estado de equilibrio por la aplicación de un gradiente continuo […] 4. Sistemas «alejados del equilibrio». Aquí es más difícil predecir el comportamiento del sistema. Un cambio en una variable puede inducir un cambio casi lineal en otra variable, o puede suscitar cambios impredecibles que no es posible modelar con ecuaciones matemáticas razonablemente simples. Muchos sistemas clasificados como «alejados del equilibrio» (los organismos, por ejemplo) tienen atributos de sistemas cerca del equilibrio.” (p. 58-59)Maarten M. Ottens (2010) – Limits to Systems Engineering – Philosophy of Engineering and Technology 2:109-122 https://doi.org/10.1
007/978-90-481-2804- 4_10 – Delft University of Technology + Johns Hopkins University
“Two Kinds of Boundaries (I) In our everyday life we frequently encounter physical boundaries […] (II) We also encounter metaphorical boundaries. An example is boundaries to what you deem socially acceptable. If someone ‘crosses the line’ with regard to their behavior to you, they cross a metaphorical boundary.”Ivan Illich (1973,2015) – Energía y equidad. Desempleo creador – Barral Editores – ISBN-13: 978-8494249686 – 112 Págs. – http://www.ivanillic
h.org.mx/LiEnergia.h tm “El americano típico consagra más de 1.600 horas por año a su automóvil: sentado dentro de él, en marcha o parado, trabajando para pagarlo, para pagar la gasolina, las llantas, los peajes, el seguro, las infracciones y los impuestos para las carreteras federales y los estacionamientos comunales. Le consagra cuatro horas al día en las que se sirve de él, se ocupa de él o trabaja para él. Aquí no se han tomado en cuenta todas sus actividades orientadas por el transporte: el tiempo que consume en el hospital, en el tribunal y en el taller mecánico; el tiempo pasado ante la televisión viendo publicidad automovilística, el tiempo invertido en ganar dinero para viajar en avión o en tren […] Estas 1 600 horas le sirven para hacer unos 10 000 km de camino, o sea 6 km en una hora. Es exactamente lo mismo que alcazan los hombres en los países que no tienen industria del transporte. Pero, mientras el norteamericano consagra a la circulación una cuarta parte del tiempo social disponible, en las sociedades no motorizadas se destina a este fin entre el 3 y 8 por ciento del tiempo social.”
Jordi Pigem (2017) – Àngels i robots – Viena Edicions – ISBN-13: 978-8483309
315 – 168 Págs
“Un càlcul més recent, aplicat als automòbils francesos de principis del segle XXI. Dóna un resultat similar: una velocitat mitjana de 16,8 km/h. Si en l’estimació d’Illich, l’any 1974, l’automòbil no anava gaire més de pressa que una persona a peu, a principis del segle XXI segueix sense anar més ràpid que una bicicleta (que, d’altra banda no fomenta l’individualisme i l’enveja com ho fa l’automòbil, i ens permet desplaçar-nos a una velocitat més propera a l’escala humana).” (p. 33)Ivan Illich (1973,2015) – Energía y equidad. Desempleo creador – Barral Editores – ISBN-13: 978-8494249686 – 112 Págs. – http://www.ivanillic
h.org.mx/LiEnergia.h tm
“En toda sociedad que hace pagar el tiempo, la equidad y la velocidad en la locomoción tienden a variar en proporción inversa una de la otra […] No sólo el funcionamiento mismo consume energía: mientras mayor la velocidad, más energía se invierte en la construcción del vehículo mismo, en el mantenimiento de su pista y en los servicios adicionales sin los cuales no puede funcionar. ”Robert U. Ayres and Benjamin Warr (2009) – The Economic Growth Engine: How Energy and Work Drive Material Prosperity – Edward Elgar Publishing – IIASA Laxenburg + INSEAD Fontainebleau; Center for the Management of Environmental Resources (CMER), INSEAD – ISBN-13: 978-1848441828 – 448 Págs.
“The most surprising conclusion is that the exergy efficiency of transportation probably peaked around 1960, when gasoline engines (in the US automobile fleet) operated at higher compression ratios and wasted much less power on accessories than it is true today.” (p. 126)Saul I. Gass and Michael C. Fu (Eds.) (2013) – Encyclopedia of Operations Research and Management< Science – Springer – ISBN-13 : 978-1441911377 – 1641 Págs.
“Boundary judgments are the perfect device for questioning the relevance and quality of reference systems; for unlike what one might assume at first glance, they define not just the scope of the context considered (i.e., how narrow or comprehensive it is delimitated) but equally its content, that is, what observations about that context are collected and taken to be relevant; how they are formulated, interpreted, and used; what importance is attached to them; and how well related conjectures are argued.”
Joseph A. Goguen and Francisco J. Varela (1991) – Systems and distinctions: Duality and complementarity – En: George J. Klir (Ed.) (1991), Facets of Systems Science, Springer, ISBN-13: 978-1461355
014, https://doi.org/10.1 007/978-1-4899-0718- 9_20
“The establishment of system boundaries is inescapably associated with what we will call a cognitive point of view, that is, a particular set of presuppositions and attitudes, a perspective, or a frame in the sense of Bateson3 or Goffman4; in particular, it is associated with some notion of value, or interest. It is also linked up with the cognitive capacities (sensory capabilities, knowledge background) of the distinctor. Conversely, the distinctions made reveal the cognitive capabilities of the distinctor. It is in this way that biological and social structures exhibit their coherence, and make us aware that they in fact have cognitive capacities or that they are «conscious» in some degree. The importance for system theory of cognitive coherence (or cognitive point of view, or cognitive capability) is a theme which runs throughout this paper and its successors. ”Jack Homer (2014) – Levels of evidence in system dynamics modeling – System Dynamics Review 30:75–80 https://doi.org/10.1
002/sdr.1514 – Homer Consulting + Massachusetts Institute of Technology Research Affiliate – http://onlinelibrary .wiley.com/doi/10.10 02/sdr.1514/pdf
“It is possible to build a model that is evidence based and behaves as it should, but which has an inadequate boundary or time horizon to fulfill its intended purpose, or is unable to portray important policies or scenarios. That is why we employ a wide variety of tests for determining a model’s value, addressing not only reliability but also usefulness, completeness, clarity, explanatory power and insight (Forrester and Senge, 1980; Sterman, 2000, ch. 21).”Howard T. Odum and Elisabeth C. Odum (2001) – A Prosperous Way Down: Principles and Policies – University Press of Colorado – Environmental Engineering Sciences, University of Florida; Santa Fe Community College – ISBN-13: 978-0870819087 – 344 Págs
“Modern science has shown that everything is connected to everything as one universal system. However, for humans to consider, understand, or manage a small part of the universe, we can visualize an imaginary box around parts of interest, thus defining a window of attention […] We can adjust our mind’s eye window of attention on any scale or size […] most systems contain structure, transformations, and feedback.” (p. 61)Joseph A. Goguen and Francisco J. Varela – Systems and distinctions: Duality and complementarity – En: George J. Klir (Ed.) (1991), Facets of Systems Science, Springer, ISBN: ISBN-13: 978-1461355
014, https://doi.org/10.1 007/978-1-4899-0718- 9_20
“A reductionist attitude is strongly promoted, yet the analysis of a system cannot begin without acknowledging a degree of coherence in the system to be investigated; the analyst has to have an intuition that he is actually dealing with a coherent phenomenon. Although science has publicly taken a reductionist attitude, in practice both approaches have always been active. It is not that one has to have a holistic view as opposed to a reductionist view, or vice versa, but rather that the two views of systems are complementary. ”Jay Forrester (1968) – Principles of Systems – Pegasus Communications – ISBN-13: 978-1883823412 – 197 Págs.
“Formulating a model of a system should start from the question “Where is the boundary, that encompasses the smallest number of components, within which the dynamic behavior under study is generated?” […] Thinking in terms of an isolated system forces one to construct, within the boundary of his model, the relationships which create the kinds of behavior that are of interest.” (p. 4-2)
[Citado en George P. Richardson (1991)]Alexander László and Stanley Krippner (1998) – Systems Theories: Their Origins, Foundations, and Development – En: J.S. Jordan (Ed.), Systems Theories and A Priori Aspects of Perception. Amsterdam: Elsevier Science, 1998. Cap 3:47-74 – http://archive.synto
nyquest.org/elcTree/ resourcesPDFs/System sTheory.pdf
“The principal heuristic innovation of the systems approach is what may be called ‘reduction to dynamics’ as contrasted with ‘reduction to components,’ as practiced in the methodologies of classical science […] Yet almost every real-world system contains a large number of components and is exposed to a large number of external forces and events. In consequence, another heuristic became necessary, capable of simplifying unmanageably complex phenomena by reduction to dynamics instead of to components.”Bruce H. Weber et al (1989) – Evolution in Thermodynamic Perspective: An Ecological Approach – Biology and Philosophy 4:373-405 https://doi.org/10.1
007/BF00162587 – Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, California State University – http://people.clas.u fl.edu/ulan/files/We br-Dpw.pdf – 7 autores
“This thermodynamic approach to evolution frees evolutionary theory from dependence on a crypto-Newtonlan language more appropriate to closed equlibrial systems than to biological systems. It grounds biology non-reductively in physical law, and drives a conceptual wedge between functions of artifacts and functions of natural systems. This countenances legitimate use of teleology grounded in natural, teleomatic laws.”Sally J. Goerner (1994) – The physics of evolution: From chaos to evolution and deep ecology – World Futures 42:193-214 https://doi.org/10.1
080/02604027.1994.99 72515 – Triangle Center for the Study of Complex Systems, Chapel Hill, North Carolina
“The “nonlinear” revolution includes chaos, self‐organization theory, the thermodynamics of evolution, and biological evolution. The key result of the revolution is a physical understanding of how order emerges and change is driven. This paper brings the lessons of each branch of the revolution together into a single easily understood thread. The unexpected result of this revolution is an understanding of evolution as a single inexorable physical process that has given rise to everything from molecules to humankind.”Fritjof Capra – The World is a Network – The Library of Consciousness, October 2018 – https://organism.ear
th/library/document/ world-is-a-network
“The scientific translation of magic is nonlinearity.”Mitchell J. Feigenbaum (1983) – Universal behavior in nonlinear systems – Physica D: Nonlinear Phenomena 7:16–39 https://doi.org/10.1
016/0167-2789(83)901 12-4 – Center for Nonlinear Studies, Los Alamos National Laboratory – https://permalink.la nl.gov/object/tr?wha t=info:lanl-repo/lar eport/LA-UR-80-5007 “Universal numbers, δ = 4.6692016 […] and α = 2.502907875 […] determine quantitatively the transition from smooth to turbulent or erratic behavior for a large class of nonlinear systems. ” Thomas R. Knutson and Robert E. Tuleya (2005) – Reply – Journal of Climate 18:5183–5187 https://doi.org/10.1
175/JCLI3593.1 – NOAA/Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory; Center for Coastal Physical Oceanography, Old Dominion University – https://journals.ame tsoc.org/downloadpdf /journals/clim/18/23 /jcli3593.1.xml
“Michaels et al […] recall the question of Ellsaesser: “Should we trust models or observations?” In reply we note that if we had observations of the future, we obviously would trust them more than models, but unfortunately observations of the future are not available at this time.»Howard T. Odum (1976) – Macroscopic minimodels for balance of man and nature – En: Bernard C. Patten (Ed.) (1976), Systems Analysis and Simulation in Ecology. Vol. IV, Academic Press, 613 págs, ISBN-13 : 978-0125472043 – Department of Environmental Engineering Sciences, University of Florida
“Man is embedded in a complex world of confusing cues threatening to overwhelm him psychologically as much as physically. His finest role in the mechanism of this planet may be to become its steersman-if he can learn to cut through the plethora of detail his knowledge has brought and «see» the essence of man-nature interactions. Science is unlikely to help if it continues to focus on atoms and the short term.” (p. 249-250)Yaneer Bar-yam (1997,2020) – Dynamics of Complex Systems – CRC Press – New England Complex Systems Institute – ISBN-13 : 978-0367154974 – 866 Págs.
“Can we describe a system composed of complex parts where the collective behavior is simple? This is also possible, and it is called emergent simplicity. A useful example is a planet orbiting around a star. The behavior of the planet is quite simple, even if the planet is the Earth, with many complex systems upon it. This example illustrates the possibility that the collective system has a behavior at a different scale than its parts. On the smaller scale the system may behave in a complex way, but on the larger scale all the complex details may not be relevant.” (p. 5)Steve Keen – Keep It Simple And Complex, Stupid – Steve Keen’s Debtwatch, 20/04/2015 – http://www.debtdefla
tion.com/blogs/2015/ 04/20/keep-it-simple -and-complex-stupid/
“While these points have some validity (especially Ari’s jibe at “rational agent” models), this criticism approaches complex systems from the wrong end—the “complicated” as opposed to “complex” end. A core lesson from complex systems analysis […] is that a simple system can demonstrate complex behaviour. And a simple complex system—yes, I know that sounds like an oxymoron, but bear with me—can tell you most of what you need to know about a complicated complex system.»Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2012,2016) – Antifrágil. Las cosas que se benefician del desorden – Ediciones Paidós – Profesor de Ciencias de la Incertidumbre enla Universidad de Massachusetts y en la London Business School – ISBN-13: 978-8408149
637 – 656 Págs.
“La idea de que, en la toma de decisiones, «menos es más» se remonta a Spyros Makridakis, Robyn Dawes, Dan Goldstein y Gerd Gigerenzer, quienes descubrieron en diferentes contextos que unos métodos más simples de predicción e inferencia puede funcionar mucho (pero mucho) mejor que otros de mayor complicación. ” (p. 370-371)Alfred Korzybski (1933,1995) – Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics – Institute of General Semantics – ISBN-13 : 978-0937298015 – 757 Págs. – https://archive.org/
details/sciencesanit yint0000korz
“A map is not the territory it represents, but, if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness.” (p. 58)Gregory Bateson (1972) – Pasos hacia una ecología de la mente – Carlos Lohlé/ Planeta Argentina, Buenos Aires – ISBN: 950-724-700-9 – 355 Págs. – http://es.slideshare
.net/charlyf/bateson -gregory-pasos-hacia -una-ecologa-de-la-m ente
“Remontémonos al enunciado original, del cual deriva en primer término la fama de Korzybski, el enunciado de que el mapa no es el territorio. Este aserto surge de una gama muy amplia de pensamiento filosófico que procede de Grecia y que serpentea a todo lo largo de la historia del pensamiento europeo de los últimos 2.000 años […] Pitágoras era partidario de preguntar por el patrón y no por la sustancia […] Esta controversia se prolongó época tras época, y su mitad pitagórica fue, en conjunto, hasta hace poco, la parte sumergida. Los gnósticos siguen a los pitagóricos, y los alquimistas siguen a los gnósticos, etcétera.” (p. 306)David Aubin and Amy Dahan Dalmedico (2002) – Writing the History of Dynamical Systems and Chaos: Longue Durée and Revolution, Disciplines and Cultures – Historia Mathematica 29:273–339 https://doi.org/10.1
006/hmat.2002.2351 – Max-Planck Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschic hte; Centre national de la recherche scientifique and Centre Alexandre-Koyré, – https://core.ac.uk/d ownload/pdf/81139703 .pdf
“As was observed before, in some cases there are credibility problems when trying to model complex systems applying simple methods. However the credibility problems are fixed, at some stage the models become not only incredible but truly impossible. When very improbable phenomena are assumed to cumulate ad infinitum, no time in the universe is enough to make emergence to happen. ”John D.W. Morecroft (2010) – Limits to Growth and Industrialisation: Insights from small and metaphorical system dynamics models and simulators – Plenary Presentation at the 2010 International System Dynamics Conference in Seoul – London Business School
“It is a paradox of complexity that puzzling performance through time in business and society is often observed in tiny models containing only a handful of dynamical concepts. Even the most basic dynamic process of stock accumulation is poorly understood (Booth Sweeney and Sterman 2000). That such dynamic complexity can appear in simple guise is especially relevant to debate and public understanding of growth, industrialisation and climate change (Sterman 2008).”Vincent Thibeault, Antoine Allard & Patrick Desrosiers (2024) – The low-rank hypothesis of complex systems – Nature Physics https://doi.org/10.1
038/s41567-023-02303 -0 – Département de physique, de génie physique et d’optique, Université Laval + Centre interdisciplinaire en modélisation mathématique, Université Laval
“Complex systems are high-dimensional nonlinear dynamical systems with heterogeneous interactions among their constituents. To make interpretable predictions about their large-scale behaviour, it is typically assumed that these dynamics can be reduced to a few equations involving a low-rank matrix describing the network of interactions […] we prove that higher-order interactions naturally emerge from the dimension reduction, thus providing insights into the origin of higher-order interactions in complex systems.»Donnella H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, Jørgen Randers (1992,1993) – Más allá de los límites del crecimiento – El País-Aguilar – ISBN-13: 978-0930031
626 – 322 Págs.
“Si se tira una pelota al aire, uno sabe lo suficiente para prever su comportamiento general, no para saber en qué punto exacto del espacio caerá […] World 3 maneja el tipo de información sobre las pelotas que se tiran al aire, y no la necesaria para describir la trayectoria de la pelota dada.” [citado por Emilio Santiago Muiño (2018)]Bernard Scott (2001) – Cybernetics and the social sciences – Systems Research and Behavioral Science 18:411-420 https://doi.org/10.1
002/sres.445 – University of the Highlands and Islands Millennium Institute
“As noted by Immanuel Wallerstein (1997), past President of the International Sociological Association, if a transdisciplinary approach is to make a real contribution in the natural and social sciences, it must be more than a list of similitudes. It must also be epistemologically sophisticated and well grounded. Cybernetics, with its explicit distinction between first and second order forms, can claim not only to satisfy this criterion, but also to be making significant contributions to epistemological debates. ”Mary S. Morgan (2012) – The World in the Model: How Economists Work and Think – Cambridge University Press – Professor of history and philosophy of economics at London School of Economics and Political Science – ISBN-13 : 978-0521176194 – 448 Págs.
“Modelling is not an easy way to find truths about the economy, but rather a practical form of reasoning for economists, a method of exploration, of enquiry, into both their ideas and their world. That is the thesis of this book.” (p. 38)James W. Forrester and Peter M. Senge (1979) – Tests for building confidence in system dynamics models – En: A.A Legasto, James W. Forrester and J.M. Lyneis (Eds.) (1979), System Dynamics, North-Holland Systems Dynamics Group, Alfred P. Sloan School of Management; Massachusetts Institute of Technology
“Confidence in system dynamics models can be increased by a wide variety of tests that include tests of model structure, model behavior, and a model’s policy implications. This paper describes available tests and discusses how the tests can contribute to model validation. As con-text for considering the tests, the paper also considers the nature of validity in system dynamics modeling and argues that validation includes transferring confidence to persons not directly involved in model construction.” [Citado en Roberto Pasqualino al (2016)]Donnella Meadows, Jørgen Randers, Dennis Meadows (2004) – Los Límites del crecimiento: 30 años después – Galaxia Gutenberg – Massachusetts Institute of Technology – ISBN: 8481096016 – 514 Págs.
“La pregunta central de World3: ‘¿Cómo van a interactuar la población mundial y la economía material en expansión con la capacidad de carga limitada de la Tierra y adaptarse a ella en los próximos decenios?’” (p. 233)Jay W. Forrester (1968) – Industrial Dynamics – After the First Decade – Management Science 14:383-511 https://doi.org/10.1
287/mnsc.14.7.398 – Massachusetts Institute of Technology
“In high-order, nonlinear systems, with multiple loops and both positive and negative feedback, are found the modes of behavior which have been so puzzling in management and economics. The time is at hand when more sharply defined concepts and principles can form a core through management education to interrelate the functional areas and to move from static to dynamic understanding of systems. To do so should help close the gap between what the management school can now teach and what the manager must understand if he is to successfully cope with the increasing complexity of our society.»George E.P. Box and Norman R. Draper (1987) – Empirical Model-Building and Response Surfaces – John Wiley, New York – ISBN-13: 978-0471810339 – 688 Págs. – http://www.gbv.de/dm
s/ilmenau/toc/025308 912.PDF
“Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful […] [so] the practical question is how wrong do they have to be to not be useful.”Ilya Prigogine (1997) – The End of Certainty: Time, Chaos and the New Laws of Nature – Free Press – Nobel laureate – ISBN: 9780684837055 – 235 Págs.
“Is the future given or is it under perpetual construction?»Brian R. Hunt et al (Eds.) (1983) – The Theory of Chaotic Attractors – Springer; Edición: Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 2004 – Institute for Physical Science and Technology, University of Maryland – ISBN:978-0387218304 – 522 Págs.
“The editors felt that the time was right for a book on an important topic, the history and development of the notions of chaotic attractors and their «natural» invariant measures. We wanted to bring together a coherent collection of readable, interesting, outstanding papers for detailed study and comparison.”Ilya Prigogine et Isabelle Stengers (1979) – La nouvelle alliance – Éditions Gallimard – Faculté des Sciences, Université Libre de Bruxelles – ISBN-13: 978-2070287505 – 302 Págs.
« Une notion cruciale est la notion d’attracteur. Les exemples d’attracteurs sont innombrables et bien connus de la physique […] C’est désormais autour des thèmes de la stabilité et de l’instabilité que s’organisent nos descriptions du monde, et non autour de l’opposition entre hasard et nécessité.» (p. 11)Ilya Prigogine et Isabelle Stengers (1988) – Entre le temps et l’éternité – Éditions Fayard – ISBN-13: 978-2213021720 – 220 Págs.
« Dans le passé, (…) tous les systèmes soumis à un attracteur semblaient devoir « se ressembler ». Aujourd’hui, la notion d’attracteur symbolise au contraire la diversité qualitative des systèmes dissipatifs. La notion d’état attracteur renvoie en effet à celle de système dissipatif, producteur d’entropie […] Nous arrivons ici à la définition du comportement « chaotique », qui est un comportement typique des systèmes caractérisés par un attracteur étrange. Un comportement est chaotique si des trajectoires issues de points, aussi voisins que l’on veut dans l’espace des phases, s’éloignent les unes des autres au cours du temps de manière exponentielle ; la distance entre deux points quelconques appartenant à de telles trajectoires croit proportionnellement à une fonction exponentielle de l’inverse du temps de Lyapounov. Le temps de Lyapounov permet de définir une véritable « échelle de temps ».»Peter Grassberger and Itamar Procaccia (1983) – Measuring the Strangeness of Strange Attractors – Physica D: Nonlinear Phenomena 9:189-208 https://doi.org/10.1
016/0167-2789(83)902 98-1 – Department of Chemical Physics, Weizmann Institute of Science
«We study the correlation exponent v introduced recently as a characteristic measure of strange attractors which allows one to distinguish between deterministic chaos and random noise. The exponent v is closely related to the fractal dimension and the information dimension, but its computation is considerably easier.”Per Bak and Maya Paczuski (1993) – Why Nature is complex – Physics World 6:39-43 https://doi.org/10.1
088/2058-7058/6/12/2 6 – Brookhaven National Laboratory
“Many phenomena in Nature are so complicated that they do not succumb to reductionist approaches. Their large-scale behaviour cannot be predicted from their microscopic origin. Indeed, new types of collective behaviour emerge for systems with very many degrees of freedom. Within the last few years, a radically new approach to describe such complexity, self-organized criticality, has emerged. Self-organized criticality (SOC) takes into account many strongly interacting degrees of freedom spanning wide ranges of length and timescale. In contrast, the weak interactions assumed in reductionism lead to events having typical length- and timescales. ”Per Bak, Chao Tang, and Kurt Wiesenfeld (1988) – Self-organized criticality – Physical Review A 38.364-375 https://doi.org/10.1
103/PhysRevA.38.364 – Department of Physics, Brookhaven National Laboratory
“We show that certain extended dissipative dynamical systems naturally evolve into a critical state, with no characteristic time or length scales. The temporal «fingerprint» of the self-organized critical state is the presence of flicker noise or 1/f noise; its spatial signature is the emergence of scale-invariant (fractal) structure […] We believe that the concept of self-organized criticality can be taken much further and might be the underlying concept for temporal and spatial scaling in dissipative nonequilibrium systems.”Robert M. May (1973) – Stability and Complexity in Model Ecosystems – Princeton University Press -Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University – ISBN-13 : 978-0691081250 – 247 Págs.
Christoph Trinn (2018) – Criticality, Entropy and Conflict – Systems Research and Behavioral Science 35:746-758 https://doi.org/10.1
002/sres.2516 – Institute of Political Science, Heidelberg University, Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences
“Power‐law distributions are ubiquitous in the natural and social worlds and also characterize the intensity of intrastate conflicts […] We argue that intrastate conflict is an ‘eruptive’ form of ‘social fissioning’: an evolutionary mechanism whereby sharp friend–foe differences and rigid within‐group conformity are created, increasing the certainty of social interactions. In intrastate conflicts, the political system burdens the economic and cultural systems with entropy and extracts negentropy resources from them. This process is characterized by discontinuous outbursts of entropy, which collectively follow a power law.”Ugo Bardi – The Art of War According to the Science of Complex Systems: The Seneca Cliff as a strategic weapon – Cassandra’s Legacy, 03/10/2019- – https://cassandraleg
acy.blogspot.com/201 9/10/the-art-of-war- according-to-science -of.html
“This [Seneca] collapse occurs when several elements of the system act together in such a way to enhance a perturbation that, eventually, brings down the whole system. Warfare is, after all, mostly a question of feedback between fighting entities. Armies maneuver, clash against each other, retreat or advance, but the final result is always the same: the struggle ends when feedbacks accumulate in such a way that one of the sides collapses. Then, the battle is over. ”Marten Scheffer (2009) – Critical Transitions in Nature and Society – Princeton University Press – Department of Environmental Sciences, Wageningen University – ISBN-13: 978-0691122
045 – 400 Págs.
“If one explores the effect of environmental change in models of such communities,’ the behavior looks much like that of simpler models with alternative attractors discussed earlier in the sense that they may show catastrophic shifts if the environmental conditions pass a certain threshold […] Also shifts may be triggered by random fluctuations in the environment, or by the more realistic scenario of a combination of fluctuations around trends.” (p. 81)David Wallace (2014) – Thermodynamics as Control Theory – Entropy 16:699-725 https://doi.org/10.3
390/e16020699 – Balliol College, Oxford
“There is a general name for the study of how a system can be manipulated through external intervention: Control theory. Here again a system is characterised by its possible states, but instead of a dynamics being specified once and for all, a range of possible control actions is given. The name of the game is to investigate, for a given set of possible control actions, the extent to which the system can be controlled.”François Roddier (2012) – Thermodynamique de l’évolution “Un essai de thermo-bio-sociologi
e” – Éditions Parole – ISBN-13: 978-2917141328 – 100 Págs. – http://www.editions- parole.net/?wpsc-pro duct=thermodynamique -de-levolution-un-es sai-de-thermo-bio-so ciologie
« De façon générale, les bifurcations introduisent des contraintes qui font que certaines opérations précédemment permises ne le sont plus […] D’une manière générale, les structures dissipatives sont attirés vers un état de production maximale d’entropie qui a les caractères d’un attracteur étrange. » (p. 43,45)Henri Poincaré (1881) – Sur les courbes définies par une equation différentielle – Journal de mathématiques pures et appliquées 8:251-296 – Université de Paris – http://www.numdam.or
g/item/JMPA_1882_3_8 __251_0.pdf
« En dehors de l’equateur, il y a dans chaque hémisphère deux cycles limites, et il n’y en a que deux. »Henri Poincaré (1890) – Sur le problème des trois corps et les équations de la dynamique – Acta Mathematica 13:VII-XII https://doi.org/10.1
007/BF02392505 – Université de Paris Josiah Willard Gibbs (1902,2011) – Elementary Principles in Statistical Mechanic
s: Developed with Especial Reference to the Rational Foundation of Thermodynamics – Cambridge University Press https://doi.org/10.1 017/CBO9780511686948 – ISBN-13 : 978-0511686948 – 224 Págs.
“The lucid, advanced-level text remains a valuable collection of fundamental equations and principles. Topics include the general problem and the fundamental equation of statistical mechanics, the canonical distribution of the average energy values in a canonical ensemble of systems, and formulas for evaluating important functions of the energies of a system. Additional discussions cover maximum and minimal properties of distribution in phase, a valuable comparison of statistical mechanics with thermodynamics, and many other subjects. ”Ralph Abraham and Christopher Shaw (1982,1992) – Dynamics: The Geometry of Behavior – Addison Wesley Longman Publishing – ISBN-13 : 978-0201567175 – 600 Págs.
“The key to the geometric theory of dynamical systems created by Poincaré is the phase portrait of a dynamical system. The first step in drawing this portrait is the creation of a geometric model for the set of all possible states of the system. This is called the state space. On this geometric model, the dynamics determine a cellular structure of basins enclosed by sepa ratrices. Within each cell or basin is a nucleus called the attractor. The states that will actually be observed in this system are the attractors. Thus, the portrait of the dynamical system, showing the basins and attractors, is of primary importance in applications. This chapter introduces these basic concepts. ” (p. 13)Fritjof Capra and Pier Luigi Luisi (2014) – The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision – Cambridge University Press – Center for Ecoliteracy, Berkeley – ISBN-13: 978-1107011366 – 978 Págs.
“However, twenty to thirty years before Bertalanffy published the first papers on his ‘general systems theory’, Alexander Bogdanov (1873-1928), a Russian medical researcher, philosopher, and economist, developed a systems theory of equal sophistication and scope […] Bogdanov even anticipated the concept of catastrophe developed in the 1960s by the French mathematician René Thom […] Mathematically, bifurcation points mark sudden changes in the system’s phase portrait. Physically, they correspond to points of instability at which the system changes abruptly and new forms of order suddenly appear.” (p. 84,85,116)Peter Ashwin et al (2012) – Tipping points in open systems: bifurcation, noise-induced and rate-dependent examples in the climate system – Proceedings of the Royal Society A 370:1166-1184 doi10.1098/rsta.2011
.0306 – Mathematics Research Institute, University of Exeter – https://royalsociety publishing.org/doi/e pdf/10.1098/rsta.201 1.0306 – 4 autores
“Tipping points associated with bifurcations (B-tipping) or induced by noise (N-tipping) are recognized mechanisms that may potentially lead to sudden climate change. We focus here a novel class of tipping points, where a sufficiently rapid change to an input or parameter of a system may cause the system to «tip» or move away from a branch of attractors.”P. Catalina Chaparro-Pedraza, André M. de Roos (2020) – Ecological changes with minor effect initiate evolution to delayed regime shifts – Nature Ecology & Evolution https://doi.org/10.1
038/s41559-020-1110- 0 – Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics, University of Amsterdam + Eawag—Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology “Regime shifts have been documented in a variety of natural and social systems. These abrupt transitions produce dramatic shifts in the composition and functioning of socioecological systems […] The change therefore does not cause an immediate regime shift but instead triggers an evolutionary process that drives a […] regime shift. Our finding draws attention to the fact that regime shifts observed in the present may result from changes in the distant past.”
Marten Scheffer (2009) – Critical Transitions in Nature and Society – Princeton University Press – Department of Environmental Sciences, Wageningen University – ISBN-13: 978-0691122045 – 400 Págs.
“On a larger scale, the Earth system has evidently gone through rapid transitions between contrasting climatic conditions in the past, and it seems unlikely that similarly dramatic climate shifts would not happen in the future. And last, social systems are notorious for periods of relative inertia with occasional rapid transitions on scales varying from locally held opinions and attitudes to massive shifts such as the collapse of states and civilizations. In this book, I argue that such remarkable shifts can often be explained as so-called critical transitions.”
James Gleick (1987) – Chaos: Making a New Science – Penguin Books – ISBN: 0-14-00.9250-1 – 354 Págs.
“Although the attractor is chaotic, some predictability becomes possible in light of the deterministic nature of the model. ” (p. 292)James Gleick (1987) – Chaos: Making a New Science – Penguin Books – ISBN: 0-14-00.9250-1 – 354 Págs.
“Encara que l’atractor sigui caòtic, l’índole determinista del model permet predictibilitat.”
Ralph H. Abraham and Christopher Shaw (1982,1992) – Dynamics: The Geometry of Behavior – Addison Wesley Longman Publishing – ISBN-13 : 978-0201567175 – 600 Págs.
“The key to the geometric theory of dynamical systems created by Poincare is the phase portrait of a dynamical system. The first step in drawing this portrait is the creation of a geometric model for the set of all possible states of the system. This is called the state space. On this geometric model, the dynamics determine a cellular structure of basins enclosed by separatrices. Within each cell or basin is a nucleus called the attractor. The states that will actually be observed in this system are the attractors. Thus, the portrait of the dynamical system, showing the basins and attractors, is of primary importance in applications.” (p. 13)Helena E. Nusse, James A. Yorke & Eric J. Kostelich (1994) – Basins of Attraction – En: Dynamics: Numerical Explorations. Applied Mathematical Sciences, vol 101. Springer, https://doi.org/10.1
007/978-1-4684-0231- 5_7 – Vakgroep Econometrie, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen + Institute for Physical Science and Technology, University of Maryland; Department of Mathematics, Arizona State University
«Computing basins of attraction results in a new understanding of the behavior of dynamical systems. The basin of attraction of an attracting set is the set of all the initial conditions in the phase space whose trajectories go to that attracting set. Consult Chapter 6 for a definition of the notion “attractor”. The main objective of this chapter is to describe the theory and practice of plotting a basin of an attractor. A generalized attractor is the union of finitely many attractors, and a generalized basin is the basin of a generalized attractor.»Rashad Eletreby et al (2020) – The effects of evolutionary adaptations on spreading processes in complex networks – Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences PNAS https://doi.org/10.1
073/pnas.1918529117 – Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University – https://www.pnas.org /content/pnas/117/11 /5664.full.pdf – 5 autores “In real-life spreading processes, pathogens often evolve in response to changing environments and medical interventions, and information is often modified by individuals before being forwarded. In this article, we investigate the effects of evolutionary adaptations on spreading processes in complex networks.”
Richard C. Lewontin (1969) – The meaning of stability – Brookhaven Symposium on Biology 22:13-24 – Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University
Edward Lorenz (1963) – Deterministic Nonperiodic Flow – Journal of Atmospheric Sciences 20:130-141 https://doi.org/ 10.1175/1520-0469(19
63)020<0130:DNF>2.0. CO;2 – Massachusets Institute of Technology – https://journals.ame tsoc.org/downloadpdf /journals/atsc/20/2/ 1520-0469_1963_020_0 130_dnf_2_0_co_2.pdf
“Finite systems of deterministic ordinary nonlinear differential equations may be designed to represent forced dissipative hydrodynamic flow. Solutions of these equations can be identified with trajectories in phase space. For those systems with bunded solutions, it is found that nonperiodic solutions are ordinarily unstable with respect to small modifications, so that slightly differing initial states can evolve into considerable different sttes […] All of the solutions are found to be unstable, and almost all of them are nonperiodic.»Edward N. Lorenz (1972) – Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly’s Wings in Brazil Set a Tornado in Texas? – American Association for the Advancement of Science, 29/12/1972 – https://mathscienceh
istory.com/wp-conten t/uploads/2020/03/13 2_kap6_lorenz_artike l_the_butterfly_effe ct.pdf
“1. Small errors in the courser structures of the weather pattern—those features which are readily resolved by conventional observing networks—tend to double in about three days. As the errors become larger the growth rate subsides. This limitation alone would allow us to extend the range of acceptable prediction by three days every time we cut the observation errors in half, and would offer the hope of eventually making good forecasts several weeks in advance. 2. Small errors in the finer structure—e.g., the positions of individual clouds—tend to grow much more rapidly, doubling in hours or less. This limitation alone would not seriously reduce our hopes for extended-range forecasting, since ordinarily we do not forecast the finer structure at all. 3. Errors in the finer structure, having attained appreciable size, tend to induce errors in the coarser structure. ”Claude-Louis Navier (1822) – Mémoire sur les lois du mouvement des fluides – Académie royale des Sciences. Tome 6 – Institut de France – https://fr.wikisourc
e.org/wiki/M%C3%A9mo ire_sur_les_lois_du_ mouvement_des_fluide s/Texte_entier
“Tous les phénomènes indiquent que les actions exercées de molécule à molécule, dans l’intérieur des corps, varient avec la distance des molécules ; que si l’on veut diminuer la distance des parties, on fait naître une force de répulsion ; que si l’on veut augmenter cette distance, on fait naître une force d’attraction. ”David Ruelle & Floris Takens (1971) – On the nature of turbulence – Communications in Mathematical Physics 20:167–192 https://doi.org/10.1
007/BF01646553 – I.H.E.S., Bures-sur-Yvette, France
“We show how a small perturbation of a quasi-periodic flow on a torus gives flows with strange attractors (Proposition (9.2)) and, more generally, flows which are not Morse-Smale (Proposition (9.t)). ”Eleanor P. Wolf (1963) – The Tipping-Point in Racially Changing Neighborhoods – Journal of the American Institute of Planners 29:217-222 https://doi.org/10.1
080/0194436630897806 6 – Wayne State University – “Racial change in urban neighborhoods has often been attributed to the growth of Negro population to a critical “tipping-point”—a sufficiently large proportion of total occupancy to precipitate rapid exodus of white residents.” Timothy M. Lenton (2013) – Environmental tipping points – Annual Review of Environment and Resources 38:1–29 https://doi.org/10.1
146/annurev-environ- 102511-084654 – College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter
“The past decade or so has seen a renaissance of interest in tipping points in ecological systems under the banner of ecosystem “regime shifts”. More recently, the term “critical transitions” has been used to describe tipping points in a range of complex systems,”Carlos de Castro Carranza – ¿Lograremos evitar el colapso ecológico-social? – Grupo de Energía y Dinámica de Sistemas, 21/09/2014 – https://geeds.es/new
s/lograremos-evitar- el-colapso-ecologico -social/
“Si se sobrepasan los límites temporalmente, es inevitable el colapso (línea roja) o la oscilación (línea amarilla), en general además se deteriora el límite y este disminuye al aproximarnos al límite y sobrepasarlo (oscilación decreciente).”Donnella Meadows, Jørgen Randers, Dennis Meadows (2004) – Los Límites del crecimiento: 30 años después – Galaxia Gutenberg – Massachusetts Institute of Technology – ISBN: 8481096016 – 514 Págs.
“La extralimitación y la oscilación sólo pueden ocurrir si el medio ambiente sufre un daño insignificante durante períodos de sobrecarga y logra repararse por si mismo con la rapidez suficiente para recuperarse plenamente durante períodos de menos carga.” (p. 268)Donnella Meadows, Jørgen Randers, Dennis Meadows (2004) – Los Límites del crecimiento: 30 años después – Galaxia Gutenberg – Massachusetts Institute of Technology – ISBN: 8481096016 – 514 Págs.
“La aceleración permanente llevará a cualquier sistema, por mucho que haya sido diseñado de forma inteligente, con amplitud de miras y buena calidad, a un punto en que no se puede reaccionar a tiempo. Incluso un coche y un conductor que funcionan perfectamente son inseguros a alta velocidad.”Ferran Puig Vilar – La certeza matemática del 5° C del Titanic – Usted no se lo Cree, 02/11/2009 – https://ustednoseloc
ree.com/2009/11/02/l a-certeza-matematica -del-5ccuarto-camaro te-del-titanic/
“La intensidad del forzamiento es una de mis analogías preferidas. En el Titanic, tras la colisión con el iceberg y el informe de daños a la vista, Thomas Andrews, el ingeniero jefe del navío, informa, consternado, al capitán […] Andrews mira fijamente al constructor del navío, quien había ordenado navegar a máxima velocidad convencido de que ¡este buque no puede hundirse! ”José M. Montoya, Stuart L. Pimm and Ricard V. Solé (2006) – Ecological networks and their fragility – Nature 442:259-264 https://doi.org/10.1
038/nature04927 – School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, Queen Mary University of London; ICREA-Complex Systems Laboratory, IMIM, Universitat Pompeu Fabra; Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences, Duke University; Santa Fe Institute
“Ecological networks, although complex, have well defined patterns that both illuminate the ecological mechanisms underlying them and promise a better understanding of the relationship between complexity and ecological stability […] There is a long-recognized paradox: in models with random, but sensibly chosen, parameters, the probability of a locally stable equilibrium declines sharply as complexity increases46. Yet, the ever-smaller fraction of models that are stable tend to be more resilient.”Ian A. Hatton et al (2024) – Diversity begets stability: Sublinear growth and competitive coexistence across ecosystems – Science 383 https://doi.org/10.1
126/science.adg8488 – Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences + Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, McGill University – 4 autores
“Whereas logistic growth of populations implies that diversity begets instability, we find that sublinear growth allows the emergence of a form of collective regulation of populations, leading to community coexistence. Furthermore, increases in diversity enhance, rather than weaken, the stability of community dynamics, reversing the classic diversity-stability relation. Our results, based on mathematical analysis and simulations, are robust to a wide range of alternative assumptions and generalized modeling frameworks […] The alarming rate of diversity loss means that ecology is in urgent need of a theoretical framework capable of making realistic predictions […] Our results help to clarify the origin of the diversity-stability paradox, including the implicit assumptions in May’s argument.”Andrew Edward White et al (2013) – Putting All Your Eggs in One Basket: Life-History Strategies, Bet Hedging, and Diversification – Psychological Science 24:715-722 https://doi.org/10.1
177/0956797612461919 – Department of Psychology, Arizona State University – 5 autores
“Diversification of resources is a strategy found everywhere from the level of microorganisms to that of giant Wall Street investment firms […] These findings highlight when, and for whom, different diversification strategies can be advantageous.»Dirk Helbing (2013) – Globally networked risks and how to respond – Nature 497:51–59 https://doi.org/10.1
038/nature12047 – Risk Center, ETH Zurich, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology – http://www.uvm.edu/~ cdanfort/csc-reading -group/helbing-natur e-2013.pdf
“Typical properties of strongly coupled systems in the above defined sense are: (1) Dynamical changes tend to be fast, potentially outstripping the rate at which one can learn about the characteristic system behaviour, or at which humans can react […] Such drivers are, for example: (1) increasing system sizes, (2) reduced redundancies due to attempts to save resources (implying a loss of safety margins), (3) denser networks (creating increasing interdependencies between critical parts of the network, see Figs 2 and 4), and (4) a high pace of innovation [ref] (producing uncertainties or ‘unknown unknowns’). Could these developments create a ‘global time bomb’?”Crawford S. Holling (1973) – Resilience and stability of ecological systems – Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 4:1-23 https://doi.org/10.1
146/annurev.es.04.11 0173.000245 – Institute of Resource Ecology. University of British Columbia – https://pure. .ac.at/id/eprint/26/ 1/RP-73-003.pdf
“An equilibrium centered view is essentially static and provides little insight into the transient behavior of systems that are not near the equilibrium. Natural, undisturbed systems are likely to be continually in a transient state; they will be equally so under the influence of man. As man’s numbers and economic demands increase, his use of resources shifts equilibrium states and moves populations away from equilibria.”Jeremy Walker and Melinda Cooper (2011) – Genealogies of resilience. From systems ecology to the political economy of crisis adaptation – Security Dialogue 42: https://doi.org/10.1
177/0967010611399616 – University of Technology, Sydney; University of Sydney, NSW
“The concept of ‘resilience’ was first adopted within systems ecology in the 1970s, where it marked a move away from the homeostasis of Cold War resource management toward the far-from-equilibrium models of second-order cybernetics or complex systems theory […] While the redefinition of the concept can be directly traced to the work of the ecologist Crawford S. Holling, the deployment of complex systems theory is perfectly in accord with the later philosophy of the Austrian neoliberal Friedrich Hayek. This ambivalence is reflected in the trajectory of complex systems theory itself, from critique to methodology of power.”Fridolin Simon Brand and Kurt Jax (2006) – Focusing the meaning(s) of resilience: resilience as a descriptive concept and a boundary object – Ecology and Society 12:23 – Institute for Landscape Ecology, Technische Universität München, Germany + Department of Conservation Biology, UFZ-Environmental Research Centre Leipzig-Ha – https://www.ecologya
ndsociety.org/vol12/ iss1/art23/
“This article reviews the variety of definitions proposed for “resilience” within sustainability science and suggests a typology according to the specific degree of normativity […] A clear descriptive concept provides the basis for operationalization and application of resilience within ecological science.»Crawford S. Holling (1973) – Resilience and stability of ecological systems – Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 4:1-23 https://doi.org/10.1
146/annurev.es.04.11 0173.000245 – Institute of Resource Ecology. University of British Columbia – http://www.uni-kasse l.de/beckenbach/file s/pdfs/lehre/advance d_economics/WS11_12/ Texte/Holling_ResilS tabilEcolSys.pdf
“These are two very different ways of viewing the behavior of systems and the usefulness of the view depends very much on the properties of the system concerned. If we are examining a particular device designed by the engineer to perform specific tasks under a rather narrow range of predictable external conditions, we are likely to be more concerned with consistent non variable performance in which slight departures from the performance goal are immediately counteracted. A quantitative view of the behavior of the system is, therefore, essential.”Erik Hollnagel, David D. Woods, Nancy Leveson (Eds.) (2006) – Resilience engineering: Concepts and precepts – Ashgate Publishing – ISBN-13 : 978-0754649045 – 414 Págs.
“For Resilience Engineering, ‘failure’ is the result of the adaptations necessary to cope with the complexity of the real world, rather than a breakdown or malfunction. The performance of individuals and organizations must continually adjust to current conditions and, because resources and time are finite, such adjustments are always approximate.”Adam Rose and Shu-Yi Liao (2005) – Modeling Regional Economic Resilience to Disasters: A Computable General Equilibrium Analysis of Water Service Disruptions – Journal of Regional Science 45:75-112 https://doi.org/10.1
111/j.0022-4146.2005 .00365.x – Department of Geography, The Pennsylvania State University; Department of Applied Economics, National Chung Hsing University – https://bit.ly/3zM3I oz “In this paper, we apply resilience at two levels: the individual firm and the regional economy. We also distinguish two types of resilience in each context: Inherent. Ability under normal circumstances (e.g., the ability of individual firms to substitute other inputs for those curtailed by an external shock, or the ability of markets to reallocate resources in response to price signals). Adaptive. Ability in crisis situations due to ingenuity or extra effort (e.g., increasing input substitution possibilities, or strengthening the market by providing information to match suppliers without customers to customers without suppliers). Resilience emanates both from internal motivation and the stimulus of private or public policy decisions (Mileti, 1999). Also, resilience refers to post-disaster conditions” Yacov Y. Haimes, Kenneth Crowther and Barry M. Horowitz (2008) – Homeland security preparedness: Balancing protection with resilience in emergent systems – Sysrems Engineering 11:287-308 https://doi.org/10.1
002/sys.20101 – Center for Risk Management of Engineering Systems, University of Virginia
“Resilience has been defined in the literature as an emergent property of systems. Consider some example definitions: (1) Resilience is the ability of a system to absorb external stresses [Holling, 1973]. (2) Resilience is a system capability to create foresight, to recognize, to anticipate, and to defend against the changing shape of risk before adverse consequences occur [Woods, 2005, 2006; Hollnagel, Woods, and Leveson, 2006]. (3) Resilience refers to the inherent ability and adaptive responses of systems that enable them to avoid potential losses [Rose and Liao, 2005]. (4) Resilience is the result of a system (i) preventing adverse consequences, (ii) minimizing adverse consequences, and (iii) recovering quickly from adverse consequences [Westrum, 2006]. ”Rob Hopkins – Resilience Thinking – Resurgence, 01/11/2009 – Green Agenda for the Copenhagen Summit – http://transitioncul
ture.org/ “Resilience; ‘the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and reorganise while undergoing change, so as to retain essentially the same function, structure, identity and feedbacks’ […] Why ‘resilience thinking’ is a crucial missing piece of the climate-change jigsaw and why resilience is a more useful concept than sustainability.”
Steven Lade – What is resilience? – Stokholm Resilience Center, 19/02/2015 – https://www.stockhol
mresilience.org/rese arch/research-news/2 015-02-19-what-is-re silience.html
“Resilience is the capacity of a system, be it an individual, a forest, a city or an economy, to deal with change and continue to develop. It is about how humans and nature can use shocks and disturbances like a financial crisis or climate change to spur renewal and innovative thinking. Resilience starts from the belief that humans and nature are strongly coupled to the point that they should be conceived as one social-ecological system.”Yacov Y. Haimes, Kenneth Crowther and Barry M. Horowitz (2008) – Homeland security preparedness: Balancing protection with resilience in emergent systems – Sysrems Engineering 11:287-308 https://doi.org/10.1
002/sys.20101 – Center for Risk Management of Engineering Systems, University of Virginia
“Resilience is the ability of the system to withstand a major disruption within acceptable degradation parameters and to recover within an acceptable cost and time. Resilience builds on and is a function of redundancy and robustness; however, whereas redundancy and robustness can be incorporated into a system through component systems design, resilience requires attention to the system structure, architecture, and component system interdependencies. ”Yacov Y. Haimes (2009) – On the Definition of Resiliencie in Systems – Risk Analysis 29:498-501 https://doi.org/10.1
111/j.1539-6924.2009 .01216.x – Engineering Area Editor + L.R. Quarles Professor of Systems and Information Engineering + Founding Director, Center for Risk Management of Engineering Systems, University of Virginia
“Resilience is similar to vulnerability in that it cannot simply be measured in a single unit metric; its importance lies in the ultimate multidimensional outputs (the consequences) of the system for any specific inputs (threats) […] the resilience of a system can be measured only in terms of the specific threat (input) and the system’s recovery time and the associated composite costs and risks. Thus, different attacks would generate different consequence (output) trajectories for the same resilient system. ”Ugo Bardi – The Seneca Effect: how the concept evolved – The Seneca Cliff, 05/07/2017 – http://thesenecatrap
.blogspot.com.es/201 7/07/the-seneca-effe ct-how-concept-evolv ed.html
“The idea of a cyclical pattern of growth and decline came much after Malthus, you find its origins in biological studies, with Lotka and Volterra being perhaps the first to propose it in the form of a mathematical model in the 1920s and 1930s. Later on, in the 1950s, Marion King Hubbert proposed his «bell-shaped» curve for the cycle of production of crude oil in a specific region. For us, it is a relatively well known story even though most people seem to remain convinced that – somehow – growth can go on forever. Finally, the idea that the bell shaped curve is asymmetric was explicitly expressed in terms of a mathematical model by Jay Forrester, in the 1960s .”Ugo Bardi – The Seneca Cliff goes mainstream – The Seneca Cliff, 07/06/2016 – https://www.senecaef
fect.com/2016/06/the -seneca-cliff-goes-m ainstream.html
“The concept of the «Seneca Cliff» seems to have gone mainstream. Below, it is mentioned in a recent post by Dennis Coyne on «peakoilbarrell» as an obvious concept. Just as when you say «Gaussian Curve», you don’t have to specify what shape the curve has, so it is for the «Seneca Curve». It looks like I started some kind of avalanche with my 2011 post when I introduced the term. See also my blog wholly dedicated to the subject. Here, the projections by AEO (annual energy outlook) seem to me very optimistic; can production really keep growing until 2035-2040? If that were to happen, however, the subsequent collapse would be truly abrupt.”Ugo Bardi (2017) – The Seneca Effect. Why Growth is Slow but Collapse is Rapid – Springer https://doi.org/10.1
007/978-3-319-57207- 9 – ISBN-13: 978-3319572 062 – 217 Págs. Thomas F. Homer-Dixon (2006,2008) – The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization – Island Press – Trudeau Center for Peace and Conflict Studies, Department of Political Science, University of Toronto – ISBN-13: 978-1597260657 – 448 Págs.
“The longer people sustain a social, economic, or ecological system in the growth phase, the sharper, harder and more destructive its ultimate breakdown will be […] our immense social-ecological system […] is becoming steadily more complex, which means it’s moving further and further from thermodynamic equilibrium.” (p. 232,233)Ugo Bardi (2014) – Mind Sized World Models – Sustainability 5:896-911 https://doi.org/10.3
390/su5030896 – Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Università di Firenze
“It is this asymmetry leading to a rapid collapse after a slow growth, that prompted the author to name the model after the Roman philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca who, in his – Letter to Lucilius, stated that – increases are of sluggish growth, but the way to ruin is rapid. ”Timothy M. Lenton et al (2012) – Early warning of climate tipping points from critical slowing down: comparing methods to improve robustness – Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London A 370:1185-1204 https://doi.org/10.1
098/rsta.2011.0304 – School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia – https://www.ncbi.nlm .nih.gov/pmc/article s/PMC3261433/pdf/rst a20110304.pdf – 5 autores “We address whether robust early warning signals can, in principle, be provided before a climate tipping point is reached […] Early warnings of thermohaline circulation collapse can be masked by inter-annual variability driven by atmospheric dynamics. However, rapidly decaying modes can be successfully filtered out […] The two methods have complementary strengths and weaknesses.”
M.C Boerlijst, Thomas Oudman and André M. de Roos (2013) – Catastrophic Collapse Can Occur without Early Warning: Examples of Silent Catastrophes in Structured Ecological Models – PLoS ONE 8:e62033 https://doi.org/10.1
371/journal.pone.006 2033 – Theoretical Ecology, Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics, University of Amsterdam – https://journals.plo s.org/plosone/articl e/file?id=10.1371/jo urnal.pone.0062033&t ype=printable
“Our results demonstrate that claims on the universality of early warning signals are not correct, and that catastrophic collapses can occur without prior warning. In order to correctly predict a collapse and determine whether early warning signals precede the collapse, detailed knowledge of the mathematical structure of the approaching bifurcation is necessary. Unfortunately, such knowledge is often only obtained after the collapse has already occurred.”Tim O’Riordan and Tim Lenton (2011) – Tackling tipping points – British Academy Review 18:21-27 – Professor Emeritus of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia + Fellow of the British Academy; Chair in Climate Change/Earth SystemsScience at the University of Exeter
“Crucially, the zone of declining resilience that takes place before a tipping point occurs produces identifiable early warning signals […] However, not every type of abrupt transition carries early warning signals. We need to be aware that the Earth system can sometimes bite without growling beforehand.Peter Ditlevsen (2010) – Tipping points: Early warning and wishful thinking – Geophysical Research Letters 37 L19703 https://doi.org/10.1
029/2010GL044486 – University of Copenhagen, Niels Bohr Institute, Centre for Ice and Climate – https://www.gfy.ku.d k/~pditlev/ papers/2010GL044486. pdf
“The early warning of climate changes or structural change in any dynamical system driven through a bifurcation, can only be obtained if increase in both variance and autocorrelation is observed. Conclusions drawn based solely on one of the signals and not the other are invalid. Furthermore, detecting increased autocorrelation, or critical slow down, with statistical significance is difficult.”Chenghao Wang Zhi‐Hua Wang and Linda Sun (2020) – Early‐Warning Signals for Critical Temperature Transitions – Geophysical Research Letters e2020GL088503 https://doi.org/10.1
029/2020GL088503 – School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, Arizona State University + Department of Earth System Science, Stanford University; Horace Greeley High School
“Critical transitions of the state variable (temperature) in dynamic climate systems often lead to catastrophic consequence, whereas the effort to reverse the transitions usually lags behind. However, these transitions are characterized by the slowing down of recovery from perturbations, carrying early‐warning signals that can be used to predict system bifurcation […] The emergence of early‐warning signals before heat waves provides new insights into the underlying mechanisms (e.g., possible feedback via land‐atmosphere interactions).”Martin Wikelski et al (2020) – Potential short‐term earthquake forecasting by farm animal monitoring – Ethology 126:931-941 https://doi.org/10.1
111/eth.13078 – Department of Migration, Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior + Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz – 10 autores
“Our study suggests that continuous bio‐logging of animal collectives has the potential to provide statistically reliable patterns of pre‐seismic activity that could yield valuable insights for short‐term earthquake forecasting. Based on a priori model parameters, we provide empirical threshold values for pre‐seismic animal activities to be used in real‐time observation stations.”Niklas Boers (2021) – Observation-based early-warning signals for a collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation – Nature Climate Change 11:680–688 https://doi.org/10.1
038/s41558-021-01097 -4 – Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Freie Universität Berlin + Potsdam Institute of Climate Impact Research, Potsdam, Germany + Department of Mathematics and Global Systems Institute, University of Exeter
“Observations and recently suggested fingerprints of AMOC variability indicate a gradual weakening during the last decades […] Significant early-warning signals are found in eight independent AMOC indices, based on observational sea-surface temperature and salinity data from across the Atlantic Ocean basin. These results reveal spatially consistent empirical evidence that, in the course of the last century, the AMOC may have evolved from relatively stable conditions to a point close to a critical transition […] provides strong evidence that the AMOC is indeed approaching a critical, bifurcation-induced transition.”Niklas Boers and Martin Rypdal (2021) – Critical slowing down suggests that the western Greenland Ice Sheet is close to a tipping point – Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences PNAS 118:e2024192118 https://doi.org/10.1
073/pnas.2024192118 – Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Freie Universität Berlin + Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research + Department of Mathematics, University of Exeter + Global Systems Institute, University of Exeter
“We reveal significant early-warning signals (EWS) indicating that the central-western GrIS is close to a critical transition […] Our results suggest substantial further GrIS mass loss in the near future and call for urgent, observation-constrained stability assessments of other parts of the GrIS.” Chris A. Boulton, Timothy M. Lenton & Niklas Boers (2022) – Pronounced loss of Amazon rainforest resilience since the early 2000s – Nature Climate Change12:271–278 https://doi.org/10.1
038/s41558-022-01287 -8 – Global Systems Institute, University of Exeter; Earth System Modelling, School of Engineering & Design, Technical University of Munich; Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research – https://www.nature.c om/articles/s41558-0 22-01287-8.pdf
“We find that more than three-quarters of the Amazon rainforest has been losing resilience since the early 2000s, consistent with the approach to a critical transition. Resilience is being lost faster in regions with less rainfall and in parts of the rainforest that are closer to human activity. We provide direct empirical evidence that the Amazon rainforest is losing resilience, risking dieback with profound implications for biodiversity, carbon storage and climate change at a global scale.”Thomas M. Bury et al (2021) – Deep learning for early warning signals of tipping points – Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences PNAS 118:e2106140118 https://doi.org/10.1
073/pnas.2106140118 – Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Waterloo + School of Environmental Sciences, University of Guelph – https://www.pnas.org /doi/epdf/10.1073/pn as.2106140118 – 7 autores
“Here we develop a deep learning algorithm that provides EWS in systems it was not explicitly trained on, by exploiting information about normal forms and scaling behavior of dynamics near tipping points that are common to many dynamical systems […] It can also predict the normal form that characterizes the oncoming tipping point, thus providing qualitative information on certain aspects of the new state. Such approaches can help humans better prepare for, or avoid, undesirable state transitions. The algorithm also illustrates how a universe of possible models can be mined to recognize naturally occurring tipping points.”Carl Boettiger, Noam Ross & Alan Hastings (2013) – Early warning signals: The charted and uncharted territories – Theoretical Ecology 6:255–264 https://doi.org/10.1
007/s12080-013-0192- 6 – Center for Stock Assessment Research, Department of Applied Math and Statistics, University of California, Santa Cruz; Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of California Davis
“A core of examples emerges that shares three properties: the phenomenon of rapid regime shifts, a pattern of “critical slowing down” that can be used to detect the approaching shift, and a mechanism of bifurcation driving the sudden change. As research has expanded beyond these core examples, it is becoming clear that not all systems that show regime shifts exhibit critical slowing down, or vice versa. Even when systems exhibit critical slowing down, statistical detection is a challenge.”Alan Hastings and Derin B. Wysham (2010) – Regime shifts in ecological systems can occur with no warning – Ecology Letters https://doi.org/10.1
111/j.1461-0248.2010 .01439.x – Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of California, Davis; Department of Computational and Systems Biology, John Innes Center, UK
“Many ecological systems are described by systems without smooth potentials and thus will not show typical leading indicators of regime shifts. We then illustrate the impact of these general arguments by numerically examining the dynamics of several model ecological systems under slowly changing conditions. Our results offer a cautionary note about the generality of forecasting sudden changes in ecosystems.”Tatiana Filatova, J. Gary Polhill and Stijnvan Ewijk (2016) – Regime shifts in coupled socio-environmental systems: Review of modelling challenges and approaches – Environmental Modelling & Software 75:333-347 https://doi.org/10.1
016/j.envsoft.2015.0 4.003 – Centre for Studies in Technology and Sustainable Development, University of Twente; Deltares, Utrecht; The James Hutton Institute
“Increasing attention to regime shifts, critical transitions, non-marginal changes, and systemic shocks calls for the development of models that are able to reproduce or grow structural changes that occur over time periods perceived as abrupt ..When reviewing these modelling approaches we reflect on a set of criteria […] Challenges and frontier directions of research for designing models to study regime shifts in coupled socio-environmental systems are outlined.»Aurich Jeltsch-Thömmes, Thomas F Stocker and Fortunat Joos (2020) – Hysteresis of the Earth system under positive and negative CO2 emissions – Environmntal Research Letters 15:124026 https://doi.org/10.1
088/1748-9326/abc4af – Climate and Environmental Physics, Physics Institute and Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Bern – https://iopscience.i op.org/article/10.10 88/1748-9326/abc4af/ pdf
“Hysteresis is quantified as the difference in a variable between the up and down pathway at identical cumulative carbon emissions. Typically, hysteresis increases non-linearly with increasing ECS, while its dependency on the CDR rate varies across variables. Large hysteresis is found for global surface air temperature ($\Delta$SAT), upper ocean heat content, ocean deoxygenation, and acidification.”Aaron Donohoe et al (2014) – Shortwave and longwave radiative contributions to global warming under increasing CO2 – Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences PNAS https://doi.org/10.1
073/pnas.1412190111 – Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology – 4 autores
“A simple linear radiative feedback framework is used to explain this counterintuitive behavior. It is found that the timescale over which OLR returns to its initial value after a CO2 perturbation depends sensitively on the magnitude of shortwave (SW) feedbacks […] Altogether, these results suggest that, although greenhouse gas forcing predominantly acts to reduce OLR, the resulting global warming is likely caused by enhanced ASR.”Jorge Riechmann y Óscar Carpintero (2014) – Los inciertos pasos desde aquí hasta allá: alternativas socioecológicas y transiciones poscapitalistas – Cicode, Universidad de Granada
“¿Por qué lo llaman ‘economía de guerra’ cuando quieren decir –deberían decir– ecosocialismo?”Antonio García-Olivares et al (2011) – A global renewable mix with proven technologies and common materials – Energy Policy 41:561–574 https://doi.org/10.1
016/j.enpol.2011.11. 018 – Instituto de Ciencias del Mar, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Barcelona – http://www.imedea.ui b-csic.es/master/cam bioglobal/Modulo_1_0 3/Ballabrera_Diciemb re_2011/Articulos/Ga rcia-Olivares.2011.p df – 4 autores
“However, lithium, nickel and platinum could become limiting materials for future vehicles fleet if no global recycling systems were implemented and rechargeable zinc–air batteries would not be developed; 60% of the current copper reserves would have to be employed in the implementation of the proposed solution.”Kevin Anderson (2012) – Real clothes for the Emperor: Facing the challenges of climate change – Cabot Institute Annual Lecture 2012 – University of Bristol, 06/11/2012 – Professor of Energy and Climate Change, University of Manchester, Tyndall Centre – http://www.bristol.a
c.uk/cabot/documents /anderson-ppt.pdf
“Energy system design lives (lock-in); Supply technologies 25-50 years; Large scale infrastructures and Built environment 30-100 years; Aircraft and ships ~30 years.”The QWERTY Phenomenon – MacMillan Dictionary, 22/11/2004 – http://www.macmillan
dictionary.com/buzzw ord/entries/QWERTY-p henomenon.html
“Lock-in of Technological Cultures […] Amid observation that old ideas tend to persist (the QWERTY layout is the same today as it was when it was first patented in 1868!) the term QWERTY phenomenon has been coined to refer to the general tendency to stick with what is familiar, despite the potential for far more efficient alternatives.”Roger Fouquet (2016) – Path dependence in energy systems and economic development – Nature Energy 1:16098 https://doi.org/10.1
038/nenergy.2016.98 – Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, London School of Economics and Political Science
“Energy systems are subject to strong and long-lived path dependence, owing to technological, infrastructural, institutional and behavioural lock-ins. Yet, with the prospect of providing accessible cheap energy to stimulate economic development and reduce poverty, governments often invest in large engineering projects and subsidy policies. Here, I argue that while these may achieve their objectives, they risk locking their economies onto energy-intensive pathways.”Roger Fouquet (2010) – The slow search for solutions: Lessons from historical energy transitions by sector and service – Energy Policy 38:6586–6596 https://doi.org/10.1
016/j.enpol.2010.06. 029 – Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3) + Ikerbasque (Basque Foundation for Science)
“This paper reviews past energy transitions by sector and service to identify features that may be useful for future transitions […] Based on past experiences, a complete transition to a low carbon economy is likely to be very slow.”Steven J Davis and Robert H. Socolow (2014) – Commitment accounting of CO2 emissions – Environmental Research Letters 9 084018 https://doi.org/10.1
088/1748-9326/9/8/08 4018 – Department of Earth System Science, University of California; Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University – http://iopscience.io p.org/1748-9326/9/8/ 084018/pdf/1748-9326 _9_8_084018.pdf
“Reducing CO2 emissions will ultimately mean retiring CO2-emitting infrastructure more quickly than it is built […] By revealing the emissions that are anticipated decades into the future, commitment accounting of CO2 emissions may help to integrate analyses of capital investment, cumulative emissions, and damages from climate warming. ”Ward Carroll – How an Auto Giant Got Ready for War – Military.com – http://www.military.
com/veteran-jobs/car eer-advice/military- transition/how-an-au to-giant-got-ready-f or-war.html
“Although GM might have been organizationally postured to answer the military’s needs better than most large American companies at the time, that still didn’t make the undertaking easy or immediate. In essence, GM was being asked by the United States government to start a new business.”C.L. Wang and P.C. Young (1988) – Direct Digital Pole-Assignment Control System Design for Multivariable Systems Based on Input-Output State Variable Feedback – International Conference on Control – Lancaster University
“A practical discrete time approach to pole-assignment for SISO systems via state variable feedback is extended to MIMO systems. A proper definition of non-minimal state space form and its controllability conditions are given and the results are illustrated by numerical examples.”Stafford Beer (1984) – The Viable System Model: Its Provenance, Development, Methodology and Pathology – The Journal of the Operational Research Society 35:7-25 https://doi.org/10.2
307/2581927
“It took the author 30 years to develop the Viable System Model, which sets out to explain how .systems are viable, that ts, capable of independent existence. He wanted to elucidate the laws of viability in order to facilitate the management task.”Michael Walker (2017) – The Search for Viability: A practitioner’s view of how the Viable Systems Model is helping transform English local government (and why it has passed unrecognised) – Systems Research and Behavioral Science 34:313–334 https://doi.org/10.1
002/sres.2455 – Associate Consultant, iESE Ltd., Horwich, Greater Manchester
“This paper has attempted to explain the pressures presently surrounding English local government, together with the contextual paradigms that influence them, primarily the past primacy of NPM and managerialism, and the more recent introduction of a specific form of systems thinking, but then to illustrate how the notions of wider systems thinking and the VSM have been utilised, seemingly implicitly, by various transforming Councils. ”Sheila Jasanoff (2007) – Technologies of humility – Nature 450:33 https://doi.org/10.1
038/450033a – Pforzheimer Professor of Science and Technology Studies, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University – https://www.nature.c om/articles/450033a. pdf “The great mystery of modernity is that we think of certainty as an attainable state. Uncertainty has become the threat to collective action, the disease that knowledge must cure.”
Committee on Abrupt Climate Change, Ocean Studies Board, Polar Research Board, Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate, Division on Earth and Life Studies, National Research Council (2002) – Abrupt Climate Change: Inevitable Surprises – National Academy of Sciences – http://www.nap.edu/o
penbook.php?isbn=030 9074347 “What defines a climate change as abrupt? Technically, an abrupt climate change occurs when the climate system is forced to cross some threshold, triggering a transition to a new state at a rate determined by the climate system itself and faster than the cause. Chaotic processes in the climate system may allow the cause of such an abrupt climate change to be undetectably small.” (p. 14)
Donnella Meadows, Jørgen Randers, Dennis Meadows (2004) – Los Límites del crecimiento: 30 años después – Galaxia Gutenberg – Massachusetts Institute of Technology – ISBN: 8481096016 – 514 Págs.
“Uno de los supuestos más extraños de los actuales modelos mentales es la idea de que un mundo de moderación tenga que ser un mundo de estricto control gubernamental centralizado. Para una economía sostenible, este tipo de control no es posible, deseable ni necesario.” (p. 404)Herbert A Simon (1996) – Models of My Life – The MIT Press – ISBN-13: 978-0262691
857 – 462 Págs.
“Cowles had close ties with the RAND Corporation (an acronym for Research and National Development), the original Think Tank, located in Santa Monica, and largely funded by the Air Force. RAND was well keyed into the early developments in cybernetics and computing […] For centrality to the postwar quantitative social sciences, the Cowles Commission and the RAND Corporation were definitely the places to see and to be seen. My presence in these places made Administrative Behavior visible not merely to scholars in the discipline of public administration but to others, as well, who could sense how crucial decision processes are to explaining human rationality […] It was also noticed by sociologists and the new community of behavioral scientists christened and nourished by the Ford Foundation’s program” (p. 115-116)Hunter Heyck (2015) – Age of System: Understanding the Development of Modern Social Science – Johns Hopkins University Press – Associate Professor, Chair, Department of the History of Science, University of Oklahoma
“I once asked Herbert Simon what was the concept that most influenced his work, and he gave me two in answer: system, which I expected, and the tree structure, which I did not. The tree structure was a powerful mental model. It offered a new way to imagine hierarchy, enabling people to visualize, generalize, and formalize it. In addition, the model offered the hope of reconciling the static study of structure and the dynamic analysis of process. ”Crawford S. Holling (2001) – Understanding the complexity of economic, ecological, and social systems – Ecosystems 4:390-405 https://doi.org/10.1
007/s10021-001-0101- 5 – Department of Zoology, University of Florida – https://link.springe r.com/content/pdf/10 .1007/s10021-001-010 1-5.pdf
“Simon’s key arguments are that each of the levels of a dynamic hierarchy serves two functions. One is to conserve and stabilize conditions for the faster and smaller levels; the other is to generate and test innovations by experiments occurring within a level. It is this latter, dynamic function we call “an adaptive cycle” (Holling 1986). It is a heuristic model, a fundamental unit that contributes to the understanding of the dynamics of complex systems from cells, to ecosystems, to societies, to cultures. ”Bernard Lietaer et al (2008) – White paper on All the Options for Managing a Systemic Bank Crisis, October 2008 – Center for Sustainable Resources, University of California – http://www.lietaer.c
om/images/White_ paper_on_Systemic_Ba nking_Crises_final.p df
“The surprising insight from a systemic perspective is that sustainable vitality involves diversifying the types of currencies and institutions and introducing new ones that are designed specifically to increase the availability of money in its prime function as a medium of exchange, rather than for savings or speculation.”C. S. Holling and Gary K. Meffe (1996) – Command and control and the pathology of natural resource management – Conservation Biology 10:328–337 – Department of Zoology, University of Florida; University of Georgia’s Savannah River Ecology Laboratory – http://www.calwater.
ca.gov/Admin_Record/ E-025180.pdf
“We discuss several aspects of ecosystem pattern and dynamics at large scales that provide insight into ecosystem resilience, and we propose a «Golden Rule» of natural resource management that we believe is necessary for sustainability: management should strive to retain critical types and ranges of natural variation in resource systems in order to maintain their resiliency.”Jorgen Randers (2000) – From limits to growth to sustainable development or SD (sustainable development) in a SD (system dynamics) perspective – System Dynamics Review 16:213-224 https://doi.org/10.1
002/1099-1727(200023 )16:3<213::AID-SDR19 7>3.0.CO;2-E – Norwegian School of Management in Oslo – http://web.boun.edu. tr/ali.saysel/Esc578 /Randers2000.pdf
“It is, of course, fully possible for humanity to avoid overshoot and decline, if one could just agree to try. Given a benevolent global dictatorship, the transition to sustainability could be made smoothly without much decline in the quality of life. ”Otto Mayr (1971) – The Origins of Feedback Control – The MIT Press – Max Planck Institute for the History of Science – ISBN-13 : 978-0262130677 – 176 Págs.
“Ktesibios lived in Alexandria, had originally been – according to Vitruvius – a barber, and served as a mechanician under the Ptolemies, more specifically probably under King Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285 to 247 B.C.).12 He is thus presumed to have lived in the first half of the third century B.C. In this dating,13 […] We know of him only through seven ancient secondary sources […] Vitruvius ranked him as an equal to Archimedes.16 He is credited with having invented the force pump, the water organ, several catapults, and the water clock. Vitruvius’ account of the Ktesibian water clocks contains a passage (9:8:4-7), unfortunately vague, which is a description of the earliest feedback device on record (Fig. 5), at least according to Diels’ interpretation […] this interpretation has been contested by some notable scholars.” (p. 11-12)Charlene Spretnak (1991,1993) – States of Grace: The Recovery of Meaning in the Post-Modern Age – Harper SanFrancisco – ISBN-13: 978-0062506
979 – 320 Págs.
“With the cosmos reduced to dead matter functioning as mechanically as a clockwork, the modern era grew confident of conquering nature through «objective» knowledge.” (p. 151)Jorge Mario Bergoglio (2015) – Laudato Si – Vaticano – Francisco I, Papa de Roma – https://ustednoseloc
ree.files.wordpress. com/2015/06/laudato- si-esp.pdf
“137: Dado que todo está íntimamente relacionado, y que los problemas actuales requieren una mirada que tenga en cuenta todos los factores de la crisis mundial, propongo que nos detengamos ahora a pensar en los distintos aspectos de una ecología integral, que incorpore claramente las dimensiones humanas y sociales.”Alexandre von Humboldt (1844,1875) – Cosmos. Ensayo de una descripción física del mundo – Eduardo Perié – 584 Págs. – https://bit.ly/3LXfZ
h0
“El poder majestuoso de la naturaleza en sus diversos aspectos no se revela más qué de forma dudosa a quien percibe en ella solo las partes en lugar de aprehenderla en su totalidad.”
[Citado por Francisco Fernández Buey (2013)]Christopher Wasmuth – A name to conjure with – Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung – 07/03/2019 – https://www.humboldt
-foundation.de/en/ex plore/alexander-von- humboldt/a-name-to-c onjure-with
“His biographer Andrea Wulf asserts that no other human being has had more natural features, animals and plants named after them. Their locations indicate more than the areas of the globe that Humboldt visited during the course of his extensive expeditions. The name has travelled even further and shows the dimensions of Humboldt’s world fame. ”Jorge Riechmann (2016) – Peces fuera del agua – Baile del Sol – Catedrático de Filosofía Moral, Universidad Complutense de Madrid – ISBN-13: 978-8416794041 – 346 Págs.
“Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) es uno de los precursores (o quizá habría que decir más bien uno de los fundadores) de la ecología, las ‘ciencias de la Tierra’ y los esfuerzos por comprender las totalidades que en la segunda mitad del siglo XX desembocarán en la teoría de sistemas y los enfoques de la complejidad. Para el gran investigador alemán, el objeto del conocimiento de la verdad debería ser no el poder sino el disfrute de la vida. Sus esfuerzos científicos se dirigían a despertar un conocimiento de todas las cosas dignas de amor.” (p. 292)Alexandre von Humboldt (1844,1875) – Cosmos. Ensayo de una descripción física del mundo – Eduardo Perié – 584 Págs. – https://bit.ly/3LXfZ
h0
“El poder majestuoso de la naturaleza en sus diversos aspectos no se revela más qué de forma dudosa a quien percibe en ella solo las partes en lugar de aprehenderla en su totalidad.”A.T. Fuller (1976) – The Early Development of Control Theory – Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement, and Control 98:109-118 https://doi.org/10.1
115/1.3426994 – Engineering Department, Cambridge University
“Huygens’ speed control system represents probably the first published design of a controller deliberately intended to eliminate static error (offset) due to constant disturbances. The feedback loop is somewhat disguised- and it may be doubted whether Huygens realized exactly how the system worked. It is shown in the Appendix that Huygens’ governor has integral action. Consequently, a constant nonzero system error cannot exist […] The above investigation shows that control theory is of surprising antiquity, beginning even before Newton published The laws of motion”F.L. Lewis (1992) – A Brief History of Feedback Control – En: Chapter 1: Introduction to Modern Control Theory in: F.L. Lewis Applied Optimal Control and Estimation Prentice-Hall 1992 – http://www.uta.edu/u
tari/acs/history.htm
“J. Watt invented his steam engine in 1769, and this date marks the accepted beginning of the Industrial Revolution. However, the roots of the Industrial Revolution can be traced back to the 1600’s or earlier with the development of grain mills and the furnace. One should be aware that others, primarily T. Newcomen in 1712, built the first steam engines. However, the early steam engines were inefficient and regulated by hand, making them less suited to industrial use. It is extremely important to realize that the Industrial Revolution did not start until the invention of improved engines and automatic control systems to regulate them.”José Javier Esparza – La primera máquina de vapor fue española: Jerónimo de Ayanz – El Manifiesto, 09/01/2014 – https://elmanifiesto
.com/tribuna/2280/la -primera-maacutequin a-de-vapor-fue-espan tildeola-jeroacuteni mo-de-ayanz.html
“Ni inglesa, ni francesa ni alemana: la primera patente de una máquina de vapor moderna, aquel invento que desencadenaría la revolución industrial, fue española. La registró en 1606, con otro medio centenar de inventos, el militar y político navarro Jerónimo de Ayanz y Beaumont, Administrador General de las Minas del Reino. No sólo la patentó, sino que además la aplicó. Era la época de Galileo, un tiempo vibrante para la ciencia. Cuando el inglés Savery patente su máquina de vapor, en 1698, lo hará sobre las ideas de don Jerónimo. Es una historia que vale la pena contar. De paso, borraremos muchos tópicos sobre el atraso científico de la España barroca.”History of the steam engine – Wikipedia – 12/06/2026 – https://en.wikipedia
.org/wiki/History_of _the_steam_engine
“The first recorded rudimentary steam engine was the aeolipile, mentioned by Vitruvius between 30 and 15 BCE and described by Heron of Alexandria in 1st-century Roman Egypt.[1][2] Several steam-powered devices were later experimented with or proposed, such as Taqi al-Din’s steam jack, a steam turbine in 16th-century Ottoman Egypt, Denis Papin’s working model of the steam digester in 1679 and Thomas Savery’s steam pump in 1698. In 1712, Thomas Newcomen’s atmospheric engine became the first commercially successful engine using the principle of the reciprocating piston and cylinder, which was the fundamental type of steam engine used until the early 20th century. The steam engine was used to pump water out of coal mines.”John Michael Greer (2012) – Progress vs. Apocalypse: The Stories We Tell Ourselves – En: The Energy Reader: Overdevelopment and the Delusion of Endless Growth, Tom Butler, Daniel Lerch, and George Wuerthner, eds. (Healdsburg, CA: Watershed Media, 2012) – Grand Archdruid of the Ancient Order of Druids in America – http://energy-realit
y.org/wp-content/upl oads/2013/06/13_Prog ress_R1_041313.pdf
“The laws of mechanics were worked out in ancient times, and a Greek scientist even invented the steam turbine two centuries before the birth of Christ; without fossil fuels it was a useless curiosity. Human resourcefulness and ingenuity? It’s as arrogant as it is silly to insist that people in past ages weren’t as resourceful and ingenious as we are.”Otto Mayr (1971) – Victorian Physicists and Speed Regulation: An Encounter between Science and Technology – Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 26:205-228 – Curator of Mechanical Engineering, Smithsonian Institution
“The work of Airy and Maxwell led indirectly to the mathematical solution of the problem of dynamical stability; the governors of Foucault and Siemens were discussed in the engineering literature for half a century; imperceptibly, the knowledge of such illustrious ancestry helped to shape the modern control engineer’s outlook upon his profession. ”George Biddell Airy (1840) – On the Regulator of the Clockwork for Effecting Uniform Movement of Equatoreals – Memories of the Royal Astronomical Socety 9:249-267 https://doi.org/10.1
093/mnras/5.5.41 – https://bit.ly/3qNEj pv
“The subject of this communication is a mathematical investigation of a mechanical problem of great importance in practical astronomy. The author remarks, that the accuracy given to a most delicate and valuable species of observations, by the use of clockwork attached to equatoreals, is so great, and the importance of the application so evident, that any investigation which assists in elucidating the principles on which such apparatus should be constructed, and especially any which points out the nature of one important defect to which it may be liable, cannot but be regarded as interesting to the ‘practical astronomer and the instrument-maker.”Diego Moñux Chércoles (2001) – Historia de la Automática – Departamento de Ingeniería de Sistemas y Automática, Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros Industriales, Universidad de Valladolid
“La segunda mitad del siglo XIX contempla el comienzo del estudio científico del regulador de Watt, conocido por entonces no como un tipo de regulador, sino como el regulador (The Governor). La aplicación en 1840 de las ecuaciones diferenciales por parte de G.B. Airy a un sistema que él mismo había diseñado para apuntar su telescopio y, especialmente, los estudios de J.C. Maxwell sobre la estabilidad del regulador publicados en 1868, que le llevaron a establecer un criterio matemático en base al análisis de las ecuaciones diferenciales que lo rigen, suponen el punto de partida del control de base científica ”James Clerck Maxwell (1868) – On Governors – Proceedings of the Royal Society of London 16:270-283 – http://www.maths.ed.
ac.uk/~aar/ papers/maxwell1.pdf
“I propose at present, without entering into any details of mechanism, to direct the attention of engineers and mathematicians to the dynamical theory of such governors. It will be seen that the motion of a machine with its governor consists in general of a uniform motion, combined with a disturbance which may be expressed as the sum of several component motions.”J. Vyshnegradskii (1876) – Sur la théorie générale des régulateurs – Comptes Rendus Académie des Sciences 83:318–321
Edward John Routh (1877,2015) – A Treatise on the Stability of a Given State of Motion – Palala Press – ISBN-13 : 978-1340760731 – 124 Págs. – https://ia802706.us.
archive.org/9/items/ atreatiseonstab00rou tgoog/atreatiseonsta b00routgoog.pdf – Karl J. Åström and P.R. Kumar (2014) – Control: A perspective – Automatica 50:3–43 https://doi.org/10.1
016/j.automatica.201 3.10.012 – Department of Automatic Control, Lund University; Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering – http://www.smp.uq.ed u.au/people/YoniNaza rathy/Control4406_20 14/resources/AstromK umarControlPerspecti ve2014.pdf
“The gradual evolution over several decades from an application of feedback to a broad and deep theoretical framework for its analysis and design can be clearly seen in the case of the centrifugal governor. Used early on in windmills in 1745 Mayr (1969), and subsequently by Watt in steam engines in the 1780s, it was originally a proportional controller, with integral and derivative action subsequently added (Bennett, 1979). About a century later, Vyshnegradskii (1876) and Maxwell (1868) initiated a theoretical investigation. This led to the work of Hurwitz (1895) and Routh (1877) on stability analysis.”Alexander Liapounov (1892) – Problème général de la stabilité du mouvement – Annales de la Faculté des Sciences de Toulouse 9:203-474 – Ingénieur de la Marine à Toulon – http://www.numdam.or
g/article/AFST_1907_ 2_9__203_0.pdf
“Dans cet Ouvrage sont exposées quelques méthodes p:tur la résolution des questions concernant les propriétés du mouvement ,et, en particulier, de l’équilibre, qui sont connues sous les dénominations de stabilité et d’instabilité. ”F.L. Lewis (1992) – A Brief History of Feedback Control – En: Chapter 1: Introduction to Modern Control Theory in: F.L. Lewis Applied Optimal Control and Estimation Prentice-Hall 1992 – http://www.uta.edu/u
tari/acs/history.htm
“The work of A.M. Lyapunov was seminal in control theory. He studied the stability of nonlinear differential equations using a generalized notion of energy in 1892 [Lyapunov 1893]. Unfortunately, though his work was applied and continued in Russia, the time was not ripe in the West for his elegant theory, and it remained unknown there until approximately 1960, when its importance was finally realized.”James Lovelock (1991) – General Symposium on the Cultural Implications of the Idea of Emergence in the Fields of Biology, Cognitive Science and Philosophy – From Biology to Cognitive Science (General Symposium on the Cultural Implications of the Idea of Emergence in the Fields of Biology, Cognitive Science and Philosophy) – En: William Irwin Thompson (Ed.) (1991), Gaia 2: Emergence, the new science of becoming, Lindisfarne Books, ISBN-13 : 978-0940262409
“There’s an apocryphal story that this was shown at a Royal Society Conversation in London in the middle of the last century and that one of the people who went round and looked at it was James Clerk Maxwell, who, as you may know, was no slouch of a mathematics. Maxwell is reported to have said, at the Royal Society Council meeting three or four days later, that he had spent three sleepless nights trying to analyze Watt’s steam engine governor and it totally defeated him.” (p. 215-216)James Clerck Maxwell (1868) – On Governors – Proceedings of the Royal Society of London 16:270-283 10.1098/rspl.1867.00
55 – https://www.maths.ed .ac.uk/~v1ranick/ papers/maxwell1.pdf
“I propose at present, without entering into any details of mechanism, to direct the attention of engineers and mathematicians to the dynamical theory of such governors.”Vannevar Bush (1931) – The differential analyzer. A new machine for solving differential equations – Journal of the Franklin Institute 212:447-488 https://doi.org/10.1
016/S0016-0032(31)90 616-9 – Massachusetts Institute of Technology
“This paper will describe a new machine for the solution of ordinary differential equations recently placed in service at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology […] a brief discussion will be given of a method of successive approximations for obtaining solutions of high accuracy, a method for avoiding difficulties due to singularities in coefficients, and a treatment of the problem of obtaining critical values of a parameter in an equation. «Amy Dahan Dalmedico (1996) – L’essor des mathématiques appliquées aux États-Unis : l’impact de la seconde guerre mondiale – Revue d’histoire des mathématiques 2:149-213 – UPR21, CNRS – http://www.numdam.or
g/item/RHM_1996__2_2 _149_0.pdf
“Au MIT, Vannevar Bush, spécialiste réputé de la théorie du circuit électrique et pionnier de l’application des techniques mathématiques de pointe à la transmission de l’énergie (analyse des circuits de puissance), a déjà eu l’occasion de collaborer avec Norbert Wiener, a également construit un «analyseur différentiel », première machine analogique destinée à résoudre numériquement des équations différentielles. ”Michael A. B. Deakin (1981) – The Development of the Laplace Transform, 1737-1937: I. Euler to Spitzer, 1737-1880 – Archive for History of Exact Sciences 25:343–390 https://doi.org/10.1
007/BF01395660 – Department of Mathematics , Monash University
“This paper, the first of two, follows the development of the Laplace Transform from its earliest beginnings with Euler, usually dated at 1737, to the year 1880, when Spitzer was its major, if himself relatively minor, protagonist. The coverage aims at completeness, and shows the state which the technique reached in the hands of its greatest exponent to that time, Petzval. A sequel will trace the development of the modern theory from its beginnings with Poincaré to its present form, due to Doetsch. ”Le Roy A. MacColl (1945,1968) – Fundamental theory of servomechanisms – Dover Publications – ISBN 13: 97804866191
63 – 130 Págs. Harold Stephen Black (1977) – Inventing the negative feedback amplifier: Six years of persistent search helped the author conceive the idea “in a flash” aboard the old Lackawanna Ferry – IEEE Spectrum 14:55-60 https://doi.org/10.1
109/MSPEC.1977.65017 21 –
“The author describes how he came to invent the negative feedback amplifier in 1927.”Lester Frank Ward (1883) – Dynamic Sociology. Vol. I – Appleton and Company – 746 Págs. – American Sociological Association – https://socialscienc
es.mcmaster.ca/econ/ ugcm/3ll3/ward/dynam ic1.pdf
“I insist that the time must soon come when the control of blind natural forces in society must give way to that of human foresight, or the highest civilizations of the earth must reach their culminating point and commence their decline. Nothing can prevent the occasional recurrence of states of social depression, under such conditions, but progress in intelligence, and practical science corresponding to the increase of numbers and social refinements. And a time must certainly come when the maintenance of the healthy and progressive tone of society will be far more difficult than at present, or at any period of the past. Thus far, social progress has in a certain awkward manner taken care of itself, but in the near future it will have to be cared for.” (p. 706)Lester Frank Ward (1897) – Dynamic Sociology. Vol. II – Appleton and Company – 697 Págs. – American Sociological Association – https://socialscienc
es.mcmaster.ca/econ/ ugcm/3ll3/ward/dynam ic2.pdf
“This general complex problem naturally resolves itself into two more special and simple problems. These are: First. What is the attitude which nature assumes toward man? and – Second. What is the attitude which man should assume toward nature? These are the fundamental questions, upon the answers to which all human conduct, other than that prompted by mere impulse, depends. They are therefore the questions which society must carefully consider and correctly answer before it can hope successfully to cope with the obstacles to its self-directed progress. ” (p. 9)Kenneth E. Boulding (1953) – Letter to Ludwig von Bertalanffy, 25/05/1953
“I seem to have come to much the same condusion as you have reached, though approaching it from the direction of economics and the social sciences rather than from biologythat there is a body of what I have been calling «genera! empirica! theory,» or «genera! system theory» in your e~cellent terminology, which is of wide applicability in many different disciplines. I am sure there are many peopl~ ~ll over the world who have come to essentially the same positiOn that we have, but we are widely scattered and do not know each other, so difficult is it to cross the boundaries of the disciplines. ”[Citado en Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1968), General System Theory. Foundations, Development, Applications, p. 14]
Kenneth E. Boulding (1956) – General systems theory: The skeleton of science – Management Science 2:197-208 – University of Michigan – http://www.panarchy.
org/boulding/systems .1956.html
“(i) The first level is that of the static structure. It might be called the level of frameworks […] (ii) The next level of systematic analysis is that of the simple dynamic system with predetermined, necessary motions […] (iii) The next level is that of the control mechanism or cybernetic system, which might be nicknamed the level of the thermostat […] (iv) The fourth level is that of the «open system,» or self-maintaining structure […] (v) The fifth level might be called the genetic-societal level; it is typified by the plant, and it dominates the empirical world of the botanist […] (vi) As we move upward from the plant world towards the animal kingdom we gradually pass over into a new level, the «animal» level, characterized by increased mobility, teleological behavior and self-awareness […] (vii) The next level is the «human» level, that is of the individual human being considered as a system […] (viii) Because of the vital importance for the individual man of symbolic images and behavior based on them it is not easy to separate clearly the level of the individual human organism from the next level, that of social organizations […] (ix) To complete the structure of systems we should add a final turret for transcendental systems; even if we may be accused at this point of having built Babel to the clouds […] One advantage of exhibiting a hierarchy of systems in this way is that it gives us some idea of the present gaps in both theoretical and empirical knowledge.”Gregory Bateson (1972) – Pasos hacia una ecología de la mente – Carlos Lohlé/ Planeta Argentina, Buenos Aires – ISBN: 950-724-700-9 – 355 Págs. – http://es.slideshare
.net/charlyf/bateson -gregory-pasos-hacia -una-ecologa-de-la-m ente
“Russel Wallace envió a Darwin desde Indonesia un ensayo ahora famoso. Parte de su descripción de la lucha por la vida es interesante: La acción de este principie [la lucha por la existencia] es exactamente igual a la de la máquina de vapor, que registra y corrige cualesquiera irregularidades casi antes de que se hagan manifiestas; y de una manera semejante no hay ninguna deficiencia no equilibrada del reino animal que pueda llegar a una magnitud conspicua, porque se haría sentir en el primerísimo de sus pasos, tornando difícil la existencia y haciendo que la extinción se produjera casi con seguridad […] Wallace, en verdad, propuso el primer modelo cibernético. ” (p. 293)Antonio Lozano Domènech (2023) – La sabiduría del no saber – Editorial Kairós – ISBN-13 : 978-8411211352 – 160 Págs.
“El planeta Tierra se mueve a 107.280 kilómetros/hora alrededor del Sol y tarda un año en dar una vuelta completa. El Sol se mueve a 828.000 kilómetros/hora alrededor del centro de la Vía Láctea, y tarda unos 225 millones de años en dar una vuelta completa. La Vía Láctea se mueve a 2.300.000 kilómetros/hora alrededor del fondo cósmico, y se calcula que tarda unos 1.000 millones de años en dar una vuelta completa. ” (p. 28)Claus Pias (2016) – Cybernetics: The Macy Conferences 1946-1953: The Complete Transactions – University of Chicago Press – Institute of Advanced Study, University of Konstanz – ISBN-13 : 978-3037345986 – 736 Págs.
“A cat that wants to catch a fleeing mouse does not jump to the place where the mouse presently is but rather to where it will next be: It jumps toward the future of the mouse.” (p. 20)Robert Lilienfeld (1978) – The rise of systems theory: an ideological analysis – John Wiley & Sons – ISBN-13: 978-0471535331 – 302 Págs.
“The scientist working to discover the order and organization of the universe is in effect playing a game against the arch enemy, disorganization. This raises the important question whether this enemy is «Manichaean or Augustinian.» If Manichaean, the devil of disorganization is active and creative and uses any trick of craftiness or dissimulation to confuse his opponent, the scientist. In St. Augustine’s view evil was not an active creative principle, but rather a matter of incompleteness, narrowness, limitation. The Augustinian devil is not a power in itself, but simply a measure of human weakness and limitation.” (p. 68)Norbert Wiener (1956,1971) – I Am A Mathematician: The Later Life of a Prodigy – The MIT Press – ISBN: 9780262230759 – 380 Págs.
“It does not seem even remotely possible to eliminate the human element as far as it shows itself in enemy behavior. Therefore, in order to obtain as complete a mathematical treatment as possible of the overall control problem, it is necessary to assimilate the different parts of the system to a single basis, either human or mechanical. Since our understanding of the mechanical elements of gun pointing appeared to us to be far ahead of our psychological understanding, we chose to try to find a mechanical analogue of the gun pointer and the airplane pilot. ”Peter Galison (1994) – The Ontology of the Enemy: Norbert Wiener and the Cybernetic Vision – Critical Inquiry 21: 228-266 https://doi.org/10.1
086/448747 – Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics and History of Science, Harvard University
“The servomechanical enemy became, in the cybernetic vision of the 1940s, the prototype for human physiology and, ultimately, for all of human nature. Then, in a final move of totalization, Wiener vaulted cybernetics to a philosophy of nature, in which nature itself became an unknowable but passive opponent-the Augustinian devil […] If humans do not differ from machines from the «scientific standpoint,» it is because the scientific standpoint of the 1940s was one of men-machines at war.”Arturo Rosenblueth and Norbert Wiener (1950) – Purposeful and Non-purposeful Behavior – Philosophy of Science 17:318-326
“We believe that men and other animals are like machines from the scientific standpoint because we believe that the only fruitful methods for the study of human and animal behavior are the methods applicable to the behavior of mechanical objects as well. Thus, our main reason for selecting the terms in question was to emphasize that, as objects of scientific enquiry, humans do not differ from machines [emphasis added].”Karl Popper (1972) – Of Clouds and Clocks: An approach to the problem of rationality and the freedom of man – En: Karl Popper, Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach – http://www.the-ratho
use.com/2011/Clouds- and-Clocks.html
“La doctrina de que el hombre es una máquina fue argumentada con más fuerza en 1751, mucho antes de que la teoría de la evolución fuera generalmente aceptada, por de La Mettrie; y la teoría de la evolución le dio al problema un aspecto aún más agudo, al sugerir que puede no haber distinción clara entre materia viva y materia muerta […] la doctrina de La Mettrie de que el hombre es una máquina tiene quizás más defensores que antes entre físicos, biólogos y filósofos; especialmente en la forma de la tesis de que el hombre es una computadora.” Peter Galison (1994) – The Ontology of the Enemy: Norbert Wiener and the Cybernetic Vision – Critical Inquiry 21: 228-266 https://doi.org/10.1
086/448747 – Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics and History of Science, Harvard University
“But there is yet another picture of the enemy that emerged during World War II, less well known but in many ways more powerful and enduring than either the racialized or the anonymous enemy. More active than the targeted, invisible inhabitants of a distant city and more rational than the hoardelike race enemy, this third version emerged as a cold-blooded, machinelike opponent. This was the enemy, not of bayonet struggles in the trenches, nor of architectural targets fixed through the prisms of a Norden gunsight. Rather, it was a mechanizedEnemy Other, generated in the laboratory-based science wars of MIT and a myriad of universities around the United States and Britain, not to speak of the tens of laboratories in the countries of the Axis. ”John W. Dower (1986) – War without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War – Pantheon – ISBN-13 : 978-0394751726 – 416 Págs.
“Beneath the thin veneer of a few generations of civilization [the Japanese soldier] is a subhuman beast, who has brought warfare back to the primeval, who fights by the jungle rule of tooth and claw, who must be beaten by the jungle rule of tooth and claw. […] Kill him or he will kill you.» A year later, Blamey insisted on the Buna battlefield that «fighting Japs is not like fighting normal human beings…. The Jap is a little barbarian…. We are not dealing with humans as we know them. We are dealing with something primitive. Our troops have the right view of the Japs. They regard them as vermin. ” (p. 55,71) [Citado en Peter Galison (1994)]William Ross Ashby (1956) – An Introduction to Cybernetics – Chapman and Hall – ISBN 9781614277651 – 304 Págs.
“Cybernetics deals with all forms of behaviour in so far as they are regular, or determinate, or reproducible. The materiality is irrelevant, and so is the holding or not of the ordinary laws of physics […] The truths of cybernetics are not conditional on their being derived from some other branch of science. Cybernetics has its own foundations. It is partly the aim of this book to display them clearly. ” (p. 1)
Norbert Wiener (1948) – Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine – The MIT Press – Massachusetts Institute of Technology – ISBN-13: 978-1432594442 – 196 Págs.
“We have decided to call the entire field of control and communication theory, whether in the machine or in the animal, by the name of Cybernetics.” (p. 19)Otto Mayr (1971) – The Origins of Feedback Control – The MIT Press – Max Planck Institute for the History of Science – ISBN-13 : 978-0262130677 – 176 Págs.
“When in 1947 Norbert Wiener christened the newly founded discipline (he had not known that in 1834 A.-M. Ampère had proposed cybernetiqne as a term for the science of government3), he made use of the Greek word for steersman, κνβερνήτης. He had come upon this through the etymology of the word governor (English to govern-Latin gubernare-Greek nvpcpvav), the familiar term for the first popular feedback device. ” (p. 2)Norbert Wiener (1950) – The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and society – Free Association Books – Professor of Mathematics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology – ISBN-13: 978-0306803208 – 200 Págs. – http://asounder.org/
resources/weiner_hum anuse.pdf
“It is a thesis of this chapter that this aspiration of the fascist for a human state based on the model of the ant results from a profound misapprehension both of the nature of the ant and of the nature of man.” (p. 52)David F. Noble (1984,2011) – Forces of Production: A Social History of Industrial Automation – Routledge – ISBN-13 : 978-1412818285 – 444 Págs.
“Unlike John von Neumann, whose mathematical axiomatic approach reflected his affinity for military authority and control, Wiener insisted upon the indeterminacy of systems and a statistical, probabilistic understanding of their functioning. Any technical part of social systems, he stressed, should be designed to complement, to be compatible with, and therefore to sustain and enhance human life […] Wiener wanted to ensure that advances in technology would benefit labor, not industrial corporations. ” (p. 71)Norbert Wiener (1945) – Letter to Giorgio de Santillana, 16/10/1945
“Ever since the atomic bomb fell I have been recovering from an acute attack of conscience as one of the scientists who has been doing war work and who has seen his war work a[s] part of a larger body which is being used in a way of which I do not approve and over which I have absolutely no control. I think the omens for a third world war are black and I have no intention of letting my services be used in such a conflict. I have seriously considered the possibility of giving up my scientific productive effort because I know no way to publish without letting my inventions go to the wrong hands.” [Citado en Peter Galison (1994)]Claus Pias (Ed.) (2016) – Cybernetics: The Macy Conferences 1946-1953: The Complete Transactions – University of Chicago Press – ISBN-13 : 978-3037345986 – 736 Págs.
“Between 1946 and 1953, the Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation sponsored a series of conferences aiming to bring together a diverse, interdisciplinary community of scholars and researchers who would join forces to lay the groundwork for the new science of cybernetics. These conferences, known as the Macy conferences, constituted a landmark for the field […] This book contains the complete transcripts of all ten Macy conferences and the guidelines for the conference proceedings.”Fritjof Capra (1996) – La trama de la vida – Editorial Anagrama – ISBN-13: 978-8433973436 – 368 Págs.
“Norbert Wiener tenía una notable influencia sobre Gregory Bateson, con quien mantuvo una excelente relación durante las Conferencias de Macy. La mente de Bateson, al igual que la de Wiener, circulaba libremente entre las disciplinas, desafiando las presunciones básicas y los métodos de varias ciencias mediante la búsqueda de patrones generales y poderosas abstracciones universales […] Warren McCulloch […] asegurando que el desafío de alcanzar una nueva comprensión de mente y cerebro se mantuviese en el centro de las conversaciones.” (p. 73)Manuel Blum (2016) – Cybernetics: A mathematician of mind – Nature 538:39–40 https://doi.org/10.1
038/538039a – Bruce Nelson University Professor of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh – http://www.nature.co m/nature/journal/v53 8/n7623/pdf/538039a. pdf
“McCulloch was a polymath: a neurophysiologist who was also a physician, psychiatrist, poet, writer, architect, engineer and mathematician. His was the all-encompassing intellect that could and did bring these disparate fields together — both in the Macy meetings and in his lab. Through its discussions of McCulloch in the round, Rebel Genius is an excellent portrait of the man and his time, and a significant contribution to the history of science.”Heinz von Foerster (1960,2015) – Las semillas de la cibernética – Editorial Gedisa – Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Illinois – ISBN-13 : 978-8474324143 – 224 Págs. – https://monoskop.org
/images/2/24/Von_Foe rster_Heinz_Las_semi llas_de_la_ciberneti ca_1991.pdf
“El efecto de la inclusión del sujeto observador y el desvío de la atención de las nociones a los usuarios de las nociones (lo cual enriquecía a las nociones mismas) transformó a la cibernética en una epistemología, una disciplina que tenía algo que decir no solamente sobre la estructura ontológica de la realidad sino sobre el conocimiento de esa realidad, sus límites y posibilidades, sus dificultades y condicionamientos.” (p. 24)Heinz von Foerster (2003) – Cybernetics of Cybernetics – En: Heinz von Foerster (2003), Understanding Understanding, Chapter 13, 283–286 https://doi.org/10.1
007/0-387-21722-3_13 – Biological Computer Laboratory, Emeritus, University of Illinois
“It appears to be clear that social cybernetics must be a second order cybernetics—a cybernetics of cybernetics—in order that the observer who enters the system shall be allowed to stipulate his own purpose: he is autonomous. If we fail to do so somebody else will determine a purpose for us. Moreover, if we fail to do so, we shall provide the excuses for those who want to transfer the responsibility for their own actions to somebody else: “I am not responsible for my actions; I just obey orders.” Finally, if we fail to recognize autonomy of each, we may turn into a society that attempts to honor commitments and forgets about its responsibilities.»Douglas R. Hofstadter (2008) – Yo soy un extraño bucle – Tusquets Editores – ISBN-13: 978-8483830871 – 524 Págs
“Con la ambiciosa intención de explorar el complejoconcepto del yodesde el punto de vista científico, Douglas R. Hofstadter retoma y amplía una de las ideas fundamentales que presentó en su aclamada obra Gödel, Escher, Bach: el paralelismo entre el hallazgo de Gödel de una autorreferencia surgida de un sustrato de símbolos sin significado y la milagrosa aparición de egos y almas a partir de sustratos de materia inanimada, donde residiría el secreto de nuestro sentido del yo.”Stewart Brand (1976) – For God’s Sake, Margaret. Conversation with Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead – CoEvolution Quarterly (Summer 1976): 32–44 – https://sites.evergr
een.edu/arunchandra/ wp-content/uploads/s ites/395/2018/05/Bat esonAndMead.pdf
“We didn’t realize then (at least I didn’t realize it, though McCulloch may have) that the whole of logic would have to be reconstructed for recursiveness ”Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1798) – Empirical Observation and Science – En: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1798), Scientific Studies, Suhrkamp Publishers
“There is a delicate empiricism which makes itself utterly identical with the object, thereby becoming true theory. But this enhancement of our mental powers belongs to a highly evolved age.”[Citado en Arthur G. Zajonc (1991)]
Warren S. McCulloch and Walter Pitts (1943) – A Logical Calculus of the Ideas Immanent in Nervous Activity – Bulletin of Mathematical Biophysics 5:115–133 https://doi.org/10.1
007/BF02478259 – University of Illinois, College of Medicine + Department of Psychiatry at the Illinois Neuropsychiatric Institute + University of Chicago
“Because of the “all-or-none” character of nervous activity, neural events and the relations among them can be treated by means of propositional logic. It is found that the behavior of every net can be described in these terms, with the addition of more complicated logical means for nets containing circles; and that for any logical expression satisfying certain conditions, one can find a net behaving in the fashion it describes.”Stefan Bollmann (2023) – Goethe y la experiencia de la naturaleza – Editorial Ariel – SBN-13 : 978-8434435971 – 560 Págs.
“La ambición de Humboldt apuntaba más alto: buscaba una idea rectora bajo la que pudieran conjuntarse disciplinas diferentes en una especie de metaciencia que facilitara la comprensión de todos los fenómenos de la naturaleza en su contexto general. Y, para lograr este objetivo, su encuentro con Goethe fue un gran golpe de suerte. ” (p. 18)Executive Order 9835 – Wikipedia, 24/01/2025 – https://en.wikipedia
.org/wiki/Executive_ Order_9835
“The order established the first general loyalty program in the United States, designed to root out communist influence in the U.S. federal government. Truman aimed to rally public opinion behind his Cold War policies with investigations conducted under its authority. He also hoped to quiet right-wing critics who accused Democrats of being soft on communism. At the same time, he advised the Loyalty Review Board to limit the role of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to avoid a witch hunt.[2] The program investigated over 3 million government employees, just over 300 of whom were dismissed as security risks.[3] The Loyalty Order was part of the prelude to the rise of Senator Joseph McCarthy, Republican of Wisconsin.” Landon R. Y. Storrs (2015) – McCarthyism and the Second Red Scare – American Hisroty https://doi.org/10.1
093/acrefore/9780199 329175.013.6 – Department of History, University of Iowa – https://oxfordre.com /americanhistory/dis play/10.1093/acrefor e/9780199329175.001. 0001/acrefore-978019 9329175-e-6?print=pd f
“Historians are documenting in concrete detail how the fear of communism, and the fear of punishment for association with communism, affected specific individuals, organizations, professions, social movements, public policies, and government agencies.43 The drive to eliminate communism from all facets and arenas of American life engaged diverse players for many years, and scholars continue to catalogue its direct and indirect consequences.”John O’Neill (2004) – Ecological economics and the politics of knowledge: the debate between Hayek and Neurath – Cambridge Journal of Economics 28:431-447 https://doi.org/10.1
093/cje/beh016 – Centre of Philosophy, Institute for Environment, Philosophy and Public Policy, Lancaster University
“Neurath responded to these criticisms in unpublished notes and correspondence with Hayek. These highlighted the epistemological premises his work shared with Hayek’s, representing a response to Hayek from Hayek’s own assumptions. This paper examines the cogency and continuing relevance of the arguments in this debate.»George A. Reisch (2005) – How the Cold War Transformed the Philosophy of Science – Cambridge University Press – Independent scholar – ISBN-13:978-05215468
98 – 424 págs. “Some, such as Otto Neurath, Philipp Frank, and Charles Morris, shared the belief that logical empiricism, or philosophy of science more broadly, should embrace not only formal, abstract studies of scientific theory and scientific language, but also socially and politically relevant topics (such as the study of values in science, the sociology of science, and the logical structure and evidentiary content of ideologies and ideological claims). These and other topics, and the task of popularizing them within other disciplines and the general public, belonged to the Unity of Science movement that they promoted beginning in the mid-1930s.”
George A. Reisch (2005) – How the Cold War Transformed Philosophy of Science: To the Icy Slopes of Logic – Cambridge University Press – Independent scholar – ISBN-10: 0521546893 – 434 Págs.
“While Hayek was writing Serfdom, for example, Neurath was debating Joad and other English classicists over the mischievous metaphysics and fascism he saw in Plato […] Neurath wished to debate Hayek publicly [ref]. But he succeeded only in publishing a review of Serfdom that began on this shared note of antifascism […] Neurath found the Achilles’ heel of Hayek’s view: Hayek simply ruled out, a priori and without justification, the possibility that collective interests might win out over individual interests, that societies or nations might succeed in “planning as a co-operative effort, based on compromise” […] Hayek and the many influenced by him simply did not share that faith, a faith that belonged to the progressive 1930s, not the distrustful, anticommunist 1940s and ’50s.” (p. 123-124)Talcott Parsons – Wikipedia, 15/12/2021 – https://en.wikipedia
.org/wiki/Talcott_Pa rsons
“During the McCarthy era, on April 1, 1952, J. Edgar Hoover […] received a personal letter from an informant who reported on Communist activities at Harvard […] claimed that «Professor Talcott Parsons […] was probably the leader of an inner group» of Communist sympathizers at Harvard […] In February 1954, a colleague, Stouffer, wrote to Parsons in England to inform him that Stouffer had been denied access to classified documents and that part of the stated reason was that Stouffer knew Communists, including Parsons, «who was a member of the Communist Party» [ref: Harvard University Archives].”Talcott Parsons and Edward Shills (Eds.) (1951,2015) – Toward a general theory of action: Theoretical Foundations for the Social Sciences – Harvard University Press – Department of Social Relations, Harvard University – ISBN-13 : 978-1296497361 – 522 Págs. – https://ia801407.us.
archive.org/23/items /towardgeneralthe00p ars/towardgeneralthe 00pars.pdf
“Indeed, one of the most important functional imperatives of the maintenance of social systems is that the value-orientations of the different actors in the same social system must be integrated in some measure in a common system.”Nils Gilman (2003,2007) – Mandarins of the Future: Modernization Theory in Cold War America – Johns Hopkins University Press – Johns Hopkins University – ISBN-13: 978-0801886331 – 344 Págs. – http://goo.gl/j5YhgV
“Explaining the appeal of Pareto, Homans wrote, “As a Republican Bostonian who had not rejected his comparatively wealthy family, I felt during the thirties that I was under personal attack, above all from the Marxists. I was ready to believe Pareto because he provided me with a defense” (quoted in Barbara Heyl, “The Harvard ‘Pareto Circle’” [1968], in Talcott Parsons: Critical Assessments, vol. 1, ed. Peter Hamilton [New York: Routledge, 1992], p. 30).” (np, p. 287)Eva M. Knodt (1996) – Foreword: The Postmodern Predicament – En: Niklas Luhmann (1996), Social Systems, Stanford University Press, ISBN-13: 978-0804726252
“Although cybernetic models were commonly used in the social sciences throughout the 1940’s and 1950’s, their adequacy remained in dispute, 39 and the emphasis on systems maintenance and social engineering often met with political and ethical suspicion. Such an emphasis was quite obvious, for example, in Parsons’s attempt to deduce from invariant systemic structures the functions necessary to maintain these structures. ”Robert Lilienfeld (1978) – The rise of systems theory: an ideological analysis – John Wiley & Sons – ISBN-13: 978-0471535331 – 302 Págs.
“Systems theory appears to be the «natural» ideology of bureaucratic planners and centralizers and both expresses and fosters developments along those lines.” (p. 263-264)John Capps (2004) – McCarthyism and American Philosophy – Phylosophy Now, 46 – Assistant Professor in Philosophy at Rochester Institute of Technology – https://philosophyno
w.org/issues/46/McCa rthyism_and_American _Philosophy
“American philosophy does not play as prominent a role in American culture as it should, or as it once did […] This is especially worrisome because the current war on terrorism shares many traits with the McCarthy era’s war on Communism […] McCarthy’s career was brief but the era to which he gave his name had significant – and persistent – consequences that left American society and American philosophy transformed.”John Brockman (1995) – La tercera cultura. Mas allá de la revolucion cientifica – Tusquets Editores – ISBN-13: 978-8472239
548 – 392 Págs.
“Los intelectuales norteamericanos tradicionales son, hasta cierto punto, cada vez más reaccionarios, y con harta frecuencia arrogantemente (y tercamente) ignorantes de muchos de los logros intelectuales verdaderamente significativos de nuestro tiempo. Su cultura, que rechaza la ciencia, carece muchas veces de base empírica.” (p. 13)Francisco Fernández Buey (2013) – Para la Tercera Cultura. Ensayos sobre Ciencias y Humanidades – El Viejo Topo – Catedrático de Filosofía Política, Universidad Pompeu Fabra – ISBN: 978-84-92616-05-3 – 410 Págs.
“Ese mismo espíritu ha inspirado en España, desde los años ochenta, algunas colecciones de libros, como, por ejemplo, la Biblioteca Científica Salvat, las colecciones de divulgación científica de RBA y de Orbis, la colección Drakontos de Editorial Crítica, la colección Metatemas de Tusquets, etc., propiciadas por científicos atentos también a las humanidades: Jesús Mosterín, Jaume Llosa, Jorge Wagensberg, José Manuel Sánchez Ron, Pere Puigdomènech, Fernández Rañada o Joandomènec Ros.” (p. 197)Slava Gerovitch (2002) – From Newspeak to Cyberspeak: A History of Soviet Cybernetics – The MIT Press – ISBN-13 : 978-0262072328 – 323 Págs.
“Cybernetics seems difficult to pin down to a single political or social trend. While some view it as an extension of military patterns of thinking and behavior into the civilian realm, others see it as a liberating movement that destroys traditional cultural divisions and stereotypes. For example, Donna Haraway has argued that humans are in fact becoming “cyborgs”— cybernetic organisms, or hybrids of machine and organism—and that cybernetics effectively undermines the rigid “dichotomies between mind and body, animal and human, organism and machine, public and private, nature and culture, men and women, [and] primitive and civilized.” ”Robert Lilienfeld (1978) – The rise of systems theory: an ideological analysis – John Wiley & Sons – ISBN-13: 978-0471535331 – 302 Págs.
“Systems philosophy, it should be noted, shows some affinity with the Marxist and Hegelian aspiration to grasp, by an act of intuition, both the nature of man and the logic of history, the former by algorithmic, rather than philosophical or economic methods, but it remains only an aspiration […] we have said relatively little about the third, the bureaucrats oriented toward social services.” (p. 259,268)H. Igor Ansoff and Dennis P. Slevin (1968) – An Appreciation of Industrial Dynamics – Management Science 14:383-397 – Carnegie-Mellon University – https://lawdigitalco
mmons.bc.edu/cgi/vie wcontent.cgi?article =1873&context=ealr
“Another view, sometimes regarded as old-fashioned, is frequently held by scientists whose background is in traditional physical sciences or engineering. Here considerable emphasis is placed on making models «true to life» the first time, on observing carefully, on testing boundaries, on testing internal logic of the model, on obtaining parameters from real life situations. Forrester belongs to this latter school and justifiably so! […] Forrester exhibits much concern with the care which should be exercised in the course of an Industrial Dynamics study.”Wassily Leontief (1966,1977) – Essays in Economics – Basil Blackwell – ISBN-13 : 978-0631178408 – Págs.
“Under such names as ‘operations research’, ‘logistics analysis’ or ‘management science’, the new techniques are now being successfully used by most large American corporations in the solution of production scheduling, inventory control, investment planning, and many other of their internal problems which hitherto were met by roptine application of conventional and mostly rather wasteful rules of thumb. But certain business circles in the United States have viewed with unconcealed alarm the application of these methods to the traditional problems of the economic system as a whole-the very purpose for which some of the more powerful of the new analytical devices were designed in the first place. No doubt this attitude reflects the fear that too close and too detailed an understanding of the structure of the economic machine and of its operation might encourage undesirable attempts to regulate its course. ”Wassily W. Leontief (1986) – Input Output Economics – Oxford University Press – ISBN-13: 978-0195035278 – 452 Págs.
“Reseña del editor: The only comprehensive introduction which Leontief has written to his model of Input-Output Economics, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Science in 1972 […] The book begin with non-technical articles on the theory of Input-Output Economics and progresses to more technical essays, and then to specific applications of the theory. This edition has been thoroughly revised, at least one third of the material being new. ”Eglė Rindzevičiūtė (2015) – Toward a Joint Future Beyond the Iron Curtain: East–West Connections in Global Modelling – En: Jenny Andersson and Eglė Rindzevičiūtė (2015), The Struggle for the Long-Term in Transnational Science and Politics, ISBN-13 : 978-1883823443, 272 págs. – CNRS research professor, Center for European Studies, Sciences Po
“In 1931, he was invited to join the National Bureau of Economic Research and soon thereafter became a professor at Harvard. Leontief first presented his theory of systems dynamics to the military in Washington, DC; in 1948–1949 his empirical input-output studies were funded by both the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations under the Harvard Economic Research Project.” (p. 124)Emilio Cerdá (2007) – Donella Meadows, Jorgen Randers y Dennis Meadows: Los límites del crecimiento 30 años después – Fundación Sistema – Universidad Complutense de Madrid – http://www.fundacion
sistema.com/media/PD F/PPios9_Meadows.pdf
“Se considera a Jay W. Forrester el padre de la disciplina, a partir del libro Industrial Dynamics (1961). El mismo Forrester, maestro de los autores del libro que nos ocupa, diseñó el prototipo de modelo de ordenador que se ha utilizado en la investigación que está en la base del libro que nos ocupa.”Jay W. Forrester (1955) – Dynamic models of economic systems and industrial organizations – System Dynamics Review 19:331–345 https://doi.org/10.1
002/sdr.284 – 05/11/1955 – MIT Sloan School – http://onlinelibrary .wiley.com/doi/10.10 02/sdr.284/pdf
“I suggest that economic models are often an orderly arrangement of superficial manifestations while the business man’s intuition represents a disordered accumulation of basic insights into how people and social systems react. The hope for the future lies in generating an orderly arrangement of basic insights.”Jay W Forrester (1958) – Industrial Dynamics: A Major Breakthrough for Decision Makers – Harvard Business Review 26:37–66 https://doi.org/10.1
225/58404 – Massachusetts Institute of Technology
“The new management concepts will rest in part on recent advances in the data-processing industry, in part on military research (which has given us an improved understanding of decision making and experience in analyzing and simulating the characteristics of complex systems), and largely on 20 years of research in information- feedback systems. ”Thomas Herbert Naylor (1971) – Computer Simulation Experiments with Models of Economic Systems – John Wiley & Sons – ISBN-13 : 978-0471630708 – 520 Págs.
“In addition to the hypothetical models included in Forrester’s book [33], Industrial Dynamics has also been applied to a number of simulations of firms and industries in the real world, for example, the Sprague Electric Company [33, p. ix], the shoe, leather, hide industry [91], and the textile industry [92], Several excellent papers have been written that describe specific applica¬ tions of Industrial Dynamics ” (p. 107)Jay W. Forrester (1961) – Industrial Dynamics – The MIT Press – Massachusetts Institute of Technology – ISBN-13 : 978-0262560016 – 480 Págs.
“Industrial Dynamics is the study of the information-feedback characteristics of industrial activity to show how organizational structure, amplification (in policies), and time delays (in decisions and interactions) interact to influence the success of the enterprise. It treats the interaction between flows of information, money, orders, materials, personnel, and capital equipment in a company, an industry, or a national economy.” (p. 13)Jay Wright Forrester (1969) – Urban Dynamics – MIT Press – Massachusetts Institute of Technology – ISBN-13: 978-0262060264 – 285 Págs.
“As used here the phrase «complex system» refers to a high-order, multiple-loop, no-nlinear feedback structure. All social systems belong to this class. The management structure of a corporation has all the characteristics of a complex system. Similarly, an urban area, a national government, economic processes, and international trade all are complex systems. Complex systems have many unexpected and little understood characteristics.” (p. 107)Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1933) – Modern theories of development: an introduction to theoretical biology – Oxford University Press
“The second part of the book deals with one aspect of biology only, namely, that of development. Again an attempt to explain development on current theories meets with failure. In place of these the author puts forward the «system theory.» This regards the organism as a whole, as a unitary system, and development as a function of the whole and not as a sum of cell actions.”Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1938) – A Quantitative Theory of Organic Growth – Human Biology 10:181-213 – Zoologisches Institut der Universität Wien + The University of Chicago
“Various examples in physics and physiology […] show that it is often possible to state statistical laws for complex phenomena as a whole, the single events of which are inaccessible to investigation. It may be that such procedures will be effective also with respect to organic growth.”Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1950) – The theory of open systems in physics and biology – Science 111:23-29 https://doi.org/10.1
126/science.111.2872 .23 – Department of Biology, University of Ottawa – http://vhpark.hyperb ody.nl/images/a/aa/B ertalanffy-The_Theor y_of_Open_Systems_in _Physics_and_Biology .pdf
“From the physical point of view, the characteristic state of the living organism is that of an open system. A system is closed if no material enters or leaves it; it is open if there is import and export and, therefore, change of the components. Living systems are open systems, maintaining themselves in exchange of materials with environment […] the character of an open system is the necessary condition for the continuous workig capacity of the organism. ”William Irwin Thompson (1987) – Las implicaciones culturales de la nueva biología – En: William Irwin Thompson (Ed.) (1987,1989), Gaia: Implicaciones de la nueva biología, Editorial Kairós, ISBN-13 : 978-8472452008, 224 págs. – Historiador cultural + Presidente, Asociación de Lindisfarne
“En la obra educativa de Lindisfarne hemos trabajado, no sólo procurando un diálogo entre las religiones del mundo, puesto que eso es demasiado burocrático, sino por una asociación contemplativa. Y también por eso en la comunidad de Lindisfarne hemos trabajado para crear, no una ideología nueva a la que todos podamos sumarnos, sino una ideología de diferencias relacionadas. Y, por lo tanto, organizamos esta reunión sobre la nueva biología en un monasterio budista Zen.” (p. 33)Ralph Peters (2002) – The Gaian Politics of Lindisfarne’s William Irwin Thompson – EarthLight Magazine 47 – https://earthlight.o
rg/2002/essay47_pete rs.html
“What he and his Lindisfarne associates wished to do was to provide a setting (in 1976 they moved from Long Island to Manhattan) and the intellectual impetus to retrieve classical Western science from its dominant contemporary tendencies toward narrow reductionism and military applications, reenchant and resacrilize art in contradistinction to its current narcissistic tendency to nihilistically indulge or financially invest in art for art’s sake and recall religion to reembody its grandest universal visions and deepest esoteric practices rather than merely criticize its twin tendencies to slide toward reactionary fundamentalisms or dispirited liberalisms. […] the dream behind Lindisfarne’s strategy for cultural regeneration was to one day bring to multifarious expression a sensually beautiful and spiritually compelling «Planetary Renaissance» which would be nourished by a revitalized science, art and religion cross-fertilizing each other in a mutually enhancing dynamic of «triple circularity».»Global Civil Society Database – Global Forum of Spiritual and Parliamentary Leaders on Human Survival – Union of International Associations – https://uia.org/s/or
/en/1100065831
“Oct 1985, Tarrytown NY (USA), at a meeting of 10 spiritual leaders, 2 each from 5 major religions, invited by F-XF5057 – Temple of Understanding (ToU), and of 8 elected officials from parliaments on 5 continents, members of U-XF3090 – Global Committee of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (GCPPD). Also known as Global Spiritual and Parliamentary Leaders Forum on Human Survival. Aims Change the harmful way people deal with each other and with the environment, by involving spiritual and parliamentary leaders in an intensive dialogue on critical survival is sues. ” Ian Bradley (2018) – Following The Celtic Way: A New Assessment of Celtic Christianity – Darton, Longman & Todd – Emeritus Professor of Cultural and Spiritual History, University of St Andrews – ISBN-13 : 978-0232533415 – 176 Págs.
“Lindisfarne, where Aidan and Cuthbert ministered, receives around 650,000 visitors a year and Iona, where Columba established his monastic base, nearly 250,000. Irish monastic sites like Glendalough, Clonmacnoise, Kells and Monasterboice are also hugely popular.On the face of it, this kind of modern pilgrimage is very different indeed from the peregrinatio practised by the Irish monks. It is about travelling to holy places, often in the comfort of cars, trains or luxury coaches, and getting a spiritual buzz from visiting them rather than about experiencing the perpetual sense of exile and wandering that so animated the Irish monks and about which Columbanus wrote so powerfully.” (p. 152)William Irwin Thompson (1991) – Conclusion. Politics becoming a planet – En: William Irwin Thompson (Ed.) (1991), Gaia 2: Emergence, the new science of becoming, Lindisfarne Books, ISBN-13 : 978-0940262409 – Founder and Director,
“Just as the «Chicago School» provided the orientation for Thatcher, Kohl, Reagan, and Bush in the eighties, I think the «Gaian School» can provide us in the nineties, not with a new ideology, but with a new understanding for complex dynamical systems in which opposed ideologies must coexist to structure an ecology of consciousness.”Ralph H. Abraham – History of Complexity Theory – Visual Chaos –Visitado el 01/04/2024 – http://www.visual-ch
aos.org/complexity/b ackground/history.ht ml David Aubin and Amy Dahan Dalmedico (2002) – Writing the History of Dynamical Systems and Chaos: Longue Durée and Revolution, Disciplines and Cultures – Historia Mathematica 29:273–339 https://doi.org/10.1
006/hmat.2002.2351 – Max-Planck Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschic hte; Centre national de la recherche scientifique + Centre Alexandre-Koyré – https://core.ac.uk/d ownload/pdf/81139703 .pdf
“Chaos was a phenomenon that we have characterized as both intellectual and disciplinary reconfiguration and socio-professional convergence. Developed from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, it reached its high point a decade later, at the beginning of the 1990s […] We feel one can now positively assert: chaos has definitely blurred a number of old epistemological boundaries and conceptual oppositions hitherto seemingly irreducible such as order/disorder, random/nonrandom, simple/complex, local/global, stable/unstable, and microscopic/macroscopic. This epistemic blurring is illustrated by the dialectics at play in some of the most famous statements of the domain […] Since most of these terms only acquire a precise meaning within a mathematical framework, a complete demonstration of this claim would lead us astray. ” Gregoire Nicolis and Illya Prigogine (1977) – Self-Organization in Non-Equilibrium Systems – John Wiley & Sons – ISBN-13 : 978-0471024019 – 512 Págs
Ilya Prigogine (1977) – Time, Structure, and Fluctuations – Science 201:777-785 https://doi.org/10.1
126/science.201.4358 .777 –Professor of physics and chemistry, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium + Director of the Instituts Internationaux de Physique et de Chimie (Solvay), Brussels + Professor of physics and chemical engineering and director of the Center for Statistical Mechanics and Thermodynamics, University of Texas, Austin – http://www.nobelpriz e.org/nobel_prizes/c hemistry/laureates/1 977/prigogine-lectur e.pdf “It is shown that nonequilibrium may become a source of order and that irreversible processes may lead to a new type of dynamic states of matter called «dissipative structures.» The thermodynamic theory of such structures is outlined.”
Hakan Yasarcan (2023) – The four main elements of dynamic complexity – System Dynamics Review 39:171-179 https://doi.org/10.1
002/sdr.1731 – Industrial Engineering Department, Boğaziçi University, Istanbul
“Accumulation processes, feedback loops, nonlinearities, and delays are the four main elements of dynamic complexity. Knowing about and understanding these elements is necessary in conceptualizing and constructing dynamic feedback models. Therefore, the elements are major topics when teaching system dynamics.History of dynamical systems – Scholarpedia (peer reviewed), 21/10/2011 – http://www.scholarpe
dia.org/article/Hist ory_of_dynamical_sys tems
“A more abstract approach, developed in Moscow, gained attention outside the U.S.S.R. via the translation of (Nemytskii and Stepanov, 1960), introduced by S. Lefschetz, who had himself published a text on qualitative theory a few years earlier (Lefschetz 1957). Here the first clearly-defined stra nge attractor – the solenoid – was described. The works of Kolmogorov, Anosov, Arnold and Sinai grew out of this «Moscow school» in the 1950-60’s, with important work on ergodic theory (Sinai, 1966), geodesic flows (Anosov, 1967) and billiards (Sinai, 1970), using Kolmogorov’s idea of K-systems.” Faber Sperber (2008) – Qu’est-ce qu’un attracteur étrange? – Matière et révolution – http://www.matierevo
lution.fr/spip.php?a rticle706
“L’attracteur étrange : cette courbe n’est pas celle du mouvement mais représente les états du système et elle montre que dans des cas où on aurait l’impression du désordre, il y a cependant un certain type d’ordre, des lois, d’où l’expression «chaos déterministe». Un attracteur signifie que la dynamique a tendance à être attirée par lui […] C’est un ordre de type chaos déterminsite car il obéit à la sensibilité aux conditions initiales (un petit changement entraîne des possibilités de changements considérables par la suite). Il y a donc à la fois attraction et mélange […] L’attracteur étrange signifie que le retour ne provient pas d’un passage à l’équilibre.”José Manuel Sánchez Ron – El mundo después de la revolución: la física de la segunda mitad del siglo XX – BBVA Open Mind – Real Academia de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales – https://www.bbvaopen
mind.com/articulo/el -mundo-despues-de-la -revolucion-la-fisic a-de-la-segunda-mita d-del-siglo-xx/
“La riqueza de los sistemas no lineales es extraordinaria; la riqueza y las novedades que aportan con respecto a los lineales […] el solitón, una onda solitaria que se mueve con velocidad constante. Lejos de ser entelequias matemáticas, los solitones se manifiestan en la naturaleza: por ejemplo, en las ondas superficiales (que se mueven esencialmente en una dirección) observadas en el mar de Andamán, que separa las islas de Andamán y de Nicobar de la península de Malasia.»M. Ghil, M. Kimoto and J. D. Neelin (1991) – Nonlinear dynamics and predictability in the atmospheric sciences – Review Geophysics 29:46–55 https://doi.org/10.1
002/rog.1991.29.s1.4 6 – Department of Atmospheric Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles; – https://bit.ly/3enS3 5E
“Strange attractors, solitons and fractals are three main signposts into the vast «terra incognita» of nonlinear physics. The present review covers, mostly, applications of successive bifurcations to and the ergodic theory of strange attractors.”Inge Røpke (2004) – The early history of modern ecological economics – Ecological Economics 50:293-314 https://doi.org/10.1
016/j.ecolecon.2004. 02.012 – Department of Manufacturing Engineering and Management, Technical University of Denmark – http://www.uvm.edu:8 889/~gundiee/publica tions/Ropke_2004.pdf
“The 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s saw a new wave of interest in general systems theory. This was stimulated by the work of the physicist Ilya Prigogine and his research group in Belgium who introduced the concept of self-organizing, dissipative structures […] With a basis in the new thermodynamic perspective, some physicists began to study biological evolution and the emergence of life on earth, extending the overlap between physics and biology. ”Eric D. Schneider y Oriol Sagan (2005) – La termodinámica de la vida: Física, cosmología, ecología y evolución – Tusquets Editores – National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminsitration – ISBN-13: 978-84-8383-052-9 – 438 Págs.
“La eternidad se retiró precipitadamente a la imaginación matemática de la que había salido. Adiós al cosmos que funcionaba como un reloj. Progresivo y regresivo, el mundo estaba ahora dividido por una autopista de tiempo. Le tocaría a una nueva termodinámica, la del no equilibrio, tomar un helicóptero para contemplar los dos sentidos del tráfico y presentar la evolución y la termodinámica como elementos de una misma corriente.”Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1972) – The History and Statu of General Systems Theory – The Academy of Management Journal 15:407-426 https://doi.org/10.2
307/255139 – Center for Theoretical Biology, State University of New York at Buffalo – http://www.communica tioncache.com/upload s/1/0/8/8/10887248/t he_history_and_statu _of_general_systems_ theory.pdf
“One may, of course, limit it to its «technical» meaning in the sense of mathematical theory (as is frequently done), but this appears unadvisable because there are many «system» problems asking for «theory» which is not presently available in mathematical terms. So the name «general systems theory» may be used broadly, in a way similar to our speaking of the «theory of evolution,» which comprises about everything ranging from fossil digging and anatomy to the mathematical theory of selection; or «behavior theory,» which extends from bird watching to sophisticated neurophysiological theories. It is the introduction of a new paradigm that matters.”Peter A. Corning (2002) – The re-emergence of “emergence”: A venerable concept in search of a theory – Complexity 7:18–30 https://doi.org/10.1
002/cplx.10043 – Institute for the Study of Complex Systems – http://onlinelibrary .wiley.com/doi/10.10 02/cplx.10043/epdf
“In the United States, much of the recent work on the subject of emergence has been fueled by the resources and leadership of the Santa Fe Institute. Beginning in the mid-1980s, the Instititute’s annual proceedings have contained many articles related to this subject, and a number of the scholars who are associated with the Institute have published books on complexity and emergence. (See especially the volumes by Stuart Kauffman, John Casti, and John Holland and also the two popular books by science writers Roger Lewin and Mitchell Waldrop [1,38–44].)”Yaneer Bar-yam (1997,2020) – Dynamics of Complex Systems – CRC Press – New England Complex Systems Institute – ISBN-13 : 978-0367154974 – 866 Págs.
“Human civilization appears to be a complex system because it is characterized by: 1. Many elements: human beings, machines 2. Interactions: Communication: oral and written languages, mail, telecommunications Economic: buying and selling, borrowing, renting Social: meetings, celebrations, gatherings, conferences Long-range interactions: in space (travel and telecommunications) and in time (books, music, pictures and sculptures preserved over time) 3. Substructure: Family, community, town, city, state Company, industry, profession, association, organization Nationality, religion, race, language 4. Processes of Organization: Biological evolution, social evolution, history 5. It is interdependent […] 6. It has a complex behavior […] Human civilization does not appear to be a complex system because: 1. It does not interact with other complex systems of the same kind. 2. Its response to the environment is not manifestly complex. ” (p. 791,792-793)Edgar Morin (2014) – From the Concept of System to the Paradigm of Complexity – Man of the World – Director of Research at the Centre National de Recherche Scientifique – http://manoftheword.
files.wordpress.com/ 2013/07/morin-paradi gm-of-complexity.pdf
“We would be mistaken to acknowledge complexity at the phenomenal level, while overlooking it at the level of the explanatory principle; rather, precisely at the level of principle is where complexity must be revealed). By the same token, we should conceive of systems not only in terms of global unity (which is purely and simply to substitute a simple macro-unity for the simple elementary unity of reductionism), but in terms of a unitas multiplex; here again, antagonistic terms are necessarily coupled. ”George P. Richardson (1991) – Feedback Thought in Social Science and Systems Theory – University of Pennsylvania Press – Professor of Systems Science and Mathematics, State University of New York – ISBN-13 : 978-0812213324 – 380 Págs.
“Forrester identified six other properties of complex systems that had emerged from his simulation studies up to and including particularly the urban work. 1) Complex systems are remarkably insensitive to changes in many system parameters 2) Complex systems counteract and compensate for externally applied corrective efforts 3) Complex systems resist most policy changes 4) Complex systems contain influential pressure points, often in unexpected places, from which forces will radiate to alter system balance 5) Complex systems often react to a policy change in the long run in a way opposite to how they react in the short run 6) Complex social systems tend toward a condition of poor performance ” (p. 301,302)Andreia Teixeira et al (2011) – Entropy Measures vs. Kolmogorov Complexity – Entropy 13:595-611 https://doi.org/10.3
390/e13030595 – Computer Science Department, Faculty of Sciences, University of Porto Instituto de Telecomunicaçoes, Lisboa – http://goo.gl/4rTg0f – 4 autores
“Kolmogorov complexity and Shannon entropy are conceptually different measures. However, for any recursive probability distribution, the expected value of Kolmogorov complexity equals its Shannon entropy, up to a constant.”Andrei N. Kolmogorov (1968) – Three approaches to the quantitative definition of information – International Journal of Computer Mathematics 2:157-16
8 https://doi.org/10.1 080/0020716680880303 0 – https://www.mathnet. ru/links/45b61bf2ebe b2794cbcf601adfe09e3 c/ppi68.pdf
“There are two common approaches to the quantitative definition of «information»: combinatorial and probabilistic. The author briefly describes the major features of these approaches and introduces a new algorithmic approach that uses the theory of recursive functions. ”Yaneer Bar-yam (1997,2020) – Dynamics of Complex Systems – CRC Press – New England Complex Systems Institute – ISBN-13 : 978-0367154974 – 866 Págs
“The amount of information necessary to describe the behavior of such a system is a measure of its complexity. In the following sections we discuss these concepts in greater detail.» (p. 9-10)Robert E. Ulanowicz (2000) – Ecology, the Subversive Science? – Episteme, Porto Alegre 11:137-152 – University of Maryland, Chesapeake Biological Laboratory – https://people.clas.
ufl.edu/ulan/files/E pisteme1.pdf
“The total activity of the system can be measured simply as the sum of all system processes […] or what is called the «total system throughput». Growth thereby becomes an increase in the total system throughput, much as economic growth is reckoned by any increase in Gross Domestic Product.”Eric J. Chaisson (2004) – Complexity: An Energetics Agenda. Energy as a Motor of Evolution – Complexity 9:14–21 https://doi.org/10.1
002/cplx.20009 Wright Center, Tufts University – https://onlinelibrar y.wiley.com/doi/pdf/ 10.1002/cplx.20009
“To characterize complexity objectively—that is, to normalize all such ordered systems on that same page—I adopt a kind of energy density, much like the competing energy densities of radiation and matter that dictated events in the early Universe [Figure 3(b)]. Moreover, it is the rate at which free energy transits a complex system of given mass that seems most important. Hence, free energy rate density, symbolized by Φm, is an operational term whose meaning, measurement, and units (erg s-1 g-1) are clearly understood. ”Joseph A. Tainter (1988,1990) – The Collapse of Complex Societies – Cambridge University Press – Rocky Mountain Research Station, United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service – ISBN-13: 978-0521386
739 – 266 Págs.
“Complexity is generally understood to refer to such things as the size of a society, the number and distinctiveness of its parts, the variety of specialized social roles that it incorporates, the number of distinct social personalities present, and the variety of mechanisms for organizing these into a coherent, functioning whole. ” (p. 23)Timothy M. Lenton et al (2008) – Tipping elements in the Earth’s climate system – Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences PNAS 105:1786-1793 https://doi.org/10.1
073/pnas.0705414105 School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, + Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research – http://www.pnas.org/ content/105/6/1786.f ull.pdf – 7 autores
“Complexity, often used informally, has a specific meaning—the average number of trophic links per species (sometimes called linkage density). Connectance is linkage density divided by the number of species in the web (refs).”Arto Annila and Stanley Salthe (2009) – Economies Evolve by Energy Dispersal – Entropy 11:606-633 https://doi.org/10.3
390/e11040606 – Department of Biosciences + Institute of Biotechnology + Department of Physics, University of Helsinki; Biological Sciences, Binghamton University
“It is not surprising that a statistical description yields statistical laws and regularities that are characteristic of diverse economic systems, but it is intriguing that the same theory also provides insight into the decision making by individual agents.”John L.R. Proops (1983) – Organisation and dissipation in economic systems – Journal of Social and Biological Structures 6:353-366 https://doi.org/10.1
016/S0140-1750(83)90 145-8 – Department of Economics, University of Keele
“It is argued that if a physical viewpoint is taken, economies can be considered as self-organizing dissipative systems. Measures of organization and dissipation are proposed and empirical analysis indicates that organization and energy dissipation increase together for economic systems, and there is weaker evidence that energy ‘efficiency’ also increases with organization.”Illya Prigogine and J. M. Wiame (1946) – Biologie et thermodynamique des phénomènes irréversibles – Experientia 2:451 https://doi.org/10.1
007/BF02153597 – Faculté des Sciences, Université de Bruxelles « Examinons de plus près la seconde conclusion thermodynamique signalée plus haut. Celle-ci subordonne los possibilités de diminution d’entropie d’un système siège de phénomènes irréversibles à la tendance vers la réalisation d’états à production d’entropie minimum. Du point de vue biologique cela impliquerait que l’acquisition de structures plus complexes, d’une organisation plus perfectionnée (donc de diminution d’entropie du système) serait subordonnée à la diminution de la production d’entropie, donc à une économie métabolique par unité de poids de l’organisme. Nous sommes ainsi conduits suggérer une interprétation physico-chimique de la conception lamarckienne de l’évolution. »
James E. Lovelock and Lynn Margulis (1974) – Homeostatic tendencies of the Earth’s atmosphere – Origins of life 5:93-103 https://doi.org/10.1
007/BF00927016 – Department of Applied Physical Science, University of Reading; Department of Biology, Boston University ”We believe that these properties of the terrestrial atmosphere are best interpreted as evidence of homeostasis on a planetary scale maintained by life on the surface. Some possible mechanisms of this biological homeostasis have been noted and the implications of this concept for experimental studies pointed out.”
Ilya Prigogine (1977) – Time, Structure and Fluctuations – Nobel Lecture – Université Libre de Bruxelles + University of Texas at Austin – https://www.nobelpri
ze.org/uploads/2018/ 06/prigogine-lecture .pdf
“We have dealt with the fundamental conceptual problems that arise from the macroscopic and microscopic aspects of the second law of thermodynamics. It is shown that non-equilibrium may become a source of order and that irreversible processes may lead to a new type of dynamic states of matter called “dissipative structures”. The thermodynamic theory of such structures is outlined.”llya Prigogine and Isabelle Stengers (1978,1984) – Order Out of Chaos: Man’s New Dialogue with Nature – Bantam Books – ISBN 0-553-34082-4 – 385 Págs. https://deterritoria
linvestigations.file s.wordpress.com/2015 /03/ilya_prigogine_i sabelle_stengers_alv in_tofflerbookfi-org .pdf
“Classical thermodynamics leads to the concept of ‘equilibrium structures’ such as crystals. Bénard cells are structures too, but of a quite different nature. That is why we have introduced the notion of ‘dissipative structures,’ to emphasize the close association, at first paradoxical, in such situations between structure and order on the one side, and dissipation…on the other. ”Carlos de Castro and Daniel W. McShea (2022) – Applying the Prigogine view of dissipative systems to the major transitions in evolution – Paleobiology https://doi.org/10.1
017/pab.2022.7 – Applied Physics Department and GEEDS, Escuela de Ingeniería Industrial, Mergelina), University of Valladolid; Department of Biology, Duke University – https://bit.ly/3UIO2 fl
“In sum, we have a nesting of trinomials where structures can become functions of a larger structure, as in a nested set of “matryoshka dolls” ”Tyler Volk (1995) – Metapatterns: Across Space, Time, and Mind – Columbia University Press – Department of Biology, New York University – ISBN-13: 978-0231067508 – 295 Págs.
“Complex inward and outward causations loop across layers, relations much more difficult to conceive and describe than the relatively more tractable internal rules, laws, and relations among the parts within each level, which range from the elemental forces of physics to the fads of fashion. Fundamental enigmas notwithstanding, the existence of the holarchy itself leads to a practical pursuit. We poke inside at all levels- that’s basically what science does.” (p. 133-134)Carlos de Castro and Daniel W. McShea (2022) – Applying the Prigogine view of dissipative systems to the major transitions in evolution – Paleobiology https://doi.org/10.1
017/pab.2022.7 – Applied Physics Department and GEEDS, Escuela de Ingeniería Industrial, Mergelina), University of Valladolid; Department of Biology, Duke University – https://bit.ly/3UIO2 fl
“Top-Down Causation. This last relationship is what closes the trinomial and makes positive feedback possible. And it is actually the most difficult to recognize, in that it adds something forbidden by the classical reductionist paradigm, namely, a simultaneous “backward” or top-down causation. The standard bottom-up style of explanation may be the most common in biology. But in certain areas, such as discussions of the origin of cells from abiotic chemistry or the emergence of the brain from neurons, top-down language routinely appears. In these systems, when the macro-level structure is forming or formed, we speak of the “thousands of enzymes coordinated by the cell or the neurons coordinated by the brain. Top-down causation is not always explicitly acknowledged, but it is often implicit in the language used. ”Robert A. Meyers (2009) – Encyclopedia of Complexity and Systems Science – Springer – ISBN-13 : 978-0387695723 – 10.398 Págs.
“Examples of near-term problems and major unknowns that can be approached through complexity and systems science include: The structure, history and future of the universe; the biological basis of consciousness; the integration of genomics, proteomics and bioinformatics as systems biology; human longevity limits; the limits of computing; sustainability of life on earth; predictability, dynamics and extent of earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, and other natural disasters; the dynamics of turbulent flows; lasers or fluids in physics, microprocessor design; macromolecular assembly in chemistry and biophysics; brain functions in cognitive neuroscience; climate change; ecosystem management; traffic management; and business cycles. All these seemingly quite different kinds of structure formation have a number of important features and underlying structures in common.”Per Bak (1996) – How Nature Works: the science of self-organized criticality – Copernicus – Physics Department, Brookhaven National Laboratory – ISBN-13: 978-0387987
385 – 240 Págs.
“The four phenomena discussed here – regularity of catastrophic events, fractals, 1/f noise, and Zipf’s law – are so similar, in that they can all be expressed as straight lines on a double logarithmic plot, that they make us wonder if they are all manifestations of a single principle. Can there be a Newton’s law, f = ma, of complex behavior? Maybe self-organized criticality is that single underlying principle. Self-organized critical systems evolve to the complex critical state without interference from any outside agent […] The phrase «you cannot understand the present without understanding history» takes on a deeper and more precise meaning.” (p. 31)David Aubin and Amy Dahan Dalmedico (2002) – Writing the History of Dynamical Systems and Chaos: Longue Durée and Revolution, Disciplines and Cultures – Historia Mathematica 29:273–339 https://doi.org/10.1
006/hmat.2002.2351 – Max-Planck Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschic hte; Centre national de la recherche scientifique and Centre Alexandre-Koyré, – https://core.ac.uk/d ownload/pdf/81139703 .pdf
“Unlike all his predecessors (except perhaps for Coullet and Tresser who, at about the same time, independently discovered the same result), he noticed that this series converged towards a critical value λ∞ at a fixed rate defined as δ = lim i→∞ [(λi+1 − λi) / (λi+2 − λi+1)] = 4.6692016…. This number was universal, that is, characteristic not only of the logistic map, but also of transcendental recurrences like xn+1 = λ sin πxn. In fact, a very large class of functions of the interval (with a single, smooth, locally quadratic maximum) exhibited the very same universal behavior. ”Henri Bénard (1901) – Les Tourbillons cellulaires dans une nappe liquide propageant de la chaleur par convection en régime permanent – Journal of Physics Theory and Applications 10:254-266 https://doi.org/ff10
.1051/jphystap:01901 00100025400 – Université de Lyon – https://hal.science/ jpa-00240502/documen t
« Entre 100 °C et 50 °C, la surface du polygone cllulaire du spermaceti passe par un minimum. Pour ce minimum, quand l’épaisseur varie du simple au double, la similitude des prismes hexagonaux est rigoureuse ».Lord Rayleigh (1916) – On convection currents in a horizontal layer of fluid, when the higher temperature is on the under side – Philosophical Magazine 32:529-546 https://doi.org/10.1
080/1478644160863560 2 – https://zenodo.org/r ecord/1508106/files/ article.pdf
“The present is an attempt to examine how far the interesting results obtained by Bénard t in his careful and skilful experiments can be explained theoretically. Bénard worked with very thin layers, only about 1 mm deep, standing on a levelled metallic plate which was maintained at a uniform temperature. The upper surface was usually free, and being in contact with the air was at a lower temperature. Various liquids were employed–some, indeed, which would be solids under ordinary conditions. ”R.F. Millar (1969) – On the Rayleigh assumption in scattering by a periodic surface – Mathematical Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society 65:773 -791 https://doi.org/10.1
017/S030500410000361 3 – Radio and Electrical Engineering Division, National Research Council, Ottawa
“In treating plane wave scattering by a periodic surface, Lord Rayleigh (10) assumed that the discrete, outgoing and evanescent plane wave representation for the scattered field was valid on the surface itself. Recently, this Rayleigh assumption has been questioned and criticized. For the surface y = b cos kx on which the total field vanishes, Petit and Cadilhac(8) have demonstrated its invalidity when Kb > 0·448. The present paper discusses scattering of a wave, incident from y > 0, by an analytic periodic surface y = f(x) ( – ∞ < x < ∞), and shows that the Rayleigh assumption is valid if and only if the solution can be continued analytically across the boundary at least to the line y = minf(x).”Eric D. Schneider y Dorion Sagan (2005) – La termodinámica de la vida: Física, cosmología, ecología y evolución – Tusquets Editores – National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminsitration – ISBN-13: 978-84-8383-052-9 – 438 Págs.
“Un ecosistema es un reductor de gradientes a gran escala. La proliferación de organismos previa al estadio «clímax» crea el sistema maduro, que es más intrincado, complejo y organizado, así como más capaz de reducir gradientes a una escala enorme […] La enumeración de los flujos de energía ecosistémicos permite revelar el reparto de la energía en el ecosistema. La energía circulante total es una medida del tamaño de un sistema en términos de flujo de energía, del mismo modo que el PNB es una medida del tamaño de una economía.” (p. 249)Arthur Koestler (1978) – Janus: A Summing Up – Hutchinson – ISBN-13 : 978-0091321000 – 384 Págs.
“The term ‘hierarchy’ itself is rather unattractive and often provokes a strong emotional resistance. It is loaded with military and ecclesiastic associations, or evokes the ‘pecking hierarchy’ of the barnyard, and thus conveys the impression of a rigid, authoritarian structure, whereas in the present theory a hierarchy consists of autonomous, self-governing holons endowed with varying degrees of flexibility and freedom. Encouraged by the friendly reception of the holon, I shall occasionally use the terms ‘holarchic’ and ‘holarchy’, but without undue insistence. ” (p. 34)Timothy M. Lenton and Bruno Latour (2018) – Gaia 2.0 – Science 361:1066-1068 https://doi.org/10.1
126/science.aau0427 – lobal Systems Institute, University of Exeter; Sciences Po – http://science.scien cemag.org/content/sc i/361/6407/1066.full .pdf
“Depending on the scale and time span considered, completely different mechanisms are at work within Gaia (7). This heterarchy is particularly visible in the climate regulation that has received so much political attention of late. Some of Earth’s climate self-regulation mechanisms (6) are purely physical and chemical, but many involve biology.”Tyler Volk (1995) – Metapatterns: Across Space, Time, and Mind – Columbia University Press – Department of Biology, New York University – ISBN-13: 978-0231067508 – 295 Págs.
“Its image is not the pyramid, but the concentric spheres […] A hierarchy can’t really be recognized until its parts and their connections are established. But in a holarchy, the whole is in one’s face even if the parts are indisposed to make one’s acquaintance.” (p. 130,132)David Spangler (1991) – Formative Process an the Higher Dimensions of the Spirit – En: David Spangler and William Irwin Thompson (1991), Reimagination of the World: Critique of the New Age, Science and Popular Culture, Bear & Company, ISBN-13 : 978-0939680924, 240 págs. – ISBN-13 : 978-0939680924 – 240 Págs.
“But does the New Age have a meaning to the planet itself as a living being and to the other inhabitants upon the Earth? The answer is yes, though it may take decades and centuries for some of the effects to show themselves. In fact, the New Age is more a planetary, or Gaian, phenomenon than it is a human one, and its primary locus of impact or unfoldment is within the inner realms rather than in this physical one. […] We do not see the event directly, but we can feel some of its effects, particularly if the wave is a large one […] I have a perspective of the world as a set of nested globes, like one of those Russian or Chinese toys where you open one sphere to find a smaller one within it and a still smaller one within that and so on. ” (p. 117)Carlos de Castro Carranza (2008, 2010) – El Origen de Gaia: una teoría holista de la evolución – Libros en Acción – Departamento de Física Aplicada, Universidad de Valladolid – ISBN-13: 978-8412013948 – 287 Págs.
“Una holarquía es una jerarquía de niveles en los que una estructura contiene otras micro-estructuras y a su vez, es parte de estructuras mayores (macroestructuras). Existe pues una dualidad en los sistemas que llamamos “holones” pues son entes con integridad e identidad propias al mismo tiempo que forman parte de un sistema mayor. Esta especie de juego de “muñecas rusas” en los que todos contienen a su vez otros todos, podemos traducirla en la forma del trinomio de Prigogine: [Figura 6.8.] Así, nos encontramos con el mismo esquema de funcionamiento en distintas escalas (espaciales y temporales) como si de una estructura fractal se tratara […] Pero a diferencia de una estructura fractal normal, existen relaciones mutuas entre subfunciones y superestructuras, ”Carlos de Castro and Daniel W. McShea (2022) – Applying the Prigogine view of dissipative systems to the major transitions in evolution – Paleobiology 48:711–728 https://doi.org/10.1
017/pab.2022.7 – Applied Physics Department and GEEDS, Escuela de Ingeniería Industrial, Mergelina), University of Valladolid; Department of Biology, Duke University – https://bit.ly/3VGMa Ux
“This hierarchy in structure […] [is a] […] feature” of the system (p. 114). Thus, in certain systems, the trinomial of Figure 1 comes to have nested structure, multiple” levels of [function ↔ fluctuation ↔ structure] nested within one another, with newer and higher levels emerging sequentially at the top. Prigogine’s (1982) scheme explains and predicts hierarchy. ”William E. Rees (2023) – The Human Ecology of Overshoot: Why a Major ‘Population Correction’ Is Inevitable – World 4:509–527 https://doi.org/10.3
390/world4030032 – School of Community and Regional Planning, Faculty of Applied Science, The University of British Columbia – https://www.mdpi.com /2673-4060/4/3/32/pd f?version=1692943471
“Each level in the hierarchy depends on the next level up both as a source for useful resources (negentropy) and as a sink for degraded wastes (entropy). As Daly [8,9] reminds us, the human enterprise is a wholly-dependent subsystem of the ecosphere; it produces and maintains itself by extracting negentropic resources from its host system, the ecosphere, and dumping degraded en-tropic wastes back into its host. It follows that the increasing structural and functional complexity of the human sub-system as a far-from equilibrium-dissipative structure (a node of negentropy) can occur only at the expense of the accelerated disordering (increasing entropy) of the non-growing ecosphere. ” Christian de Quincey (2010,2022) – Naturaleza esencial: El alma de la materia – Ediciones Atalanta – Profesor de consciencia, espiritualidad y cosmología, Universidad John F. Kennedy + Cofundador, Wisdom Academy + Decano de Estudios de la Conciencia, University of Philosophical Research, Los Ángeles – ISBN-13 : 978-8412431551 – 464 Págs.
“Básicamente, Wilber dice que la unidad fundamental de toda la realidad no es una cosa física o material, como un átomo, una partícula elemental, un quark o un cuanto, sino más bien una serie o estructura de relaciones que él llama «holón» […] Un holón tiene una característica fundamental: siempre es, simultáneamente, tanto un todo como una parte. Es un todo constituido por holones más pequeños, mientras que en sí mismo es una parte de un todo aún mayor. Por tanto, los holones ocurren necesariamente dentro de una jerarquía relacional que puede considerarse concéntrica, compuesta por una serie infinita de círculos inscritos en otros círculos del ser. La jerarquía de los holones está abierta por los extremos: no existe un holón más pequeño que cualquier otro ni hay un límite superior a la estructura de relaciones. Toda la infinidad de los holones constituye el Kosmos.” (p. 305)Karen Armstrong (2022) – Naturaleza sagrada: Cómo podemos recuperar nuestro vínculo con el mundo natural – Editorial Crítica – ISBN-13 : 978-8491994473 – 192 Págs.
“A diferencia de, los budistas, que creían que se ha de alcanzar la iluminación antes de iniciar la acción política, los neoconfucianos insistían en que el compromiso político es esencial para nuestro desarrollo espiritual. El autor también ve esta extensión de la empatía al modo de una serie de círculos concéntricos. Sin embargo, en esta ocasión empieza abordando las responsabilidades políticas del junzi que requieren un programa psicológico de preparación personal, arraigado a su vez en el estudio de las «cosas» de la naturaleza.” (p. 139)Sally J. Goerner (1994) – The physics of evolution: From chaos to evolution and deep ecology – World Futures 42:193-214 https://doi.org/10.1
080/02604027.1994.99 72515 – Triangle Center for the Study of Complex Systems, Chapel Hill, North Carolina
“Since in this rendition chaos already shows self-coordination and the spontaneous creation of wholes out of parts, the messages of self-organization theory are: Self-Organizing, Self-Maintaining Dynamic Organizations Spontaneously Occur Far-From-Equilibrium (They Do Not Occur at or Near Equilibrium) […] Self-Organization Found in Nonliving Systems Provides Both a Metaphor and a Conceptual Model for Living Systems and Supra-Living Systems (for Example, Cities) […] New Forms of Organization Emerge Through the Process of Order-Through-Fluctuation. ” Sally J. Goerner (1994) – The physics of evolution: From chaos to evolution and deep ecology – World Futures 42:193-214 https://doi.org/10.1
080/02604027.1994.99 72515 – Triangle Center for the Study of Complex Systems, Chapel Hill, North Carolina
“The most fundamental rule is the surface/volume rule. Long known in biology, this rule can now be tied to energy flow principles. Basically, the rule says that as a self-organization increases in volume, it must also increase in surface area. The ratio of volume to surface area can never be greater than 2/3 power (which is the ratio of the surface of a sphere to the volume of a sphere) […] At this limit one of three things happen: the system stops growing, falls apart, or reorganizes into a new level of ordered-complexity. So, how does self-organization get past the surface/volume limit? The most common answer to the dilemma has been to grow to a certain size and then couple with other similar sized organizations (similar sized means on the same scale, that is molecules couple with molecules not with atoms).”Ervin László (1997) – The 3rd Millenium: The Challenge and the Vision. The Club of Budapest Report on Creative Paths of Human Evolution – Gaia Books – ISBN-13 : 978-1856750684 – 155 Págs.
“Hierarchical structures are increasingly inefficient—they have to be replaced by lean organizational modalities and reliance on partner and staff-consultation based on two-way flows of information and communication.” (p. 53)Crawford S. Holling (2001) – Understanding the complexity of economic, ecological, and social systems – Ecosystems 4:390-405 https://doi.org/10.1
007/s10021-001-0101- 5 – Department of Zoology, University of Florida – https://link.springe r.com/content/pdf/10 .1007/s10021-001-010 1-5.pdf
“Nature is organized in levels because hierarchic structures—systems of Chinese boxes—provide the most viable form for any system of even moderate complexity. I have tried in this paper to show some of the deeper reasons why this is so.” (p. 27)Jakub Sawicki et al (2023) – Perspectives on adaptive dynamical systems – Chaos 33:071501 https://doi.org/10.1
063/5.0147231 – Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research + Akademie Basel, Fachhochschule Nordwestschweiz – https://pubs.aip.org /aip/cha/article-pdf /doi/10.1063/5.01472 31/18057398/071501_1 _5.0147231.pdf – 24 autores
“Adaptivity is a dynamical feature that is omnipresent in nature, socio-economics, and technology. For example, adaptive couplings appear in various real-world systems, such as the power grid, social, and neural networks, and they form the backbone of closed-loop control strategies and machine learning algorithms. In this article, we provide an interdisciplinary perspective on adaptive systems. We reflect on the notion and terminology of adaptivity in different disciplines and discuss which role adaptivity plays for various fields.”Stanley N. Salthe (1994) – Development and Evolution: Complexity and Change in Biology – The MIT Press – Professor Emeritus, Department of Biology, Brooklyn College, City University of New York + Visiting Scientist, Biological Sciences, Binghamton University – ISBN-13 : 978-0262513838 – 378 Págs.
“Contact with Marxists soon revealed that they were the only group (other than systems scientists, of course) that showed enough interest in the 1985 work to criticize it. And their criticism revealed an important deficiency in that book: There was no attempt in it to deal with change. Process was there, as was the transcendence of any local process at higher scalar levels, where an entire trajectory becomes itself an individual (and the process is accomplished virtually as soon as it starts, if you chose a high enough level within which to embed it). ” (p. ix-x)Stanley N. Salthe (1985,1989) – Evolving Hierarchical Systems – Columbia University Press – ISBN-13 : 978-0231060172 – 343 Págs.
“This is a work of metatheory of science from the perspective of a biologist concerned with evolutionary theory. The questions taken up are matters of ontology, but I am overwhelmingly mindful that no such matters can be taken up without explicit reference to the epistemological constraints making it possible to approach them in the first place […] Biology and its associate sciences (as also, for example geology and many-body physics) have become entangled in this complexity with, so far, as little ability to negotiate it as a fly a spider’s web. In particular, biological nature is undercharacterized in our representations, and because of that so is the rest of nature.” (p. vii)Brian Goodwin and Ricard Sole (2001) – Signs of Life: How Complexity Pervades Biology – Basic Books – Associate Professor, Department of Physics and Nuclear Engineering, Politechnic University of Catalonia + External Professor, Santa Fe Institute; Scholar-in-Residence
, Schumacher College + Member, Santa Fe Institute
“Why are there universal properties in ecosystems? Why do ecosystems formed by a large number of species appear to be weakly connected, while low-species ecosystems tend to be highly connected? The answer to these questions requires the consideration of whole ecologies. But it seems difficult to explore these questions without taking into account the vast (and unavailable) set of parameters characterizing each species and their specific interactions. Or we can try to answer these questions from the perspective of complex systems theory: let us formulate an oversimplified model of a trophic web and see what types of emergent phenomena it produces.” (p. 195-196)Ernst Mayr (1942,1999) – Systematics and the Origin of Species from the Viewpoint of a Zoologist – Columbia University Press – The American Museum of Natural History – ISBN-13 : 978-0674862500 – 372 Págs.
“The importance of systematics in the study of evolution was perhaps better realized in the last century than it is now. Darwin’s conclusions in his Origin of Species were based largely on the results of contemporary taxonomic work, and I can see no reason why modern systematics should not yield even greater results. After all, systematics has grown tremendously since Darwin’s day.” (p. 3)Jody Hey, Walter M. Fitch, Francisco J. Ayala (2005) – Systematics And the Origin of Species: On Ernst Mayr’s 100th Anniversary – National Academies Press – National Academy of Sciences – ISBN-13 : 978-0309095365 – 382 Págs.
“Mayr formulated the transition from Linnaeus’s static species concept to the dynamic species concept of the modern theory of evolution and emphasized the species as a community of populations, the role of reproductive isolation, and the ecological interactions between species.”Stanley N. Salthe (2002) – Becoming, Being And Passing: Our Myth From Science (the Second Law and Natural Selection) – https://www.nbi.dk/~
natphil/salthe/Becom in_Being_Passing.pdf
“So growth uses energy in such a way that more available energy may be encountered, producing entropy in the process. Furthermore, as growth in viscous systems often leads to instability tending to cause subdivision of the system, new gradients will more likely be encountered by more (daughter) systems. ”Crawford S. Holling (2001) – Understanding the complexity of economic, ecological, and social systems – Ecosystems 4:390-405 https://doi.org/10.1
007/s10021-001-0101- 5 – Department of Zoology, University of Florida – https://link.springe r.com/content/pdf/10 .1007/s10021-001-010 1-5.pdf – “The trajectory alternates between long periods of slow accumulation and transformation of resources (from exploitation to conservation, or r to K), with shorter periods that create opportunities for innovation (from release to reorganization, or V to a). That potential includes accumulated ecological, economic, social, and cultural capital as well as unexpressed chance mutations and inventions. During the slow sequence from exploitation to conservation, connectedness and stability increase and capital is accumulated […] the system’s connectedness increases, eventually becoming overconnected and increasingly rigid in its control. It” becomes an accident waiting to happen. ” Stijn Hantson, Salvador Pueyo and Emilio Chuvieco A – Global fire size distribution: from power law to log-normal – International Journal of Wildland Fire 25 403-412 https://doi.org/10.1
071/WF15108 – Environmental Remote Sensing Research Group, Department of Geography and Geology, University of Alcala + Institute of Meteorology and Climate Research, Atmospheric Environmental Research, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology; Department d’Ecologia, Universitat de Barcelona + Research and Degrowth
“Wildland fires are one of the main alleged examples of Self-Organised Criticality (SOC), with simple SOC models resulting in the expectation of a power-law fire size frequency distribution […] These results do not necessarily refute the SOC hypothesis, but reveal the presence of other processes that are, at least, modulating the outcome of SOC in some areas.»Salvador Pueyo (2012) – Complex systems approach to fire dynamics and climate change impacts – Geophysical Research Abstracts 14, EGU2012-5906 – Institut Català de Ciències del Clima – http://meetingorgani
zer.copernicus.org/E GU2012/EGU2012-5906. pdf
“These results suggest at least three major types of fire dynamics: endogenous scaling, percolating, and exogenous scaling, in addition to intermediate options. The world’s biomes can be classified based on the type of dynamics that is most likely to apply in each of them, and forecasts can be carried out with the tools developed for each of these types. ”Manel Larrosa (2003) – Xarxa viària a la regió metropolitana de Barcelona. Un balanç – papers: Regió Metropolitana de Barcelona 38:63–85
“Els problemes de saturació de la xarxa viaria bàsica de la regió metropolitana de Barcelona no venen donats tant per la insuficient capacitat d’aquesta com per les seves deficiències d’articulació amb la xarxa secundaria. Factors com l’evolució històrica de la xarxa, la diversitat d’administracions que hi tenen responsabilitats, l’existencia d’elements distorsionadors com poden ser els peatges o la manca d’inversio han portat a aquesta situacio.”Frank Schweitzer et al (2011) – Economic Networks: The New Challenges – Science 325:422-425 https://doi.org/10.1
126/science.1173644 – ETH Zurich – 6 autores
“The inability of previous approaches to reproduce statistical regularities that have been observed empirically in network structures justifies our pursuit of a complex-systems approach that may provide predictions for large-scale networks.”Salvador Pueyo (2013) – Diversity: between neutrality and structure – Oikos 112:392-405 https://doi.org/10.1
111/j.0030-1299.2006 .14188.x – Departament d’Ecologia, Universitat de Barcelona
“I give some general mathematical results on the relationship between SADs [species abundance distributions] and their underlying dynamics, and analyse an extensive set of marine phytoplankton data in order to test the neutral theory against this broader framework.”Zipf’s Law for Cities – A Simple Explanation for Urban Populations – Cornell University, 13/11/2016 https://blogs.cornel
l.edu/info2040/2016/ 11/13/zipfs-law-for- cities-a-simple-expl anation-for-urban-po pulations/
“The rank vs. frequency graph, shown above as a log-log plot with a linear slope, indicates that Zipf’s Law is in-fact an example of a power-law. As discussed in class, power-laws often result from a “rich-get-richer” phenomenon, while normal distributions are the result of a number of independent events. This could certainly partially explain the phenomenon of Zipf’s Law as it applies to cities. Larger cities are often hubs of wealth and innovation, attracting both immigrants and those who previously dwelt in more rural parts of a country. Therefore, it makes sense that the largest, large cities would be relatively more attractive than smaller, large cities.”George Kingsley Zipf (1949,2012) – Human Behavior and the Principle of Least Effort – Martino Fine Books – Harvard University – ISBN-13: 978-1614273
127 – 588 Págs.
“The principle of least effort is a broad theory that covers diverse fields from evolutionary biology to webpage design. It postulates that animals, people, even well designed machines will naturally choose the path of least resistance or «effort» […] the distribution of word use was due to the tendency to communicate efficiently with least effort and this theory is known as Zipf’s Law. ”Nicholas W. Watkins and Mervyn P. Freeman (2008) – Natural Complexity – Science 320:323-324 https://doi.org/10.1
126/science.1151611 – British Antarctic Survey
“Universality, by contrast, has roots in the 19th century, when the ubiquity of the Gaussian (normal) probability distribution was recognized in many disciplines [ref]. Today, scientists are increasingly finding that non-Gaussian, in particular power law, probability distributions are also widespread in nature […] giving rise to rare events with large impacts. Insights have again come from studies of critical phenomena, where power laws are known to be a direct result of the heightened sensitivity to random perturbations conferred by long-range correlations.”Christopher W. Lynn, Caroline M. Holmes & Stephanie E. Palmer (2024) – Heavy–tailed neuronal connectivity arises from Hebbian self–organization – Nature Physics 20:484–491 https://doi.org/10.1
038/s41567-023-02332 -9 – nitiative for the Theoretical Sciences, Graduate Center, City University of New York + Department of Physics, Princeton University + Department of Physics, Yale University + Quantitative Biology Institute, Yale University + Wu Tsai Institute, Yale University; Department of Organismic & Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University; Department of Physics, University of Chicago
“The connections in networks of neurons are heavy-tailed, with a small number of neurons connected much more strongly than the vast majority of pairs […] We confirm these predictions in the connectomes of several animals, suggesting that heavy-tailed and clustered connectivity may arise from general principles of network self-organization rather than mechanisms specific to individual species or systems.»Kurt Whittemore et al (2019) – Telomere shortening rate predicts species life span – PNAS 116:15122-15127 https://doi.org/10.1
073/pnas.1902452116 – Telomeres and Telomerase Group, Molecular Oncology Program, Spanish National Cancer Research Centre – https://www.pnas.org /doi/epdf/10.1073/pn as.1902452116 – 4 autores
“We found that the telomere shortening rate, but not the initial telomere length alone, is a powerful predictor of species life span. These results support the notion that critical telomere shortening and the consequent onset of telomeric DNA damage and cellular senescence are a general determinant of species life span.»François Roddier (2012) – Thermodynamique de l’évolution. Un essai de thermo-bio-sociologi
e – Éditions Parole – ISBN-13 : 978-2917141328 – 100 Págs.
“Pour subsister, une espèce doit évoluer le plus vite possible. Leigh van Valen a appelé ce mécanisme l’effet de la reine rouge, en référence à l’œuvre de Lewis Carroll dans laquelle la reine rouge dit ‘ici, il faut courir le plus vite possible pour rester sur place’. Leigh van Valen explique ainsi pourquoi, tout au long de l’évolution, des espèces s’éteignent.” (p. 65)Leigh Van Valen (1973) – A new evolutionary law – Evolutionary Theory 1:1–30 – Department of Biology; University of Chicago – https://shorturl.me/
7LKrX4
“A self-perpetuating fluctuation results which can be stated in terms of an unstudied aspect of zero-sum game theory. The hypothesis can be derived from a view that momentary fitness is the amount of control of resources, which remain constant in total amount.”Lewis Caroll (1871,1985) – A través de l’espill – Quaderns Crema – ISBN: 84-85704-67-3 – 159 Págs.
“Reina Vermella: Aquí cal córrer tot el que puguis per restar sempre al mateix lloc.”Hartmut Rosa (2013) – Accélération. Une critique sociale du temps – Éditions La Découverte – Catedràtic de Sociologia, Institut für Soziologie, Universitat Friedrich-Schiller, Jena + director del Max Weber Center for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies, Universitat d’Erfurt – ISBN-13 : 978-2707177094 – 486 Págs.
« A cause de la rapidité de l’économie ou des progrès technologiques, les lois qui exigent un certain de temps de réflexion, de débat, de préparation deviennent obsolètes avant d’être effectives. »Salvador Pueyo Puntí (2003) – Irreversibility and Criticality in the Biosphere – Departament d’Ecologia, Universitat de Barcelona, 25/03/2003 – PhD Thesis – http://diposit.ub.ed
u/dspace/bitstream/2 445/35290/1/TESIPUEY O.pdf “This work is the result of a search for general (or nearly general) regularities at ecosystem level, and an exploration of their practical relevance in our relations with the environment […] The possible generalization of the findings on wildland fires to other kinds of catastrophes, with emphasis on agricultural pests and epidemics […] I conclude with a discussion on the interest of my and other related findings from the point of view of ecological economics.”
Kerry A. Emanuel (1999) – Thermodynamic control of hurricane intensity – Nature 401:665–669 https://doi.org/10.1
038/44326 – Program in Atmospheres, Oceans, and Climate, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
“The simulations presented here suggest that, once tropical cyclones reach tropical-storm strength, their intensity evolution is controlled mostly by their initial intensity together with the thermodynamic profile of the atmosphere and upper ocean through which they move. Factors such as vertical wind shear and dynamical interactions with the environment, emphasized in previous work, appear to be strongly influential mostly during the formative stages, when the storms are comparatively weak. Storm intensity is particularly sensitive to the thermodynamic structure of the upper ocean, and it is evident that in at least some cases (for example, Hurricane Camille) the climatological specification of the ocean thermal structure is insufficient. ”Eric D. Schneider y Oriol Sagan (2005) – La termodinámica de la vida: Física, cosmología, ecología y evolución – Tusquets Editores – National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminsitration – ISBN-13: 978-84-8383-052-9 – 438 Págs. – http://www.multivers
idadreal.edu.mx/wp-c ontent/uploads/2015/ 09/La-Termodinamica- de-La-Vida-Fisica-Co smologia-Ecologia-y- Evolucion.pdf
“Cuando se contemplan las células casi perfectamente hexagonales de Bénard, resulta difícil aceptar la naturaleza casi mágica del proceso. No son el resultado de ninguna reacción química o actividad biológica, sino de un proceso físico simple impulsado por un gradiente de temperatura […] Los filósofos jónicos que comenzaron a buscar leyes y regularidades en la naturaleza dieron en el clavo cuando se les ocurrió la idea de los átomos en el vacío. Esta abstracción tan útil hizo algo más que promover la objetividad y la observación a fondo de la naturaleza: introdujo el prejuicio mecanicista […] de que las complejidades son el resultado de la suma (pieza a pieza, en términos de la práctica humana) de cosas más simples. Al contemplar una célula de Bénard vemos que no es así. Los procesos complejos —y la vida es uno de ellos— no surgen de la construcción mecánica, sino de la coherencia en el seno de un flujo de energía.” (p. 154,232)Dorion Sagan and Jessica Hope Whiteside (2004) – Gradient Reduction Theory: thermodynamics and the Purpose of Life – En: Stephen H. Schneider, James R. Miller, Eileen Crist, and Penelope J. Boston, Scientists Debate Gaia: The Next Century, MIT Press Scholarship https://doi.org/10.7
551/mitpress/9780262 194983.003.0017
“This chapter argues that nonequilibrium thermodynamics, informed by a general version of the second law that applies equally to open and closed systems, connects flow processes of life to nonlife in illuminating ways. Energy delocalizes or, in the words of Eric D. Schneider, “nature abhors a gradient.” Investigating how this version of the second law informs the natural organization of complex flow systems, we rethink the teleological status of systems, such as organisms and Gaia, usually covertly or overtly endowed with “purpose” or “mind.”.”Robert E. Ulanowicz (1980) – Life after Newton: an ecological metaphysic – Biosystems 50:127-142 https://doi.org/10.1
016/S0303-2647(98)00 097-5 – University of Maryland System, Chesapeake Biological Laboratory – https://www.scienced irect.com/science/ar ticle/abs/pii/S03032 64798000975
“The reader may recall how propensity was explicitly folded into the definition of autocatalysis. We now ask whether it is possible to extract an expression for propensities from the resulting formulae for ascendency? […] This discovery of a convenient thermodynamical analogy opens one’s eyes to still further analogs.”F. Günther and Carl Folke (1993) – Characteristics of Nested Living Systems – Journal of Biological Systems 1:257-274 https://doi.org/10.1
142/S021833909300017 3 – Department of Systems Ecology, Stockholm University + The Beijer International Institute of Ecological Economics, The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
“We argue that life is an integrated process of nested living systems consisting of basic materials, cells, organisms, ecosystems and their environments, continuously interacting at various holarcic levels in both time and space. From this perspective a living system can have more or less life, but not being referred to as alive or dead. “Stuart A. Kauffman (2008) – Reinventing the Sacred: A New View of Science, Reason, and Religion – Basic Books; First Trade paper Edition – Institute for Biocomplexity and Informatics, University of Calgary – ISBN-13: 978-0465018
888 – 336 Págs.
“The theory of autocatalytic sets is an example at the dawn of life itself: complex polymer systems may spontaneously organize into collective autocatalytic self-reproducing systems. Self-organization may require that we rethink all of evolutionary theory, for the order seen in evolution may not be the sole result of natural selection but of some new marriage of contingency, selection, and self-organization. New biological laws may hide in this union.” (p. 60)Eric D. Schneider y Dorion Sagan (2005) – La termodinámica de la vida: Física, cosmología, ecología y evolución – Tusquets Editores – National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminsitration – ISBN-13: 978-84-8383-052-9 – 438 Págs.
“Los ciclos autocatalíticos anidados mantienen su estructura a través de un continuo que va desde las escalas cuánticas hasta los ecosistemas, abarcando numerosos órdenes de magnitud. En los sistemas biológicos, la escala temporal de las reacciones puede ir de los 10^-14 segundos hasta un número indeterminado de siglos, en cuanto que su escala espacial puede ir de 10^-9 cm hasta el planeta entero. Dentro de estos vastos límites espaciotemporales, redes anidadas almacenan y recuperan la energía necesaria para su funcionamiento cíclico. [ref: F. Günther and Carl Folke (1993)].” (p. 141)Ricardo A. Rodríguez et al (2016) – Exploring the spontaneous contribution of Claude E. Shannon to eco-evolutionary theory – Ecological Modelling 327:57–64 https://doi.org/10.1
016/j.ecolmodel.2015 .12.021 – Independent researcher located in Tampa, Florida – https://www.scienced irect.com/science/ar ticle/abs/pii/S03043 80016300096 – 14 autores
“Light can be regarded as “physical rubbish” expelled by the Sun, i.e.: if the proton–proton chain reaction in the Sun would have an efficiency of 100% from the energy point of view for converting hydrogen to helium, the Sun would be absolutely black. Life on Earth as a whole is then supported by the consumption of energy of low quality (Sun’s entropy) from the physical point of view, in a similar way in which bacteria are able to obtain energy from highly degraded organic wastes, or even from rocks. That is to say, the key problem of life is to be able to keep a state of high internal organization, sustained at low temperature conditions, by using low quality energy from the physical viewpoint. ”Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould (1972) – Punctuated equilibria: an alternative to phyletic gradualism – En: Models in paleobiology Schopf TJM Freeman (Eds.) Cooper & Co San Francisco – http://www.blackwell
publishing.com/ridle y/classictexts/eldre dge.pdf
“Paleontologists should recognize that much of their thought is conditioned by a peculiar perspective that they must bring to the study of life: they must look down from its present complexity and diversity into the past: their view must be retrospective. From this vantage point it is very difficult to view evolution as anything but an easy and inevitable result of mere existence, as something that unfolds in a natural and orderly fashion. Yet we urge a different view. The norm for a species or, by extension, a community is stability. Speciation is a rare and difficult event that punctuates a system in homeostatic equilibrium. That so uncommon an event should have produced such a wondrous array of living and fossil forms can only give strength to an old idea: paleontology deals with a phenomenon that belongs to it alone among the evolutionary sciences and that enlightens all its conclusions—time.”Per Bak (1996,1999) – How Nature Works: the science of self-organized criticality – Copernicus; Edición: 1st ed. 1996 – Physics Department, Brookhaven National Laboratory – ISBN-13: 978-0387987
385 – 240 Págs.
“Even though there are many more small events than large ones, most of the changes of the System are associated with the large, catastrophic events. Self-organized criticality can be viewed as the theoretical justification for catastrophism. ” (p. 32)Albert László Barabási and Jennifer Frangos (2002) – Linked: The New Science of Networks – Perseus Books – ISBN-13: 978-0738206677 – 288 Págs
“The first book to explore the hot new science of networks and their impact on nature, business, medicine, and everyday life. In the 1980’s, James Gleick’s Chaos introduced the world to complexity. Now, Albert- László Barabsi’s Linked reveals the next major scientific leap: the study of networks.”
Reuven Cohen et al (2000) – Resilience of the Internet to Random Breakdowns – Physics Review Letters 85:4626 doi10.1103/PhysRevLe
tt.85.4626 – Minerva Center and Department of Physics, Bar-Ilan University – 4 autores
“A common property of many large networks, including the Internet, is that the connectivity of the various nodes follows a scale-free power-law distribution, P(k)=ck−α. We study the stability of such networks with respect to crashes, such as random removal of sites. Our approach, based on percolation theory, leads to a general condition for the critical fraction of nodes, pc, that needs to be removed before the network disintegrates. We show analytically and numerically that for α≤3 the transition never takes place, unless the network is finite. In the special case of the physical structure of the Internet (α≈2.5), we find that it is impressively robust, with pc>0.99.”Albert-László Barabási and Réka Albert (1999) – Emergence of Scaling in Random Networks – Science 286:509-512 https://doi.org/10.1
126/science.286.5439 .509 – Department of Physics, University of Notre Dame
“A common property of many large networks is that the vertex connectivities follow a scale-free power-law distribution. This feature was found to be a consequence of two generic mechanisms: (i) networks expand continuously by the addition of new vertices, and (ii) new vertices attach preferentially to sites that are already well connected. A model based on these two ingredients reproduces the observed stationary scale-free distributions, which indicates that the development of large networks is governed by robust self-organizing phenomena that go beyond the particulars of the individual systems. ”Søren N. Nielsen and Robert E. Ulanowicz (2000) – On the consistency between thermodynamical and network approaches to ecosystems – Ecological Modelling 132:23–31 https://doi.org/10.1
016/S0304-3800(00)00 302-1 – Environmental Chemistry Section, Department for Analytical and Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Royal Danish School of Pharmacy; Chesapeake Biological Laboratory, University of Maryland – http://people.clas.u fl.edu/ulan/files/Ni elsen.pdf
“That these two different views on ecosystem behaviour are essentially consistent is demonstrated by calculating the sensitivities of the ascendency index to individual types of flows. Those changes in flow patterns that augment the ascendency also contribute to increased thermodynamic efficiency.”Albert-László Barabási (2009) – Scale-Free Networks: A Decade and Beyond – Science 325:412-413 https://doi.org/10.1
126/science.1173299 – Center for Complex Network Research, Department of Physics, Biology, and Computer Science, Northeastern University + Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School and Center for Cancer Systems Biology, Dana Farber Cancer Institute
“For decades, we tacitly assumed that the components of such complex systems as the cell, the society, or the Internet are randomly wired together […] The decade-old discovery of scale-free networks was one of those events that had helped catalyze the emergence of network science, a new research field with its distinct set of challenges and accomplishments.»Oliver Hein, Michael Schwind & Wolfgang König (2006) – Scale-free networks. The impact of fat tailed degree distribution on diffusion and communication processes – Wirtschaftsinformati
k 48:267 https://doi.org/10.1 007/s11576-006-0058- 2 – Institut für Wirtschaftsinformati k, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität
“This principle of “preferential attachment” leads to interesting properties that have to be taken into consideration when analyzing and designing systems with some kind of network background. What are called “scale-free” networks seems to be a better fit for the description of real world networks. They use preferential attachment as a construction principle to resample real world networks. Their behavior in terms of diffusion and communication processes is fundamentally different from that of random networks.”Duncan J. Watts (2004) – The “New” Science of Networks – Annual Review of Sociology 30:243-270 https://doi.org/10.1
146/annurev.soc.30.0 20404.104342 – Department of Sociology, Columbia University
“In recent years, the analysis and modeling of networks, and also networked dynamical systems, have been the subject of considerable interdisciplinary interest, yielding several hundred papers in physics, mathematics, computer science, biology, economics, and sociology journals […] as well as a number of books […] Here I review the major findings of this emerging field and discuss briefly their relationship with previous work in the social and mathematical sciences.”Jianxi Gao et al (2015) – Recent Progress on the Resilience of Complex Networks – Energies 8:12187-12210 https://doi.org/10.3
390/en81012187 – Center for Complex Network Research + Department of Physics, Northeastern University – https://www.mdpi.com /1996-1073/8/10/1218 7/pdf – 4 autores
“For the network dynamics, we illustrate the percolation framework and methods using an example of a real transportation system, where the analysis based on network dynamics is significantly different from the structural static analysis. For the failure mechanism, we here review recent progress on the spontaneous recovery after network collapse. These findings can help us to understand, realize and hopefully mitigate the increasing risk in the resilience of complex networks.”Albert-László Barabási (2009) – Scale-Free Networks: A Decade and Beyond – Science 325:412-413 https://doi.org/10.1
126/science.1173299 – Center for Complex Network Research, Department of Physics, Biology, and Computer Science, Northeastern University + Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School and Center for Cancer Systems Biology, Dana Farber Cancer Institute
“With that, network theory has fundamentally reshaped our understanding of complexity […] To be sure, we were aware of these networks before. Yet, only recently have we acquired the data and tools to probe their topology, helping us realize that the underlying connectivity has such a strong impact on a system’s behavior that no approach to complex systems can succeed unless it exploits the network topology.”Réka Albert, Hawoong Jeong & Albert-László Barabás (2000) – Error and attack tolerance of complex networks – Nature 406:378–382 https://doi.org/10.1
038/35019019 – Department of Physics, University of Notre Dame
“Many complex systems display a surprising degree of tolerance against errors […] Here we demonstrate that error tolerance is not shared by all redundant systems: it is displayed only by a class of inhomogeneously wired networks, called scale-free networks […] We find that such networks display an unexpected degree of robustness, the ability of their nodes to communicate being unaffected even by unrealistically high failure rates.”Sean P. Cornelius, William L. Kath & Adilson E. Motter (2013) – Realistic control of network dynamics – Nature Communications 4:1942 https://doi.org/10.1
038/ncomms2939 – Department of Physics and Astronomy + Department of Engineering Sciences and Applied Mathematics + Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems, Northwestern University – https://www.nature.c om/articles/ncomms29 39.pdf
“A fundamental property of networks is that perturbations to one node can affect other nodes, potentially causing the entire system to change behaviour or fail. Here we show that it is possible to exploit the same principle to control network behaviour. Our approach accounts for the nonlinear dynamics inherent to real systems, and allows bringing the system to a desired target state even when this state is not directly accessible due to constraints that limit the allowed interventions.”Luis González Reyes – El colapso ya está sucediendo, aunque no seamos muy conscientes de ello – Rebelión 18/06/2015 – http://www.rebelion.
org/noticia.php?id=2 00111
“Los sistemas complejos van perdiendo […] incrementa su vulnerabilidad. En cualquier caso, es necesario distinguir entre sistemas complejos en los que no se produce un crecimiento continuado en la captación de materia y energía, y los que sí lo hacen. El salto de las sociedades forrajeras a las agrícolas implicó un aumento de la complejidad y, por lo tanto, de la captación de energía. Pero las primeras sociedades agrícolas se estabilizaron en un nuevo equilibrio que no implicaba un crecimiento del consumo. En contraposición, el paso a sociedades dominadoras regidas por Estados, especialmente al capitalismo y más aún al capitalismo fosilista implicaron un salto en el consumo energético y material que, además, necesitaba de un incremento continuado de este consumo. ”Jianxi Gao, Baruch Barzel & Albert-László Barabási (2016) – Universal resilience patterns in complex networks – Nature 530:307–312 https://doi.org/10.1
038/nature16948 – Department of Physics, Center for Complex Network Research, Northeastern University; Department of Mathematics, Bar-Ilan University; Center for Cancer Systems Biology, Department of Physics, Center for Complex Network Research, Northeastern University + Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard University + Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston + Center for Network Science, Central European University, Budapest – https://bit.ly/3Zgv1 RW
“Density, heterogeneity and symmetry are the three key structural factors affecting a system’s resilience. They do not alter the critical points, but instead push a system far away from these critical points, helping the system to sustain large perturbations. This separation of structure and dynamics provides us with testable predictions for the system’s response to different perturbations. It also suggests potential intervention strategies to avoid the loss of resilience [refs], or design principles for optimal [ref] resilient systems that can successfully cope with perturbations [ref].”Science News – Gauging the resilience of complex networks – Science Daily, 10/01/2022 – https://www.scienced
aily.com/releases/20 22/01/220110132755.h tm
“The tools presented in the Nature paper worked with strict assumptions on a network where all information is known — all nodes, all links, and the interactions between those nodes and links […] Dr. Gao wants to extend the single universal equation to networks where some of the information is missing.”Xueming Liu et al (2022) – Network resilience – Physics Reports 971:1-108 https://doi.org/10.1
016/j.physrep.2022.0 4.002 – Key Laboratory of Image Information Processing and Intelligent Control, School of Artificial Intelligence and Automation, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan – https://www.scienced irect.com/science/ar ticle/pii/S037015732 2001211/pdfft – 6 autores
» This report presents a comprehensive review of resilience functions and regime shifts in complex systems in domains such as ecology, biology, society, and infrastructure. The research approach includes empirical observations, experimental studies, mathematical modeling, and theoretical analysis. We also review the definitions of some ambiguous terms, including robustness, resilience, and stability.»Mark R. Gardner & W. Ross Ashby (1970) – Connectance of Large Dynamic (Cybernetic) Systems: Critical Values for Stability – Nature 228:784 https://doi.org/10.1
038/228784a0 – Biological Computer Laboratory, University of Illinois – https://www.nature.c om/articles/228784a0 .pdf
“The matter is being investigated further, but it may be of general interest to notice that this work suggests that all large complex dynamic systems may be expected to show the property of being stable up to a critical level of connectance, and then, as the connectance increases, to go suddenly unstable. ”Kevin Kelly (1992,1994) – Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, and the Economic World – Basic Books – Editor, Wired + Past editor, Whole Earth Review – ISBN-13: 978-0201483406 – 528 Págs. – http://kk.org/mt-fil
es/books-mt/ooc-mf.p df
“Another Zen thought: The Atom is the past. The symbol of science for the next century is the dynamical Net. The Net icon has no center—it is a bunch of dots connected to other dots—a cobweb of arrows pouring into each other, squirming together like a nest of snakes, the restless image fading at indeterminate edges. The Net is the archetype—always the same picture—displayed to represent all circuits, all intelligence, all interdependence, all things economic and social and ecological, all communications, all democracy, all groups, all large systems. ” (p. 25)Fred Turner (2006) – From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism – University of Chicago Press – Department of Communication, Stanford Universuty – ISBN-13: 978-0226817422 – 327 Págs.
“In the pages of Out of Control, Kelly transformed the New Communalist dream of a rural Eden, of an antitechnocratic reintegration with nature, into a celebration of information technology, post-Fordist production practices, and the entrepreneurial engineers, executives, and scientists who watched over both.” (p. 203)Jennifer Lynn Wells (2009) – Complexité et Changement Climatique. Une étude épistémologique des théories de la complexité transdisciplinaires et leur apport aux phénomènes socio-écologiques – Université Paris – Sorbonne (Paris IV); École Doctorale 5 : Concepts et langages – Tesi doctoral – http://www.theses.pa
ris-sorbonne.fr/thes e.wells.creator.pdf
“ Stephen Hawking: The twenty-first century will be the century of complexity.’ ; Albert-Laszlo Barabásí: In the twenty-first century complexity is not a vague science buzzword any longer, but an equally pressing challenge for everything from the economy to cell biology; Albert Einstein: Make things as simple as possible, but no simpler.”Bruno Latour (2010) – L’alternative compositionniste : pour en finir avec l’indiscutable – Écologie et politique 40:81-93 https://doi.org/10.3
917/ecopo.040.0081 – https://www.cairn.in fo/revue-ecologie-et -politique-2010-2-pa ge-81.htm
“Tout a beaucoup bougé et bouge encore beaucoup mais je n’ai jamais cru une seconde au fait que nous étions dans un « système capitaliste », pour la même raison que je ne crois pas que nous ayons une nature. C’est le même argument contre la notion même, très démobilisatrice, de système. Cela ne m’a jamais paru très pertinent.”Bruno Latour (1991,1997) – Nous n’avons jamais été modernes – Éditions La Dècouverte – Président, Sciences Po – ISBN-13 : 978-2707126924 – 207 Págs.
“Notre navette, c’est la notion de traduction ou de réseau. Plus souple que la notion de système, plus historique que celle de structure, plus empirique que celle de complexité, le réseau est le fil d’Ariane de ces histoires mélangées. Pourtant, ces travaux demeurent incompréhensibles parce qu’ils sont découpés en trois selon les catégories usuelles des critiques. On en fait de la nature, de la politique, ou du discours. ” (p. 10)Oriol Artime et al (2024) – Robustness and resilience of complex networks – Nature Reviews Physics 6:114–131 https://doi.org/10.1
038/s42254-023-00676 -y – Departament de Física de la Matèria Condensada + Universitat de Barcelona Institute of Complex Systems (UBICS), University of Barcelona + Universitat de les Illes Balears – 8 autores
“Owing to their interconnected structure, complex systems might be severely degraded, to the point of disintegration or systemic dysfunction. Examples include cascading failures, triggered by an initially localized overload in power systems, and the critical slowing downs of ecosystems which can be driven towards extinction. In recent years, this general phenomenon has been investigated by framing localized and systemic failures in terms of perturbations that can alter the function of a system […] We discuss recent approaches to mitigate the impact of perturbations in terms of designing robustness, identifying early-warning signals and adapting responses. In terms of applications, we compare the performance of the state-of-the-art dismantling techniques, highlighting their optimal range of applicability for practical problems, and provide a repository with ready-to-use scripts, a much-needed tool set.”Herbert A. Simon (1983) – Reason in Human Affairs – Stanford University Press – Chaired Professor in psychology and computer science, Carnegie Mellon University. Awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1978, Professor Simon currently works in the field of artificial intelligenc – ISBN-13 : 978-0631134091 – 118 Págs.
“It follows that the teleology of the evolutionary process is of a rather peculiar sort. There is no goal, only a process of searching and ameliorating. Searching is the end […] Now we see that […] evolution, at least in a complex world, specifies means (the processes of variation and selection) that do not lead to any predictable end. From ends without means, we have come full circle to means without ends.” (p.70)Anselm de Canterbury (1076) – The major works. Monologion – Oxford University Press – ISBN-13 : 978-0199540082 – 544 Págs.
“Anselm’s intellectual rigour and clarity of expression place him among the greatest of theologians and philosophers.”Immanuel Kant (1790,2013) – Crítica del juicio – Austral – ISBN-13 : 978-8467028126 – 464 Págs.
“La teleología de la naturaleza es, pues, una explicación de la causalidad, no como una causa eficaz (como en la física), sino como una causa final. Esto no significa que haya realmente una finalidad en la naturaleza, sino que nuestra razón se ve obligada a considerar las cosas como si estuvieran dispuestas según un propósito para poder comprenderlas.”Ben Bowler (2023) (incuding interviews with Patricia Anne Davis, John Cobb, Ramesh Bijilani) – Naming the Nameless – En: Emanuel Kuntzelman and Jill Robinson (2023), The Holomovement: Embracing Our Collective Purpose to Unite Humanity, Light on Light Press, ISBN-13 : 978-1958921159
“John Cobb: In the rise of Western science, they did away with “final cause”. It was a brilliant move for science and allowed it to make much more progress focusing on “efficient cause” than when it was inclusive of “final cause” It was a mistake, but it was a brilliant mistake for advancing materialistic science! Now they have become so dogmatic on this point that purpose, meaning and value play greatly diminished roles in today’s world. If there are no purposes, by efficient causes, this leads to determinism and materialism.” (p. 14-15)Hans Jonas (1966,2000) – El principio vida: hacia una biología filosófica – Editorial Trotta – Alvin Johnson Professor of Philosophy, New School for Social Research, New York – ISBN-13: 978-8481642
605 – 336 Págs.
“La pregunta directa «¿Por qué hay que excluir las causas finales?» encuentra hoy en día a muchos científicos desprovistos de una respuesta satisfactoria […] El verdadero problema afectaba a las causas finales como modi operandi en la naturaleza y de la naturaleza misma […] Por lo que hace a las causas finales, resulta evidente que su rechazo era un principio metodológico que dirigía la investigación, y no una conclusión a la que condujesen los resultados de la misma. No hubo, por tanto, una historia de obstinados fracasos de los intentos de descubrir causas finales en la naturaleza, lo que por otra parte tampoco hubiese justificado el axioma de que, por principio, no cabe esperar encontrarlas en ella y de que en ningún caso debemos buscarlas. ” (p. 53,54)Alfred North Whitehead (1929,1971) – The function of reason – Beacon Press – University of Cambridge + Harvard University – ISBN: 9780807015735 – 95 Págs.
“The evidence is so overwhelming, the belief so unquestioning, the evidence of language so decisive, that it is difficult to know where to begin in demonstrating it. For example, we speak of the policy of a statesman or of a business corporation. Cut out the notion of final causation, and the word «policy» has lost its meaning. As I write this lecture, I intend to deliver it in Princeton University. Cut out the notion of final causation, and this «intention» is without meaning. ” (p. 13)Hans Jonas (1952) – Gnosticismo, existencialismo y nihilismo – En: El principio de vida. Hacia una biología filosófica, Editorial Trotta, ISBN: 978-84-8164-260-5, 2013 – Alvin Johnson Professor of Philosophy, New School for Social Research, New York – https://ymeescribesp
aranoica.wordpress.c om/2016/01/04/hans-j onas-gnosticismo-exi stencialismo-y-nihil ismo/
“Con la desaparición de la teleología del sistema de causas naturales, la naturaleza, en sí misma carente de objetivos y de fines, dejó de dar cualquier tipo de sanción a posibles fines del ser humano. Un universo sin una jerarquía del ser internamente fundada, como el copernicano, deja a los valores sin apoyo ontológico, y el sí-mismo cuenta exclusivamente con sus propias fuerzas a la hora de buscar sentido y valor. El sentido ya no se encuentra, sino que se «da»; el valor ya no se percibe contemplando el ser objetivo, sino que se pone en el hecho de la valoración. En su calidad de función de la voluntad, los fines son de mi exclusiva creación. La voluntad sustituye a la contemplación: la temporalidad del acto desplaza a la eternidad del «bien en sí». Esta es la fase nietzscheana de la situación, en la que el nihilismo europeo sale a la superficie. El hombre está a solas consigo mismo.”Carlos de Castro Carranza (2008) – El Origen de Gaia: una teoría holista de la evolución – Editorial Abecedario, Badajoz – Departamento de Física Aplicada, Universidad de Valladolid – ISBN-13: 978-8496560604 – 316 Págs.
“Tal es la obsesión por establecer una base egoísta en las relaciones entre organismos que hoy casi nadie se extraña del absurdo de términos como “gen egoísta” que implican, fuera de la metáfora, un comportamiento teleológico a una entidad como el gen cuando se le niega al ecosistema o incluso a los mismos organismos. Hoy los comportamientos altruistas que interpretamos entre las relaciones orgánicas deben explicarse a partir de una base egoísta y reduccionista. Humanamente, ensuciamos la generosidad y el amor al tratar de explicarlos proviniendo en último término del egoísmo darvinista. ”Carlos de Castro Carranza (2013) – En defensa de una teoría Gaia orgánica – Ecosistemas 22:113-118 https://doi.org/10.7
818/ECOS.2013.22-2.1 7 – Departamento de Física Aplicada, Universidad de Valladolid – http://www.revistaec osistemas.net/index. php/ecosistemas/arti cle/download/744/732
“Teleológico es un término inventado y empleado por los filósofos, como Kant, para los cuales significa que tiene o posee propósitos o fines (Sagan y Whiteside 2004, Jax 2010), lo que de hecho se puede aplicar a las máquinas humanas, diseñadas con un propósito asignado externamente por la persona que la fabricó, pero también se aplica a los organismos (Volk 2009) […] La huida en la biología del término teleológico llega a la paradoja de inventarse términos nuevos como teleonomía (Monod 1981).”Piet J. M. Verschuren (2001) – Holism versus Reductionism in Modern Social Science Research – Quality & Quantity 35:389-405 – Department of Methodology, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Nijmegen
“A second closely related risk of reductionistic research is an observational bias that I will call the syndrome of ‘a tunnel view’, which has a temporal and a spatial variant. In a temporal sense the syndrome means that the researcher isolates an object from its historical context […] The spatial variant of ‘tunnel vision’ has two sub-variants.”Jeffrey Goldstein (1999) – Emergence as a Construct: History and Issues – Emergence 1:49–72 https://doi.org/10.1
207/s15327000em0101_ 4 – http://www.andrefoll oni.com.br/fotos/142 7888127_EmergenceAsA ConsutructIssue1_1_3 .pdf
“Emergence, as in the title of this new journal, refers to the arising of novel and coherent structures, patterns, and properties during the process of self-organization in complex systems. Emergent phenomena are conceptualized as occurring on the macro level, in contrast to the micro-level components and processes out of which they arise. ”Stuart Kauffman (2007) – Beyond Reductionism: Reinventing the Sacred – Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science 42:903-914 https://doi.org/10.1
111/j.1467-9744.2007 .00879.x – Institute for Biocomplexity and Informatics, University of Calgary
“Roughly speaking, emergence breaks into two subviews—epistemological and ontological emergence. The former says that complex systems are too complex to be explained by reductionistic practices but that ontologically, reductionism holds. The ontological view is that new entities with their own properties and causal powers arise and are part of the furniture of the universe. I hold strongly to this latter view and present a number of cases that appear to support it.” Robert B. Laughlin (2005) – Un universo diferente. La reinvención de la física en la edad de la emergencia – Katz editores – Premio Nobel de Física, Universidad de Stanford – ISBN-13: 978-8493543297 – 278 Págs.
“De las leyes sobre el movimiento de los electrones surgen las leyes de la termodinámica y la química, que a su vez dan origen a las leyes de la cristalización, pilar para las leyes que gobiernan los fenómenos de rigidez y plasticidad, punto de origen de las leyes que se utilizan en ingeniería. ”General Symposium on the Cultural Implications of the Idea of Emergence in the Fields of Biology, Cognitive Science and Philosophy – From Biology to Cognitive Science. – En: William Irwin Thompson (Ed.) (1991), Gaia 2: Emergence, the new science of becoming, Lindisfarne Books, ISBN-13 : 978-0940262409
“James Lovelock: We have to distinguish between an emergent property and an emergent domain. Now, what could this mean? Let me say what it means to me. Watt’s steam engine governor, for example, certainly exhibits an emergent property, in the sense that, as with many other examples one could give, you have something that closes onto itself. Maxwell had a bit of trouble with it because the mathematics of his time never had, shall we say, snakes eating their own tails—this is something that does entail a different mathematics.” (p. 216)Symposium: From Biology To Cognitive Science .General Symposium on the Cultural Implications of the Idea of Emergence in the Fields of Biology, Cognitive Science, and Philosophy – En: William Irwin Thompson (Ed.) (1991), Gaia 2: Emergence, the new science of becoming, Lindisfarne Books, ISBN-13 : 978-0940262409
“Francisco Varela: We have to distinguish between an emergent property and an emergent domain […] to me an emergent domain is one that creates or specifies or gives rise to a new identity or a class of things. An absolutely dramatic case would be the emergence of the cell […] I think that this distinction between property and domain is not a recipe, as far as I understand it, but is a sort of heuristic principle that has to be seen and analyzed in each particular case.” (p. 216,222)
Claus Emmeche, Simo Køppe & Frederik Stjernfelt (1997) – Explaining Emergence: towards an ontology of levels – Journal for General Philosophy of Science 28:83–117 https://doi.org/10.1
023/A:1008216127933 – Niels Bohr Institute, Psychological Laboratory & Dept. for Comparative Literature, University of Copenhagen
“Emergence gives rise to not only new properties, but a new natural kind, defined by the new set of properties. But how many new properties does it take to constitute a new natural kind?”Raf Vanderstraeten (2014) – The autopoiesis of social systems – Constructivist Foundations 9:181-183 – Ghent University + University of Helsinki – https://bit.ly/36rml
iB
“It is not possible to conceive of social systems as autopoietic systems if one departs from actions. But Luhmann’s theory opts for communication as the basic unit of social systems. The autopoiesis of social systems emerges from communication, triggering further communication. ”Peter A. Corning (2002) – The re-emergence of “emergence”: A venerable concept in search of a theory – Complexity 7:18–30 https://doi.org/10.1
002/cplx.10043 – Institute for the Study of Complex Systems – http://onlinelibrary .wiley.com/doi/10.10 02/cplx.10043/epdf
“So here I will be brief. Broadly defined, synergy refers to the combined (cooperative) effects that are produced by two or more particles, elements, parts or organisms— effects that are not otherwise attainable. In this definition, synergy is not “more” than the sum of the parts, just different (as Aristotle long ago argued). Furthermore, there are many different kinds of synergy […] It should also be stressed that, far from being vague or ephemeral, synergistic effects are, as a rule, very concrete and eminently measurable.”Daniel Stedman Jones (2012) – Masters of the Universe: Hayek, Friedman, and the Birth of Neoliberal Politics – Princeton University Press – ISBN-13: 978-0691151571 – 432 Págs.
“The neoliberal activists such as Fisher believed that collectivism, social democracy, the New Deal, and Great Society liberalism posed a grave threat to the continued existence of Western civilization […] Neoliberalism had to find a place within conservative politics.” (p. 136)Dieter Plehwe (2009) – The Road from Mont Pelerin: Introduction – En: Philip Mirowski and Dieter Plehwe (Eds.) (2009), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, Harvard University Press, ISBN-13 : 978-0674033184, 480 pàgs. – Department of Internationalization and Organization, Social Science Research Centre, Berlin – http://uberty.org/wp
-content/uploads/201 5/10/mt-pelerin.pdf
“The Mont Pèlerin Society and related networks of neoliberal partisan think-tanks can serve as a directory of organized neoliberalism because it is part of a rather novel structure of intellectual discourse.”Mario Giampietro & Kozo Mayumi (2000) – Multiple-scale integrated assessment of societal metabolism: Introducing the approach – Population and Environment 22:109-153 https://doi.org/ 10.1023/A:1026691623
300 – Istituto Nazionale di Ricerca per gli Alimenti e la Nutrizione; Tokushima University – https://link.springe r.com/content/pdf/10 .1023/A:102669162330 0.pdf
“The “emergent property” that we call “economic process” is the result of the parallel behavior of different individuals, households, firms, and institutions operating at different scales, within different elements of the hierarchically organized economic system. This is why sustainability must be studied by representing the behavior as well as the perceptions of non-equivalent observers operating at different levels in it. ”Alexander László and Stanley Krippner (1998) – Systems Theories: Their Origins, Foundations, and Development – En: J.S. Jordan (Ed.), Systems Theories and A Priori Aspects of Perception. Amsterdam: Elsevier Science, 1998. Cap 3:47-74 – http://archive.synto
nyquest.org/elcTree/ resourcesPDFs/System sTheory.pdf
“Structurally, a system is a divisible whole, but functionally it is an indivisible unity with emergent properties. An emergent property is marked by the appearance of novel characteristics exhibited on the level of the whole ensemble, but not by the components in isolation […] they are lost when the system breaks down to its components […] when a component is removed from the whole, that component itself will lose its emergent properties […] The notion of emergent properties leads to the concept of synergy, suggesting that, as we say in everyday language, the system is more than the sum of its parts. ”Alex B. Novikoff (1945) – The Concept of Integrative Levels in Biology – Science 101:209-215 https://doi.org/10.1
126/science.101.2618 .209 – Department of Biology, Brooklyn College
“The concept of integrative levels of organization is a general description of the evolution of matter through successive and higher orders of complexity and integration. It views the development of matter, from the cosmological changes resulting in the formation of the earth to the social changes in society, as continuous because it is never-ending, and as discontinuous because it passes through a series of different levels of organization-physical, chemical, biological and sociological. ” Indika Rajapakse and Stephen Smale – Emergence of function from coordinated cells in a tissue – Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences PNAS 114:1462–1467 https://doi.org/10.1
073/pnas.1621145114 – Department of Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics, Medical School, Department of Mathematics, University of Michigan; Department of Mathematics, University of California, Berkeley – https://www.pnas.org /doi/epdf/10.1073/pn as.1621145114
“This work presents a mathematical study of tissue dynamics.We combine within-cell genome dynamics and diffusion betweencells, so that the synthesis of the two gives rise to the emergenceof function, akin to establishing “tissue homeostasis.” We introduce two concepts, monotonicity and a weak version of hard-wiring. These together are sufficient for global convergence of the tissue dynamics. ”Stanley N. Salthe (2010) – Maximum power and maximum entropy production: finalities in nature – Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy – Biological Sciences, Binghamton University + Professor Emeritus, Biology, City University of New York – https://www.thefreel
ibrary.com/Maximum+p ower+and+maximum+ent ropy+production%3a+f inalities+in+nature. -a0242016911
“The developmental process of aging in organisms is instructive in showing that when the effectiveness of striving declines, an organism gets set up for recycling – and so we see that utilizing the maximum power regime is not in itself sufficient for survival. The key data here are those showing that, after their inception, the per unit mass energy throughput of organisms steadily declines onto an asymptote (Zotin, 1972; aoki, 1995) as they spin out their lives. This is an expression of the ‘minimum entropy production principle’ (Prigogine, 1961) as it works out in dissipative structures (Kay, 1984; Salthe, 1993). The ‘development’ of Prigogine’s experiment mimics the decline in energy density flow rate throughout an organism’s life. Consequent upon this, the increase in gross energy throughput entrained by growth and development will gradually slow down as well (salthe, 2002,b), impacting the ability to recover from injuries thus, it looks as though when failing to contribute as much as they had been doing to the maximum entropy production project of the universe, organisms begin to fail. ”Stuart A. Kauffman (2008) – Reinventing the Sacred: A New View of Science, Reason, and Religion – Basic Books; First Trade paper Edition edition – Institute for Biocomplexity and Informatics, University of Calgary – ISBN-13: 978-0465018888 – 336 Págs.
“I will show that the evolution of the biosphere, human economic life, and human history are partially indescribable by natural law. This claim flies in the face of our settled convictions since Galileo, Newton, and the Enlightenment […] One view of God is that God is our chosen name for the ceasess creativity in the natural universe, biosphere, and human cultures.» (p. xi)Nicolas de Cusa (1440,2017) – La Docta Ignorancia – CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform – ISBN-13 : 978-1544756813 – 510 Págs.
“La ignorancia de una mente infinita frente a una finitud no es la indiferencia. El reconocimiento de la ignorancia es una ignorancia instruida, docta. Sin embargo, la naturaleza intelectiva se siente atraída por conocer lo incomprensible. Es el retorno, nos atrae una natural pregustación que nos impulsa a seguir buscando. Tiene una aspiración hacia la sabiduría, hacia Dios, aun reconociendo que el sabio es ahora quien se percata de que no puede alcanzar a Dios, la plenitud del conocer. Dios es inaprensible, inalcanzable.”
Alexandre Koyré (1957) – From the Closed World to the Infinite Uníverse – Angelico Press – ISBN-13: 978-1621389
798 – 322 Págs.
“Laplace who, a hundred years after Newton, brought the New Cosmology to its final perfection, told Napoleon, who asked him about the role of God in his System of the World: “Sire, je n’ai pas eu besoin de cette hypothèse.” (I did not need this hypothesis) But it was not Laplace’s System, it was the world described in it that no longer needed the hypothesis God. The infinite Universe of the New Cosmology, infinite in Duration as well as in Extension, in which eternal matter in accordance with eternal and necessary laws moves endlessly and aimlessly in eternal space, inherited all the ontological attributes of Divinity. Yet only those—all the others the departed God took away with Him. ”René Thom (1980) – Halte au hasard, silence au bruit – Le Débat 3:119-132 https://doi.org/10.3
917/deba.003.0119
“Le monde est-il astreint à un déterminisme rigoureux, ou y a-t-il un « hasard » irréductible à toute description ? Ainsi posé, évidemment, le problème est de nature métaphysique2 et seule une option également métaphysique est en mesure de le trancher. En tant que philosophe, le savant peut laisser la question ouverte interne – d’adopter une position optimiste et de postuler que rien, dans la nature, n’est inconnaissable a priori. ”Francisco Fernández Buey (2013) – Para la Tercera Cultura. Ensayos sobre Ciencias y Humanidades – El Viejo Topo – Catedrático de Filosofía Política + Centro de Estudios sobre Movimientos Sociales (CEMS), Universitat Pompeu Fabra – ISBN-13 : 978-8492616053 – 410 Págs.
“Emil du Bois-Reymond […] inaugura, en el último tercio del siglo XIX, lo que podríamos llamar aquí ‘agnosticismo científico moderno’ […] el discurso sobre los límites de la ciencia lo pronunció en 1872. Se conoce en las historias de la ciencia y del pensamiento científico como el discurso del Ignorabimus […] Pero en el discurso de Emil du Bois-Reymond hay una segunda limitación del conocimiento científico. Ésta resulta de que la conciencia no puede ser explicada a partir de sus condiciones materiales […] Nada nos obliga a pensar que el mundo ha de ser completamente inteligible” (p. 56-58,217)Stuart A. Kauffman (2008) – Reinventing the Sacred: A New View of Science, Reason, and Religion – Basic Books; First Trade paper Edition – Institute for Biocomplexity and Informatics, University of Calgary – ISBN-13: 978-0465018
888 – 336 Págs.
“The view I discuss, beyond reductionism, partially beyond natural law, sees nature itself as the generator of the vast creativity around us. Is not this new view, a view based on an expanded science, God enough? […] God is our name for the creativity in nature.” (p. 283,284)John J. Johnson, Andreas Tolk and Andres Sousa-Poza (2013) – A Theory of Emergence and Entropy in Systems of Systems – Procedia Computer Science 20:283-289 https://doi.org/10.1
016/j.procs.2013.09. 274 – Old Dominion University + SimIS Inc
“Systems of Systems (SOS) meet vital needs in our society by providing capabilities that are not possible by their discrete components or subsystems. Some Systems of Systems are engineered to produce predictable results, yet they can still display emergent behavior. These behaviors are often considered negative because they are not a function of the design. However, emergent behavior can also be serendipitous and produce unexpected positive results. The authors formalize a theory of emergence based on entropy. The theory has explanatory value for emergence as an ontological and phenomenological concept in systems of systems.”Stuart Kauffman (2008) – A God of creativity – New Scientist 198:52–53 https://doi.org/10.1
016/S0262-4079(08)61 171-9 – Institute for Biocomplexity and Informatics, University of Calgary – https://www.newscien tist.com/article/mg1 9826556.000-perspect ives-why-humanity-ne eds-a-god-of-creativ ity
“So the unfolding of the universe – biotic, and perhaps abiotic too – appears to be partially beyond natural law. In its place is a ceaseless creativity, with no supernatural creator. If, as a result of this creativity, we cannot know what will happen, then reason, the Enlightenment’s highest human virtue, is an insufficient guide to living our lives. We must use reason, emotion, intuition, all that our evolution has brought us. But that means understanding our full humanity: we need Einstein and Shakespeare in the same room.”Stuart Kauffman (2007) – Beyond Reductionism: Reinventing the Sacred – Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science 42:903-914 https://doi.org/10.1
111/j.1467-9744.2007 .00879.x – Institute for Biocomplexity and Informatics, University of Calgary
“It is our choice whether we use the God word. I believe it is wise to do so. God can be our shared name for the true creativity in the natural universe. Such a view invites a new sense of the sacred, as those aspects of the creativity in the universe that we deem worthy of holding sacred. We are not logically forced to this view. Yet a global civilization, hopefully persistently diverse and creative, is emerging. I believe we need a shared view of God, a fully natural God, to orient our lives. We need a shared view of the sacred that is open to slow evolution, because rigidity in our view of the sacred violates how our most precious values evolve and invites ethical hegemóny. We need a shared global ethic beyond our materialism. I believe a sense of God as the natural, awesome creativity in the universe can help us construct the sacred and a global ethic to help shape the global civilization toward what we choose with the best of our limited wisdom.»Aloisius H. Louie (2017) – Intangible Life: Functorial Connections in Relational Biology – Springer https://doi.org/10.1
007/978-3-319-65409- 6 – Mathematical biologist – ISBN-13 : 978-3319654089 – 264 Págs.
“Reductionism fails because the conditions necessary to put Humpty Dumpty together again are often intangible. Molecular biology and biochemistry are mainstream scholarly pursuits in understanding the chemistry of life, but one must never forget that biology is the science of the living. To this end, one may be pardoned for the quip that the term “molecular biology” is an oxymoron. ” (p. xiv)George Spencer Brown (1969) – Laws of Form – Allen & Unwin – ISBN-13 : 978-0045100286 – 141 Págs.
“Reseña del editor: Laws of Form is a seminal work in foundations of logic, mathematics and philosophy published by G Spencer-Brown in 1969. The book provides a new point of view on form and the role of distinction, markedness and the absence of distinction (the unmarked state) in the construction of any universe. A conference was held August 8–10, 2019 at the Old Library, Liverpool University, 19 Abercromby Square, L697ZN, UK to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the publication of Laws of Form and to remember George Spencer-Brown, its author. The book is a collection of papers introducing and extending Laws of Form written primarily by people who attended the conference in 2019. ”D’Arcy W. Thompson (1917,1992) – On Growth and Form – Dover Publications – Professor of Natural History, University of St. Andrews – ISBN-13 : 978-0486671352 – 1116 Págs.
“The esteem in which this monumental, lavishly illustrated work is universally held derives not only from its scholarship and creativity, but also from the rich literary style that exemplifies Thompson’s great erudition in the physical and natural sciences, ancient and modern languages and the humanities. The book begins with studies of organic magnitude, the rate of growth, cellular form and structure, adsorption, and the forms of tissues, then examines a vast spectrum of life forms, and concludes with a comparison of related forms that leads to the theory of transformations. ”Ignacio Rodríguez Rodríguez (2012) – La “Nave Espacial Tierra” de Kenneth Boulding – Revista de Economía Crítica 14:320-326 – Departamento de Ciencias Sociales, Universidad de La Frontera, Chile – http://revistaeconom
iacritica.org/sites/ default/files/revist as/n14/Clasicos2-Ign acio.pdf
“En resumen, Kenneth Boulding fue un economista crítico con las ideas dominantes en su disciplina, que entendió perfectamente la interdependencia que existe entre los sistemas naturales y los sistemas sociales y no tuvo reparos en denunciar la irracionalidad del Sistema de Contabilidad Nacional, que privilegia los flujos frente a los stocks, y los principales indicadores de medición del éxito de las economías que ignoran la imposibilidad de un crecimiento económico indefinido en un planeta finito. ”Linda Booth Sweeney and John D. Sterman (2000) – Bathtub Dynamics: Initial Results of a Systems Thinking Inventory – System Dynamics Review 16:249-294 https://doi.org/10.1
002/sdr.198 – Harvard University Graduate School of Education; MIT Sloan School of Management – http://web.mit.edu/j sterman/www/Bathtub. pdf
“The results strongly suggest that highly educated subjects with extensive training in mathematics and science have poor understanding of some of the most basic concepts of system dynamics, specifically, stocks and flows, time delays, and feedback. The errors are highly systematic, and indicate violations of basic principles, not merely calculation errors. Subjects tend to violate fundamental relationships between stocks and flows, including conservation of matter, as shown by the large fraction of respondents in the MC task who drew trajectories for production and inventory that were inconsistent with one another. ”Jay W. Forrester (1970) – Counterintuitive behavior of social systems – En: Collected papers of Jay W. Forrester. Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1975, Wright-Allen Press – Massachusetts Institute of Technology – http://www.constitut
ion.org/ps/cbss.pdf
“Inability of the human mind to use its own mental models becomes clear when a computer model is constructed to reproduce the assumptions contained in a person’s mental model […] By contrast to mental models, system dynamics simulation models are explicit about assumptions and how they interrelate.”Donella H. Meadows et al (1972) – The Limits to Growth. A Report for the Club of Rome’s Project for the Predicament of Mankind – Universe Books New York – Massachusetts Institute of Technology – http://www.donellame
adows.org/wp-content /userfiles/Limits-to -Growth-digital-scan -version.pdf – 4 autores
“A quantity exhibits exponential growth when it increases by a constant percentage of the whole in a constant time period. A colony of yeast cells in which each cdl divides into two cells every 10 minutes is growing exponentially.”Toni Menninger (2014) – Growth in a Finite World: Sustainability and the Exponential Function – http://www.slideshar
e.net/amenning/growt h-in-a-finite-world- sustainability-and-t he-exponential-funct ion
“A quantity is said to grow exponentially (or geometrically) if it increases by a constant percentage or fractional rate per unit of time. In other words, the increase per unit of time is proportional to the quantity itself, in contrast with other types of growth (e. g. arithmetic, logistic).”William A. Wagenaar and Sabato D. Sagaria (1975) – Misperception of exponential growth – Attention Perception & Psychophysics 18:416-422 https://doi.org/10.3
758/BF03204114 – Institute for Perception TNO, Soesterberg; Pennsylvania State University
“The size of the effect is considerable; it is not unusual that two-thirds of the subjects produce estimates below 10% of the normative value. The effect increases with the exponent of the stimulus series, and with addition of a constant to the stimulus series. Neither special instructions about the nature of exponential growth nor daily experience with growth processes enhanced the extrapolations.”El crecimiento exponencial explicado doblando una hoja de papel una y otra vez – La Información, 19/04/2012 – http://www.microsier
vos.com/archivo/cien cia/crecimiento-expo nencial-papel.html
“El ejemplo se basa en doblar por la mitad una y otra vez una hoja de papel finísimo (de 0,001 cm de grosor); esta es la altura que alcanzaría tras cierto número de dobleces: 10: la hoja tendría 1 cm de grosor […] 25 más alta que el Empire State; 40: la altitud a la que orbitan los satélites; 45: podría llegar hasta la Luna… y volver.”James Lovelock (2006) – La venjança de la Terra – Columna Edicions Barcelona – ISBN: 978-84-6640792-2 – 260 Págs.
“Si un sol bacteri es dividís i repetís aquesta divisió cada vint minuts, sempre que no hi haguessin limitacions per al creixement i que el proveïment de menjar fos il·limitat, en només dos dies la progènie total pesaria tant com la Terra […] Ara sabem que algunes propietats globals i el clima fixen els límits que aporten estabilitat […] Si el sistema de la Terra, Gaia, pogués expressar alguna preferència, seria per la fredor d’una era glacial, no pas per la relativa calor actual.”Tom Murphy – Exponential Economist Meets Finite Physicist – Do the Math, 10/04/2012 – http://physics.ucsd.
edu/do-the-math/2012 /04/economist-meets- physicist/ “El resultado es que con una tasa de crecimiento del 2,3% (elegido por comodidad para representar un aumento de 10 veces por siglo), alcanzaríamos la temperatura de ebullición dentro de unos 400 años [expresión de dolor por parte del economista]. Y esta afirmación no depende de la tecnología.”
Adrían Almazán, Antonio Valero y Alicia Valero (2021) – Thanatia: Los límites minerales del planeta – Icaria editorial – Catedrático de Ingeniería Energética, Universidad de Zaragoza + Director del Instituto Mixto CIRCE; Licenciada en Geología, Doctora en Energías Renovables y Eficiencia energética; Profesora de Máquinas y Motores Térmicos, Universidad de Zaragoza + Directora, Grupo de Ecología Industrial, Instituto CIRCE – ISBN-13 : 978-8498889970 – 96 Págs.
“Antonio Valero: Supongamos ahora que, en un enorme campo de fútbol, cae una gota de agua en el primer minuto de juego, en el segundo, dos, en el tercero, cuatro y así sucesivamente. En cada minuto se duplica la cantidad de agua. ¿En qué minuto se llenará el campo completamente? ¡En el minuto 46! […] Supongamos que no hemos reaccionado hasta que no vemos que a los jugadores ya les llega el agua por la rodilla. ¿En qué minuto será? ¡En el 42! Demasiado tarde para escapar.” (p. 27)William A. Wagenaar and Sabato D. Sagaria (1975) – Misperception of exponential growth – Attention Perception & Psychophysics 18:416-422 https://doi.org/10.3
758/BF03204114 – Institute for Perception TNO, Soesterberg; Pennsylvania State University
“Experiment III suggest that we are faced with a real functional impossibility: subjects cannot discriminate between functions with different exponents […] Logarithmic representation would not serve this aim.”Felix J. Formanski et al (2022) – Tipping points ahead? How laypeople respond to linear versus nonlinear climate change predictions – Climatic Change 175:8 https://doi.org/10.1
007/s10584-022-03459 -z – Faculty of Sustainability, Leuphana University Lüneburg – https://link.springe r.com/content/pdf/10 .1007/s10584-022-034 59-z.pdf
“The results of the study indicate that the type of climate change portrayal did not afect perceptions of risk or other social-cognitive variables such as efficacy beliefs. While participants who were exposed to a nonlinear portrayal of climate change perceived abrupt changes in the climate system as more likely, they did not perceive the consequences of climate change as less controllable or more catastrophic.”Stanislas Dehaene et al (2008) – Log or Linear? Distinct Intuitions of the Number Scale in Western and Amazonian Indigene Cultures – Science 320:1217-1221 https://doi.org/10.1
126/science.1156540 – INSERM, Cognitive Neuro-imaging Unit, Institut Fédératif de Recherche (IFR) + Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique, NeuroSpin center, IFR + Collège de France+ Université Paris-Sud
“This indicates that the mapping of numbers onto space is a universal intuition and that this initial intuition of number is logarithmic. The concept of a linear number line appears to be a cultural invention that fails to develop in the absence of formal education.”L. Booth Sweeney and John D. Sterman (2007) – Thinking about systems: student and teacher conceptions of natural and social systems – System Dynamics Review 23:285-312 – Director of SoL’s Education Partnership; Jay W. Forrester Professor of Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management and Director of the MIT System Dynamics Group
“Despite these generally discouraging results, some people are able to think systemically. Developmental theory and empirical research offer some evidence that the development of systems intelligence is not age-related. For example, some research [refs] and anecdotal evidence [refs] shows that children as young as kindergarten age are able to grasp, at a rudimentary level, systems concepts and tools.”Luis Arturo Pinzón-Salcedo et al (2022) – Do jaguars of the Amazon rainforest have a systemic perspective? – Systems Research and Behavioral Science https://doi.org/10.1
002/sres.2840 – Engineering School, Universidad de los Andes, Bogota
“In this article, we explore Amazonian systems thinking, which has similarities to modern Western systems thinking, as well as differences that may inspire the evolution of systems approaches worldwide […] We will present the systems thinking that emerged in some Amazonian communities, how it relates to mainstream Western systems thinking, and focus on some unique aspects of Amazonian systems thinking.”L. Booth Sweeney and John D. Sterman (2007) – Thinking about systems: student and teacher conceptions of natural and social systems – System Dynamics Review 23:285-312 – Director of SoL’s Education Partnership; Jay W. Forrester Professor of Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management and Director of the MIT System Dynamics Group
“A key skill in systems thinking is the ability to expand the boundary of one’s mental model to increase the range of feedbacks and factors considered [ref]. However, students and teachers alike tended not to describe factors outside the immediate boundary described by the elements of the scenario.”John D. Sterman (1989) – Modeling managerial behavior: misperceptions of feedback in a dynamic decision making experiment – Management Science 35:321–339 https://doi.org/10.1
287/mnsc.35.3.321 – Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology – http://www.systemdyn amics.org/conference s/1988/proceed/sterm 334.pdf
“The estimation results identify several ‘misperceptions of feedback’ which account for the poor performance of the subjects. In particular, subjects are shown to be insensitive to the feedbacks from their decisions to the environment. Finally, the generality of the results is considered and implications for behavioral theories of aggregate social and economic dynamics are explored.”David C. Lane (2000) – Should systems dynamics be described as ‘hard’ or ‘deterministic’ systems approach? – Systems Research and Behavioral Science 17:3–22 https://doi.org/10.1
002/(SICI)1099-1743( 200001/02)17:1<3::AI D-SRES344>3.0.CO;2-7 – Operational Research Department, London School of Economics and Political Science, University of London
“It is worth commenting that the above pair of discussions has avoided some of the more stridently realistic views expressed within the field of system dynamics. These include Forrester’s suggestion (quoted above) that the field’s principles capture the nature of social reality and the generally held position that people have `flawed cognitive maps of causal relations’ [ref]; i.e., mental models are not `correct’.”Peter A. White (1992) – The anthropomorphic machine: causal order in nature and the world view of common sense – British Journal of Psychology 83:61–96 https://doi.org/10.1
111/j.2044-8295.1992 .tb02425.x – School of Psychology, University of Wales College of Cardiff
“Results show that people are not naïve systems theorists: they produce fewer feedback loops than would be expected by chance and treat nature as an Aristotelian one-way causal hierarchy in which causal chains are overwhelmingly linear and causal influence is disseminated down from the top level of the system in an anthropomorphic manner involving the action of the causal powers of things.”Matthew A. Cronin and Cleotilde Gonzalez (2007) – Understanding the building blocks of dynamic systems – System Dynamics Review 23:1-17 https://doi.org/10.1
002/sdr.356 – Assistant Professor of Management at George Mason University – http://www.hss.cmu.e du/departments/sds/d dmlab/ papers/CroninGonzale zSDRINPRESS.pdf
“Rather, it appears that people often use intuitively appealing but erroneous heuristics such as assuming that the output of a system is positively correlated with its inputs. That is, people assume that the output (the stock) should ‘‘look like” the input (the flow or net flow). We denote such behavior the correlation heuristic. ”Matthew A. Cronin, Cleotilde Gonzaláz and John D. Sterman (2009)- Why don’t well-educated adults understand accumulation? A challenge to researchers, educators, and citizens – Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 108:116-130 https://doi.org/10.1
016/j.obhdp.2008.03. 003
“People appear to employ heuristics that are intuitively appealing but erroneous—specifically, many use the correlation heuristic, reasoning that the output of the system (here, the stock) should ‘‘look like” (be highly correlated with) its inputs (here, the flows or net inflow). Such individuals fail to grasp the fundamental principle that any stock rises (falls) when the inflow exceeds (is less than) the outflow. The intuitive appeal of the correlation heuristic appears to be quite strong […] Further, the frequency of use of the correlation heuristic increases as the flows become more complex than simple straight lines.” John D. Sterman and Linda Booth Sweeney (2007) – Understanding Public Complacency about Climate Change: Adults’ mental models of climate change violate conservation of matter – Climatic Change 80:213-238 https://doi.org/10.1
007/s10584-006-9107- 5 – Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology – http://web.mit.edu/j sterman/www/StermanS weeney.pdf
“The belief that emissions, atmospheric CO2, and temperature are correlated leads to the erroneous conclusion that a drop in emissions would soon cause a drop in CO2 concentrations and mean global temperature.”Matthew A. Cronin, Cleotilde Gonzaláz and John D. Sterman (2009) – Why don’t well-educated adults understand accumulation? A challenge to researchers, educators, and citizens – Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 108:116-130 https://doi.org/10.1
016/j.obhdp.2008.03. 003 “Stock–flow problems, even simple ones, are unintuitive and difficult, even for highly educated people with strong mathematics backgrounds, including calculus [refs]. For example, Booth Sweeney and Sterman (2000) presented graduate students at an elite university with a picture of a bathtub and graphs showing the inflow and outflow of water, then asked them to sketch the trajectory of the stock of water in the tub. Although the patterns were simple, fewer than half responded correctly. We denote such difficulties stock–flow (SF) failure. ”
Matthew A. Cronin and Cleotilde Gonzalez (2007) – Understanding the building blocks of dynamic systems – System Dynamics Review 23:1-17 https://doi.org/10.1
002/sdr.356 – Assistant Professor of Management at George Mason University – http://www.hss.cmu.e du/departments/sds/d dmlab/ papers/CroninGonzale zSDRINPRESS.pdf
“We report three empirical studies intended to clarify why individuals misperceive the relationships between stocks and flows […] Neither the domain familiarity nor increased motivation helped individuals improve their perception of stock and flow relationships; but it seems that the graphical representation directs attention to flows and not stocks, setting the stage for subsequent mistakes. Individuals attend to the most salient points of a graph rather than comprehending the overall accumulation over time.”John D. Sterman and Linda Booth Sweeney (2002) – Cloudy Skies: Assessing Public Understanding of Global Warming – System Dynamics Review 18(2) – Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology – http://web.mit.edu/j
sterman/www/cloudy_s kies1.pdf
”Subjects often select trajectories that violate conservation of matter. Many believe temperature responds immediately to changes in CO2 emissions or concentrations. Still more believe that stabilizing emissions near current rates would stabilize the climate, when in fact emissions would continue to exceed removal, increasing GHG concentrations and radiative forcing. Such beliefs support wait and see policies, but violate basic laws of physics. We discuss implications for education and public policy.”John D. Sterman and Linda Booth Sweeney (2007) – Understanding Public Complacency about Climate Change: Adults’ mental models of climate change violate conservation of matter – Climatic Change 80:213-238 https://doi.org/10.1
007/s10584-006-9107- 5 – Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology – http://web.mit.edu/j sterman/www/StermanS weeney.pdf
“Despite these generous criteria, fully 84% drew trajectories violating mass balance requirements […] Three-fourths violate the equilibrium condition that CO2 stabilization requires emissions equal removal. A large majority, 63%, assert atmospheric CO2 can be stabilized while emissions into the atmosphere exceed removal from it. The violations of the equilibrium condition are large, averaging 2.8 GtC/year (compared to year 2000 emissions of about 6.5 GtC/year).”John D. Sterman and Linda Booth Sweeney (2002) – Cloudy Skies: Assessing Public Understanding of Global Warming – System Dynamics Review 18(2) – Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology – http://web.mit.edu/j
sterman/www/cloudy_s kies1.pdf
“Subjects, however, regularly violate these basic physics. They consistently underestimate the delay in the response of temperature to changes in CO2 concentration, selecting trajectories in which temperature responds far too much and too fast. The vast majority believe that temperature should follow the same pattern as CO2 concentration, rising when CO2 is rising and falling when CO2 is falling. ”John D. Sterman and Linda Booth Sweeney (2002) – Cloudy Skies: Assessing Public Understanding of Global Warming – System Dynamics Review 18: 207-240 https://doi.org/ 10.1002/sdr.242 – Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology – http://web.mit.edu/j
sterman/www/cloudy_s kies1.pdf
“Unfortunately, the wait-and-see strategy can fail spectacularly in systems with long time delays, multiple feedback processes, and other elements of dynamic complexity [refs]. More and more of the pressing problems facing us as managers and citizens alike involve long delays. The long time scale means there is little opportunity for learning through outcome feedback. Instead, we must rely on models of various types to help us project the likely dynamics of the system.”John M. Anderies et al (2007) – Panaceas, uncertainty, and the robust control framework in sustainability science – Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences PNAS 104:15194-15199 https://doi.org/10.1
073/pnas.0702655104 – School of Human Evolution and Social Change, + Global Institute of Sustainability – 4 autores
“A critical challenge faced by sustainability science is to develop strategies to cope with highly uncertain social and ecological dynamics. This article explores the use of the robust control framework toward this end […] we show that there are no panaceas: even mild robustness properties are difficult to achieve, and increasing robustness to some parameters (e.g., biological parameters) results in decreased robustness with respect to others (e.g., economic parameters) […] we focus attention on the importance of a continual learning process and the use of robust control to inform this process.”Dirk Helbing (2013) – Globally networked risks and how to respond – Nature 497:51–59 https://doi.org/10.1
038/nature12047 – Risk Center, ETH Zurich, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology – http://www.uvm.edu/~ cdanfort/csc-reading -group/helbing-natur e-2013.pdf
“Furthermore, the combination of nonlinear interactions, network effects, delayed response and randomness may cause a sensitivity to small changes, unique path dependencies, and strong correlations, all of which are hard to understand, prepare for and manage. Each of these factors is already difficult to imagine, but this applies even more to their combination.”John D. Sterman (2011) – Communicating climate change risks in a skeptical world – Climatic Change 74:796-809 https://doi.org/10.1
007/s10584-011-0189- 3 – Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology – https://link.springe r.com/content/pdf/10 .1007/s10584-011-018 9-3.pdf
«People routinely ignore or underestimate time delays [ref]. Underestimating time delays leads people to believe, wrongly, that it is prudent to “wait and see” whether a potential environmental risk will actually cause harm. Many citizens, including many who believe climate change poses serious risks, advocate a wait-and- see approach, reasoning that uncertainty about the causes and consequences of climate change means potentially costly actions to address the risks should be deferred.”Erling Moxnes (1998) – Not Only the Tragedy of the Commons: Misperceptions of Bioeconomics – Management Science 44:1234-1248 https://doi.org/10.1
287/mnsc.44.9.1234 – Foundation for Research in Economics and Business Administration, SNF, Norway
“Fisrt: delays […] ; Second: stocks and flows…; Third: nonlinearities…; Fourth: learning might be slow…”Matthew A. Cronin, Cleotilde Gonzaláz and John D. Sterman (2009) – Why don’t well-educated adults understand accumulation? A challenge to researchers, educators, and citizens – Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 108:116-130 https://doi.org/10.1
016/j.obhdp.2008.03. 003
“Although most of the experiments allowed participants 10 min to finish the task, most of the participants finished much earlier. Many reported high confidence that their answers were correct, even when they were not.”John D. Sterman (1989) – Misperceptions of Feedback in Dynamic Decision Making – Behavior and Human Decision Processes 43:301-335 https://doi.org/10.1
016/0749-5978(89)900 41-1 – Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
“This paper presents a laboratory experiment in which subjects manage a simulated economy. Subjects must invest sufficient capital plant and equipment to satisfy demand […] Several distinct sources of the subjects’ poor performance are identified and termed “misperceptions of feedback.” The decision rule is related to various models of economic fluctuations.”John D. Sterman (1988) – Deterministic chaos in models of human behavior: Methodological issues and experimental results – System Dynamic Reviews 4:148-178 https://doi.org/10.1
002/sdr.4260040109 – Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
“Recent work has shown that several well-known models in the system dynamics literature contain previously unsuspected regimes of deterministic chaos […] This article describes these experiments and shows that the behavior of the subjects is explained well with a simple heuristic long used in system dynamics modeling and well grounded in behavioral decision theory. The parameters of the proposed decision rule are estimated econometrically for each subject. The parameters that characterize a significant minority of the subjects are shown to produce chaos.”Jay W. Forrester (1970) – Counterintuitive behavior of social systems – En: Collected papers of Jay W. Forrester. Cambridge, Mass.: Wright-Allen Press – Massachusetts Institute of Technology – http://www.constitut
ion.org/ps/cbss.pdf
“The human mind is not adapted to interpreting how social systems behave. Social systems belong to the class called multi-loop nonlinear feedback systems. In the long history of evolution it has not been necessary until very recent historical times for people to understand complex feedback systems. Evolutionary processes have not given us the mental ability to interpret properly the dynamic behavior of those complex systems in which we are now imbedded.”Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich (2013) – Can a collapse of global civilization be avoided? – Proceedings of the Royal society B: Biological Sciences https://doi.org/10.1
098/rspb.2012.2845 – Department of Biology, Stanford University
“The forces of genetic and cultural selection were not creating brains or institutions capable of looking generations ahead; there would have been no selection pressures in that direction. Indeed, quite the opposite, selection probably favoured mechanisms to keep perception of the environmental background steady so that rapid changes (e.g. leopard approaching) would be obvious [132, pp. 135–136]. ”Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1972) – The History and Statu of General Systems Theory – The Academy of Management Journal 15:407-426 https://doi.org/10.2
307/255139 – 01/12/1972 – Center for Theoretical Biology, State University of New York at Buffalo – http://www.communica tioncache.com/upload s/1/0/8/8/10887248/t he_history_and_statu _of_general_systems_ theory.pdf
“Nicholas of Cusa […] that profound thinker of the fifteenth century, linking Medieval mysticism with the first beginnings of modern science, introduced the notion of the ‘coincidentia oppositorum’, the opposition or, indeed, fight among the parts within a whole which, nevertheless, forms a unity of higher order.”Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1947,1968) – General System Theory: Foundations, Development, Applications – George Brazilller – University of Alberta – https://monoskop.org
/images/7/77/Von_Ber talanffy_Ludwig_Gene ral_System_Theory_19 68.pdf
“Manibus Nicolai de Cusa Cardinalis, Gottfriedi Guglielmi Leibnitii, ]oannis Wolfgangi de Goethe Aldique Huxleyi, neenon de Bertalanffy Pauli, S.J., antecessoris, cosmographi ”Christian Erik Kampmann andJohn D. Sterman (2014) – Do markets mitigate misperceptions of feedback? – System Dynamics Review 30:123–160 https://doi.org/10.1
002/sdr.1515 – System Dynamics Group, MIT Sloan School of Management
“Experimental studies of dynamic decision making generally show poor performance. Most, however, lack market mechanisms, specifically price setting, while economic theory suggests markets should mitigate individual decision errors […] We find: […] Markets moderate but do not eliminate misperceptions of feedback.”Christian de Quincey (2010,2022) – Naturaleza esencial: El alma de la materia – Ediciones Atalanta – Profesor de consciencia, espiritualidad y cosmología, Universidad John F. Kennedy + Cofundador, Wisdom Academy + Decano de Estudios de la Conciencia, University of Philosophical Research, Los Ángeles
“Este cambio de la sustancia al proceso es tan contraintuitivo («contrahabitual» sería más exacto), tan contrario a nuestra manera de pensar y de ver, que a menudo la gente tarda un tiempo en asimilarlo. Parte de la dificultad estriba en que nuestro lenguaje está demasiado imbuido del pensamiento de la sustancia, como si el mundo fuese una colección de objetos que se mueven según diferentes configuraciones y relaciones, y no una serie o red de sucesos o procesos de los que aparentemente surgen y desaparecen «cosas» u «objetos» individuales, según la estabilidad relativa de los nodos en la red de sucesos. ” (p. 161)J.J. Hurtak, Desirée Hurtak, Sheri Herndon and Elisabeth Sahtouris (2023) – Supercoherence and the Intelligence of the Cosmos – En: Emanuel Kuntzelman and Jill Robinson (2023), The Holomovement: Embracing Our Collective Purpose to Unite Humanity, Light on Light Press, ISBN-13 : 978-1958921159 – Social scientists. Founders, Academy for Future Science; Social architect; PhD in Biology of Evolution
“As Margulis put it, “Life did not take over the world by combat, but by networking” This networking often led to cooperative symbioses, merging even the most unlikely partners into viable new creatures and ecosystems. ” (p. 77)Robert J. Richards (2003) – The Romantic Conception of Life: Science and Philosophy in the Age of Goethe – University of Chicago Press; 2nd ed. – Professor of history, psychology, and philosophy, University of Chicago – ISBN-13 : 978-0226712109 – 576 Págs.
“Charles Darwin, to be sure, introduced history into biological analysis in a profound and dramatic way, eclipsing the contributions of his grandfather and his French predecessor. But at the end of the eighteenth century in Germany, the application of historical analysis to nature had already begun with the work of Herder and the Romantics. They understood human beings to be constituted historically; man was a creature in a state of becoming, a creature profoundly influenced by the habits and customs of his time and directed toward a more perfect, if infinitely receding, fate. ” (p. 506)Eric D. Schneider y Dorion Sagan (2005) – La termodinámica de la vida: Física, cosmología, ecología y evolución – Tusquets Editores – National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminsitration – ISBN-13: 978-84-8383-052-9 – 438 Págs.
“Las palabras ecosistema y ecología derivan de la raíz griega oikos, que significa casa. La ecología, el estudio científico de esta casa, es distinta del ecologismo, el movimiento activista para la preservación o restauración del medio ambiente. Por un lado, muchos ecólogos que han contemplado la desastrosa gestión de los ecosistemas (tala de bosques. pastoreo excesivo. sobrepesca. etcétera) se han dedicado a advenir sobre los efectos de tales actividades, desde un punto de vista científico. Por otro lado, así como ser físico no lo conviene a tino en miembro del movimiento antinuclear, el término ecología, usado con propiedad, está desprovisto de connotaciones políticas.” (p. 235, np)Denis Noble (2007) – Claude Bernard, the first systems biologist, and the future of physiology – Experimental Physiology 93:16–26 https://doi.org/10.1
113/expphysiol.2007. 038695 – Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics, University of Oxford – http://www.musicofli fe.website/pdfs/The% 20Music%20of%20Life- sourcebook.pdf
“The first systems analysis of the functioning of an organism was Claude Bernard’s concept of the constancy of the internal environment (le milieu intérieur), since it implied the existence of control processes to achieve this. He can be regarded, therefore, as the first systems biologist. The new vogue for systems biology today is an important development, since it is time to complement reductionist molecular biology by integrative approaches. Claude Bernard foresaw that this would require the application of mathematics to biology. This aspect of Claude Bernard’s work has been neglected by physiologists, which is why we are not as ready to contribute to the development of systems biology as we should be.”Claude Bernard (1878,2019) – Leçons sur les phénomènes de la vie communs aux animaux et aux végétaux – Baillière – ISBN-13 : 978-0364269152 – 450 Págs. – https://ia600300.us.
archive.org/31/items /leonssurlesp01bern/ leonssurlesp01bern.p df
« En admettant que les phénomènes (vitaux) se rattachent à des manifestations physicochimiques, ce qui est vrai, la question, dans son essence, n’est pas éclaircie pour cela. Car ce n’est pas une rencontre fortuite de phénomènes physicochimiques qui construit chaque être sur un plan et suivant un dessin fixes et prévus d’avance et suscite l’admirable subordination et l’harmonieux concert des actes de la vie. » (p. 50)James E. Lovelock and Lynn Margulis (1974) – Homeostatic tendencies of the Earth’s atmosphere – Origins of life 5:93-103 https://doi.org/10.1
007/BF00927016 – Department of Applied Physical Science, University of Reading; Department of Biology, Boston University
“From the fossil record it can be deduced that stable optimal conditions for the biosphere have prevailed for thousands of millions of years. We believe that these properties of the terrestrial atmosphere are best interpreted as evidence of homeostasis on a planetary scale maintained by life on the surface. Some possible mechanisms of this biological homeostasis have been noted and the implications of this concept for experimental studies pointed out.”Barrington Moore (1920) – The scope of ecology – Ecology 1(1):3-5 https://doi.org/10.2
307/1929251 – 31/12/1919 – Presidential address delivered before the St. Louis meeting of the Ecological Society of America
“There have been three stages in the development of the biological sciences […] You have but to glance at the list of ecological problems drawn up by the Committee on Cooperation of the Ecological Society and appearing in Science for January 16, 1920. And this list is far from complete. You will see problems requiring work by zoologists, botanists, foresters, geographers, meteorologists, soil chemists, soil physicists, bacteriologists, and geologists, to mention only some of the leading lines. What, precisely, is the significance of this synthesis? ”Alfred J. Lotka (1910) – Contribution to the Theory of Periodic Reactions – Journal of Physical Chemistry 14:271–274 https://doi.org/10.1
021/j150111a004 – https://zenodo.org/r ecord/1428768
“In the simple case here considered we have two consecutive reactions of equal period, each following the law of “damped vibrations,” and the one lagging behind the other by an angle depending on certain coefficients characteristic of the reactions, but independent of the initial concentrations. ”Alfred J. Lotka (1920) – Analytical Note on Certain Rhythmic Relations in Organic Systems – Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences PNAS 6:410-415 https://doi.org/10.1
073/pnas.6.7.410 – Communicated by R. Pearl – http://www.pnas.org/ content/6/7/410.full .pdf
“In a much more general investigation by the writer, covering the kinetics not only of chemical but also of biological systems, it appeared, from the nature of the solution obtained, improbable that undamped, permanent oscillations would arise in the absence of geometrical, structural causes, in the very comprehensive class of systems considered […] It was, therefore, with considerable surprise that the writer, on applying his method to certain special cases, found these to lead to undamped, and hence indefinitely continued, oscillations.”Richard Hofstadter (1959) – Social Darwinism in American Thought – George Braziller; Edición: Revised – DeWitt Clinton Professor of American History, Columbia University – ISBN-13: 978-0807600
795 – 191 Págs.
“It was impossible to be active in any field of intellectual work in the three decades after the Civil War without mastering Spencer [ref]. Almost every American philosophical thinker of first or second rank -including notably James, Royce, Dewey, Bowne, Harris, Howison, and McCosh – had to reckon with him at some time during his career. He was a critical influence upon most of the founders of American sociology, especially Ward, Cooley, Gidclings, Small, and Sumner. I imagine that nearly all of us who took up sociology between 1870, say, and 1890 did so at the instigation of Spencer. ”Alfred Lotka (1925,2021) – Elements of Physical Biology – Hassell Street Press – Johns Hopkins University – ISBN-13 : 978-1014100085 – 496 Págs. – https://ia801601.us.
archive.org/14/items /in.ernet.dli.2015.1 55940/2015.155940.El ements-Of-Physical-B iology_text.pdf
“Now if we seek to analyze what is in our minds when we speak 61 the evolution of a given system, we find – and on this probably all are agreed – that the fundamental, the central thought, is that of the history of the system. But the concepts of the history and of the evolution of a system, though related, are not identical – if they were, one word would suffice to denote the single concept. The popular and also the scientific conception of evolution contains as an essential feature the element of progress, of development.” (p. 20)Vito Volterra (1926) – Variazioni e fluttuazioni del numero d’individui in specie animali conviventi – Memorie della Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. Classe di Scienze Fisiche, Matematiche e Naturali 2:31–113
Saswati Biswas and Dibakar Ghosh (2023) – Evolutionarily stable strategies to overcome Allee effect in predator–prey interaction – Chaos 33:063109 https://doi.org/10.1
063/5.0145914 – Department of Mathematics, University of Kalyani; Physics and Applied Mathematics Unit, Indian Statistical Institute
“We adopt the game-theoretic approach to derive the analytical conditions for the emergence of evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS) when the ecological system possesses asymptotically stable steady states as well as population cycles. We establish that ESSs occur at those values of adopted evolutionary strategies that are local optima of some functional forms of model parameters. Overall, our theoretical study provides important ecological insights in predicting successful biological invasions in the light of evolution.”Guy Bunin (2017) – Ecological communities with Lotka-Volterra dynamics – Physics Review E95:042414 https://doi.org/10.1
103/PhysRevE.95.0424 14 – Department of Physics, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology
“Here we study these processes for a single community subject to migration from a pool of species, with population dynamics described by the generalized Lotka-Volterra equations. We derive exact results for the phase diagram describing the dynamical behaviors, and for the diversity and species abundance distributions. A phase transition is found from a phase where a unique globally attractive fixed point exists to a phase where multiple dynamical attractors exist, leading to history-dependent community properties. The model is shown to possess a symmetry that also establishes a connection with other well-known models.”Binfeng Xie and Zhengce Zhang (2023) – Impact of Allee and fear effects in a fractional order prey–predator system incorporating prey refuge – Chaos 33:013131 https://doi.org/10.1
063/5.0130809 – Department of Mathematics, Jiangxi University of Science and Technology
“In this paper, we study the dynamic behaviors of a fractional order predator–prey system, in which the prey population has three effects: Allee effect, fear effect, and shelter effect […] The threshold of fear level and refuge rate in fractional order systems is smaller than that in integer order systems. Finally, the rationality of the research results is verified by numerical simulation.»Vaibhava Srivastava, Kwadwo Antwi-Fordjour and Rana D. Parshad (2024) – Exploring unique dynamics in a predator–prey model with generalist predator and group defense in prey – Chaos 34:013107 https://doi.org/10.1
063/5.0171950 – Department of Mathematics, Iowa State University; Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Samford University
“Both the ordinary differential equation model and the spatially explicit partial differential equation models are explored. ”Raymond Pearl (1927) – The Growth of Populations – The Quarterly Review of Biology 2:532-548 https://doi.org/10.1
086/394288 – https://www.journals .uchicago.edu/doi/pd f/10.1086/394288
“Populations of organisms of the most diverse kinds, ranging from bacteria and yeast to man, are found statistically to follow in their growth a particular type of curve, the logistic […] a curve of this type is necessarily generated under certain simple postulate as to the inter-relations between the two first-order variables, birth rates and death rates, and the second-order variable, density of population.”Eugene Cittadino (2006) – Ecology and American Social Thought – En: Religion and the New Ecology: Environmental Responsibility in a World in Flux, David M. Lodge and Christopher Hamlin (Eds.) (2006), ISBN: 978-0-268-03404-7 – Gallatin School of Individualized Study, New York University
“Scientific amateur Alfred Lotka published a curious book titled Elements of Physical Biology (1925) […] happily mixed ideas and information from chemistry, physics, statistics, and demography, holding all this together within a broad philosophical framework that was Spencerian in scope and viewpoint […] The book influenced economists, political theorists, and industrial managers and anticipated the general systems perspective that would emerge after World War II […] Despite their only marginal interest in ecology, Pearl and Lotka have had a profound influence on the subsequent development of the science. Both adopted a holistic view of animal and human communities, Lotka embracing the older Spencerian notion of social organism, Pearl adopting the more contemporary homeostatic view […] Both saw the ultimate goal of their work the extension of scientific insights to a rational understanding of social and political processes.” (p. 83)Peter J. Taylor and Ann S. Blum (1991) – Ecosystem as circuits: diagrams and the limits of physical analogies – Biology and Philosophy 6:275–294 https://doi.org/10.1
007/BF02426841 – Program on Science, Technology & SocietyCornell University; Department of HistoryUniversity of California
“The diagrams of ecologists Clarke, Hutchinson, and H.T. Odum reveal their search for physical analogies, building on the success of World War II science and the promise of cybernetics. H.T. Odum’s energy circuit diagrams reveal also his aspirations for a universal and natural means of reducing complexity to guide the management of diverse ecological and social systems. Graphic conventions concerning framing and translation of ecological processes onto the flat printed page facilitate Odum’s ability to act as if ecological relations were decomposable into systems and could be managed by analysts external to the system.”Eugene P. Odum (1953) – Fundamentals of Ecology. 1st Edition – Saunders College Publishing/Harcourt Brace – University of Georgia – ISBN-13: 978-0721669
410 – 574 Págs.
“The asymptote […] itself changes from year to year as environment changes, thus making it difficult to distinguish between changes caused by environment and changes due to population growth.”Jorge Riechmann (2024) – Ecologismo: pasado y presente: (con un par de ideas sobre el futuro) – Los libros de la catarata – Profesor titular de Filosofía Moral, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid – ISBN-13 : 978-8413529301 – 224 Págs.
“El monismo de Haeckel quiso aunar un panteísmo de estirpe goethiana-romántica con el evolucionismo darwiniano en una doctrina saturada de elementos filosóficos y religiosos. Haeckel concebía su monismo como «el eslabón entre ciencia y religión”. De la fama de este profesor de biología hacia el cambio de siglo da idea el pintoresco hecho de que la Liga de Librepensadores le proclamara antipapa en Roma, en una solemne ceremonia celebrada en septiembre de 1904.” (p. 67, np 107)Hao Ye et al (2015) – Equation-free mechanistic ecosystem forecasting using empirical dynamic modeling – Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences PNAS 112:E1569-E1576 https://doi.org/10.1
073/pnas.1417063112 – Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California – https://www.pnas.org /doi/pdf/10.1073/pna s.1417063112 – 8 autores
“It is well known that current equilibrium-based models fall short as predictive descriptions of natural ecosystems, and particularly of fisheries systems that exhibit nonlinear dynamics. For example, model parameters assumed to be fixed constants may actually vary in time, models may fit well to existing data but lack out-of-sample predictive skill, and key driving variables may be misidentified due to transient (mirage) correlations that are common in nonlinear systems. With these frailties, it is somewhat surprising that static equilibrium models continue to be widely used. Here, we examine empirical dynamic modeling (EDM) as an alternative to imposed model equations and that accommodates both nonequilibrium dynamics and nonlinearity.”J. Flos (2005) – El concepto de información en la ecología margalefiana – Ecosistemas 14:1 Homenaje a Ramon Margalef, https://doi.org/10.7
818/ECOS.2005.14-1 – Departament d’Ecologia, Universitat de Barcelona – https://www.revistae cosistemas.net/index .php/ecosistemas/art icle/view/170
“En 1956, Margalef publicaba en la revista Investigación Pesquera un artículo titulado ‘Información y diversidad específica en comunidades de organismos’, en la que proponía la medida de información como índice de diversidad (Margalef, 1956). En la primavera de ese mismo año, Margalef presentó su trabajo ‘Temporal succession and spatial heterogeneity in phytoplankton’ en La Jolla (Margalef, 1958). En 1957, se publicó ‘La teoría de la información en ecología’, la conferencia de recepción como miembro numerario de la Academia de Ciencias y Artes de Barcelona, donde comenta la sorpresa que tuvo en Estados Unidos, en la primavera del año anterior, de que fuera el uso de la teoría de la información para medir la diversidad específica lo que más interesó a la audiencia (op.cit. pág. 8).”L.R. Walker (2005) – Margalef y la sucesión ecológica – Ecosistemas 14:66-78 – Department of Biological Sciences, University of Nevada
“Relacionando sucesión con cibernética, teoría de la información y evolución, Margalef proporcionó una perspectiva diferente sobre este tema […] Margalef proporcionó una visión de la sucesión extraordinariamente amplia, alejada de la que domina en nuestros días. Proporcionó una teoría integradora y abierta del desarrollo de los ecosistemas, en evidente contraste con el dogma actual. Nuestro desconocimiento de la sucesión es tan profundo, que resulta prematuro descartar cualquier aproximación. Margalef iluminó una parte de la ecología particularmente confusa, y sus trabajos tal vez contribuirán a que podamos interpretar correctamente los procesos sucesionales. ”Ramon Margalef (1963) – On Certain Unifying Principles in Ecology – The American Naturalist 97:357-374 – Institute for Fisheries Investigation, Barcelona – http://www2.inecc.go
b.mx/publicaciones/g acetas/663/certain.p df
“Most of what has been discussed can be summarized in two very simple principles: (1) The relative amount of energy necessary for maintaining an ecosystem is related to the degree of structure or organization of this ecosystem. Less energy is necessary for a more complex ecosystem, and the natural trend in succession is towards a decreasing flow of energy per unit of biomass and towards increasing organization. Briefly stated the trend is to- wards increasing maturity. (2) When two systems of different maturity meet along a boundary that allows an exchange, energy (production) flows towards the more mature subsystem, and the boundary or surface of equal maturity shows a trend to move in an opposite direction to such energy flow. These general principles clarify many ecological interactions and processes and allow quantitative formulation.”Robert E. Ulanowicz (1979) – Prediction, chaos, and ecological perspective – En: Efraim Halfon (Ed.) (1979), Theoretical Systems Ecology: Advances and Case Studies, ISBN-13: 978-0123187
505 – Chesapeake Biological Laboratory, University of Maryland – http://aquaticcommon s.org/2002/1/789.pdf
“This outlook allows that the modeling construct in vogue may be sound; however, it will not lead to useful results on the systems level because the deterministic behavior of large ecosystem models is indistinguishable from chaos. That is, prediction ability is short range at best. The only obvious emergent property of ecosystems is chaos. This does not exclude the possibility that macroscopic properties with their own laws exist. But the likelihood is that they are imposed by constraints from without (the abiotic universe) rather than emergent from within. Because this outlook is relatively new and seemingly paradoxical, it is helpful to regard its development in more detail beginning with its theoretical origins in meteorology.”Ramón Margalef (1968) – Perspectives in Ecological Theory – The University of Chicago Press – Catedrático de ecología, Universidad de Barcelona + Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas – ISBN: 226-50505-7 – 111 Págs.
“I must acknowledge, even in Chicago, that my thinking has been strongly influenced by G. Evelyn Hutchinson and several of his former students, especially the brothers Odum […] I am more inclined to Needham’s (1959) view that living systems have always been energetic systems competing for materials. The distinction is important because transmission of information is more closely linked to the possibility of organizing huge amounts of matter than to the possibility of letting through high amounts of energy” (p. vi,100)Ramón Margalef (1986) – Teoría de la información aplicada a la ecología – En: Ramón Margalef (1986), Ecología, Editorial Planeta – Catedrático de ecología, Universidad de Barcelona + Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas – http://www.dinamica-
de-sistemas.com/curs os/margalef.htm
“Relacionada con la tradición científica, la ecología oscila entre dos tendencias, que, más que opuestas son complementarias. De una parte está la visión muy analítica de los fenómenos, el deseo de reducirlo todo a medidas y cifras, en un enfoque preciso, pero que abarca un área muy pequeña. Por otro lado se encuentra la tendencia a buscar regularidades muy amplias y construir modelos o teorías para explicarlas, tarea que puede ser arriesgada si fía demasiado a la intuición y se despega excesivamente de una realidad que es de complejidad abrumadora.”Claude E. Shannon (1948) – A Mathematical Theory of Communication – The Bell System Technical Journal 27:379–423, 623–656 https://doi.org/10.1
002/j.1538-7305.1948 .tb01338.x – Bell Laboratories – http://worrydream.co m/refs/Shannon%20-%2 0A%20Mathematical%20 Theory%20of%20Commun ication.pdf
“In the present paper we will extend the theory to include a number of new factors, in particular the effect of noise in the channel, and the savings possible due to the statistical structure of the original message and due to the nature of the final destination of the information […] The form of H will be recognized as that of entropy as defined in certain formulations of statistical mechanics8 where pi is the probability of a system being in cell i of its phase space. ”Ramon Margalef (1957,1958) – Information theory in ecology – General Systematics 3:36-71 – Institute for Fisheries Investigation, Barcelona – http://www.vliz.be/i
misdocs/publications /139371.pdf
“Especially applicable to the study of life are those concepts which delimit order and disorder, in all their forms. In thermodynamics, succession can be described as the acquisition of greater efficiency in exploiting the medium and reducing to the minimum the dissipation of energy. Information theory describes the evolution of structured systems, divisible into elements qualitatively different, into states representing a greater degree of organization, in the individual as well as in the race and in the biosphere.”Robert E. Ulanowicz (2001) – Information theory in ecology – Computers & Chemistry 25:393–399 https://doi.org/10.1
016/S0097-8485(01)00 073-0 – University of Maryland, Chesapeake Biological Laboratory
“Whence we conclude that, whenever IT [information theory] is applied to the system structure, one obtains implicit clues about how the system is likely to change. This contrasts with the situation in conventional dynamics, where information on static configurations tells one nothing at all about the system’s dynamical behavior. ”Rolf Landauer (1991) – Information is Physical – Physics Today 44:23–29 https://doi.org/10.1
063/1.881299 – Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York
“There are no unavoidable energy consumption requirements per step in a computer. Related analysis has provided insights into the measurement process and the communication schannel, and has prompted speculations about the nature of physical laws […] Claude Shannon, after World War II, analyzed the limits of the communications channel. It is no surprise, then, that shortly after the emergence of modern digital computing, similar questions appeared in that field. It was not hard to associate a logic gate with a degree of freedom, then to associate kT with that, and presume that this energy has to be dissipated at every step. Similarly, it seemed obvious to many that the uncertainty principle, ΔEΔt∼ℏ, could be used to calculate a required minimal energy involvement, and therefore energy loss, for very short Δt.»Antoine Bérut et al (2012) – Experimental verification of Landauer’s principle linking information and thermodynamics – Nature 483:187–189 https://doi.org/10.1
038/nature10872 – Laboratoire de Physique, École Normale Supérieure, CNRS UMR5672 – 6 autores
“Here we experimentally show the existence of the Landauer bound in a generic model of a one-bit memory. Using a system of a single colloidal particle trapped in a modulated double-well potential, we establish that the mean dissipated heat saturates at the Landauer bound in the limit of long erasure cycles. This result demonstrates the intimate link between information theory and thermodynamics. It further highlights the ultimate physical limit of irreversible computation.»Mary I. O’Connor et al (2019) – Principles of Ecology Revisited: Integrating Information and Ecological Theories for a More Unified Science – Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 7 https://doi.org/10.3
389/fevo.2019.00219 – Biodiversity Research Centre and Department of Zoology, University of British Columbia – 6 autores
“The persistence of ecological systems in changing environments requires energy, materials, and information. Although the importance of information to ecological function has been widely recognized, the fundamental principles of ecological science as commonly expressed do not reflect this central role of information processing. We articulate five fundamental principles of ecology that integrate information with energy and material constraints across scales of organization in living systems. We show how these principles outline new theoretical and empirical research challenges, and offer one novel attempt to incorporate them in a theoretical model.”Jaume Terradas (2015) – El pensamiento evolutivo de Ramón Margalef – Ecosistemas 24:104-109 https://doi.org/10.7
818/ECOS.2015.24-1.1 7 – CREAF, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona – http://www.ub.edu/la ubdivulga/margalef/d ocs/2015%20Terradas, %20Ecosistemas%20Evo luci+%C2%A6%20i%20ec ologia.pdf
“Margalef (1957) propone, en un artículo de bastante repercusión cuando se tradujo al inglés al año siguiente, una medida de la diversidad mediante la fórmula de Brillouin, que es equivalente a la de Shannon para la información (da el mismo resultado numérico, aunque la de Shannon fue la generalmente aceptada; Margalef 1957) […] La antigua división aristotélica en materia, energía y forma la recupera Margalef al expresar que en el mundo hay materia, energía e información y que la energía que se disipa deja una huella de información en la materia, lo que implica, en definitiva, algún tipo de evolución de ésta.”Howard T. Odum (2007) – Environment, Power, and Society for the Twenty-First Century: The Hierarchy of Energy – Columbia University Press – Center for Environmental Policy, University of Florida – ISBN-13: 978-0231128
872 – 432 Págs.
“All these information carriers and memory devices contain available energy. However, the energy of the carrier (e.g., calories in paper, brain cell functions, computer disks) is small compared with the emergy involved in creating the information. The emergy/energy ratio (transformity) of information generally is quite high. Because information has to be carried by structures, it is lost when the carriers disperse (second energy law). Therefore, emergy is required to maintain information. Information is maintained by copies made faster than they are lost or become nonfunctional. But copying from one original is not enough because errors develop (second law), and copying doesn’t make corrections. So in the long run, maintaining information requires a population operating an information copy and selection circle.” (p. 88)Sosuke Ito and Takahiro Sagawa (2015) – Maxwell’s demon in biochemical signal transduction with feedback loop – Nature Communications 6:7498 https://doi.org/10.1
038/ncomms8498 – Department of Physics, The University of Tokyo; Department of Basic Science, The University of Tokyo – http://www.nature.co m/ncomms/2015/150623 /ncomms8498/pdf/ncom ms8498.pdf
“We find that the degree of robustness is quantitatively characterized by an informational quantity called transfer entropy. Our information-thermodynamic approach is applicable to biological communication inside cells, in which there is no explicit channel coding in contrast to artificial communication. Our result could open up a novel biophysical approach to understand information processing in living systems on the basis of the fundamental information–thermody namics link.” Brian D. Fath (2019) – Ecology – Encyclopedia of Ecology (Second Edition) 2:473-478 https://doi.org/10.1
016/B978-0-12-409548 -9.11003-6 – Towson University + International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis – “Ecology is a broad and diverse field of study. One basic distinction in ecology is between autecology a nd synecology, in which the former considers the ecology of individual organisms and populations, mostly concerned with the biological organisms themselves; and the latter, the ecology of relationships among the organisms and populations, which is mostly concerned with communication of material, energy, and information of the entire system of components […] Ecosystem ecology, therefore, is the implementation of synecology. In this manner, the dimensional units used in ecosystem studies are usually the amount of energy or matter moving through the system. This differs from population and community ecology studies in which the dimensional units are typically the number of individuals. ” Carlos de Castro Carranza (2008) – El Origen de Gaia: una teoría holista de la evolución – Editorial Abecedario, Badajoz – Departamento de Física Aplicada, Universidad de Valladolid – ISBN-13: 978-8496560604 – 316 Págs.
“¡La información está dentro del propio hormiguero que contiene el arco! Suena extraño para el pensamiento reduccionista. Pero no está alejado de la lógica. “La demostración de Gödel nos aporta el criterio de que una perspectiva de alto nivel de un sistema puede contener potencialidades explicativas que simplemente están ausentes en los niveles más bajos”, concluye Hofdstadter de Gödel, anulando el proyecto reduccionista de un plumazo. ” (p. 62)Ilya Prigogine (1983) – ¿Tan sólo una ilusión? – Tusquets Editores – ISBN-13: 978-8472236110 – 336 Págs.
“La irreversibilidad presupone un universo en el que hay limitaciones para predecir el futuro […] a pesar de lo que digan inconscientemente ciertos biólogos, nuestra ciencia, a la que ellos creen invocar, no es ya la de Laplace, ni la de Kant.” (p. 33,67)Sven E. Jørgensen and Brian D. Fath (2004) – Application of thermodynamic principles in ecology – Ecological Complexity 1:267–280 https://doi.org/10.1
016/j.ecocom.2004.07 .001 – Department of Environmental Chemistry, Royal Danish University of Pharmaceutical Sciences; Biology Department, Towson University – http://gip.uniovi.es /docume/science.pdf
“Current developments in ecosystem theory to understand ecological complexity, particularly those incorporating and applying thermodynamic principles, are making it possible to integrate various ecosystem approaches into a consistent theoretical framework. The time, therefore, seems right to apply this theory to explain observations published in the ecological literature that typically lack linkages to ecological theory or other rule-based explanations. This paper presents the foundations of that theory of ecological complexity in eight observational principles and summarizes the results from a review of a number of papers using thermodynamic principles to explain ecological observations. The theory will continue to evolve and be modified as more test cases are made, however, here explanations of some published ecological observations are presented to illustrate how the ecosystem theory is applied.”Ludwig Von Bertalanffy (1949) – Problems of life: an evaluation of modern biological thought – John Wiley – University of Alberta – ISBN-13: 978-1614277
019 – 226 Págs. – https://ia601704.us. archive.org/9/items/ dli.ernet.241034/241 034-Problems%20Of%20 Life_text.pdf
“Hierarchical organization on the one hand, and the characteristics of open systems on the other, are fundamental principles of living nature, and the advancement of theoretical biology will depend mainly upon the development of a theory of these two fundamentals ” (p. 128)Sven E. Jørgensen and Brian D. Fath (2004) – Application of thermodynamic principles in ecology – Ecological Complexity 1:267–280 – Department of Environmental Chemistry, Royal Danish University of Pharmaceutical Sciences; Biology Department, Towson University – http://gip.uniovi.es
/docume/science.pdf
“The presented ecosystem theory encompasses eight basic principles of open, thermodynamic, hierarchical systems to ecosystems, including a principle that ecosystems move further from thermodynamic equilibrium by increasing both energy throughflow and exergy storage. We do not submit that these thermodynamic principles of ecology are the final words for ecosystem theory. They are in fact a tentative first step, and will most likely be amended in the coming years. New principles may be added or others may be modified. ”Carlos de Castro and Daniel W. McShea (2022) – Applying the Prigogine view of dissipative systems to the major transitions in evolution – Paleobiology https://doi.org/10.1
017/pab.2022.7 – Applied Physics Department and GEEDS, Escuela de Ingeniería Industrial, Mergelina), University of Valladolid; Department of Biology, Duke University – https://bit.ly/3UIO2 fl
“The application to biology is straightforward. Emergent energy-seeking behavior—feeding—is commonplace in biological systems. More generally, as Prigogine and Nicolis (1971: p. 109) put it, evolution in biology and sociology is associated with an increase in hierarchy, in that it gives “rise to the creation of more and more complex structures.” These systems are actually a “superposition of co-ordinated structures and functions of increasing complexity. This hierarchy in structure […] [is a] […] feature” of the system (p. 114). Thus, in certain systems, the trinomial of Figure 1 comes to have nested structure, multiple” levels of [function ↔ fluctuation ↔ structure] nested within one another, with newer and higher levels emerging sequentially at the top. Prigogine’s (1982) scheme explains and predicts hierarchy. ”Simon A. Levin (1998) – Ecosystems and the biosphere as complex adaptive systems – Ecosystems 1:431–436 https://doi.org/10.1
007/s100219900037 – Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University – http://www.cs.columb ia.edu/~traub/sloan/ LevinEcos.pdf
“Ecosystems are prototypical examples of complex adaptive systems, in which patterns at higher levels emerge from localized interactions and selection processes acting at lower levels. An essential aspect of such systems is nonlinearity, leading to historical dependency and multiple possible outcomes of dynamics. Given this, it is essential to determine the degree to which system features are determined by environmental conditions, and the degree to which they are the result of self-organization.”Simon A. Levin (2005) – Self-Organization and the Emergence of Complexity in Ecological Systems – BioScience 55:1075–1079 https://doi.org/10.1
641/0006-3568(2005)0 55[1075:SATEOC]2.0.C O;2 – Moffett Professor of Biology, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University
“What explains the remarkable regularities in distribution and abundance of species, in size distributions of organisms, or in patterns of nutrient use? […] Ecosystems and the biosphere are complex adaptive systems, in which pattern emerges from, and feeds back to affect, the actions of adaptive individual agents, and in which cooperation and multicellularity can develop and provide the regulation of local environments, and indeed impose regularity at higher levels. The history of the biosphere is a history of coevolution between organisms and their environments, across multiple scales of space, time, and complexity.»Frederic E. Clements (1916,2019) – Plant Succession: An Analysis of the Development of Vegetation – Carnegie Institution of Washington – Carnegie Institution of Washington, Santa Barbara, California – ISBN-13: 978-9389465
884 – 588 Págs. – https://ia600202.us. archive.org/28/items /cu31924000531818/cu 31924000531818.pdf
“The process of organic development is essentially alike for the individual and the community. The correspondence is obvious when the necessary difference in the complexity of the two organisms is recognized […] In both individual and community the clue to development is fimction, as the record of development is structure. ” (p. 6,7)G. Evelyn Hutchinson (1965) – The Ecological Theater and the Evolutionary Play – Yale University Press – Department of Zoology, Yale University – ISBN-13 : 978-0300005868 – 164 Págs.
”In this delightful collection of essays, the author of The Enchanted Voyage and The Itinerant Ivory Tower turns his attention to the influence of environment on evolution. His discussion of the nature of the terrestrial environment we know leads to an account of possible ecological conditions on other bodies in the universe. Mr. Hutchinson also deals specifically with some influences on man’s evolution, emphasizing the extremely recondite nature of these forces. One of the other pieces looks at the relationship of natural beauty to works of art, particularly in the context of comparisons between natural history museums and art galleries.”Eugene P. Odum (1971,1972) – Fundamentos de Ecologia – Editorial Interamericana – Institute of Ecology, University of Georgia – ISBN-13: 978-9683601
910 – 546 Págs.
“Fundamentos de ecología es un hito entre los libros de texto de biología: es el más influyente entre los trabajos de este tipo, a juzgar por el número de estudiantes que desarrollan funciones de investigación y enseñanza en este campo […] Era y sigue siendo un estudio de holismo y del surgimiento de las propiedades de la vida, vistas desde arriba hacia abajo.”Jan Christian Smuts (1926,2013) – Holism and Evolution – Gestalt Journal Press – Prime Minister, Union of South Africa – ISBN-13 : 978-0939266265 – 370 Págs. – http://krishikosh.eg
ranth.ac.in/bitstrea m/1/2048242/1/0198_2 688A.pdf
“Holism is a process of creative synthesis; the resulting wholes are not static, but dynamic, evolutionary, creative […] The explanation of nature can therefore not be purely mechanical; and the mechanistic concept of nature has its place and justification only in the wider setting of holism.” (p. 89)Howard T. Odum (1971) – Environment, Power, and Society – John Wiley & Sons – Center for Environmental Policy, University of Florida – ISBN-13: 978-0471652
755 – 356 Págs.
“Environment, Power and Society is one of the seminal texts in Environmental Science. It is a wide-ranging book that presents systems ecology: the study of ecological relationships based on flows of matter and energy through the environment. Based on concepts adapted from the fields of engineering and operations research, systems ecology is an important tool for understanding how natural ecosystems function. Odum has been a pioneer in the field, one of the first to understand the importance of energy relationships, and also, as demonstrated in this book, one of the first to integrate human activities into the picture, thus laying the groundwork for human ecology and environmental engineering.”Ernst Haeckel (1876,2016) – The history of creation, or, The development of the earth and its inhabitants by the action of natural causes: doctrine of evolution in general, and of that of Darwin, Goethe, and Lamarck in particular – Wentworth Press – ISBN-13 : 978-1362747932 – 414 Págs. – https://archive.org/
download/historyofcr eatio76hist/historyo fcreatio76hist.pdf
“The struggle for life in natural selection acts with as much selective power as does the will of man in artificial selection. The latter, however, acts according to a plan and consciously, the former without a plan and unconsciously. This important difference between artificial and natural selection deserves especial consideration. For we learn by it to understand how arrangements serving a purpose can be produced by mechanical causes acting without an object, as well as by causes acting for an object. ” (p. 262)George L. Clarke (1954) – Elements of Ecology – Wiley; Chapman & Hall – Professor of Zoology, Harvard University – ISBN-13: 978-9997498
199 – 534 Págs. – https://archive.org/ download/ost-biology -elementsofecolog00c lar/elementsofecolog 00clar.pdf Thomas W. Schoener (1983,1986) – Mechanistic Approaches to Community Ecology: A New Reductionism – American Zoologist 26:81–106 https://doi.org/10.1
093/icb/26.1.81 – Department of Zoology, University of California – https://shorter.me/q xmbH
“Three subdisciplines of ecology—individual, population and community ecology—form a «perfect» hierarchy in Beckner’s (1974) sense. Two other subdisciplines—ecosystem ecology and evolutionary ecology—lie somewhat laterally to this hierarchy. The modelling of community phenomena using sets of population-dynamical equations is argued as an attempt at explanation via the reduction of community to population ecology […] I argue that «sufficient parameters» generally will not enhance theoretical understanding in community ecology. ” Daniel Simberloff (1982) – A Succession of Paradigms in Ecology: Essentialism to Materialism and Probabilism – En: Conceptual Issues in Ecology, Esa Saarinen (Ed.) (1982), ISBN: 978-90-277-1391-9 https://doi.org/10.1
007/978-94-009-7796- 9_2 – Department of Philosophy, University of Helsinki
“Lewontin (1974a), in his provocative essay ‘Darwin and Mendel — The Materialist Revolution,’ suggests that by the time On the Origin of Species was published in 1859, the notion of evolving species was already firmly established in both lay and academic circles […] The emerging evolutionary worldview was incompatible with the philosophical tradition, stretching back to the Greeks, which, although patently metaphysical, still dominated nineteenth century thought: viz. Platonic idealism and Aristotelian essentialism (Popper 1961, 1963) […] Lovejoy (1936), Wiener (1949), Peckham (1959), and Ghiselin (1969) suggest that the nascent evolutionary worldview engendered a reaction to metaphysical essentialism, especially in politics and economics, which eventually paved the way for the Darwinian revolution.»Mark Sagoff (1989) – The Economy of the Earth. Philosophy, Law and the Environment – Cambridge University Press – Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy, University of Maryland – ISBN-13: 978-0521687
133 – 280 Págs.
“The environmental movement nevertheless continues to look to science to support its faith that there is a hidden order in nature that human beings disrupt because of our “wrongness” – notably our greed or ignorance or intransigence. ” (p. 195)Robert E. Ulanowicz (2000) – Ecology, the Subversive Science? – Episteme, Porto Alegre 11:137-152 – University of Maryland, Chesapeake Biological Laboratory – https://people.clas.
ufl.edu/ulan/files/E pisteme1.pdf
“In his historical analysis of ecosystems theory, Joel Hagen (1992) identified three distinct metaphors by means of which ecologists have attempted to make sense of ecological phenomena. 1) As I have just alluded, the most familiar and widely-accepted metaphor is that of the ecosystem as a machine, or clockwork, which, of course, runs according to the newtonian scenario. This tradition has been kept alive and well by the likes of George Clarke (1954), Howard Odum (1960) and Thomas Schoener (1986). 2) Interestingly, however, the mechanical metaphor was preceded in the ecological arena by Frederic Clements’ (1916) suggestion that ecosystems behave like organisms. Clements directly credited Jan Smuts (1926) as his inspiration, but ultimately he was following in the traditions of Leibniz and Aristotle. The organic analogy was advanced in subsequent decades by G. Evelyn Hutchinson and Eugene Odum. 3) Finally, a contemporary of Clements, Henry Gleason (1917), countered the notion of ecosystems as organisms with the idea that ecological communities arise largely by chance and in the absence of any major organizational influences. Such stochasticism follows the lead of nominalism and deconstructivist postmodernism, and has found voice in contemporary ecology through the writings of Daniel Simberloff (1980), Kristin Schrader- Frechette (and McCoy, 1993) and Mark Sagoff (1997), all of whom deride the mechanical and organic metaphors as unwarranted realism.”Paul Shepard and Daniel McKinley (1969) – The Subversive Science: Essays Toward an Ecology of Man – Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston – ISBN-13: 978-0395053997 – 453 Págs.
“Although ecology may be treated as a science, its greater and overriding wisdom is universal. That wisdom can be approached mathematically, chemically, or it can be danced or told as a myth. It has been embodied in widely scattered economically different cultures. It is manifest, for example, among pre-Classical Greeks, in Navajo religion and social orientation, in Romantic poetry of the 18th and 19th centuries, in Chinese landscape painting of the 11th century, in current Whiteheadian philosophy, in Zen Buddhism, in the world view of the cult of the Cretan Great Mother, in the ceremonials of Bushman hunters, and in the medieval Christian metaphysics of light. What is common among all of them is a deep sense of engagement with the landscape, with profound connections to surroundings and to natural processes central to all life. ” (p. 4-5)Kenneth Rexroth (1969) – The Ecological Revolution – Bureau of Public Secrets, 01/12/1969 – https://www.bopsecre
ts.org/rexroth/sf/19 68-69.htm#The%20Ecol ogical%20Revolution
“Ecology is the science that automatically produces evaluation without ceasing to confine itself to purely scientific methods. This is nothing new. Erasmus Darwin (Charles Darwin’s grandfather), Lamarck, Buffon tried to develop an evaluative theory of evolution.”Eric D. Schneider y Dorion Sagan (2005) – La termodinámica de la vida: Física, cosmología, ecología y evolución – Tusquets Editores – National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminsitration (NASA) – ISBN-13: 978-84-8383-052-9 – 438 Págs. – https://tinyurl.com/
ypvxr7yz
“El antropomorfismo y la personificación marcan los mitos y supersticiones de nuestros antepasados animistas, que veían espíritus dentro de todo lo que se movía. Sin embargo, la idea de que lo vivo es completamente distinto de otros procesos es tan insostenible como la idea de que los seres humanos somos radicalmente distintos del resto de organismos. La teoría de la evolución conecta los organismos en el tiempo. La ecología los conecta en el espacio. La química los conecta en cuanto a la estructura. La TNE los conecta en cuanto al proceso. ” (p. 366)Robert J. Rosen (1985) – Organisms as Causal Systems Which Are Not Mechanisms: An Essay into the Nature of Complexity – En: Robert J. Rosen (Ed.) (1985), Theoretical Biology and Complexity. Three Essays on the Natural Philosophy of Complex Systems 1985:165-203, ISBN-13: 978-0125972
802, https://doi.org/10.1 016/B978-0-12-597280 -2.50008-8 – Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Dalhousie University
“The power of the Newtonian paradigm, from this perspective, rests not in the fact that everything is a machine, but in the fact that complex systems, which by definition are not machines, can often act as if they were. We have much to learn about how this comes about, and even more about how it fails. ”Aloisius H. Louie (2017) – Intangible Life: Functorial Connections in Relational Biology – Springer https://doi.org/10.1
007/978-3-319-65409- 6 – Mathematical biologist – ISBN-13 : 978-3319654089 – 264 Págs.
“It is now the twenty-first century; molecular biology has had its run. The pendulum has swung back to approaches that emphasize the behaviour of the whole, that is, holism (it is not a dirty word!). ” (p. xiv-xv)Daniel J. Nicholson & Richard Gawne (2015) – Neither logical empiricism nor vitalism, but organicism: what the philosophy of biology was – History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 37:345–381 https://doi.org/10.1
007/s40656-015-0085- 7 – Centre for the Study of Life Sciences (Egenis), University of Exeter; Center for the Philosophy of Biology, Duke University – https://shorter.me/U YJOF
“He noted [Woodger] that biologists often categorize a claim as ‘metaphysics’ if they happen to disagree with it, whereas claims that they find congenial are classified as ‘science’. Woodger also openly denied that science should attempt to rid itself of metaphysics, arguing instead that the two fields are ‘‘mutually complementary’’ (Woodger 1929a, p. 24). ”Joseph Henry Woodger (1929,2011) – Biological Principles: A Critical Study – Routledge https://doi.org/10.4
324/9781315823133 – Middlesex Hospital Medical School, University of London – ISBN-13 : 978-1446541258 – 506 Págs.
“Biologists, in their haste to become physicists have been neglecting their business [by] trying to treat the organism not as an organism [i.e. an organized system] but as an aggregate. And in doing so they may have been good chemists but they have not been good biologists, because they have been abstracting from what is essential to the biological level. ” (p. 291)
[Citado en Daniel J. Nicholson & Richard Gawne (2015)]Robert T. Craig (1999) – Communication Theory as a Field – Communication Theory 9:119-161 – Department of Communication, University of Colorado, Boulder. – http://www.stes-apes
.med.ulg.ac.be/Docum ents_electroniques/M ET/MET-COM/ELE%20MET -COM%20A-8191.pdf
“Cybernetics, then, is also interesting and sometimes implausible from a commonsense view because it points out surprising analogies between living and nonliving systems, challenges commonplace beliefs about the significance of consciousness and emotion, and questions our usual distinctions between mind and matter, form and content, the real and the artificial. ”Carlos de Castro Carranza – WEIRD – Comunicación personal a Jorge Riechmann, 27/02/2020
“Tendencias complementarias y no contradictorias. Me recuerda los problemas que tenemos con ver como opuestos partícula-onda y no como complementos de una misma entidad que en realidad nunca es partícula u onda porque esos conceptos carecen de sentido ya. Quizás el problema pues está en ver cosas y no procesos, ecosistemas en vez de ecoprocesos. No existen las fronteras definidas. Es como si una neurona un día «sintiera» su propia individualidad, seguro que lo hace (algo menos quizás que una bacteria pero de forma similar): no se trata de defender los intereses del individuo-neurona sino del individuo-cerebro o mejor del individuo-yo, por encima de la neurona.”Sarah Cornell et al (2010) – Developing a systematic “science of the past” to create our future – Global Environmental Change 20:426-427 https://doi.org/10.1
016/j.gloenvcha.2010 .01.005 – Department of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol – 4 autores
“One of the most interesting questions we can ask an “integrated science of the past and future” is just how much of what has happened is contingent – dependent on random events and individuals – and how much is predictable […] it would serve as an attempt to put the ever-growing mass of data and knowledge of the past to use for fuelling our social imagination. In the end, we are not out to predict the future, but to create it.”Jorge N. Ferrer (2003) – Espiritualidad creativa. Una visión participativa de lo transpersonal – Editorial Kairós – ISBN: 9788472455597 – 328 Págs.
“Una nueva tierra epistemológica para nuestros «árboles espirituales» es esencial para recoger una cosecha espiritual más rica. Aquí empiezo a cultivar estos nuevos fundamentos y sugiero que la espiritualidad emerge de la participación co-creativa humana en un poder espiritual siempre dinámico e indeterminado.” (p. 173)Joseph Henry Woodger (1929,2011) – Biological Principles: A Critical Study – Routledge https://doi.org/10.4
324/9781315823133 – Middlesex Hospital Medical School, University of London – ISBN-13 : 978-1446541258 – 506 Págs.
“Had biology developed first it is at least possible that its infraperceptual entities might have been conceived on a biological model, and physics might then have employed the notion of the organized body for tts analysis. Physics would then perhaps have borrowed from biology, instead of vice versa. It is interesting, therefore, to note that some biological concepts such as ‘ organization ’ and ‘organism’ are now beginning to intrude in physical science. But there are special reasons for this which will be examined later. ” (p. 83)J.B.S. Haldane (1938) – The Axiomatic Method in Biology – Nature 141:265–266 https://doi.org/10.1
038/141265a0 – https://www.nature.c om/articles/124909a0 .pdf
“Dr. Woodger’s book is an attempt to do for a part of biology what Whitehead and Russell, in “Principia Mathematica”, did for mathematics. Starting from as small a number as possible of axioms and undefined terms, he proposes to deduce known biological generalizations, and to discover new ones by pure deduction. For this purpose he uses a special set of symbols, including many taken from Whitehead and Russell, and 125 new ones. Some of these, for example, cell, are undefined, whilst others, for example, Ps, meaning the relation of sexual parenthood, are defined in terms of cell lineages.”Ernst Mayr (2004) – What makes biology unique? Considerations on the autonomy of a scientific discipline – Cambridge University Press – Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University – ISBN-13 : 978-0521841146 – 246 Págs.
“When I inquired (ca. 1926) which philosophers would be most helpful to a biologist, I was told Driesch and Bergson. When I left for New Guinea one and a half years later, the major books of these two authors [i.e. Driesch 1908 and Bergson 1907] were the only books I dragged around with me in the tropics for two and a half years. In the evenings […] I would read these two volumes. As a result, by the time I returned to Germany, I had concluded that neither Driesch nor Bergson was the answer to my search. Both authors were vitalists and I had no use for a philosophy based on such an occult force as the vis vitalis. ” (p. 2)Pablo Razeto Barry y Rodrigo Ramos Jiliberto (2013) – Autopoiesis. Un concepto vivo – Editorial Universitas Nueva Civilización – – ISBN: 978-9569409011 – 245 Págs.
“Un sistema autopoiético es una red de procesos que produce todos aquellos componentes cuya producción interna es necesaria para mantener operando la red como una unidad.” (p. 34)Medha Kumar and Varun Dutt (2019) – Alleviating misconceptions about Earth’s climate: evidence of behavioral learning in stock‐and‐flow simulations – Systems Dynamics Review https://doi.org/10.1
002/sdr.1612 – School of Computing and Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Mandi
“Little is known about the ability of simulation tools to enable the transfer of system dynamics knowledge to subsequent tasks […] Climate misconceptions reduced significantly in the following CS [Climate Stabilization] task across problems where the stock behavior was either identical or different between DCCS [Dynamic Climate Change Simulator] and CS tasks. Playing DCCS helped people to transfer their system dynamics knowledge to the CS task. We discuss the advantages of using stock‐and‐flow simulation tools for climate education and policy research.»Dennis Meadows, Linda Booth Sweeney and Gillian Martin Mehers (2016) – The Climate Change Playbook: 22 Systems Thinking Games for More Effective Communication about Climate Change – Chelsea Green Publishing – ISBN-13 : 978-1603586764 – 192 Págs.
“The simple, interactive exercises in The Climate Change Playbook can help citizens better understand climate change, diagnose its causes, anticipate its future consequences, and effect constructive change. Adapted from The Systems Thinking Playbook, the twenty-two games are now specifically relevant to climate-change communications and crafted for use by experts, advocates, and educators.”Asish Ghosh (2015) – Dynamic Systems for Everyone. Understanding How Our World Works – Springer https://doi.org/10.1
007/978-3-319-10735- 6 – Control Systems Engineer – ISBN-13: 978-8132224890 – 293 Págs.
“Notable among them was Professor Jay Forrester at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). What they found was a large measure of commonality in the behavior patterns of the systems in these various disciplines. This chapter is an introduction to the behaviors of political, economic, social, and natural systems. It starts with the history of the study of such systems and shows how they are depicted by causal loop diagrams. There are discussions on feedback and biofeedback, dead time and lag, and system hierarchies. That is followed by a case study on urban youth violence and an example of system dynamic approach in our daily lives. ” (p. 43)Jay W. Forrester (1992) – System Dynamics and Learner-Centered-Lea
rning in Kindergarten through 12th Grade Education – Massachusetts Institute of Technology – Germeshausen Professor Emeritus and Senior Lecturer, Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
“A fundamentally new and more effective approach to education is emerging from advances in system dynamics. System dynamics offers a framework for giving cohesion, meaning, and motivation to education at all levels from kindergarten upward. A second important ingredient, “learner-centered learning,” imports to pre-college education the challenge and excitement of a research laboratory. Together, these two innovations harness the creativity, curiosity, and energy of young people.”Jay W. Forrester (1996) – System Dynamics and K-12 Teachers – Lecture at the University of Virginia School of Education – Massachusetts Institute of Technology
“System dynamics offers a framework for giving cohesion, meaning, and motivation to education at all levels from kindergarten upward […] A second important ingredient, “learner-centered learning,” imports to pre-college education the challenge and excitement of a research laboratory. Together, these two innovations harness the creativity, curiosity, and energy of young people. System dynamics allows reversing the traditional educational sequence in which deadening years of learning facts have preceded use of those facts.”Jay W. Forrester (2016) – Learning through System Dynamics as Preparation for the 21st Century – System Dynamics Review 32:187–203 https://doi.org/10.1
002/sdr.1571 – Professor Emeritus, Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
“The objectives of a system dynamics education might be grouped under five headings: 1. Developing personal skills, 2. Learning about economic behavior, 3. Shaping an outlook and personality to fit the 21st century, 4. Understanding the nature of systems in which we work and live, 5. Achieving the benefits of a systems education. ”Jay W. Forrester (1993) – System dynamics as an organizing framework for pre-college education – System Dynamics Review 9:183–194 https://doi.org/10.1
002/sdr.4260090207 – MIT System Dynamics Group, Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
“Pre-college education is under attack for poorly serving the needs of society. Unless a superior concept for improving education emerges, public displeasure is apt to result in still more of what is already not working […] System dynamics offers a framework for giving cohesion, meaning, and motivation to public school education at all levels […] Learners take charge of their own learning as they explore, gather information, and create unity out of their educational experiences. A teacher in this new setting acts as a guide and participating learner rather than as an authoritarian source of all wisdom.”Donella H. Meadows (2006) – System Dynamics Meets The Press – System Dynamics Review 5:69-80 https://doi.org/10.1
002/sdr.4260050106 – World Modelling Project, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
“The shared paradigms of society, the public discourse, the deepest assumptions about how the world works, these are the ultimate sources of system structure and the primary obstacles to structural change. The reigning paradigms of the western world are astonishingly unsystematic […] One way to contribute to the restructuring of those systems is to bring more clear, accurate, and inclusive systems concepts into the public discourse – to communicate systems insights regularly and powerfully through the press.”John D.W. Morecroft (2010) – Limits to Growth and Industrialisation: Insights from small and metaphorical system dynamics models and simulators – Plenary Presentation at the 2010 International System Dynamics Conference in Seoul – London Business School
“Romeo and Juliet simulator, containing just four main concepts: Romeo’s love for Juliet, Juliet’s love for Romeo and the corresponding rates of change of their love. It is used as a metaphor or transitional object to help undergraduates and high school students to engage with something complex and abstract – differential equations or even Shakespeare’s play. Clearly, a simulator cannot possibly replicate Shakespeare’s play, but it can encourage students to study the play more closely than they otherwise would. By simulating the waxing and waning of love between Romeo and Juliet, students engage their natural curiosity about romantic relationships, both in the model and in the play.”Carlos de Castro Carranza – ECOLOGY. Un juego-experimento como modelo a la aproximación a los límites al crecimiento – The Oil Crash, 25/09/2012 – http://crashoil.blog
spot.com.es/2012/09/ juegos-de-la-natural eza.html
“El juego Ecology […] comencé a diseñarlo a partir de pequeños juegos cuya idea era percibir trampas sociales, en especial en relación a la interacción entre personas y su entorno, como se discute en la conocida idea de la Tragedia de los Comunes. Es un juego más para la reflexión y el análisis que para la diversión, más parecido a los juegos llamados de rol que a los juegos típicos de ordenador “similares” tipo Civilization o Sim city, con los que tiene también ciertos parecidos. De hecho, en un juego como Civilization, aunque se tienen en cuenta muchas variables, desde la economía hasta la tecnología y el entorno, en realidad está enfocado a la guerra (no hay forma de ganar o sobrevivir si eres pacífico y no inviertes en “defensa” y en crecer).”Carlos de Castro Carranza – Europa premia el juego-experimento Ecology – Grupo de Energía, Economía y Dinámica de Sistemas, 02/01/2015 – https://geeds.es/new
s/europa-premia-el-j uego-experimento-eco logy/
“Los alumnos se suelen “desesperar” con el juego Ecology, al ver lo difícil que es la organización social en un juego que saben que es mucho más sencillo y fácil que el mundo real. Creo que a algunos de ellos el juego les ayuda a conectar esos puntos; ese es el tema clave y mérito del juego.”Alfred North Whitehead (1925) – Science and the Modern World – The MacMillan Company – University of Cambridge + Harvard University – ISBN-13 : 978-0684836393 – 228 Págs.
“It requires a very unusual mind to undertake the analysis of the obvious […] It [the de facto natural philosophy of Western civilization] encourages us to imagine the universe as irreducible brute matter […] spread throughout space in a flux of configurations…in itself […] senseless, valueless, purposeless […] following a fixed routine imposed by external relations.” (p. 5,23)David Bohm (1980,1992) – La totalidad y el orden implicado – Editorial Kairós – Professor de Física Teórica, Birkbeck College, Universitat de Londres – ISBN-13 : 978-8472451780 – 312 Págs. – https://www.revistas
inrecreo.com/wp-cont ent/uploads/2015/11/ Bohm-David-La-Totali dad-y-El-Orden-Impli cado.pdf
“Aquí se encuentra el germen de una nueva noción de orden. Este orden ya no debe ser comprendido únicamente como una distribución regular de objetos (por ejemplo, en hileras), ni como una distribución regular de acontecimientos (por ejemplo, en una serie). Más bien se contiene un orden total, en un sentido implícito, en cada región del espacio y del tiempo. Ahora bien, la palabra «implícito» es un participio del verbo «implicar», que significa «plegar hacia adentro» (del mismo modo que «multiplicar» significa «plegar muchas veces»). Esto nos lleva a explorar la noción de si, en cierto sentido, cada región contiene la estructura total «plegada» dentro de ella. Nos será útil para esta exploración considerar algunos ejemplos más de orden «plegado» o implicado. ” (p. 210)Fritjof Capra and Pier Luigi Luisi (2014) – The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision – Cambridge University Press – Center for Ecoliteracy, Berkeley
“Characteristics of systems thinking: Shift of perspective from the parts to the whole […] Inherent multidisciplinarity […] From objects to relationships […] From measuring to mapping […] From quantities to qualities […] From structures to processes […] From objective to epistemic science […] From Cartesian certainty to approximate knowledge.” (p. 80-83)Mario Bunge (2004) – How does it work? The search for explanatory mechanisms – Philosophy of the Social Sciences 34:182-210 https://doi.org/10.1
177/0048393103262 – Department of Philosophy, McGill University
“Systemism is the alternative to both individualism and holism […] systemism is the approach adopted by anyone who endeavors to explain the formation, maintenance, repair, or dismantling of a concrete complex thing of any kind. Notice that I use the expression ‘systemic approach,’ not ‘systems theory.’ […] ‘systems theory’ that became popular in the 1970s (e.g., Laszlo 1972) was another name for old holism and got discredited because it stressed stasis at the expense of change and claimed to solve all particular problems without empirical research or serious theorizing. Systemism is just as comprehensive as holism, but unlike the latter, it invites us to analyze wholes into their constituents, and consequently it rejects the intuitionist epistemology inherent in holism. ” (p. 190-191)Jean-François Revel y Matthieu Ricard (1997,1998) – El monje y el filósofo – Ediciones Urano – ISBN-13: 978-8479532048 – 328 Págs. – http://datelobueno.c
om/wp-content/upload s/2014/05/El-monje-y -el-filosofo.pdf
“Jean-François Revel: Como son filósofos, la definen [la estructura] bastante mal. Digamos que, a grandes rasgos, son una especie de entidades constituidas o constitutivas de leyes, generadoras de comportamientos organizados. Este tipo de objeción lo encontramos ya en Epicuro: somos un compuesto de átomos, decía, y lo que llamamos alma no es sino un conjunto de átomos. Por consiguiente, no tenemos por qué tomar en serio los sentimientos que experimentamos, los sufrimientos, los deseos, los temores.” (p. 300)Frederick Engels (1880,2020) – Socialism: Utopian and Scientific – Pathfinder Press – ISBN-13 : 978-0873489775 – 40 Págs.
“This new German philosophy culminated in the Hegelian system. In this system–and herein is its great merit–for the first time the whole world, natural, historical, intellectual, is represented as a process, i.e., as in constant motion, change, transformation, development; and the attempt is made to trace out the internal connection that makes a continuous whole of all this movement and development. From this point of view the history of mankind no longer appeared as a wild whirl of senseless deeds of violence, all equally condemnable at the judgment seat of mature philosophic reason, and which are best forgotten as quickly as possible; but as the process of evolution of man himself. ” (p. 20)Peter A. Corning (2002) – The re-emergence of “emergence”: A venerable concept in search of a theory – Complexity 7:18–30 https://doi.org/10.1
002/cplx.10043 – Institute for the Study of Complex Systems – http://onlinelibrary .wiley.com/doi/10.10 02/cplx.10043/epdf
“There is a major theoretical segue involved in the modernized version of reductionism espoused by Wilson, Crick, and others. In its 19th and early 20th century incarnation, reductionism meant an understanding of the ‘parts’—period. Modern- day reductionists, by contrast, speak of the parts and their ‘interactions.’ But the “interactions” among the parts (and between the parts and their environments) are ‘the system.’ The ‘whole’ is not something that floats on top of it all. So this cannot properly be called reductionism; it is” ‘systems science’ in disguise.”Joseph A. Goguen and Francisco J. Varela (1991) – Systems and distinctions: Duality and complementarity – En: George J. Klir (Ed.) (1991), Facets of Systems Science, Springer, ISBN-13: 978-1461355
014, https://doi.org/10.1 007/978-1-4899-0718- 9_20
“If we think of the philosophy of science, the duality holism/reductionism comes to mind as analogous to the material previously discussed in this paper. Most discussions place holism/reductionism in polar opposition. This seems to stem from the historical split between empirical sciences, viewed as mainly reductionist or analytic, and the (European) schools of philosophy and social science that grope toward a dynamics of totalities. In the light of the previous discussion, both attitudes are possible for a given descriptive level, and in fact they are complementary.”Stan Rowe (2006) – Earth Alive: Essays on Ecology – NeWest Press – Professor of Plant Ecology, University of Saskatchewan – ISBN-13 : 978-1897126035 – 274 Págs.
“That the sad face of Janus is reductionist, inward-looking, away from seeing the Earth whole, seems a sound assumption. The happy, optimistic face that looks upward and outward, mirrors hope that the worth of Earth—a very large and miraculous stone in space—will universally be recognized in the near future.” (p. 136)Jorge Riechmann Fernández (2015) – Autoconstrucción: La transformación cultural que necesitamos – Los Libros De La Catarata – Catedrático de Filosofía Moral, Universidad Complutense de Madrid – ISBN-13: 978-8483199855 – 304 Págs. – http://www.pasajesli
bros.com/libros/auto construccion/9788483 199855/
“No sé si la tienen identificada los técnicos bautizadores de falacias, pero se me antoja que no debe haber ejemplar mayor que la ‘falacia por omisión de nexos’ (para un ser de vínculos como el ser humano).” (p. 179)Gilles Deleuze (1981,2001) – Spinoza: filosofía práctica – Maxi-Tusquets – ISBN-13 : 978-8483107515 – 160 Págs.
“Según Spinoza, cualquier cosa existente posee una esencia, pero también relaciones características mediante las cuales se compone con otras cosas distintas en la existencia, o se descompone en distintas cosas. Una noción común es precisamente la idea de una composición de relaciones entre muchas cosas […] Existe sin duda, en este sentido, un orden de la Naturaleza, puesto que cualquier relación no se compone con cualquier otra; hay un orden de composición de las relaciones que va de las nociones más universales a las menos universales, e inversamente.” (p. 139,140)Claus Pias (2016) – Cybernetics: The Macy Conferences 1946-1953: The Complete Transactions – University of Chicago Press – Institute of Advanced Study, University of Konstanz – ISBN-13 : 978-3037345986 – 736 Págs.
“Beyond being yet another affront to anthropology, all of this was also a philosophical and historical challenge of the highest order – a challenge that, as the cybernetic episteme began to spread, prompted a great deal of concern throughout the next decade. Martin Heidegger, for instance, would proclaim the end of philosophy and, when pushed by Rudolf Augstein’s questioning, would name cybernetics as its successor […] Gotthard Günther would claim that a bivalent or polyvalent ontology, in conjunction with a trivalent logic (at least), represented the “finale” of Hegelian reflection metaphysics” (p. 17)Georg W.F. Hegel (1807,1966) – Fenomenología del espíritu – Fondo de Cultura Económica – ISBN-10:84-375-0203-
9- 483 Págs.
“Lo verdadero es el todo. Pero el todo es solamente la esencia que se completa mediante su desarrollo. De lo absoluto hay que decir que es esencialmente resultado, que sólo al final es lo que es en verdad, y en ello precisamente estriba su naturaleza, que es la de ser real, sujeto o devenir de sí mismo. ” (p. 16)William Irwin Thompson (1991) – Politics Becoming a Planet – En: William Irwin Thompson (Ed.) (1991), Gaia 2: Emergence, the new science of becoming, Lindisfarne Books, ISBN-13 : 978-0940262409 Historiador cultural + Presidente, Asociación Lindisfarne
“I have elsewhere suggested that the development of Western civilization can be seen as a movement through four mathematical-literary mentalities: the Arithmetic, the Geometrical, the Dynamical, and the Morphological. The Arithmetic mentality ruled from ancient Uruk to classical Athens; the Geometrical mentality ruled from ancient Athens to the Italian Renaissance; the Dynamical mentality, the mentality of modernism, ruled from the time of Galileo to 1900; and then the intuitions of Poincaré and Lipanounov set the stage for a new mathematical imagination, the Morphological mentality.” (p. 252) [Traduït al català aquí: La re-imaginació del sistema mundial. O les implicacions polítiques de la ciencia planetaria – https://publicacions .iec.cat/repository/ pdf/00000098/0000001 9.pdf] José Luis San Miguel de Pablos (2010) – Filosofía de la naturaleza: La otra mirada – Editorial Kairós – ISBN-13: 978-8472457
485 – 319 Págs.
“Asumiendo explícitamente la herencia de Nicolás de Cusa, Giordano Bruno y Goethe, Bertalanffy constata de entrada que no existe ninguna razón de peso para considerar como el fundamental uno solo de los escalones jerárquicos en que se nos muestra estructurada la realidad, así física como humana o conceptual.” (p. 219-220)Stephen Toulmin (1992) – Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity – University of Chicago Press – Professor of the Humanities, Avalon Foundation, Northwestern University – ISBN-13 : 978-0226808383 – 240 Págs.
“Such 20th-century sciences as quantum mechanics, ecology and psychoanalysis take us a long way from the axioms of 17th-century «natural philosophy»-so much so that a few writers are tempted to call these contemporary disciplines «post-modern sciences». But this phrase does not mark the break with earlier «modern» science that is implied in Venturi’s substitution of «post-modern» for «modernist» architecture. The changes of intellectual method or standpoint within 20th-century natural science in no way mean that molecular biology, for example, has broken with the ideas of Claude Bernard or Charles Darwin. ” (p. 10)Joseph A. Goguen and Francisco J. Varela – Systems and distinctions: Duality and complementarity – En: George J. Klir (Ed.) (1991), Facets of Systems Science, Springer, ISBN: ISBN-13: 978-1461355
014, https://doi.org/10.1 007/978-1-4899-0718- 9_20
“These descriptive levels haven’t been generally realized as complementary” largely because there is a difference between publicly announced methodology and actual practice, in most fields of research in modern science. A reductionist attitude is strongly promoted, yet the analysis of a system cannot begin without acknowledging a degree of coherence in the system to be investigated; the analyst has to have an intuition that he is actually dealing with a coherent phenomenon. Although science has publicly taken a reductionist attitude, in practice both approaches have always been active. It is not that one has to have a holistic view as opposed to a reductionist view, or vice versa, but rather that the two views of systems are complementary.”History of dynamical systems – Scholarpedia (peer reviewed), 21/10/2011 – http://www.scholarpe
dia.org/article/Hist ory_of_dynamical_sys tems
“It is a mathematical theory that draws on analysis, geometry, and topology – areas which in turn had their origins in Newtonian mechanics – and so should perhaps be viewed as a natural development within mathematics, rather than the scientific revolution or paradigm shift that some popular accounts have suggested. ” Gottfried W. Leibniz (1714,2017) – Monadologia – CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform – https://philosophia.
cl/biblioteca/leibni z/monadologia.pdf
“La Mónada […] no es sino una substancia simple, que entra a formar los compuestos; simple quiere decir sin partes […] estas Mónadas son los verdaderos átomos de la Naturaleza, en una palabra, los Elementos de las cosas.”Edward Osborne Wilson (1998) – Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge – Vintage – Harvard University – ISBN-13: 978-0679768678 – 384 Págs.
“The descent to minutissima, the search for ultimate smallness in entities such as electrons, is a driving impulse of Western natural science. It is a kind of instinct. Human beings are obsessed with building blocks, for ever pulling them apart and putting them back together again …The impulse goes back as far as 400 BC when Leucippus and Democritus speculated, correctly as it turned out, that matter is made of atoms.”Richard Dawkins – El gen egoísta – Bruño Editores – ISBN-13: 978-8434501782 – 424 Págs
“Necesitamos un nombre para el nuevo replicador, un sustantivo que conlleve la idea de una unidad de transmisión cultural, o una unidad de imitación. «Mímeme» se deriva de una apropiada raíz griega, pero deseo un monosílabo que suene algo parecido a «gen». Espero que mis amigos clasicistas me perdonen si abrevio mímeme y lo dejo en meme. ” (p. 218)Mary Midgley (2003) – Myths We Live By – Routlegde New York – Department of Religious Studies at Mount Allison University – http://shawnslayton.
com/open/iPAD/Book%2 0myths-we-live-by.pd f
“Standards are now set that concentrate on form, not on suitability to the subject-matter. This makes it necessary to use methods which closely imitate the forms of physical science. And among those forms, a prime favourite is, of course, atomism. This, then, is the principle that requires us, if we want to understand culture, somehow to find its units. But is culture the sort of thing that divides up into units? Edward O. Wilson sternly declares that it is.”David Byrne (1998) – Complexity theory and the social sciences: an introduction – Routledge – Senior Lecturer in Social Policy at the University of Durham – ISBN-13 : 978-0415162968 – 216 Págs.
“It is worth noting that in a handbook written for doctoral students in physics and chemistry, Nicolis remarks on the impossibility of a full quantitative understanding of complex phenomena and the consequent requirement to turn to qualitative approaches (1995: 49), so any accusations of physics envy remaining even after the previous noting of complexity’s necessary rejection of reductionism ought to be junked forthwith. The tools of understanding suggested here will be both quantitative and qualitative, and quantitative usages will be primarily exploratory (see Tukey 1977). ” (p. 7)Ginny Battson (2018) – Language of Flow: The Need for Neologisms and Introducing Spring Theory – Seasonal Light – Master of Applied Ethics, 21/09/2018 – https://seasonalight
.com/2018/09/21/lang uage-of-flow-the-nee d-for-neologisms-and -introducing-spring- theory/
“Two particular yet simple words, love and ecology, are my inspiration in the creation of my own neologisms ~ fluminism, and then sanguimund andpraximund, the latter two as constituent parts of the former. As to both words, love and ecology, as lexicons combined, they are complementary. One word is a positive emotion and the other a rational science. Like life itself, it is the combination of both affect and rationale which our brains assimilate as moral constructs and in the choices we make every day. The word fluminism brings them both together, and from it flows an ethic by which we may choose to live. ” Ginny Battson (2018,2020) – Fluminismo – Ediciones del Genal – ISBN-13 : 978-8417974558 – 114 Págs. – https://seasonalight
.com/wp-content/uplo ads/2020/02/FLUMINIS MO_GinnyBattson_WEB- 1.pdf
“La naturaleza está intensamente interconectada, ninguna especie resulta más importante que cualquier otra para la perspectiva de conjunto.” (p. 36)Thich Nhat Hanh (1987) – Interbeing: The 14 Mindfulness Trainings of Engaged Buddhism – Parallax Press; Edición: Reprint – ISBN-13 : 978-1946764201 – 216 Págs.
“The Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings with Commentary: Openness; Nonattachment to Views; Freedom of Thought; Awareness of Suffering; Compassionate, Healthy Living; Taking Care of Anger; Dwelling Happily in the Present Moment; True Community and Communication; Truthful and Loving Speech; Protecting and Nourishing the Sangha; Right Livelihood; Reverence for Life; Generosity.”Arturo Escobar (2020) – Pluriversal politics: the real and the possible – Combined Academic Publishing – Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, University of North Carolina – ISBN-13 : 978-1478008460 – 192 Págs
“One of the foundations of Buddhism is the principle of interdependence. Buddhism has one of the most powerful notions in this regard: nothing exists by itself; we interexist with everything on Earth; everything in life is the result of processes of dependent coarising. This principle of “interbeing” has been amply developed in Buddhist thought, but it characterizes many other cultural groups as well. In short, for Buddhism, nothing exists intrinsically; everything is mutually constituted. The mind is thus completely devoid of subject-object dualism.” (p. 19)Karen Armstrong (2022) – Naturaleza sagrada – Editorial Crítica – ISBN-13 : 978-8491994473 – 192 Págs.
“Esta es la razón de que en China encontremos una cosmovisión tan distinta a la de Occidente. El cosmos es un constante fluir, activado por una fuerza material vital que forma todas las cosas y las une unas a otras.” (p. 36)Ervin Lászlo (1972) – The Case for Systems Philosophy – Metaphilosophy 3:123–141 https://doi.org/10.1
111/j.1467-9973.1972 .tb00045.x –
“In this paper I shall argue for a new kind of philosophy-or, more exactly, a new form of a perennial kind of philosophy which I call systems philosophy. I shall proceed by voicing some dissatisfactions with the currently dominating analytic trends in Western philosophy […] and then go on to offer some constructive suggestions as to the nature and principles of systems philosophy […] I shall end by some reflections on the tasks of philosophy in general, and the conditions under which they can be pursued.”Aldous Huxley (1945,2008) – La filosofia perenne – Pagès Editors – ISBN: 9788497796897 – 365 Págs.
“Basada en l’experiència directa d’aquells que han satisfet les condicions necessàries d’aquests coneixements, aquesta doctrina s’expressa d’una manera succinta en la fórmula en sànscrit ‘tat tvam asi (això ets tu); l’esperit, o el seu Jo etern immanent, és, juntament amb l’Absolut, el principi absolut de tota existència. L’objectiu final de tot ésser humà és trobar el fet per si mateix, descobrir qui és realment.”Erich Jantsch (1976) – Evolution and Consciousness: Human Systems in Transition. Introduction and Summary – Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers – Center for Research in Management Science, University of California, Berkeley – ISBN-13 : 978-0201034387 – 400 Págs. – https://archive.org/
details/evolutioncon scio00jant
“Prometheus and Sisyphus are not the only myths to choose from. In fact, they are bound to Western culture. There is another myth which has illuminated human life throughout the millennia and across many cultures, so that Aldous Huxley has rightly called it «the perennial philosophy.» This is the myth holding that human life is sharing integrally in a greater order of process, that it is an aspect as well as an agent of universal evolution.” (p. 1-2)Eric D. Schneider y Dorion Sagan (2005) – La termodinámica de la vida: Física, cosmología, ecología y evolución – Tusquets Editores – National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminsitration – ISBN-13: 978-84-8383-052-9 – 438 Págs.
“Somos pedazos de «materia estelar que se enfrió por accidente, pedazos de una estrella malograda», escribió Sir Arthur Eddington [ref] Nuestros ancestros, cuyos ciclos se activaban en presencia de la luz solar, quizá participaran en un juego del escondite primordial a medida que la Tierra giraba. Si eran sensitivos (y, quién sabe, quizá lo fueran), los ciclos termodinámicos y sus descendientes vivos seguramente se habrían concentrado en el Sol como primer y último objeto de deseo.” (p. 133)Martin Heidegger (1927,1997) – Ser y Tiempo – Editorial Universitaria – ISBN-13 : 978-9561125698 – 504 Págs.
“El sentido del ser es el tiempo […] el ser se explica desde el tiempo.”
[Citado por Carlos Fernández Liria como concepto, sin textualidad en el original]Distintas ideas filosóficas y antropológicas de este libro han sido obtenidas a partir de los excelentes y didácticos vídeos y listas de reproducción divulgativas y académicas de Carlos Fernández Liria, profesor de Filosofía de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Véase: La filosofía en canal en https://www.youtube.
com/@CarlosLiria/pla ylists David R. Loy (1997) – The Great Awakening: A Buddhist Social Theory – Wisdom Publications – ISBN-13: 978-0861713
660 – 240 Págs
“From the Taoist perspective (and the Buddhist, which also emphasizes impermanence), the alternative to discrete things is events and processes. Everything is in motion, in transformation, and all those movements constitute a great flux in which everything harmonizes. ” (p. 176)Mary Midgley (1992) – Science as Salvation: A Modern Myth and its Meaning – Routledge – Moral philosopher – ISBN-13 : 978-0415062718 – 256 Págs.
“The assumption of orderliness in the world is one of those principles. It is not a conclusion of science; it is something assumed in order that science can be done. When we fail to find order, scientific method itself demands that we still have faith that it is there. We are not free (it must be repeated) to make up these assumptions just as we fancy. Only within quite narrow limits can they be called ‘social constructions’. ” (p. 97)Ilya Prigogine et Isabelle Stengers (1979) – La nouvelle alliance – Éditions Gallimard – Faculté des Sciences, Université Libre de Bruxelles – ISBN-13: 978-2070287505 – 302 Págs.
« La science moderne est née de la rupture d’une alliance animiste avec la nature : au sein du monde aristotélicien, l’homme semblait trouver sa place, à la fois comme être vivant et comme être connaissant ; le monde était à sa mesure ; la connaissance intellectuelle atteignait le principe même des choses, la cause et la raison finale de leur devenir ; le but qui les habite et les organise. Le premier dialogue expérimental reçut quant à lui partie de sa justification sociale et philosophique d’une nouvelle alliance, cette fois avec le Dieu créateur et rationnel des chrétiens […] la science, devenue laïque, est restée l’annonce prophétique d’un monde décrit tel qu’il est contemplé d’un point de vue divin, ou démoniaque : science de Newton, ce nouveau Moïse à qui se découvrait la vérité du monde, c’est une science révélée, définitive, étrangère au contexte social et historique qui l’identifie comme activité d’une communauté humaine. » (p. 129)Vedana in Paticcasamuppada – Vipassana Research Institute, 28/04/2017 – http://www.vridhamma
.org/Printversion/Ve dana-in-Paticcasamup pada – autores «Paticca samuppadapaticca samuppada, or the Law of Dependent Originati on law of dependent origination, is fundamental to the teaching of the Buddha.» Gopi Upreti (2023) – Ecosociocentrism: The Earth First Paradigm for Sustainable Living. Introduction – Springer https://doi.org/10.1
007/978-3-031-41754- 2 – Emeritus Professor, Institute of Agriculture and Animal Sciences,Tribhuvan University, Nepal – ISBN-13:978-30314175 35 – 427 Págs.
“Buddhism, Gaia, and System Theory share a common foundation of intercon nectedness and interdependence […] The scientific perspectives embodied in the Gaia hypothesis and system theory adopts a processual view of life, affirming the indivisibility of humanity from the intricate network of relationships with other entities in Nature. Analogously, Buddhist Eco-Dharma is rooted in the principle of human interconnectedness with Nature, attributed to the condition of dependent co-origination also known as Pratītyasamutpāda in Sanskrit […] fundamental Buddhist teachings, combined with Gaia and system theory, enhance our understanding and practice of an emerging ecological paradigm. Collectively, Buddhism, Gaia, and system theory imbue us with an ecological worldview, or Eco-Dharma guiding humanity toward a harmoni ous relationship with the planet, thereby paving the way for sustainable living and coexistence. ” (p. xxv-xxvi)Jorge Mario Bergoglio (2015) – Laudato Si – Ciudad del Vaticano, 18/06/2015 – Francisco I, Papa de Roma – https://www.vatican.
va/content/dam/franc esco/pdf/encyclicals /documents/papa-fran cesco_20150524_encic lica-laudato-si_sp.p df
“91: Todo está conectado. Por eso se requiere una preocupación por el ambiente unida al amor sincero hacia los seres humanos y a un constante compromiso ante los problemas de la sociedad.”Joanna Macy (1991) – Mutual causality in Buddhism and General Systems Theory: The Dharma of Living Systems – State University of New York – Adjunct Professor, California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco + Starr King School for the Ministry, Berkeley – ISBN-13: 978-0791406373 – 256 Págs.
“Grounded in the radical interdependence of all phenomena, set forth in the Buddha’s doctrine of causality, [is the] ‘paţicca samuppāda’, or dependent co-arising. In this doctrine, which the Buddha equated with the Dharma, or saving teaching itself, everything arises through mutual conditioning in reciprocal interaction […] This interdependence sets the limits and provides the scope for our conscious participation in reality […] Buddhism reveals the existential, religious, and ethical implications of the systens view of process […] The doctrine of paţicca samuppāda is so central as to be, in words attributed to Buddha, equated with the Dharma itself and set forth as prerequisite to the attainment of nirvāna […] Paţtica samuppāda also serves as ground for morality […] For this causal notion yields apparent paradoxes – cause turns into effect; the doer, by the doing, is done unto; hunter becomes pray. Implicit in mythic causality is the creative interplay of opposites. The founder of GST [Bertalanffy] attested to this acknowledging the debt he owed Nicholas de Cusa” (p. xi,xiii,2,27,29)Chao Ying Shen and Gerald Midgley (2007) – Toward a Buddhist Systems Methodology 1: Comparisons between Buddhism and Systems Theory – Systemic Practice and Action Research 20:167–194 https://doi.org/10.1
007/s11213-006-9058- 9 – Graduate Institute of Management Sciences and Department of Business Administration College of Management, Nanhua University Dalin, Taiwan + Fo Guang Shan Tsung-Lin University Kaohsiung, Taiwan; Institute of Environmental Science and Research (ESR) Ltd., Christchurch New Zealand + School of Natural and Rural Systems Management, University of Queensland, Brisbane + Victoria Management School, Victoria University of Wellington,+ Centre for Systems Studies, Business School University of Hull, UK
“However, there are limitations to Macy’s analysis. Although GST is an important systems perspective, systems thinking today encompasses a much richer array of concepts (see Midgley 2003a, 2003b, 2003c, 2003d, for just some of the variety). In particular, GST seeks to explain something about the natural world, but does not offer a methodology for organizational problem solving and problem prevention, which is what is needed in the context of our own research (other systems paradigms do offer this kind of methodology). Therefore, we do not believe that GST is sufficient as the basis for developing a Buddhist systems methodology. Furthermore, Buddhist thinking involves many other concepts in addition to mutual causality, so a much wider consideration of potential connections between Buddhism and systems thinking will be needed. ”Charles Eliot (2002) – Japanese Buddhism – Routledge – ISBN-13 : 978-0700702633 – 288 Págs.
“En el cielo de Indra se dice que hay una red de perlas dispuestas de tal modo que, si miras una perla, ves todas las demás reflejadas en ella. Del mismo modo, cada objeto del mundo no es sólo él mismo, sino que implica a cualquier otro objeto y, de hecho, es todo lo demás. Todas las cosas son Uno y no tienen vida aparte de ello; el Uno es todas las cosas y está incompleto sin la más pequeña de ellas. Sin embargo, las partes son partes dentro del todo, no están mezcladas en él; están fundidas entre sí con la Realidad a la vez que conservan toda la identidad de la parte, y el Uno no es menos Uno por el hecho de que tenga un millón de millones de partes.” (p. 250)François Jullien (2015) – De l’Être au Vivre: Lexique euro-chinois de la pensée – Éditions Gallimard – ISBN-13: 978-2070148
660 – 312 Págs.
“Autant dire que je ne crois pas qu’on puisse, d’Occident, commencer par « présenter » la pensée chinoise, directement ou frontalement: qu’on puisse la résumer ou en dresser un tableau, quelque digest commode, ou même d’emblée en faire l’histoire. Car on reste alors fatalement dépendant des choix implicites de sa langue et de sa pensée, sans s’en douter, et l’on ne retrouvera toujours, à l’arrivée, qu’un fac-similé, plus ou moins dévié, de ce qu’on avait déjà pensé. Un dérangement n’a pas eu lieu, on n’a pas quitté. On n’a pas quitté « l’Europe aux anciens parapets ». ”Jordi Pigem (2021) – Pandèmia i postveritat: La vida, la consciència i la Quarta Revolució Industrial – Fragmenta Editorial – ISBN-13 : 978-8417796570 – 144 Págs.
“El pensament occidental s’ha centrat en l’Ésser (i, sobretot des de Descartes, en les substàncies fixes i aïllades, l’objectivitat i el distanciament), mentre que la filosofia taoista convida a submergir-se en el Viure, en un món de relacions, experiència i plena presència.” (p. 110-111)Howard T. Odum (1971) – Environment, Power, and Society for the Twenty-First Century: The Hierarchy of Energy – John Wiley & Sons – University of Florida
“We need to stimulate religious evolution. We may encourage faster religious change even now by injecting large doses of systems science into the training of religious leaders. What a glorious flood of new revelation of truth. God (the essence of network) has handed man in the twentieth century through sciences and other creative endeavors. How false are the prophets who refuse even to read about them and interpret the message to the flock […] A new and more powerful morality may emerge through the dedication of the millions of men who have faith in the new networks and endeavor zealously for them. Prophet where art thou? ” (p. 310)Bruno Latour (2005) – What Is Given in Experience? A Review of Isabelle Stengers «Penser avec Whitehead» – Boundary 32:222-237 https://doi.org/10.1
215/01903659-32-1-22 3 – Sciences Po – http://www.bruno-lat our.fr/sites/default /files/93-STENGERS-G B.pdf
“Among his many misfortunes, Whitehead had the very bad one of provoking too much interest among theologians and too little among epistemologists. His reputation in America is thus skewed toward his theological innovations to the detriment of his epistemological theories. He also suffers from the terrible stigma of having indulged in metaphysics, something one is no longer supposed to do after the edicts of the first “W,” even though those who think that metaphysics is passé know usually much less science than Whitehead and swallow—without an ounce of criticism—hook, line, and sinker the entirety of metaphysical beliefs about nature that one can easily derive by lumping together the least-common-denominator views of geneticists and so-called cognitive scientists. As Isabelle Stengers says in her recently published masterpiece about Whitehead, “critical consciousness admits so many things without criticizing them [ref]’.” Alfred North Whitehead (1929,1956) – Proceso y Realidad – Ediciones Atalanta – University of Cambridge + Harvard University – ISBN-13 : 978-8412213027 – 471 Págs.
“Estas conferencias se entenderán mejor al observar la siguiente lista de hábitos de pensamiento prevalecientes, que son repudiados, en lo que se refiere a su influencia en la filosofía: (i) La desconfianza de la filosofía especulativa. (ii) La confianza en el lenguaje como expresión adecuada de las proposiciones. (iii) El modo de pensamiento filosófico que implica, y está implicado por, la facultad-psicología. (iv) La forma de expresión sujeto-predicado. (v) La doctrina sensacionalista de la percepción. (vi) La doctrina de la actualidad vacía. (vii) La doctrina kantiana del mundo objetivo como construcción teórica a partir de la experiencia puramente subjetiva. (viii) Deducciones arbitrarias en argumentos ex absurdo. (ix) Creencia de que las inconsistencias lógicas pueden indicar algo más que algunos errores antecedentes. Debido a su pronta aceptación de algunos, o todos, de estos nueve mitos y procedimientos falaces, gran parte de la filosofía del siglo XIX se excluye a sí misma de la relevancia para los hechos ordinarios y obstinados de la vida diaria.” (p. xiii)Alfred North Whitehead (1920,1968) – El concepto de naturaleza – Editorial Gredos – University of Cambridge + Harvard University – ISBN-13 : 978-9873831379 – 224 Págs. – https://bit.ly/3XTzJ
VD
“Ese ideal es la obtención de algún concepto unificador que dispondrá en relaciones determinadas dentro de sí mismo todo lo que se tiene por conocimiento, por sentimiento, y por emoción. Ese lejano ideal es el poder motor de la investigación filosófica; y exige lealtad incluso cuando se lo expulsa. El pluralista filosófico es un lógico estricto; el hegeliano crece en las contradicciones con la ayuda de su absoluto; el teólogo mahometano se inclina ante la voluntad creativa de Alá; y el pragmatista se tragará cualquier cosa mientras que «funcione».” (p. 12)Isabelle Stengers (2002) – Penser avec Whitehead : Une libre et sauvage creation de concepts – Éditions du Seuil – Université Libre de Bruxelles; Grand Prix de Philosophie de l’Académie Française, 1993 – ISBN-13 : 978-2020535601 – 582 Págs
“S’intéresser à Whitehead aujourd’hui, c’est donc accepter une aventure dont aucun des mots qui nous servent de référence ne devrait sortir indemne, même si aucun ne sera disqualifié, dénoncé en tant que vecteur d’illusion. Tous font partie du problème, qu’ils se réfèrent à l’expérience humaine ou à la «réalité objective », mais ils en font partie à titre de contrainte, en ce que ce qu’ils désignent doit être pris en compte. Aucun, en revanche, ne peut être pris en compte sur le mode qu’il réclame, car ils ont tous partie liée avec la bifurcation de la nature, ils nous vouent tous à l’incohérence, à l’opposition entre deux registres de langage, celui qui célèbre la subjectivité humaine, sa liberté, ses illusions, celui qui décrit un monde indifférent à notre liberté et à nos illusions. ” (p. 24)Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes (2016) – The Philosophy of Organism – Philosophy Now 114:2–23 – Exeter University – https://philosophyno
w.org/issues/114/The _Philosophy_of_Organ ism
“For Whitehead the bifurcation of the world into organic and inorganic is also false […] Whitehead asserts everything to be organic […] The in/organic division is then ultimately false, sanctioned by the purported mechanical universe idea, once again resulting from Descartes’ mind/matter split. Most importantly here, to Whitehead, actual entities have a degree of sentience – of awareness, feeling and purpose – as do systems, or ‘societies’ as he names them, that are organically constructed from actual entities. ”Alfred North Whitehead (1926) – Religion in the Making – Cornerstone Books – University of Cambridge + Harvard University – ISBN-13: 978-8490660
607 – 368 Págs. – http://alfrednorthwh itehead.wwwhubs.com/ ritm1.htm
“Thus God is the one systematic, complete fact, which is the antecedent ground conditioning every creative act.” (p. 154)Ramon Llull (1276,2016) – Llibre del gentil e los tres savis – Fragmenta Editorial – ISBN-13 : 978-8415518365 – 40 Págs.
“…e aquí preseren comiat los tres savis la un de l’altre molt amablement e molt agradable; e cascú qués perdó a l’altre si havia dita contra sa lig [religió] nulla vilana paraula; e la un perdona l’altre. E quan foren en ço que’s volgren departir, la un savi dix: —De la ventura que’ns és avenguda en la forest on venim, seguir-se-n’ ha a nosaltres alcun profit. ¿Parria-us bo que, per la manera deis cinc arbres e per les deu condicions significades per lurs flors, cascun jorn una vegada, nos desputássem, e que seguíssem la manera que la dona d’Intelligéncia nos ha donada: e que tant de temps duras nostra desputació tro que tots tres haguéssem una fe e una lig [religió] tan solament, e que enfre nós haguéssem manera d’honrar e servir la un l’altre, per çó que enans nos puscam concordar? Car guerra treball e malvolença, e donar dan e honta, empatxa los hómens a ésser concordants en una creença.”
[Citado por Raimon Panikkar (2014) p. 39]John B. Cobb Jr. (1965,2021) – A Christian Natural Theology Based on the Thought of Alfred North Whitehead – New Publisher – Professor of Theology Emeritus, Claremont School of Theology – ISBN-13 : 978-0664230180 – 201 Págs.
“Whitehead believed that the phenomenology of religion is to be explained by reference to man’s apprehension of that reality which he discussed in philosophical terms. His account of religion is to be found primarily in Religion in the Making, although there are important discussions also in Science and the Modern World and Adventures of Ideas. For his work on religion Whitehead depended heavily on secondary sources, and his familiarity with these was limited. Despite these limitations, his work contains some illuminating insights. His comments on the great importance of ardent rationalism for the health of religion […] are especially valuable. Nevertheless, the greatest value of these discussions is the light they throw upon his philosophy and upon the general way in which he understood philosophy to be related to religion. ” (p. 174)Graham Jones (2023) – Red Enlightenment. On Socialism, Science, and Spirituality – Repeater – ISBN-13 : 978-1914420191 – 296 Págs.
“God has a primordial and consequent nature, meaning both that God prepares the potentials of the future for us and solidifies passing moments into the structure of the world, though with two hands God is ensuring the ongoing. It is as process of reality. God is seen not as controlling a pre- written future, but as presenting series of potentials that must select from, retaining our freedom to choose while luring us towards the good. And in ensuring that moments are not lost as they pass but are preserved, the world is held together and can form the consistent structures we see around us.” (p. 135)Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry (1974,1994) – The Universe Story. From the Primordial Flaring Forth to the Ecozoic Era, A Celebration of the Unfolding of the Cosmos – Harper Collins; Reprint edition – ISBN-13: 978-0062508
355 – 320 Págs.
“That the universe is a communion of subjects rather than a collection of objects is the central commitment of the Ecozoic […] The comprehensive objective of the Ecozoic is to assist in establishing a mutually enhancing human presence on the Earth…. The immediate goal…is not simply to diminish the devastation of the planet that is taking place at present. It is rather to alter the consciousness that is responsible for such deadly activities” (p. 243,250-251)Matthew David Segall (2016) – Physics of the World-Soul: Whitehead’s Adventure in Cosmology – Lulu.com – California Institute of Integral Studies – ISBN-13 : 978-0359177585 – 148 Págs.
“Feeling and value cannot be added to actuality later on up the scale of nature’s evolutionary self-organization. To explain any emergence at all, Nature must be conceived as an agent of its own evolution and not just a collection of inert stuff. The emergence of complex forms of organization like galaxies and stars, for example, already requires an explanation in terms of some aim intrinsic to physical activity.” (p. 95)Charlene Spretnak (1991,1993) – States of Grace: The Recovery of Meaning in the Post-Modern Age – Harper SanFrancisco – ISBN-13: 978-0062506
979 – 320 Págs.
“I believe that ecological postmodernism—the cultural passage beyond the failed aspects of modernity—might itself become a wisdom tradition, contributing to that dialogue the fruits of in-depth exploration of process in various areas. Twentieth-century religious philosophers as disparate as Alfred North ‘Whitehead and Mary Daly have concluded that the divine is more accurately considered as process, as the verb «becoming,» than as a noun.” (p. 230-231)Sallie McFague (1993) – The Body of God: An Ecological Theology – Augsburg Fortress; Edición: 1st – Distinguished Theologian in Residence, Vancouver School of Theology, British Columbia – ISBN-13: 978-0800627355 – 292 Págs.
“The picture of reality coming to us from contemporary science [the theory of relativity taken on board by Process Theology] is so attractive to theology that we would be fools not to use it as a resource for reimaging and reinterpreting Christian doctrine. ”About The Center for Process Studies – Center for Process Studies – Claremont School of Theology – https://ctr4process.
org/about/
“Driven by the principle of relationality and commitment to the common good, the Center for Process Studies (CPS) works on cutting edge discourse across disciplines to promote the exploration of interconnection, change, and intrinsic value as core features of our world. As a faculty-based research center at Claremont School of Theology (CST), CPS conducts research and develops educational resources that explore the implications of these principles on a range of topics (e.g. science, ecology, culture, philosophy, religion, education, psychology, political theory, etc.) in a unique transdisciplinary style that harmonizes fragmented disciplinary thinking in order to develop integrated and holistic modes of understanding. ”Dartington Trust – Holistic Science: Past, present and future – Schumacher College, 17/11/2020 – https://soundcloud.c
om/dartingtontrust/h olistic-science-past -present-and-future
“How did science become what it is today and what could it metamorphose into? We explore this vital question as part of our ongoing series of podcasts exploring the core subjects studied at Schumacher College, with Dr Andy Letcher, whose work spans the crossover between science and religion, as well as Dr Troy Vine, new to the College faculty, who holds a PhD in particle physics and also specialises in Goethean science. ”Douglass Todd – China embraces Alfred North Whitehead – Vancouver Sun, 10/12/2008- – https://vancouversun
.com/news/staff-blog s/china-embraces-alf red-north-whitehead
“Leading Chinese thinkers are coming to believe the best approach is to blend Chinese traditions, including long-ignored Taoism, Buddhism and Confucianism, with “constructive post-modern” western philosophy. To do so they’re turning to the late British-American philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, in part because they appreciate Whitehead was also a renowned mathematician and physicist influenced by Albert Einstein […] With the help of Whiteheadian thinkers, the Chinese government, through its state-run universities, is ushering in dramatic new reforms. The leaders have dubbed their grand visions for China “The Harmonious Society” and “The Ecological Civilization.”.”Raimon Panikkar (1988,1998) – La Trinitat: Experiència humana primordial – Editorial Empúries – ISBN: 8475966098 – 118 Págs.
“La Trinitat és una de les visions més profundes, més universals que l’Home pugui tenir de si mateix i de Déu, de la Creació i del Creador. No és solament un dels problemes (teòricament) més importants, sinó també un dels interrogants (pràcticament) més urgents. Representa un dels plantejaments bàsics, en la mateixa arrel de la nostra situació humana, directament relacionat amb qüestions com la d’una societat més justa i una personalitat humana més integrada.” (p. 25)Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry (1974,1994) – The Universe Story. From the Primordial Flaring Forth to the Ecozoic Era, A Celebration of the Unfolding of the Cosmos – Harper Collins; Reprint edition – ISBN-13: 978-0062508
355 – 320 Págs
“Some synonyms for differentiation are diversity, complexity, variation, disparity, multiform nature, heterogeneity, articulation. Different words that point to the second feature are autopoiesis, subjectivity, self-manifestation, sentience, self-organization, dynamic centers of experience, presence, identity, inner principle of being, voice, interiority. And for the third feature, communion, interrelatedness, interdependence, kinship, mutuality, internal relatedness, reciprocity, complementarity, interconnectivity, and affiliation all point to the same dynamic of cosmic evolution. These three features are not «logical» or «axiomatic» in that they are not deductions within some larger theoretical framework. They come from a post hoc evaluation of cosmic evolution; these three will undoubtedly be deepened and altered in the next era as future experience expands our present understanding […] The point to be emphasized here is that the generic form of the equations on one level is particular to that level. Each level of the universe is a distinct «world.» Differentiation, autopoiesis, and communion refer to the nature of the universe in its reality and in its value. These three features are themselves features of each other.” (p. 71-72,73-74)Christian de Quincey (2010,2022) – Naturaleza esencial: El alma de la materia – Ediciones Atalanta – Profesor de consciencia, espiritualidad y cosmología, Universidad John F. Kennedy + Cofundador, Wisdom Academy + Decano de Estudios de la Conciencia, University of Philosophical Research, Los Ángeles
“Aunque estoy de acuerdo con Griffin en que la filosofía del proceso de Whitehead es un sistema especulativo racional muy bien elaborado, en el fondo no deja de ser una metafísica extrarracional. La filosofía del proceso de Whitehead se asienta en el supuesto metafísico de que el fundamento ontológico no es la sustancia sino los sucesos con experiencia. En los niveles más profundos de la realidad, según esta versión de la filosofía del proceso, las entidades últimas son en esencia sensaciones, y éstas las conocemos a tales niveles mediante la extrapolación de nuestra propia experiencia sentida como seres humanos. En otras palabras, la experiencia prerracional o las sensaciones, y no la razón, constituyen la epistemología primaria. ” (p. 284)Daisetz T. Suzuki (2010) – Conocimiento e inocencia – En: Thomas Merton (2010), El zen y los pájaros del deseo, Editorial Kairós, ISBN-13 : 978-8472453081, 184 págs.
“Tal como yo interpreto a Eckhart, Dios es a la vez el lugar donde El actúa, y el acto mismo […] Ser es devenir, y devenir es ser. Cuando uno se separa del otro, la pobreza resultante se ve coja y baldada. Sólo se recupera la pobreza perfecta cuando una vacuidad perfecta es también perfecta plenitud. ” (p. 141)Fritjof Capra (1975) – El tao de la física: una exploración de los paralelos entre la física moderna y el misticismo oriental – Editorial Sirio – ISBN-13: 978-8478081752 – 478 Págs. – http://www.formarse.
com.ar/libros/libros _gratis/inspiradores /capra-fritjof-el-ta o-de-la-fisica.pdf
“Sugiero seis criterios para el nuevo paradigma en su aplicación científica: los dos primeros se refieren a nuestra visión de la naturaleza, los otros cuatro a nuestra epistemología… El primer criterio se refiere a la relación existente entre la parte y el todo… El segundo criterio […] en cuanto al pensamiento de la ciencia tiene que ver con un cambio de pensar en función de la estructura a hacerlo en función del proceso… fue Heisenberg quien descubrió el papel crucial desempeñado por el observador en la física cuántica. Según él, nunca podremos hablar de la naturaleza sin, al mismo tiempo, hablar de nosotros mismos. Y este será mi tercer criterio… El cuarto criterio […] es, tal vez, el más profundo de todos y el que más difícil resultará a los científicos habituarse a él. Se refiere a la antigua metáfora del conocimiento como un edificio… Mi criterio número cinco: el cambio desde una verdad absoluta a unas descripciones aproximadas… Mi último criterio… no expresa una observación, sino más bien una defensa. Creo que la supervivencia humana… sólo será posible si somos capaces de modificar, de forma radical, los métodos y los valores en los que nuestra ciencia y nuestra tecnología están basadas.” (p. 437-447)Fritjof Capra (1975) – El tao de la física: una exploración de los paralelos entre la física moderna y el misticismo oriental – Editorial Sirio – ISBN-13: 978-8478081752 – 478 Págs. – http://www.formarse.
com.ar/libros/libros _gratis/inspiradores /capra-fritjof-el-ta o-de-la-fisica.pdf
“Los paralelismos con la física moderna no solo aparecen en los vedas, en el I-Ching o en los sutras del budismo, sino también en fragmentos de Heráclito, en el sufismo de Ibn Arabi y en las enseñanzas del brujo yaquii don Juan. La diferencia entre Oriente y Occidente se encuentra en que en éste último las escuelas místicas siempre han desempeñado un papel marginal, mientras que en Oriente constituyen la corriente principal del pensamiento filosófico y religioso.” (p. 28-29)Fritjof Capra (1975) – El tao de la física: una exploración de los paralelos entre la física moderna y el misticismo oriental – Editorial Sirio – ISBN-13: 978-8478081752 – 478 Págs. – http://www.formarse.
com.ar/libros/libros _gratis/inspiradores /capra-fritjof-el-ta o-de-la-fisica.pdf
“El físico moderno, al igual que el místico oriental, ha llegado a ver el mundo como un sistema de componentes inseparables, interrelacionados y en constante movimiento en el que el observador constituye una parte integral de dicho sistema.” (p. 37)Alexander László, Christopher Laszlo and Ervin Laszlo (2011) – A Systems View of Ervin Laszlo, from One Generation to the Next: An Edited and Annotated Autobiographical Piece – World Futures The Journal of General Evolution 67:219-243 https://doi.org/10.1
080/02604027.2011.58 5871 – Syntony Quest, Sebastopol, California; Sustainable Value Partners ,Great Falls, Virginia
“By the age of 9 he had performed with the Budapest Symphony; by 15 he had been awarded the highest degree granted by the Hungarian National Academy of Music, together with their prestigious Franz Liszt Award (having been the youngest pianist ever to have received either this distinction or the award); by 16 he had given a solo performance at New York’s Carnegie Hall; and by the time he moved beyond the concert piano he had released seven LP phonograph albums on international labels. ”Ervin László (1993) – The Creative Cosmos: Towards a Unified Science of Matter, Life and Mind – Floris Books – ISBN-13: 978-0863151
729 – 320 Págs.
“How the things that are, have become what they are.”Ervin László (2004) – A journey through the systems landscape: An intellectual itinerary from organic metaphysics to general systems and general evolution theory, to practical world systems applications—and to field-based systems theory – International Journal of General Systems 33
“I concluded that neither the formal analysis of experience nor the introspective method of the phenomenologists leads to a meaningful concept of the real world. These schools get ultimately bogged down in what philosophers call the “ego-centric predicament.” It appears that the more systematically one investigates one’s immediate experience, the less easy it is to get beyond it, to the world to which that experience presumably refers. We are logically obliged to take the initial leap of assuming the objective existence of the external world, and then creating the scheme in light of which our experience makes sense as the human experience of that world. ”Ervin László (1972) – Introduction to Systems Philosophy: Toward a New Paradigm of Contemporary Thought – Routledge – ISBN-13: 978-0677038
506 – 352 Págs.
“I found, to my further delight and amazement, that the organic synthesis of Whitehead can be updated by the synthesis of a general systems theory, replacing the notion of “organism” and its Platonic correlates with the concept of a dynamic, self-sustaining “system” discriminated against the background of a changing natural environment. ” (p. viii)Ervin László (Ed.) (1973) – The world system: models, norms, applications – George Braziller – The Center of International Studies, Princeton University – ISBN-13 : 978-0807606957 – 215 Págs.
“World system modeling is a new art. It makes use of scientific data, system dynamics principles, and computer-simulated projections. In its present stage of development (represented by the work of Forrester. Meadows, and collaborators), it raises a multitude of fundamental issues. Foremost among these are questions concerning the completeness of the variables, the accuracy of the represented system dynamics, the incorporation of normative or «soft» data, the evaluation of the findings, the uses and misuses of existing models, the conceptual and behavioral reorientation presupposed or suggested bv the models, and the understanding of the methods and principles by which they can be further refined. ” (p. vi)Aurelio Peccei and Alexander King (1977) – Goals for Mankind: The New Horizons of Global Community. Foreword – En: Ervin László (Ed.) (1977), Goals for Mankind, E.P Dutton, ISBN-13 : 978-0525034551, 452 págs. – The Club of Rome
“It will be readily appreciated that the area covered by Ervin Laszlo and his army of collaborators and correspondents is so vast and complex that it is impossible to condense it into a volume of less than 500 pages while at the same time doing justice to all the forms and trends of human expectation, imagination, fear, and purpose concerning the future. The reader will find in these pages a rich if somewhat uneven treasury of insights and thoughts, and will probably judge many of them to be enlightening and significant, while some others less impressive. The atlas of contemporary goals is itself a major achievement […] Ervin Laszlo calls this movement of mobilization “the world solidarity revolution.” (p. xi)Ima Sanchís – Ervin László, doctor en Filosofía de la Ciencia con cuatro doctorados honoris causa: ‘Todo está conectado y nada desaparece’ – La Vanguardia, 16/08/2012 – http://www.lavanguar
dia.com/lacontra/201 20816/54337907307/la -contra-ervin-laszlo .html
“Los líderes no estaban dispuestos a hacer nada. Nosotros, científicos de distintas áreas, defendíamos otro tipo de crecimiento, que hoy llaman sostenible, y teníamos claro que necesitábamos líderes de opinión para difundirlo. Entre los primeros miembros estaban el Dalái Lama, Milos Forman, Mijaíl Gorbachov, Yehudi Menuhin, Rostropóvich, Arthur Clarke, Desmond Tutu… Ahora ya somos sesenta.”Ervin László (1993) – The Creative Cosmos: Towards a Unified Science of Matter, Life and Mind – Floris Books – ISBN-13: 978-0863151
729 – 320 Págs.
“If the world around us is what it is, and if it was not created ready-made but evolved in the course of time, then something more than mere chance must have governed its development. A random process could not have produced the kind of order that we meet with in our experience; it could not even have produced the kind of chaos that surrounds us at times . . . If indeed all that occurs in the material universe remains in some way encoded in the womb of space-time, nature may obtain that minute bias that would make randomly diverging developmental pathways into significantly converging ones. Because when a process acquires some element of self-referentiality, it is no longer entirely random: it is biased towards internal consistency. If the self-referentiality is not deterministic and monolithic, it will not lead to the mere repetition of already achieved orders; rather, it will create possibilities for attaining genuine novelty within the range of internal consistency. If the universe preserved and fed back the traces of its own evolution, ‘in-forming’ its parts consistently with the whole and the whole consistently with the parts, it could evolve” towards order creatively and self-consistently, without either the mechanistic constraint of self-repetition, or the chaotic anarchy of unfettered randomness. ”Ervin László (2021) – The Immutable Laws of the Akashic Field: Universal Truths for a Better Life and a Better World – Essentials – ISBN-13 : 978-1250773852 – 208 Págs.
“These laws apply to the universe we inhabit, but they do not account for all the processes that take place in this universe. Specifically, they do not take account of the coherence and consistency of fundamental change and development in the world. Unlike some Hellenic thinkers, such as Heraclitus, for whom change was the predominant feature of existence, coherent and consistent change was not recognized by the ancient seers. They held, as Parmenides did later, that existence is fundamentally being; becoming is a secondary and possibly illusory phenomenon. However, today we know that in the universe change is fundamental, coherent and consistent, and real. The world not only is, it also becomes. ” (p. 3-4)Eric D. Schneider y Oriol Sagan (2005) – La termodinámica de la vida: Física, cosmología, ecología y evolución – Tusquets Editores – National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminsitration – ISBN-13: 978-84-8383-052-9 – 438 Págs.
“La termodinámica no es sólo una buena idea: es la ley. El microbiólogo Kenneth Nealson […] tiene un interesante cuadro que suele proyectar en clase. Lleva por título «La termodinámica no es sólo una buena idea: es la ley». Bajo el título hay una larga lista de reacciones químicas empleadas por las bacterias para extraer energía de gradientes químicos naturales. Las leyes de la termodinámica no son ni triviales ni nuevas. Y la más crucial para comprender la complejidad es, sin lugar a dudas, la segunda ley.” (p. 127)Wassim M. Haddad (2017) – Thermodynamics: The Unique Universal Science – Entropy 19:621 https://doi.org/10.3
390/e19110621 – Georgia Institute of Technology, School of Aerospace Engineering
“Thermodynamics is universal, and hence, in principle, it applies to everything in nature—from simple engineering systems to complex living organisms to our expanding universe. The laws of thermodynamics form the theoretical underpinning of diverse disciplines such as biology, chemistry, climatology, ecology, economics, engineering, genetics, geology, neuroscience, physics, physiology, sociology, and cosmology, and they play a key role in the understanding of these disciplines [4–7]. Modeling the fundamental dynamic phenomena of these disciplines gives rise to large-scale complex [8] dynamical systems that have numerous input, state, and output properties related to conservation, dissipation, and transport of mass, energy, and information.”C.P. Snow (1959,1963) – Two Cultures and a Second Look : An Expanded Version of the Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution – Cambridge University Press – ISBN-13 : 978-0521065207 – 112 Págs.
“Once or twice I have been provoked and have asked the company how many of them could describe the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The response was cold: it was also negative. Yet I was asking something which is about the scientific equivalent of: Have you read a work of Shakespeare’s? ” (p. 20)Eric D. Schneider y Dorion Sagan (2005) – La termodinámica de la vida: Física, cosmología, ecología y evolución – Tusquets Editores – National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminsitration – ISBN-13: 978-84-8383-052-9 – 438 Págs.
“Los cálculos de Poincaré y la paradoja de Loschmidt arrojaron dudas sobre la asociación entre el incremento de entropía y la flecha del tiempo. Si en un sistema aislado todo se repite con una recurrencia infinita, no hay flecha del tiempo, a pesar del incremento de entropía percibido. Los decrecimientos locales y el aumento global de la entropía pueden ser interpretados por ciertos seres como una flecha del tiempo, pero, dadas las leyes de la mecánica y la prevalencia de la energía, no puede haber una asimetría temporal global. A la luz de los cálculos de Poincaré, Boltzmann reconsideró su interpretación y se fue convenciendo de que el tiempo lineal es una ilusión de seres confinados en ciertas regiones del universo. ” (p. 89)David Korowicz (2010) – Tipping Point: Near-Term Systemic Implications of a Peak in Global Oil Production An Outline Review – The Oil Drum, 15/03/2010 – Feasta & The Risk/Resilience Network – http://www.theoildru
m.com/files/Tipping% 20Point.pdf
“The rules governing energy and its transformation, the laws of thermodynamics, are the inviolate framework through which all things happen- the evolution of the universe, the direction of time, life on earth, human development, the evolution of civilisation, and economic processes […] We should intuit that an energy withdrawal should have major systemic implications, for without energy flows nothing happens.”Constantin Carathéodory (1909) – Untersuchungen über die Grundlagen der Thermodynamik (Examination of the foundations of thermodynamics) – Mathematische Annalen 67:355-386 https://doi.org/10.1
007/BF01450409 – http://www.neo-class ical-physics.info/up loads/3/4/3/6/343638 41/caratheodory_-_th ermodynamics.pdf
“The first main theorem of heat theory amounts to a definition of energy and states that this quantity can be determined in any concrete case with the help of mechanical and calorimetric measurements. However, various authors have already remarked that this point of view contains an over-determinacy: One can derive the entire theory without assuming the existence of a physical quantity that deviates from ordinary mechanical quantities, namely, heat. The purpose of the present work is to show this as clearly as possible in all of its details. ”Lionello Pogliani and Mario N. Berberan-Santos (2000) – Constantin Carathéodory and the axiomatic thermodynamics – Journal of Mathematical Chemistry 28:1–3 https://doi.org/ – Dipartimento di Chimica, Universita’ della Calabria; Centro de Química-Física Molecular, Instituto Superior Técnico, Lisboa – https://link.springe
r.com/content/pdf/10 .1023/A:101883432695 8.pdf
“The importance of the attempt to dispense with the engines and cycles which are at the root of the engineering method due, mainly, to S. Carnot (1796–1832), W. Thomson, Lord Kelvin (1824–1907) and R.J.E. Clausius (1822–1888), was soon recognized. ”Garrett Hardin (1998) – Extensions of «The Tragedy of the Commons» – Science 280:682-683 https://doi.org/10.1
126/science.280.5364 .682 – Professor Emeritus of Human Ecology in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of California, Santa Barbara – http://www.garrettha rdinsociety.org/arti cles/art_extension_t ragedy_commons.html
“Either socialism or the privatism of free enterprise. Either one may work, either one may fail: ‘The devil is in the details.’ But with an unmanaged commons, you can forget about the devil: As overuse of resources reduces carrying capacity, ruin is inevitable.”Cutler J. Cleveland (1999) – Biophysical Economics: From Physiocracy to Ecological Economics and Industrial Ecology – En: Bioeconomics and Sustainability: Essays in Honor of Nicholas Gerogescu-Roegen – J. Gowdy and K. Mayumi Eds. -(Edward Elgar Publishing Cheltenham England) pp. 125-154 – Department of Geography and Center for Energy and Environmental Studies, Boston University – http://www.localener
gy.org/pdfs/Document Library/BiophysicalE con.pdf
“Podolinsky (1883), a Ukrainian socialist, was the first to explicitly scrutinize the economic process from a thermodynamic perspective [ref] […] Podolinsky tried to reconcile the labor theory of value with a thermodynamic analysis of the economic process. In his conclusions, which he communicated to Frederick Engels on several occasions, Podolinsky stated the socialist model was flawed because it assumed that “scientific socialism” would overcome all natural -resource scarcities and enable unlimited material expansion.”Joel Kovel (2011) – On Marx and Ecology – Capitalism Nature Socialism 22:4-17 https://doi.org/10.1
080/10455752.2010.54 7667 – Editor-In-Chief of Capitalism, Nature, Socialism
“In any case, neither Marx nor by and large the socialist traditions that followed were able to do more than partially transcend the curse of capital as it pressed toward unlimited production on a finite earth.”Joan Martínez Alier y José Manuel Naredo (1979) – La noción de fuerzas productivas y la cuestión de la energía – Cuadernos de Ruedo Ibérico 63-66
“No debe colegirse que este afán de separar el mundo económico del mundo de la materia y la energía entrañara un desinterés de Marx y Engels por las ciencias de la naturaleza. Sino que estos, manteniéndose perfectamente informados de los descubrimientos que tenían lugar en estas ciencias, saludaban aquellos que se ajustaban a la lógica de su propio sistema y los adaptaban a sus conveniencias, despreciando aquellos otros que les resultaban incómodos (Martínez Alier y Naredo, 1979, p. 73).” (p. 139)Helmut Haberl (2001) – The energetic metabolism of societies, Part I: Accounting concepts – Journal of Industrial Ecology 5:11-33 https://doi.org/10.1
162/1088198017533584 81 – Professor of Human Ecology, Department of Social Ecology, Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies of Austrian Universities
“The article proposes concepts to empirically describe energy input, internal energy transformations, and energy utilization of societies by extending commonly used notions of energy statistics in a way that is compatible with current methods of materials flow analysis […] an energetic metabolism accounting system treats all biomass as energy input, instead of considering only the biomass used for technical energy generation, as energy statistics do. Part II in this set of articles will apply these concepts to different modes of societal organization and explore the significance of energetic metabolism for sustainable development. In particular, it will explore the significance for policies that aim at increasing the contribution of renewable energy, especially biomass. ”Joan Martinez-Alier (2003) – Marxism, Social Metabolism and Ecologically Unequal Exchange – World Systems Theory and the Environment – Departament d’Economia i d’Història Econòmica, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona – http://www.recercat.
net/bitstream/2072/1 194/1/UHE21-2004.pdf
“Actually, Marx dismissed the notion of decreasing returns in agriculture altogether, pointing out in the context of his praise for Liebig’s agricultural chemistry and its promise of artificial fertilizers, that it did not make sense to assume in Britain that the produce of the land would increase in a diminishing ratio to the increase of the labourers employed, because in practice there was at the time both an increase in production and an absolute decrease (already) in the number of labourers (Capital, I, chapter 13). Marx was not worried about crises of subsistances.»David Harvey (2014) – Diecisiete contradicciones y el fin del capitalismo – Traficantes de Sueños – Profesor de Antropología y Geografía, Centro de Graduados de la City University de Nueva York (CUNY) + Profesor Invitado de la Universidad de Oxford y la London School of Economics – ISBN-13 : 978-8496453500 – 294 Págs.
“Los movimientos sociales y las fuerzas políticas que luchan por construir un mundo no organizado por la barbarie y la catástrofe solo pueden alcanzar unas condiciones mínimas de eficacia si parten de un diagnóstico certero de cuáles son las fuerzas que conforman el estado actual de las cosas […] únicamente pueden existir movimientos antisistémicos transformadores si estos cuentan y construyen una teoría apropiada de las características sistémicas de la estructura capitalista. ”Joan Martínez Alier, comunicación personal
José Manuel Naredo Pérez (2022) – La crítica agotada: Claves para el cambio de civilización – Siglo XXI de España Editores – ISBN-13 : 978-8432320422 – 328 Págs.
“En el prólogo de Wenceslao Roces a una edición en castellano de la Dialéctica de la naturaleza (1961) se insiste en que el segundo principio de la termodinámica es una teoría «pseudocientífica, desorientadora y desalentadora» a la que Engels sometió a una crítica «demoledora», demostrando que «era de todo punto incompatible con una certera interpretación de la ley de conservación y transformación de la energía» y señalando, para colmo, que «el curso ulterior de la ciencia ha venido a patentizar que Engels tenía razón» (Engels, 1961, pp. xvi-xvii) […] Como también parece ya una broma que ciento cincuenta años después se presente a Engels como padre fundador del ecologismo y pionero del Antropoceno (Bellamy Foster, 2020) soslayando los «pequeños detalles» arriba mencionados, documentados desde hace tiempo.” (p. 140-141)Joan Martínez-Alier, comunicación personal
Joan Martinez-Alier (2011) – The EROI of agriculture and its use by the Via Campesina – The Journal of Peasant Studies 38:145-160 https://doi.org/10.1
080/03066150.2010.53 8582 – Professor of Economics and Economic History, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona
“Engels also wrongly wrote that ‘the energy value of a hammer, a screw or a needle calculated according to the costs of production is an impossible quantity’, concluding, ‘In my opinion it is absolutely impossible to try and express economic relations in physical magnitudes’. Engels’ reaction to Podolinsky’s work, and Marx’s silence from mid-1880 to the end of his life in early 1883, were a missed chance for a Marxian approach to agricultural and economic history based on the study of energy metabolism, and this omission affected the Marxian tradition long after. ”Joan Martínez-Alier and José Manuel Naredo (1982) – A Marxist precursor of energy economics: Podolinsky – The Journal of Peasant Studies 9:207-224 https://doi.org/10.1
080/0306615820843816 2 – Faculty of Economics, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
“Podolinsky was well intentioned but wrong, according to Engels, because he had mixed physics and economics. Engels meant, we think, that Marxism already had a theory of value which did not need any support from physics, as Podolinsky had sought to provide. Things had value because they were created by labour, and this value was greater than the labourcost, since labour was sold at its reproduction cost […] Marxism, by refusing to tackle energy problems, has been able to keep alive a vision of future unlimited abundance.”Alfonso M. Rodríguez de Austria Giménez de Aragón (2014) – Economía y naturaleza en Marx: el «asunto Podolisnky» como prueba de un divorcio inexistente – XIV Jornadas de economía crítica. Perspectivas económicas alternativa – Universidad de Sevilla – http://www5.uva.es/j
ec14/comunica/A_EEMA /A_EEMA_2.pdf
“Podolinsky había sufrido en 1881 un colapso que lo había dejado inhabilitado para la vida intelectual. Este breve intercambio epistolar e intelectual entre Podolisnky, Marx y Engels, se convirtió un siglo después en una de las pruebas más citadas y concluyentes del divorcio existente en el pensamiento de Marx entre economía y naturaleza. Los artífices de la prueba fueron Joan Martínez Alier y José Manuel Naredo, para los cuales Marx y Engels rechazaron las valiosas aportaciones de Podolinsky al no encontrarle acomodo en el sistema teórico que habían desarrollado […] El presente trabajo analiza el “asunto Podolinsky” para concluir que difícilmente puede adquirir el valor de prueba de un divorcio, por lo demás, inexistente.”Vladimir I. Vernadski (1924) – La Géochimie – Librairie Félix Alcan – Membre de l’Académie des Sciences de Russie + Professeur agréé à l’Université de Paris
« L’histoire des idées que concernent l’énergetique de la vie… nous presente une suite presque ininterrompue de penseurs, de savants et de philosophes, arrivant aux mémes idées plus ou moins independamment Un savant ukrainien mort jeune, S. Podolinsky, a compris toute la portée de ces idées et a taché de les appliquer à l’étude des phenomènes econòmiques. » (p. 334-335)Joan Martinez-Alier (2011) – The EROI of agriculture and its use by the Via Campesina – The Journal of Peasant Studies 38:145-160 https://doi.org/10.1
080/03066150.2010.53 8582 – Professor of Economics and Economic History, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona
“In contrast to its reception by Engels, Podolinsky’s analysis of agricultural energetics was noticed and praised by the ecologist Vernadski in a section of La Géochimie (1924) summarizing work by several authors who, before Schrödinger (1944), had the intuition that life slowed down the dissipation of energy. Vernadski then added a memorable phrase – Podolinsky studied the energetics of life and tried to apply his findings to the study of the economy (Vernadski 1924, 334–5) – a phrase that recalls the title of Georgescu-Roegen’s The Entropy Law and the Economic Process (1971). Thus, in the field of science, Vernadski’s praise certainly compensates for Engels’ (and Burkett’s and Foster’s) rebuke. ”Frederick Soddy (1926,2021) – Wealth, Virtual Wealth and Debt: The Solution of the Economic Paradox – Omnia Veritas Ltd – Universiy of Michigan – ISBN-13 : 978-1913890537- 310 Págs.
“Debts are subject to the laws of mathematics rather than physics. Unlike wealth, which is subject to the laws of thermodynamics, debts do not rot with old age. On the contrary, they grow at so much per annum, by the well known mathematical laws of simple and compound interest.” (p. 70) [Citado en Cutler J. Cleveland (1999)]W. Fred Cottrell (1955) – Energy and Society: the Relation Between Energy, Social Change, and Economic Development – McGraw Hill – Miami (Ohio) University – ISBN-13: 978-1449031695 – 484 Págs.
“if you want this, here are the conditions under which you may have it […] It will only be when we get a response from nature, in the form of greatly diminished return in the form of surplus energy, that we can expect the present [industrial] revolution to slow down.”Arthur S. Eddington (1927,2021) – The Nature of the Physical World. Gifford Lectures – Cambridge University Press – ISBN-13 : 978-3735732668 – 244 Págs. – http://henry.pha.jhu
.edu/Eddington.2008. pdf
“If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell’s equations⎯then so much the worse for Maxwell’s equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observations⎯well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation. This exaltation of the second law is not unreasonable. ” (p. 37)W. Fred Cottrell (1955) – Energy and Society: the Relation Between Energy, Social Change, and Economic Development – McGraw Hill – Miami (Ohio) University
“It will only be when we get a response from nature, in the form of greatly diminished return in the form of surplus energy, that we can expect the present [industrial] revolution to slow down.”Jacques Grinevald (1996) – La Ley de la Entropía y el proceso económico. Prólogo – Fundación Argentaria/ Visor – ISBN-13: 978-8477749738 – 728 Págs. – http://www.fcmanriqu
e.org/publiDetalle.p hp?idPublicacion=107
“No es hiperbólico sostener que The Entropy Law and Me Economics Process de Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen (1971) representa un hito simbólico análogo a De Revolutionibus orbium caelestium, de Nicolás Copérnico (1543) o El Origen de las especies, de Charles Darwin (1859). GeorgescuRoegen ha situado además su investigación científica en la referida genealogía de Copérnico y Darwin, enaltecida por la presencia de Freud.” (p. 35) [Citado por Jorge Riechmann]Clive L. Spash (2013) – The Ecological Economics of Boulding’s Spaceship Earth – Institute for the Environment and Regional Development SRE-Discussion 2013/02 – Institute for the Multi-Level Governance and Development, Department of Socio-Economics, WU Vienna + University of Economics and Business, Vienna – http://www-sre.wu.ac
.at/sre-disc/sre-dis c-2013_02.pdf
“On the basis of the Spaceship Earth essay one might have expected greater cooperation and association with like-minded others, such as Georgescu-Roegen and Herman Daly. Yet, this did not happen and Boulding (1981 p.191) himself explains why, as follows: ‘Herman Daly, Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen and I, indeed, once thought of forming a society of heretics like ourselves, but it never got under way because we could not agree on the name for it, which perhaps revealed that our heresies were rather different. Georgescu-Roegen being concerned with entropy, Herman Daly with the stationary state, and I with a sustainable social evolution. This difference has persisted over the years, though in no way was it a detriment to our friendships. However, the situation does not seem to have been quite so amicable, amongst all parties, as Boulding tries to claim here.”Crelis F. Rammelt and Phillip Crisp (2014) – A systems and thermodynamics perspective on technology in the circular economy – Real-World Economics Review 68:25-40 – University of New South Wales; University of Amsterdam + EcoSolve, Australia – http://www.paecon.ne
t/PAEReview/issue68/ RammeltCrisp68.pdf
“System dynamics and thermodynamics tell us that a tolerable rate of throughput and entropic transformation is ultimately dictated by the natural system, not by economics or engineering.”Crelis F. Rammelt and Phillip Crisp (2014) – A systems and thermodynamics perspective on technology in the circular economy – Real-World Economics Review 68:25-40 – University of New South Wales; University of Amsterdam + EcoSolve, Australia – http://www.paecon.ne
t/PAEReview/issue68/ RammeltCrisp68.pdf
“Several approaches with strong engineering content help perpetuate the promise: 3. Natural capitalism incorporates “business strategies built around the radically more productive use of natural resources [that] can solve many environmental problems at a profit” (Lovins et al. 1999: 145).”Robert U. Ayres and Benjamin Warr (2009) – The Economic Growth Engine: How Energy and Work Drive Material Prosperity – Edward Elgar Publishing – IIASA Laxenburg + INSEAD Fontainebleau; Center for the Management of Environmental Resources (CMER), INSEAD – ISBN-13: 978-1848441828 – 448 Págs.
“Note that the Ramsey model is a perpetual motion machine.” (p. 143)Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen (1971) – The Entropy Law and the Economic Process – Harvard University Press – ISBN: 1-58348-600-3 – 457 Págs.
“Perhaps the earth can support even forty-five billion people, but certainly not ad infinitum. We should therefore ask «how long can the earth maintain a population of forty-five billion people?» And if the answer is, say, one thousand years, we still have to ask «what will happen thereafter?».”Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen (1976) – Energy and Economic Myths: Institutional and Analytical Economic Essays – Pergamon Press – Vanderbilt University – ISBN-13 : 978-0080210278 – 400 Págs.
“La Ley de la Entropía, y esto es de suma importancia para el estudiante de economía, es la raíz de la escasez económica. De no ser por esta ley, podríamos usar la energía de un trozo de carbón una y otra vez, transformándolo en calor, el calor en trabajo y el trabajo de nuevo en calor, Asimismo, motores, casas e incluso los organismos vivos (si de alguna manera pudieran existir en tales condiciones) nunca se desgastarían. No habría diferencia económica entre los bienes materiales y la tierra ricardiana [inmutable, en el sentido en que la definió David Ricardo]. En tal mundo imaginario, puramente mecánico, no habría verdadera escasez de energía y bienes materiales. Una población tan grande como la que permitiera el espacio de nuestro planeta viviría indefinidamente.” (p. 9-10)[Texto citado por Óscar Carpintero (2006)]
Robert U. Ayres (1996) – Limits to the growth paradigm – Ecological Economics 117-134 https://doi.org/10.1
016/0921-8009(96)000 64-X – INSEAD Fontainebleau
“It is simply wrong to suggest (or imagine) that economic development is a natural process that will occur anywhere in the world, if we only allow businessmen enough freedom to move money and goods around.”Ricardo A. Rodríguez et al (2016) – Exploring the spontaneous contribution of Claude E. Shannon to eco-evolutionary theory – Ecological Modelling 327:57–64 https://doi.org/10.1
016/j.ecolmodel.2015 .12.021 – 18/02/2016 – 6203, Lucy Avenue, Apartment A, Tampa, FL 33619 – 14 autores
“This article performs an analysis of the article in which Claude E. Shannon proposed his now famous H measure of information amount, by finding that four crucial traits analyzed by Shannon in regard to the meaning of H in information theory […] have strong theoretical connections with several important and well-known ecological phenomena […] in practice, Shannon was also investigating in ecology and evolutionary biology, despite he was neither an ecologist nor an evolutionary biologist.”Peter A. Corning (2007) – Thermoeconomics: Beyond the Second Law – Journal of Bioeconomics (in press) – Institute for the Study of Complex Systems – http://www.complexsy
stems.org/publicatio ns/pdf/thermoecon.pd f
“In brief, many of these Second Law theorists seriously misinterpret and thus misuse the concept of entropy; others utilize deficient concepts of “information” that cannot be operationalized; many blur the crucial distinction between statistical or structural forms of “order”, on the one hand, and evolved, goal-directed functional “organization”; not least, they have been misled by some of the very “gods” of physics into conflating energetic order/disorder and physical order, which in many cases is not correct (see below).”D. Layzer (1976) – The Arrow of Time – Astrophysical Journal 206:559-569 https://doi.org/ 10.1086/154413 – Harvard University
“A preferred direction in time is defined by four classes of physical processes: entropy generating processes, which define the thermodynamic arrow; information-generating processes, which define the historical arrow; the cosmic expansion, which defines the cosmological arrow; and the decay of neutral kaons, which defines the microscopic arrow. A theory is developed which shows that the thermodynamic, historical, and cosmological arrows can be derived from two closely related cosmological postulates.” Ugo Bardi (2014) – Mind Sized World Models – Sustainability 5:896-911 https://doi.org/10.3
390/su5030896 – Department of Earth Sciences, University of Florence
“Thermodynamic potentials are implicit in the equations that describe the behavior of SD models […] What makes stocks flow? This is a fundamental question implicit in all system dynamics models which, if they are to describe the real world, must obey the laws of physics. We know that all changes occurring in the universe are the result of the tendency of entropy to increase. A practical way to view transformations in non-isolated systems is by means of the concept of thermodynamic potential, that combines the first and the second law of thermodynamics. It is normally expressed in the form of a state function called ’Free Energy.’ The rule is that any spontaneous transformation in any system must move in the direction of reducing the value of the free energy, i.e., of the potential.”Erwin Schrödinger (1943) – ¿Qué es la vida? – Tusquets Editores – ISBN 9788472236073 – 144 Págs.
“Todo proceso, suceso o acontecimiento —llámese como se quiera—, en una palabra, todo lo que pasa en la Naturaleza, significa un aumento de la entropía de aquella parte del mundo donde ocurre. Por lo tanto, un organismo vivo aumentará continuamente su entropía o, como también puede decirse, produce entropía positiva —y al hacerlo tiende a aproximarse al peligroso estado de entropía máxima que es la muerte—. Sólo puede mantenerse lejos de ella, es decir, vivo, extrayendo continuamente entropía negativa de su medio ambiente, lo cual es algo muy positivo, como enseguida veremos. De lo que un organismo vivo se alimenta es de entropía negativa. O, para expresarlo menos paradójicamente, el punto esencial del metabolismo es aquel en el que el organismo consigue liberarse de toda la entropía que no puede dejar de producir mientras está vivo.” (p. 71-72)Ilya Prigogine (1983) – ¿Tan sólo una ilusión? – Tusquets Editores – ISBN-13: 978-8472236110 – 336 Págs.
“La característica nueva de mayor relieve es que, cuando nos apartamos mucho de las condiciones de no equilibrio, se originan nuevos estados en la materia. Llamo a estos casos ‘estructuras disipativas’, porque presentan estructura y coherencia, y su mantenimiento implica una disipación de energía.” (p. 185)Eric D. Schneider y Dorion Sagan (2005) – La termodinámica de la vida: Física, cosmología, ecología y evolución – Tusquets Editores – National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminsitration (NASA) – ISBN-13: 978-84-8383-052-9 – 438 Págs. – https://tinyurl.com/
ypvxr7yz
“Creemos que nuestra versión ampliada de la segunda ley («la naturaleza aborrece los gradientes») se aplica también a la economía. Aunque más subjetivos que los gradientes físicos y químicos de los sistemas termodinámicos estándares, los gradientes económicos y las organizaciones que los reducen son dignos de consideración […] no debería sorprendernos que nuestra economía manifieste procesos organísmicos. Es un sistema termodinámico complejo, conectado a través del ajetreo humano, de nuestras interacciones y transacciones, con la energía del Sol. Así pues, la economía no debe entenderse como un sistema exclusivamente humano y cerrado en sí mismo; compuesta de agentes racionales e irracionales, la economía cabalga sobre el ecosistema global.” (p. 350,352)Carlos de Castro Carranza (2008) – El Origen de Gaia: una teoría holista de la evolución – Editorial Abecedario, Badajoz – Departamento de Física Aplicada, Universidad de Valladolid – ISBN-13: 978-8496560604 – 316 Págs.
“Una interpretación preciosa de la entropía la da Harvey Leff: la entropía es una medida del grado con el que la energía se esparce y comparte en un sistema. La segunda ley pues dice que en la naturaleza es máxima la difusión y el reparto entre las partes del sistema de la energía; es una ley de equidad […] Hemos cambiado radicalmente la forma de interpretación clásica [de la segunda ley de la termodinámica] y hemos mostrado que en realidad es una ley que no es contradictoria con la presencia de la vida ni determina su continuidad o muerte. Es más, en cierta interpretación es una ley de equidad, muestra tan sólo una tendencia del universo a compartir la energía libre que dispone entre sus partes. Una ley de generosidad y amor en una interpretación antropocéntrica. ”Carlos de Castro – Cuatro cosas básicas sobre entropía que todo ecologista y/o interesado en el pico del petróleo, los límites del crecimiento y el colapso de la civilización debería conocer – Grupo de Energía y Dinámica de Sistemas, 09/02/2015 – https://bit.ly/41o6p
Z1
“1) La entropía no es desorden, ni caos, ni muerte. Es dispersión, reparto, multiplicidad [de la energía]; 2) La intervención del ser humano en la biosfera no aumenta la entropía que se produce en la Tierra, la disminuye; 3) La ley de la entropía pone límites, pero la economía-metabolismo de la civilización actual humana es mucho más chapucera y sus límites no los pone la entropía sino otras leyes ecológicas y humanas; 4) La complejidad y la evolución de la vida no luchan contra la entropía, surgen de ella [condición necesaria, ¿suficiente?] ”David Rogers Tilley (2004) – Howard T. Odum’s contribution to the laws of energy – Ecological Modelling 178:121–125 https://doi.org/10.1
016/j.ecolmodel.2003 .12.032 – Department of Biological Resources Engineering, University of Maryland – http://www.unicamp.b r/fea/ortega/extensa o/davidtilley-2.pdf
“H.T. Odum’s life-long search for the energy basis of general systems principles culminated in proposals for three new energy laws, which if accepted, would double the number currently recognized by engineers and scientists. I review the evolution of his thinking on proposals for a 4th (self-organization for maximum empower), 5th (energy transformation hierarchy) and 6th (coupling of biogeochemical cycles to energy transformation hierarchies) law of energy.”Matthieu Auzanneau – François Roddier par-delà l’effet de la Reine Rouge – Oil Man – Le Monde, 30/10/2013 – http://petrole.blog.
lemonde.fr/2013/10/3 0/francois-roddier-p ar-dela-leffet-de-la -reine-rouge/
“»Elle [la loi de production maximale d’entropie] a le mérite de rattacher la biologie aux lois de la physique. Elle s’applique aussi aux sciences humaines. Les sociétés humaines s’auto-organiseraient pour maximiser leur taux de dissipation d’énergie.» Selon Roddier, l’apparition au cours de l’histoire de l’univers de formes de structures dissipatives maximisant autour d’elles l’entropie de façon sans cesse plus efficace constitue le sens même de l’évolution, «du Big Bang aux sciences sociales».” Leonid M. Martyushev (2013) – Entropy and Entropy Production: Old Misconceptions and New Breakthroughs – Entropy 15:1152-1170 https://doi.org/10.3
390/e15041152 – Institute of Industrial Ecology, Russian Academy of Sciences + Ural Federal University – http://www.mdpi.com/ 1099-4300/15/4/1152/ pdf
“In our opinion, the maximum entropy production principle “governs” not only the evolution of nonequilibrium physical and chemical systems but also “guides” the biological evolution. Indeed, this principle is closely connected with multiple hypotheses existing in the evolutionary biology.”Axel Kleidon and Ralph D. Lorenz (Eds.) (2004) – Non-equilibrium thermodynamics and the production of entropy: life, Earth, and beyond – Springer – Max-Planck-Institut für Biogeochemie – ISBN-13: 978-3540224
952 – 264 Págs.
“Fig. 2.2. Sketched here qualitatively is the rise of order, form, and structure typifying the evolution of localized material systems throughout the history of the Universe. This family of curves connotes the widespread, innate feeling that complexity of ordered structures has generally increased over the course of time. Whether this rise of complexity has been linear, exponential, or hyperbolic (as drawn here), current research aims to specify this curve, to characterize it quantitatively. All subsequent graphs in this article have the same temporal scale ”Axel Kleidon (2022) – Working at the limit: A review of thermodynamics and optimality of the Earth system – Earth System Dynamics Discussions https://doi.org/10.5
194/esd-2022-38 – https://esd.copernic us.org/preprints/esd -2022-38/esd-2022-38 .pdf
“This review aims to clarify the role of thermodynamics and optimality in Earth system science by showing that it plays a pivotal role in how, and how much, work can be derived from the solar forcing, and that this imposes a major constraint to the dynamics of dissipative structures of the Earth system. This is, however, not as simple as it may sound. It requires a consistent formulation of Earth system processes in thermodynamic terms, including their linkages and interactions.”Howard T. Odum (1995) – Self-Organization and Maximum Empower – En: Charles A.S. Hall (Ed.) (1995), Maximum power: The Ideas and Applications of H.T. Odum, University Press of Colorado, ISBN-13: 978-0870813627, 393 págs.
“During self-organization, system designs develop and prevail that maximize power intake, energy transformation, and those uses that reinforce production and efficiency.”
[Citado por Jorge Riechmann (2016)]Howard T. Odum (2007) – Environment, Power, and Society for the Twenty-First Century: The Hierarchy of Energy – Columbia University Press – Center for Environmental Policy, University of Florida – ISBN-13: 978-0231128
872 – 432 Págs.
“Ecologists have documented the pattern of small centers to larger centers in the relationship of leaves, branches, and tree trunks and in such animal cities as nests of ants and termites. Extensive studies on geomorphology, stream branching, hydrology, and energetics of watersheds were made by Luna Leopold (Leopold and Langbein 1962) and others (Jarvis and Woldenberg 1984). The flow of water self-organizes hierarchies of water channels converging on larger streams [np 6: Luna Leopold discussed the energetics of watersheds in relation to Ilya Prigogine’s early theory that systems organize to minimize power. As explained in chapter 3 and illustrated in chapter 5, the opposite is true. Watersheds self-organize for maximum power, as do chemical reaction systems, which Prigogine finally recognized later, reversing himself, with his dissipative structures theory]. ” (p. 76,100)Jorge Riechmann (2021) – Informe a la Subcomisión de Cuaternario – Árdora Ediciones – Profesor titular de Filosofía Moral, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid – ISBN-13 : 978-8488020758 – 448 Págs.
“El lema comercial de la sociedad de la mercancía es NO LIMITS. El primer mandamiento de una sociedad que quiera tener futuro en el tercer planeta del Sistema Solar es asumir límites.” (p. 145-146)Carlos de Castro (2019) – Reencontrando a Gaia. A hombros de James Lovelock y Lynn Margulis – Ediciones del Genal – Departamento de Física Aplicada, Universidad de Valladolid – ISBN-13: 97884179743
67 – 269 Págs.
“Cuarta ley (en construcción): si existen varios caminos para aumentar la entropía, se favorecerá el más rápido de acuerdo con los grados de libertad locales que se tengan. De nuevo expresado antropocéntricamente: el universo no solo se ama, sino que lo hace apasionadamente. Se reparte la energía a la mayor velocidad que le es posible.” (p. 71) I. di Terlizzi et al (2024) – Variance sum rule for entropy production – Science 383:971-976 https://doi.org/10.1
126/science.adh1823 – Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems + Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia, Università di Padova – 7 autores
“Entropy in a closed system is a measure of the disorder or randomness and represents the energy unavailable to do work. Di Terlizzi et al. propose a method for evaluating the steady-state entropy production in nonequilibrium stochastic systems (see the Perspective by Roldán). This method is achieved using a variance sum rule that connects changes in positions with the forces required to restore those positions. The approach was verified using high-resolution experimental data on optically trapped Brownian particles and red blood cells, including stretching of the cells and contour fluctuations, a measure of the cells’ metabolic activity.”
[Comentario del editor Marc S. Lavine]Juan Carlos Barba – Hemos chocado con el iceberg y aún no nos hemos enterado – El Confidencial, 19/06/2015 – http://blogs.elconfi
dencial.com/economia /grafico-de-la-seman a/2015-06-19/hemos-c hocado-con-el-iceber g-y-aun-no-nos-hemos -enterado_892175/
“Como destaca el informe anual de BP, la producción ha aumentado solo el 0,9%, un hecho insólito fuera de períodos sin crisis económica grave. Esto se debe a que hay un desfase temporal entre la inversión en energía y su reflejo en las cifras de producción. Este aumento del 0,9% está por debajo del de la población mundial, lo que se traduce en una menor disponibilidad energética per cápita, un probable cambio de tendencia secular.»Maria Ribeiro et al (2021) – The Entropy Universe – Entropy 23:222 https://doi.org/10.3
390/e23020222 – Institute for Systems and Computer Engineering, Technology and Science (INESC-TEC) + Computer Science Department, Faculty of Sciences, University of Porto – https://www.mdpi.com /1099-4300/23/2/222/ pdf – 7 autores
“This paper presents The Entropy Universe, which aims to review the many variants of entropies applied to time-series. The purpose is to answer research questions such as: How did each entropy emerge? What is the mathematical definition of each variant of entropy? How are entropies related to each other? What are the most applied scientific fields for each entropy? […] The universe of entropies is growing each day, either due to the introducing new variants either due to novel applications. Knowing each entropy’s strengths and of limitations is essential to ensure the proper improvement of this research field.»Eric D. Schneider y Oriol Sagan (2005) – La termodinámica de la vida: Física, cosmología, ecología y evolución – Tusquets Editores – National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminsitration – ISBN-13: 978-84-8383-052-9 – 438 Págs.
«Si, para un jugador, la primera ley equivaldría a «no puedes ganar», la segunda ley sería «no puedes no perder» y la tercera «no puedes abandonar el juego»” (p. 73)Ugo Bardi – Entropy, peak oil, and Stoic philosophy – Cassandra’s Legacy, 15/05/2011 – http://cassandralega
cy.blogspot.com/2011 /05/peak-oil-thermod ynamics-and-stoic.ht ml
“From Marcus’ “Meditations” and from what I read about stoicism, I think I can summarize the basic idea as: “You cannot win against entropy, but you must behave as if you could.” Of course, Marcus didn’t know about entropy, but he had very clear how the universe is in continuous flow. Things change and this is the only unchangeable truth. I think this is our destiny and what we have to do.”Gregory Bateson (1972) – Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology – University of Chicago Press – ISBN-13: 978-0226039053 – 565 Págs. – https://bit.ly/3KStf
js
“The major problems in the world are the result of the difference between how nature works and the way people think.”Gregory Bateson (1972) – Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology – University of Chicago Press – ISBN-13: 978-0226039053 – 565 Págs. – http://www.edtechpos
t.ca/readings/Gregor y%20Bateson%20-%20Ec ology%20of%20Mind.pd f
“The ideas were generated in many places: in Vienna by Bertalanffy, in Harvard by Wiener, in Princeton by von Neumann, in Bell Telephone labs by Shannon, in Cambridge by Craik, and so on. All these separate developments dealt with […] the problem of what sort of thing is an organized system […] I think that cybernetics is the biggest bite out of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge that mankind has taken in the last 2000 years.”Transforming the World in an Era of Global Change – 3rd Nobel Laureate Symposium on Global Sustainability – Stockholm Resilience Centre, 19/05/2011 – http://globalsymposi
um2011.org/wp-conten t/uploads/2011/05/re silience_summaryXlow 2.pdf
“Key Messages: Policy makers around the world need to adopt a new systems thinking that pays much more attention to the negative side-effects of quick fixes and recognises the numerous possibilities in investing in sustainable use of ecosystems and their services.”George Monbiot (2022) – Regenesis: Feeding the World Without Devouring the Planet – Penguin Books – ISBN-13 : 978-0241447642 – 352 Págs.
“In 1939, just as complex systems first began to be described by scientists. John Steinbeck, in The Grapes of Wrath, instinctively discerned how they had begun to dominate our lives: It happens that every man in a bank hates what the bank does, and yet the bank does it. The bank is something more than men, I tell you. It’s the monster. Men made it, but they can’t control it.” (p. 29)John D. Sterman (2000) – Business dynamics: systems thinking and modeling for a complex world – McGraw-Hill Higher Education – Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology – ISBN-13 : 978-0072389159 – 768 Págs. – https://esd.mit.edu/
WPS/internal-symposi um/esd-wp-2003-01.13 .pdf
“A fundamental principle of system dynamics states that the structure of the system gives rise to its behavior. However, people have a strong tendency to attribute the behavior of others to dispositional rather than situational factors, that is, to character and especially character flaws rather than the system in which these people are acting. The tendency to blame the person rather than the system is so strong psychologists call it the “fundamental attribution error”.” (p. 28)Peter M. Senge (1990,2006) – The Fifth Discipline: the Art and Practice of the Learning Organization – Doubleday Currency – Center for Organizational Learning at MIT’s Sloan School of Management – ISBN-13 : 978-1905211203 – 464 Págs.
“Systems thinking is a discipline for seeing wholes. It is a framework for seeing interrelationships rather than things, for seeing patterns of change rather than static «snapshots.» It is a set of general principles—distilled over the course of the twentieth century, spanning fields as diverse as the physical and social sciences, engineering, and management. It is also a set of specific tools and techniques, originating in two threads: in «feedback» concepts of cybernetics and in «servomechanism» engineering theory dating back to the nineteenth century. During the last thirty years, these tools have been applied to understand a wide range of corporate, urban, regional, economic, political, ecological, and even physiological systems.1 And systems thinking is a sensibility—for the subtle interconnectedness that gives living systems their unique character ” (p. 53)K.J. Åström (1999) – Automatic Control: The Hidden Technology – Advances in Control 1-28 https://doi.org/10.1
007/978-1-4471-0853- 5_1 – Lund Institute of Technology – http://math.haifa.ac .il/robotics/UBC/Mee ch%20course/Aastrom% 20%20Karl/Introducti on%20to%20Control/le cture17.pdf
“Windmills 1787, Steam engines 1788, Governors 1890, Water turbines 1893, Tolle Die Regelung der Kraftmaschinen 1905, PID controllers 1930”K.J. Åström (2004) – Control Engineering: the Hidden Technology – DCSC Symposium, 08/06/2004 – University of California at Santa Barbara + Lund Institute of Technology – http://www.dcsc.tude
lft.nl/Symposium/Sli desAstrom.pdf
“Body and Soul · Intellectual challenges (the soul) Basics that it generalizes easily Give the general picture Make the introductory course more relevant and fun! · The engineering aspect (the body) Educate students broadly enough so that they can take full systems responsibility ”Nate Hagens (2018) – Energy, Money and Technology – From the Lens of the Superorganism – WEP2018 TV (Saudi Aramco) – University of Minessota – https://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=2DpfsqjQ bP0
“Our virtual world in our minds create orders of magnitude more possibilities that can manifest in a physical world […] scientifically trained minds are still susceptible to this but less so.” (min. 5:05)Henryk Skolimowski (1994,2016) – La mente participativa – Ediciones Atalanta – 01/01/1994 – Chair of Eco-Philosophy, Technical University of Lodz
“En un primer momento, cuando se propuso el pensamiento sistemático en la década de los sesenta, pareció ser una gran promesa. Sin embargo, con el paso del tiempo acabaría por convertirse en un siervo del pensamiento científico. Se ha esforzado por ser objetivo y por hacer valer únicamente aquellos fenómenos reconocidos y autorizados por la ciencia, cuyo contexto y cosmología ha aceptado. Ha servido de herramienta para la ideología científica. De ninguna manera ha desafiado o trascendido el modo objetivo del pensamiento científico. De ahí su estancamiento y el hecho de que no se convirtiera en un nuevo inicio para el pensamiento humano.” (p. 232-233)Henryk Skolimowski (1994,2016) – La mente participativa – Ediciones Atalanta – Chair of Eco-Philosophy, Technical University of Lodz – ISBN-13: 978-8494523
168 – 488 Págs.
“El pensamiento sistemático y el cibernético se han «objetivizado»; posteriormente, el mecanicismo se ha apropiado de ellos. En el proceso, se ha mermado su potencial para la creación de nuevas formas de pensar.” (p. 233-234)Eric D. Schneider y Dorion Sagan (2005) – La termodinámica de la vida: Física, cosmología, ecología y evolución – Tusquets Editores – National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminsitration – ISBN-13: 978-84-8383-052-9 – 438 Págs.
“Continuando con el despiadado ataque a nuestro orgullo […] del resto de la naturaleza […] Tal vez la vida, que tiene tanto en común con otros sistemas complejos energéticamente organizados, tenga en el fondo la prosaica función de transformar energía. Sabíamos que no éramos tan especiales. Pero el terrible espectro, la oscura sombra de la termodinámica nos amenaza ahora con revelarnos que podríamos ser aún menos especiales de lo que creíamos […] Para entrar en la lista de éxitos evolutiva, los supervivientes pueden tocar sus propios instrumentos de percusión, pero deben danzar al ritmo del ecosistema como totalidad funcional. Deben encontrar su nicho. Dicho de otro modo, la contingencia no es absoluta, sino que está influida por la termodinámica.” (p. 20,304)Phil W. Anderson (1972) – More is different: Broken symmetry and the nature of the hierarchical structure of science – Science 177:393-396 https://doi.org/10.1
126/science.177.4047 .393 – 04/08/1972 – Bell Telephone Laboratories – https://www.physics. ohio-state.edu/~jay/ 880/moreisdifferent. pdf
“The reductionist hypothesis may still be a topic for controversy among philosophers, but amog the great majority of active scientists I think it is accepted without question. The workings of our minds and bodies, and of all the animated and inanimated matter of which we have any detailed knowledge, are assumed to be controlled by the same set of fundamental laws, which except under certain extreme conditions we feel we know very well […] The main fallacy in this kind of thinking is that the reductionist hypothesis does not by any means imply a ‘constructionist’ one: the ability to reduce everything to simple fundamental laws does not imply the ability to start from those laws and reconstruct the universe.”George Monbiot – All Hat and No Cattle – George Monbiot, 02/08/2023 – https://www.monbiot.
com/2023/08/02/all-h at-and-no-cattle/
“Several of them, including members of the Savory Network, tried to explain the debate as a clash between “holism” (Allan) and “reductionism” (me). Reductionism is a term often used by people who are freaked out by empirical evidence. In reality, this was a clash between handwaving and scientific evidence. And sorry, but mystifying waffle is the exact opposite of holistic.”Eugene Cittadino (2006) – Ecology and American Social Thought – En: Religion and the New Ecology: Environmental Responsibility in a World in Flux, David M. Lodge and Christopher Hamlin (Eds.) (2006), ISBN: 978-0-268-03404-7 – Gallatin School of Individualized Study, New York University
“H.T. Odum, brother of Eugene […] who read Lotka’s Elements, had become enamored with the technocracy movement led by Howard Scott (1933) and he transferred the movement’s optimistic view […] to the study of ecosystems. In Odum’s hands the earlier organic metaphors that dominated ecology gave way to mechanical metaphors based on electrical circuitry and, eventually, cybernetics […] H.T. Odum reduced everything to energy transfers, constructing complex energy-flow diagrams with input and output boxes resembling, quite deliberately, electrical circuitry [ref]. Still, the sense of integral, self-sustaining units was not lost. Eugene Odum included Howard’s circuit diagrams in the second and third editions of Fundamentals of Ecology, although he himself retained the older organicist perspective, treating ecosystems as organic units that respond to environmental perturbation as functional wholes [refs].” (p. 85)Howard T. Odum (1960) – Ecological potential and analogue circuits for the ecosystem – American Scientist 48:1-8 – The Ecosystem and the Economix – University of Florida
“To avoid confusion it should be stated here that the concepts discussed here have nothing to do with the misnomer, biotic potential, which is not a potential in the energy sense but is a specific growth rate. Chapman’s efforts (1928) to draw an analogy between Ohm’s law and biotic potential are fallacious as can be recognized by dimensional analysis. ”Edgar Morin (2014) – From the Concept of System to the Paradigm of Complexity – Man of the World, 03/12/2014 – Director of Research at the Centre National de Recherche Scientifique – http://manoftheword.
files.wordpress.com/ 2013/07/morin-paradi gm-of-complexity.pdf
“The system paradigm demands that we master, not nature, but the desire for mastery (as Michel Serres has urged), 4 which opens up for us forms of action which necessarily entail self-consciousness and self-control.”Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1947,1968) – General System Theory. Foundations, Development, Applications – George Brazilller – University of Alberta – ISBN-13: 978-0807604533 – 289 Págs. – https://monoskop.org
/images/7/77/Von_Ber talanffy_Ludwig_Gene ral_System_Theory_19 68.pdf
“The unifying principle is that we find organization at all levels. The mechanistic world view, taking the play of physical particles as ultimate reality, found its expression in a civilization which glorifies physical technology that has led eventually to the catastrophes of our time. Possibly the model of the world as a great organization can help to reinforce the sense of reverence for the living which we have almost lost in the last sanguinary decades of human history.” (p. 49)Richard Mattessich (1982) – The Systems Approach: Its Variety of Aspects – Journal of the American Society for Information Science 33:383-394 https://doi.org/10.1
002/asi.4630330609 – Distinguished Arthur Andersen Co. Professor Faculty of Commerce and Business Administration, University of British Columbia – https://www.academia .edu/23623219/The_sy stems_approach_Its_v ariety_of_aspects
“A German version of the decisive first two volumes of Bogdanov’s much more comprehensive presentation of systems organization was published in Bertalanffy’s own mother tongue as early as 1926-1928, and was subsequently reviewed in the pertinent German literature […] it seems highly unlikely that such a widely read scholar as von Bertalanffy, who concerned himself with research in the general systems field for nearly four decades, never encountered the German translation of Tektologia or the name of its author— a name famous enough to occupy a separate section in the Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1967).”Sven E. Jørgensen and Brian D. Fath (2004) – Application of thermodynamic principles in ecology – Ecological Complexity 1:267–280 – Department of Environmental Chemistry, Royal Danish University of Pharmaceutical Sciences; Biology Department, Towson University – http://gip.uniovi.es
/docume/science.pdf
“Current developments in ecosystem theory to understand ecological complexity, particularly those incorporating and applying thermodynamic principles, are making it possible to integrate various ecosystem approaches into a consistent theoretical framework. The time, therefore, seems right to apply this theory to explain observations published in the ecological literature that typically lack linkages to ecological theory or other rule-based explanations. This paper presents the foundations of that theory of ecological complexity.”Paul R. Ehrlich – Ghastly Future: A Survival Revolution in Response – Millennium Alliance for Humanity and Biosphere, 10/02/2021 – https://mahb.stanfor
d.edu/blog/ghastly-f uture-a-survival-rev olution-in-response/
“The first element of such a revolution would be to generate broad understanding of the need for and nature of the required rapid change. The human enterprise today can be seen as two gigantic interacting complex adaptive systems (CASs), biophysical and cultural. Each CAS contains many random elements and is “self-organized.” In the safest prediction of their trajectories, as they race toward collapse in the years ahead, they will display many emergent features, often emerging at unpredictable times, places, and scales.”Renée Weber (Ed.) (1986) – Dialogues with Scientists and Sages: The Search for Unity – The Penguin Group – Professor of Philosophy, Rutgers University – ISBN-13: 978-0710206558 – 268 Págs.
“Prigogine: If we had […] started to study very complex systems, perhaps modern science would never have arisen.” We would have stayed in the period of Aristotle.” (p. 191)Eric D. Schneider y Dorion Sagan (2005) – La termodinámica de la vida: Física, cosmología, ecología y evolución – Tusquets Editores – National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminsitration – ISBN-13: 978-84-8383-052-9 – 438 Págs.
“Los sistemas organizados no vivos, como los tomados y los láseres, asf como los sistemas vivos, desde las células hasta los ecosistemas, obedecen las reglas de la termodinámica no lineal. Aunque el término «autoorganización» sale a relucir con frecuencia, no deja de ser un tanto incorrecto, como advierte el físico Jorge Wagensberg, director del Museo de la Ciencia de Barcelona. La mayoría de sistemas «autoorganizados» requieren alguna fuente externa de energía libre para mantener su organización: en realidad, son organizados por los gradientes que reducen. De ahí que sea más adecuado describirlos no como sistemas autoorganizados, sino como sistemas organizados por gradientes con atributos autorreferenciales.” (p. 121)Eric D. Schneider y Dorion Sagan (2005) – La termodinámica de la vida: Física, cosmología, ecología y evolución – Tusquets Editores – National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminsitration – ISBN-13: 978-84-8383-052-9 – 438 Págs. – https://tinyurl.com/
ypvxr7yz
“Lo que vemos aquí es que la emergencia de sistemas cíclicos energéticamente dependientes, su desarrollo e historia dependientes de la trayectoria, e incluso una especie de reproducción para hacer uso de un flujo de energía incrementado, no son propiedades exclusivas de la vida. En estos fluidos constreñidos no existen reacciones químicas, ADN, genes ni lenguaje conocido. Con todo, exhiben complejidad, el tipo de intrincación basada en gradientes que requerían, en su forma química, la genética y el origen de la vida.” (p. 171)Ken Wilber (2000) – Integral Psychology: Consciousness, Spirit, Psychology, Therapy – Shambala Publications – ISBN-13 : 978-1570625541 – 311 Págs.
“The many pop writers who claim that the major crime of the Enlightenment was gross reductionism and atomism, then claim that the cure for the Western flatland is systems theory, fail to see that systems theory is precisely part of the disease we are trying to overcome. Systems theory simply offers us holistic its instead of atomistic its, whereas both of those need to be integrated with the interior domains of the I and the we-the domains of consciousness and culture, aesthetics and morals, appreciated in their own terms. Dynamical systems theory, in all its many forms, is simply the Lower-Right quadrant, whereas we need all four quadrants without privileging any […] In short, systems theory and the Web-of-Life theories do not generally transform consciousness because, hobbled with their subtle reductionism, they do not adequately address the interior stages of consciousness development-where the real growth occurs. ” (p. 71,138)Charlotte Luyckx (2020) – L’écologie intégrale : relier les approches, intégrer les enjeux, tisser une vision – La Pensée écologique 6:77-95 https://doi.org/10.3
917/lpe.006.0077 – Groupe de Recherche Interdisciplinaire sur la Crise Ecologique, UCLouvain – https://lapenseeecol ogique.com/lecologie -integrale-relier-le s-approches-integrer -les-enjeux-tisser-u ne-vision/
« L’ontologie qu’il propose [Ken Wilber] est spiritualiste dans une perspective totalement transculturelle et transconfessionnelle : l’Esprit dont il est question peut être appréhendé tant avec le concept plotinien de l’Un, qu’avec concept bouddhiste de vacuité, ou encore le concept heideggérien d’Être. »Ken Wilber (1996,2007) – A Brief History of Everything – Shambhala Publications – iSBN-13: 9781590304501 – 544 Págs.
“[Systems theory environmentalists] reduce the Kosmos to a monological map of the eco-social system— which they usually call Gaia—a flatland map that ignores the six or seven profound interior transformations that got them to the point that they could even conceive of a global system in the first place. Consequently, this otherwise true and noble intuition of the Eco- Noetic Self [nature mystic] gets collapsed into “we’re all strands in the great web.” But that is exactly not the experience of the Eco-Noetic Self. In the nature-mystic experience, you are not a strand in the web. You are the entire web. You are doing something no mere strand ever does—you are escaping your “strandness,” transcending it, and becoming one with the entire display. To be aware of the whole system shows precisely that you are not merely a strand, which is supposed to be your official [deep ecological] stance. ”C. Jotin Khisty (2006) – Meditations on Systems Thinking, Spiritual Systems, and Deep Ecology – Systems Practical Action Research 19:295–307 https://doi.org/10.1
007/s11213-006-9019- 3 – Department of Civil and Architectural Engineering, Illinois Institute of Technology
“Spiritual systems, a category of systems we are particularly interested in, are more than a belief in a transcendental deity or a means to an afterlife. They are an orientation to the cosmos and our role in it. Spiritual systems are in a way closely connected with ecological systems and this combination has resulted in spiritual ecology, which embraces a cultural awareness of kinship with and dependence on the natural environment for the continuity of all life (Tucker and Grim 2001). Buddhism, one of the world’s great spiritual systems, offers a well-developed philosophy of our connection with nature, and this system will be described in some detail in this paper. It is closely connected with Deep Ecology, a term coined by Arne Naess in 1972 to describe the deeper and more spiritual approaches to nature (Devall and Sessions 1985). ”Jordi Pigem Pérez (2022) – Así Habla La Tierra – Ediciones Kairós – ISBN-13 : 978-8499889160 – 136 Págs.
“El bosque es más que una suma de árboles. La realidad es más que una suma de individuos. La sinfonía es más que una suma de notas. Si separáis las notas de la gran sinfonía de la realidad, pierden toda su armonía. ” (p. 50)