The Web of Life: A New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems

I thought this book was very informative and easy to understand for people who are not experts in systems theory. It provided me with a nice holistic perspective of the systems we are involved in. Through his books, Frijof Capra is spreading a holistic way of looking at life. I believe that his books serve a very important function in this age of materialism, urban alienation, spiritual confusion and chaos. Although there are many great books that serve this purpose, this is defintiely one of them. Another book that serves this wonderful purpose is, "The Ever-Transcending Spirit" by Toru Sato. It is an incredible book that uses the systems approach to understand how our subjective selves are also involved in these systems. If the world is to become a better place, both books should be read by many many more people.

The Web of Life has been a revelation to me: I have always been struck by the beauty to be uncovered in the study of biology; however, I have found too many books on biology to be dry and reductionist, completely ignoring the metaphysical, aesthetic aspect of the life sciences. This book is the first of many more I hope to read on this deeper aspect of biology and ecology. Capra looks at the life sciences through the lens of systems theory, and thus provides a very good introduction to systems theory for those (like me) who are novices. He also gives an account of life, from its earliest origins on up to the beginnings of human consciousness, working with the ideas of the main developers of systems theory over the past several decades.One of the most intriguing aspects of this theory (or perhaps I should say set of theories) for me is how it describes and works out in more detail a basic intuition that many of us have even as children (and that many spiritual traditions have always recognized): that all things are connected in a giant web-work (wheels within wheels within wheels....). Anyone responding to this intuition knows that no being can be understood without looking at both the patterns it comprises, as well as the greater patterns it is a part of.Another provocative aspect of these theories is how they push the definition of life out farther and farther, for in many ways all dissapative systems (economies, cultures, hurricanes) can be seen as having living qualities. I disagree with the criticisms of the reviewers who complain that this book is derivative and contains too few original ideas. The author's intent here was to present a synthesis of teachings on a subject which is still new to many people, whilst arguing for a more appreciative and reverent attitude towards the world we live in. The result is a book which is not only fascinating but inspiring as well.

The difference between a mechanistic and a holistic view of the Universe is even greater than the difference between a flat and a round Earth. The problem is, the vast majority of us are still stuck with a perception of the world that is based on fundamentally flawed theories passed down to us by Newton and Descartes. In other words, everything you know is wrong.We do not so much live in a universe of space filled with objects as our senses imply or as the classical physicists postulated, as we are all part of an interconnected and self-organizing universe of changing patterns and flowing energy.This holistic worldview recognizes the connections and interdependencies in the world rather than merely separating the world into parts and attempting to reconstruct it like a child playing with blocks. By trying to understand the world merely in terms of its parts we obscure the properties that emerge from the interplay between the parts. The Universe is indeed greater than the sum of its parts.Capra's outstanding achievement in "The Web of Life" is to communicate so plainly, effectively and compellingly the outline of the holistic paradigm and the impending shift. "The Web of Life" is THE primer for the dynamical systems theory that you will need to compete (and to integrate) in the 21st Century.Deep Ecology, Gaia Theory, and an incredible new theory of cognition are among the many ideas explored in the book as well as feedback loops, complexity and chaos theory, dissipative structures and autopoietic, or self-organizing, systems.This is a moving and transforming book that will inform and inspire. I refer to it constantly and give it the highest recommendation.

Frijtof Capra has made a literary career out of bridging previously polarized points of view. The Web of Life raises the concepts in The Tao of Physics to another quantum level. Profound not only in its understanding of 20th century science and the paradigm shift implied by systems theory, this book has social, political and even spiritual ramifications that challenge many of our most comfortable presumptions about "the real world." Offering the architecture of the web as a replacement for linear thinking, the book leads us through important examples to the revolutionary conclusions