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The Systems View of the World: The Natural Philosophy of the New Developments in the Sciences by Laszlo, Ervin (1995) Paperback
Book by Laszlo, Ervin
Paperback
First published January 1, 1972
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About the author
Ervin Laszlo
229 books224 followersErvin Laszlo is a systems philosopher, integral theorist, and classical pianist. Twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, he has authored more than 70 books, which have been translated into nineteen languages, and has published in excess of four hundred articles and research papers, including six volumes of piano recordings.
Dr. Laszlo is generally recognized as the founder of systems philosophy and general evolution theory, and serves as the founder-director of the General Evolution Research Group and as past president of the International Society for the Systems Sciences. He is also the recipient of the highest degree in philosophy and human sciences from the Sorbonne, the University of Paris, as well as of the coveted Artist Diploma of the Franz Liszt Academy of Budapest. Additional prizes and awards include four honorary doctorates.
His appointments have included research grants at Yale and Princeton Universities, professorships for philosophy, systems sciences, and future sciences at the Universities of Houston, Portland State, and Indiana, as well as Northwestern University and the State University of New York. His career also included guest professorships at various universities in Europe and the Far East. In addition, he worked as program director for the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR). In 1999 he was was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Canadian International Institute of Advanced Studies in Systems Research and Cybernetics.
For many years he has served as president of the Club of Budapest, which he founded. He is an advisor to the UNESCO Director General, ambassador of the International Delphic Council, member of both the International Academy of Science, World Academy of Arts and Science, and the International Academy of Philosophy.
Dr. Laszlo is generally recognized as the founder of systems philosophy and general evolution theory, and serves as the founder-director of the General Evolution Research Group and as past president of the International Society for the Systems Sciences. He is also the recipient of the highest degree in philosophy and human sciences from the Sorbonne, the University of Paris, as well as of the coveted Artist Diploma of the Franz Liszt Academy of Budapest. Additional prizes and awards include four honorary doctorates.
His appointments have included research grants at Yale and Princeton Universities, professorships for philosophy, systems sciences, and future sciences at the Universities of Houston, Portland State, and Indiana, as well as Northwestern University and the State University of New York. His career also included guest professorships at various universities in Europe and the Far East. In addition, he worked as program director for the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR). In 1999 he was was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Canadian International Institute of Advanced Studies in Systems Research and Cybernetics.
For many years he has served as president of the Club of Budapest, which he founded. He is an advisor to the UNESCO Director General, ambassador of the International Delphic Council, member of both the International Academy of Science, World Academy of Arts and Science, and the International Academy of Philosophy.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
April 26, 2018
The book is short, but deep. Ervin Laszlo, one of the great systems thinkers, discusses the integrative approach and how it could lead to a more intelligent future of the mankind. The arguments are profound and philosophical, good for further thinking. I liked the chapter about consciousness and subjectivity. As the author points out: “Subjectivity is the slave of actuality”.
December 22, 2012
I'll never do this book justice without writing something longer that it is itself. The mechanistic, reductionist view of the world we got from the classical sciences (from Newton if not before) is inadequate to explain the world. It had already failed in physics, and we're seeing it fail now in our economy and ecology. If you have any curiosity about how our world works as a set of increasingly complex and differentiated, yet interdependent, systems, you owe it to yourself to read this. (I just can't say what and how much background knowledge is needed to frame it.)
May 31, 2013
Refreshing and enlightening read.I am especially fond of the last few sentences in this book "The supreme challenge of our age is to specify, and learn to respect, the objective norms of existence within the complex and delicately balanced hierarchic order that is both in us and around us"
Although philosophical in content, it is something relevant to what i am currently pursuing and that is what i will find out in the next few years
Although philosophical in content, it is something relevant to what i am currently pursuing and that is what i will find out in the next few years
Read
September 23, 2010i stole this from my ex girlfriend's father. (sorry) good philosophical discussion.
February 14, 2022
I decided to read Ervin Laszlo’s The Systems View of the World to look at a big picture, which is what the book is about. Laszlo explains that all things grow more complex; complexity even corresponds to evolution. As different systems, whether it be the system of the human body, an organization, or a society, are found to be complex, the systems view moves from the microscopic view of the individuals that make up the parts to the macroscopic view to take all things into account. To do this, though, means having to sum up the individual parts, because all cannot be taken into account when things grow so complex. There is a part of me, as I expect of every reader, that will want to object to loss of the individual, but it is reality. While Laszlo does not pinpoint a political application, I would apply it to politics by saying those in power look at demographics more than individuals, and the individual is summed up by what groups he or she is a part of. Such is the result of a complex society. Laszlo’s observations of systems, and coming up with four principles that define a system, are interesting and helpful to take a bigger view of things, things that may seem too many to manage.
Read
July 28, 2011a very introspective book analyzing the inseparable parts of nature and that everything we do to everyone and everything else influences ourselves as well as well as challenging the reader to think in enriching simplicity, while inviting complete exploration simultaneously.
June 3, 2010
omg - the love of my life
7 - the large groups we thus come to deal w/ appear to establish their own 'personalities.' even if most of their individual members change, the groups' characteristics tend to be preserved. for example, over the years athletic teams exchange their players, w/ younger ones replacing the veteran performers. yet the teams usu maintain much of their own characteristics--their tactics and techniques, their fighting spirit, and so on. even more striking is the continuity in the case of business corporations, where everyone can be replaced, from the president to the office boy, and yet the company can continue to exist w/ very much the same features it had before. this is true for entire communities and nations--even entities as large and nebulous as cultures. individuals come and go; they remain. it is not that they are immune to change themselves, but they do not change w/ the changes in their membership. it is as though they had a life and personality of their own.
- loss of individual identity
- diff hierarchies/orders of time dimensions [w/ higher level lagging behind that of members of the swarm:]
- interneighbor (lateral)
- inter.hierarchical (vertical)
* COMMUNICATION
success is measured by the system's ability to anticipate changes in its sub- & super- structures & to cope w/ them. A hierarchically integrated systems is not, t'fore, a passive system, committed to the status quo. It is, on the contrary, a dynamic & adaptive entity, reflecting in its own functioning the patterns of change in the entire hierarchy.
nature is 'permissive' - there is purpose w/o slavery, freedom w/o anarchy...
dynamic steady-state
1. natural systems are wholes w/ irreducible properties
2. natural systems maintain themselves in a changing environment
3. natural sysytems create themselves in response to the challenge of the enviroment
each variety of cell contributes the integreated energies and fns at its disposal to the community, & in turn receives an environment which enables it to survive.
```````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
whitehead [creativity:] - phylogenesis - creative advance of nature into novelty
consciouness - subjective awareness/experience of sensations [subjectivity/sensitivity:]
- being aware of having sensations/reflection upon mental states
possession of nervous system does not serve as prerequisite for experience of consciousness [subjectivity/subjective sensations is then translated into undifferentiated sensation of pleasure/pain:]
mere subjectivity is bound to the immediacy of events;
only consciousness can liberate one from his actual experiene & enable him to ctrl it by his own will
subjectivity is the slave of actuality [it registers actual events when they take place:]
````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
good = virtue in accordance w/ the harmony of the soul
cultures satisfy not bodily needs,but values. Values define cultural man's need for rationality, meaningfulness in emotional experience, richness of imagination, and depth of faith.
````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
self-fulfillment of human potential /natural norms w/in natural systems
macrodetermination [systemic determination:] based on fnal autonomy[of the parts that make up the system:]
108 - we must not stop, t'fore, at pting to the fallacies of existing values: we must pt out the new & better values.
109 - what r the intrinsic norms of man? the grks had an answer: they said that the end of the good life is happiness. Happiness, Aristotle specified, is the fulfillment of that which is specifically human in us. Self-fulfillment, as contemporary humanistic thinkers and psychologis acknowledge, is the end of human purposeful behavior. It is the actualization of potentials inherent in all of us.
110 - fulfillment means the realization of human potentials for existence as a biological and sociocultural being. It means bodily as well as mental health. fulfillment also means acting on the environment, both the internal one of the organism and the external one of the society, and making it compatible w/ the expression of one's potentials. it calls for a dynamic process of integration and adjustment, creating conditions for the actualization of all the potential there is in man.
114 - ...the plasticity of natural systems, which act as dynamic, self-repairing wholes in regard to any deficiency.
115 - fulfillment is predicated upon the freedom to become what one is capable of being--that is, upon the fnal autonomy of human beings in society
117 - our humanistic goal is to enhance individual fulfillment in an increasingly deterministic multilevel society composed of greatly differentiated individuals. like all complex natural systems, human institutions & societies fn best when they are spontaneous expressions of the freely chosen activites of their interrelated members. such a society is the norm agst which we must measure our existing forms of social structure. what is needed is a reorientation of our cultural values in ref to the norms of individual fulfillment in a flexible and dynamic social system. ...for only if we know both where we are and where we want to go can we act purposively in seeing about getting there.
120 - now we must likewise learn the norms of our manifold ecologic, economic, political, and cutural systems. The supreme challenge of our age is to specify, and learn to respect, the objective norms of existence w/in the complex and delicately balanced hierarchic order that is both in us and around us. when properly articulated, it can give us both factual and normative knowledge. exploring such knowledge and applying it in determining our future is an opportunity we cannot afford to miss.
natural philosophy of science --> systems philosophy
7 - the large groups we thus come to deal w/ appear to establish their own 'personalities.' even if most of their individual members change, the groups' characteristics tend to be preserved. for example, over the years athletic teams exchange their players, w/ younger ones replacing the veteran performers. yet the teams usu maintain much of their own characteristics--their tactics and techniques, their fighting spirit, and so on. even more striking is the continuity in the case of business corporations, where everyone can be replaced, from the president to the office boy, and yet the company can continue to exist w/ very much the same features it had before. this is true for entire communities and nations--even entities as large and nebulous as cultures. individuals come and go; they remain. it is not that they are immune to change themselves, but they do not change w/ the changes in their membership. it is as though they had a life and personality of their own.
- loss of individual identity
- diff hierarchies/orders of time dimensions [w/ higher level lagging behind that of members of the swarm:]
- interneighbor (lateral)
- inter.hierarchical (vertical)
* COMMUNICATION
success is measured by the system's ability to anticipate changes in its sub- & super- structures & to cope w/ them. A hierarchically integrated systems is not, t'fore, a passive system, committed to the status quo. It is, on the contrary, a dynamic & adaptive entity, reflecting in its own functioning the patterns of change in the entire hierarchy.
nature is 'permissive' - there is purpose w/o slavery, freedom w/o anarchy...
dynamic steady-state
1. natural systems are wholes w/ irreducible properties
2. natural systems maintain themselves in a changing environment
3. natural sysytems create themselves in response to the challenge of the enviroment
each variety of cell contributes the integreated energies and fns at its disposal to the community, & in turn receives an environment which enables it to survive.
```````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
whitehead [creativity:] - phylogenesis - creative advance of nature into novelty
consciouness - subjective awareness/experience of sensations [subjectivity/sensitivity:]
- being aware of having sensations/reflection upon mental states
possession of nervous system does not serve as prerequisite for experience of consciousness [subjectivity/subjective sensations is then translated into undifferentiated sensation of pleasure/pain:]
mere subjectivity is bound to the immediacy of events;
only consciousness can liberate one from his actual experiene & enable him to ctrl it by his own will
subjectivity is the slave of actuality [it registers actual events when they take place:]
````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
good = virtue in accordance w/ the harmony of the soul
cultures satisfy not bodily needs,but values. Values define cultural man's need for rationality, meaningfulness in emotional experience, richness of imagination, and depth of faith.
````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
self-fulfillment of human potential /natural norms w/in natural systems
macrodetermination [systemic determination:] based on fnal autonomy[of the parts that make up the system:]
108 - we must not stop, t'fore, at pting to the fallacies of existing values: we must pt out the new & better values.
109 - what r the intrinsic norms of man? the grks had an answer: they said that the end of the good life is happiness. Happiness, Aristotle specified, is the fulfillment of that which is specifically human in us. Self-fulfillment, as contemporary humanistic thinkers and psychologis acknowledge, is the end of human purposeful behavior. It is the actualization of potentials inherent in all of us.
110 - fulfillment means the realization of human potentials for existence as a biological and sociocultural being. It means bodily as well as mental health. fulfillment also means acting on the environment, both the internal one of the organism and the external one of the society, and making it compatible w/ the expression of one's potentials. it calls for a dynamic process of integration and adjustment, creating conditions for the actualization of all the potential there is in man.
114 - ...the plasticity of natural systems, which act as dynamic, self-repairing wholes in regard to any deficiency.
115 - fulfillment is predicated upon the freedom to become what one is capable of being--that is, upon the fnal autonomy of human beings in society
117 - our humanistic goal is to enhance individual fulfillment in an increasingly deterministic multilevel society composed of greatly differentiated individuals. like all complex natural systems, human institutions & societies fn best when they are spontaneous expressions of the freely chosen activites of their interrelated members. such a society is the norm agst which we must measure our existing forms of social structure. what is needed is a reorientation of our cultural values in ref to the norms of individual fulfillment in a flexible and dynamic social system. ...for only if we know both where we are and where we want to go can we act purposively in seeing about getting there.
120 - now we must likewise learn the norms of our manifold ecologic, economic, political, and cutural systems. The supreme challenge of our age is to specify, and learn to respect, the objective norms of existence w/in the complex and delicately balanced hierarchic order that is both in us and around us. when properly articulated, it can give us both factual and normative knowledge. exploring such knowledge and applying it in determining our future is an opportunity we cannot afford to miss.
natural philosophy of science --> systems philosophy
Read
May 9, 2022read this book a number of years ago in college.
gave me ideas, especial about universal and life/biologic forces that are inverse to entropy, to the second law of thermodynamics.
rather, planted the seed in my young mind to understand the an "affiliative" view of matter, nature, and mind.
I'm so appreciative of my Colorado college professors for having assigned this book
gave me ideas, especial about universal and life/biologic forces that are inverse to entropy, to the second law of thermodynamics.
rather, planted the seed in my young mind to understand the an "affiliative" view of matter, nature, and mind.
I'm so appreciative of my Colorado college professors for having assigned this book
June 6, 2021
This site is recommended as a suitable starting point for the journey for systems thinker minds because it offers a synopsis for certain points of Laszlo's view as shown in the book.
https://www.johnljerz.com/superduper/...
https://www.johnljerz.com/superduper/...
February 2, 2022
كتاب مفيد وشيق في بدايته لا يخلو من بعض المصطلحات العلمية للمتخصصين
October 27, 2016
I almost gave it 4 stars but I felt Laszlo's writing style at this time was still a bit steeped in academia as opposed to his more recent books on his realization of the "Akashic" field. Here, we have a work that serves as the genesis of that concept in that a holistic systems view of the world (everything we can perceive and not perceive in the universe) is vital to our understanding of role in it thus better to serve in future structure of action and endeavor. Heady stuff fo sure! But brilliant and thought provoking. I actually found myself wanting its description of various systems to be more technical or component oriented in nature but that is probably just the Business Analyst in me.
January 21, 2008
This book provides a general introduction to the sciences of organized complexity. It covers the history in terms of its emergence and opposition to an atomic view; the qualities that define organizational invariants; and how the systems view differs from the atomic view in terms of one's perception of self, community, and culture. However, it lacks footnotes or rigorous notation to back up its statements or lead to further reading.
September 22, 2012
... This book is academic, compact and convincing. It is a highbrow sales pitch from a Club of Rome thinker who clearly sees the big picture.
Read the entire review here: http://boldbookworm.com/sv040611.html
~ BB
http://boldbookworm.com
Read the entire review here: http://boldbookworm.com/sv040611.html
~ BB
http://boldbookworm.com
May 13, 2010
Beginning was fine. Becomes progressively wretched. Wild generalization will do that.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews