Fritjof Capra's The Turning Point
Fritjof Capra has been one of the most thought transforming scientific authors that I have read in recent week. Capra is best known for his book, The Tao of Physics, but in this essay, I address a more ambitious literary project that he first published in 1987. The Turning Point makes a sound argument for revising our most ingrained scientific perceptions of how the world works. In Capra’s book, poor Rene Descartes and Isaac Newton are blamed for our modern misperceptions of the world. While, I think Capra’s overall evaluation of the flaws of the Cartesian and Newtonian view of the cosmos are largely correct, I think it is inappropriate, though useful for furthering the discussion, to place blame on Descartes and Newton. The perceptions and teachings of Newton and Descartes have done much to advance the world, and though our perceptions are changing, we can cannot discount the utility of the Cartesian and Newtonian insights.
In this work, Capra points out that Descartes viewed the world as a mating that is controllable thorough analysis. He goes on to argue that this mechanistic view of the world is flawed given recent developments in our understandings of physics, biology, and our cosmos. Moreover, our understandings of individuals, societies, and governments which has developed out of John Locke’s analysis of Descartes’ work is also flawed in light of our new understandings.
The new scientific developments that Capra argues should be fueling our current perceptions of scientific reality include Einstein’s theory of relativity, quantum theory, revisions of the Darwinian model of evolution, and developments in biology that clearly demonstrate the role of symbiosis in species development. In this work, Capra proposes that scientific and cultural fluctuations are inevitable, but he argues that if we start seeing the world through a more realistic scientific understanding that is based on modern science, these transitions can begin to occur with less violence and less threat to the perpetuation of our species and our biosystem.
Since this text was written in the late 1980’s, and it tackles many social and economic issues, much of the text will feel outdated to the reader. Nevertheless, Capra’s work is an important reconceptualization of scientific reality that, if adopted, promises to bring us closer to right seeing of our environment and the atonement.
To see The Turning Point in the Atonement Bookshelf, click here.
