In the month of June 2015, I had attended an Event sponsored by my erstwhile employer, Envestnet Inc. The event was hosted by Nasscom and the Keynote speech was given by futurist, Gerd Leonhard. His presentation was really good and I could walk away with lot of new ideas. The most important takeaway for me is the idea of Reductionism vs Holism. Mechanistic view of the world formulated by Rene Descartes is challenged by holistic (Systems Thinking) school of thought for building Intelligent software systems.
I have got great respect for the Western Intellectual tradition rooted in the Cartesian Reduction-ism. It has given us Modern Science, which has helped in our understanding of the Natural world. The fruits of this model of investigation are tremendous progress made in all of Science and Engineering.
Thus, Modern Physics with it's one leg on Logico/Mathematical tradition and other on Induction/Deduction/Analytical framework of sixteenth century became the envy of all sciences. If Mathematics is the Queen of Sciences, Physics became the King.
Carteisan Reductionism percolated even into the Social sciences, where it has not been much effective as people expected. In the early part of twentieth century, Einstien with his Relativity (General/Specific) did imply that when the object approaches the speed of Light, mechanical laws formulated by Newton is his Principia does not explain what is happening. Equally startling was the discovery of Quantum principles, at the sub atomic level. According to quantum theory, we can hope only to have partial determinism. Even Einstein has to say the following, "God does not Play dice with the Universe"!
Physical laws hold good for Natural things. In the case of living beings and the social institutions, there is something called "Consciousness" ( which can be felt only, no one has satisfactorily defined it) and Physical laws break down. It has to do with the limitation of our investigation tools rather than the indeterminacy of the nature. May be, we require a new methodology to tackle this issue.
A Physicist like Roger Penrose, wrote two books advocating the inclusion of Consciousness in the subject matter of Physics. His "Emperor's new mind" and it's sequel, "Shadows of the mind" outlines his school of thought. He attacks the hard AI camp in the process.
To broaden our Scientific horizon, we need to look into our methods of investigation, while trying to solve issues of importance to the human race. That is precisely, Fritjof Capra and Pier Luigi Luisi sets out to do in a wonderful book,titled,"The Systems view of Life". Had I did not attend Gerd's lecture, I would not have been able to understand the significance of this book.
In a way, this book has been a long journey for Fritjof Capra, from "Tao of Physics" (was criticized by Physics fraternity, but seems to have succeeded in a holistic approach towards human problem) to a system which is entirely based on Scientific precision. I am enjoying every page of this book.
I have got great respect for the Western Intellectual tradition rooted in the Cartesian Reduction-ism. It has given us Modern Science, which has helped in our understanding of the Natural world. The fruits of this model of investigation are tremendous progress made in all of Science and Engineering.
Thus, Modern Physics with it's one leg on Logico/Mathematical tradition and other on Induction/Deduction/Analytical framework of sixteenth century became the envy of all sciences. If Mathematics is the Queen of Sciences, Physics became the King.
Carteisan Reductionism percolated even into the Social sciences, where it has not been much effective as people expected. In the early part of twentieth century, Einstien with his Relativity (General/Specific) did imply that when the object approaches the speed of Light, mechanical laws formulated by Newton is his Principia does not explain what is happening. Equally startling was the discovery of Quantum principles, at the sub atomic level. According to quantum theory, we can hope only to have partial determinism. Even Einstein has to say the following, "God does not Play dice with the Universe"!
Physical laws hold good for Natural things. In the case of living beings and the social institutions, there is something called "Consciousness" ( which can be felt only, no one has satisfactorily defined it) and Physical laws break down. It has to do with the limitation of our investigation tools rather than the indeterminacy of the nature. May be, we require a new methodology to tackle this issue.
A Physicist like Roger Penrose, wrote two books advocating the inclusion of Consciousness in the subject matter of Physics. His "Emperor's new mind" and it's sequel, "Shadows of the mind" outlines his school of thought. He attacks the hard AI camp in the process.
To broaden our Scientific horizon, we need to look into our methods of investigation, while trying to solve issues of importance to the human race. That is precisely, Fritjof Capra and Pier Luigi Luisi sets out to do in a wonderful book,titled,"The Systems view of Life". Had I did not attend Gerd's lecture, I would not have been able to understand the significance of this book.
In a way, this book has been a long journey for Fritjof Capra, from "Tao of Physics" (was criticized by Physics fraternity, but seems to have succeeded in a holistic approach towards human problem) to a system which is entirely based on Scientific precision. I am enjoying every page of this book.
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