"The bootstrap philosophy originated by Geoffrey Chew, constitutes the
final rejection of the mechanistic worldview in modern physics.
Newton's universe was constructed from a set
of basic entities with certain fundamental properties, which had been created by
God and thus were not amenable to further analysis. In one way or another,
this notion was implicit in all theories of natural science until the bootstrap
hypothesis stated explicitly that the world cannot be understood as an assemblage
of entities which cannot be analyzed further. In the new worldview, the
universe is seen as a dynamic web of interrelated events. None of the
properties of any part of this web is fundamental; they all follow from the
properties of the other parts, and the overall consistency of their mutual
interrelations determines the structure of the entire web.
Thus, the bootstrap philosophy
represents the culmination of a view of nature that arose in quantum theory with
the realization of an essential and universal interrelationship, acquired its
dynamic content in relativity theory, and was formulated in terms of reaction
probabilities in S-matrix theory. At the same time, this view of nature
came ever closer to the Eastern worldview and is now in harmony with Eastern
thought, both in its general philosophy and in its specific picture of
matter."
“The
new physics is an integral part of the new worldview that is now emerging in all
the sciences and in society.The
new worldview is an ecological worldview that is grounded, ultimately, in
spiritual awareness.Therefore it
is not surprising that the new paradigm, as it emerges in physics and in the
other sciences, will be in harmony with many ideas in spiritual traditions.”
"In
the new paradigm, the relationship between the part and the whole is
more symmetrical.We
believe that while the properties of the parts certainly contribute to
our understanding of the whole, at the same time the properties of the
parts can only be fully understood through the dynamics of the whole.The whole is primary, and once you understand the dynamics of the
whole, you can then derive, at least in principle, the properties and
patterns of interactions of the parts.This change of the relationship between the part and the whole
occurred in science first in physics, when quantum theory was developed."
"Gradually,
physicists began to realize that nature, at the atomic level, does not
appear as a mechanical universe composed of fundamental building blocks,
but rather as a network of relations, and that ultimately, there are no
parts at all in this interconnected web.Whatever we call a part is merely a pattern that has some
stability and therefore captures our attention."
--Fritjof
Capra, The Tao of Physics
"Science
advances through tentative answers to a series of more and more subtle
questions which reach deeper and deeper into the essence of natural
phenomena."--Louis
Pasteur
Bobbe
Marshall - Smelling the Flowers
The
Greatest Gift
"Though I speak with
the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become
sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.And though I bestow all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I
have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I
am nothing.And though I
bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be
burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.
Love
suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade
itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own,
is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but
rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all
things, endures all things.
Love
never fails.But whether
there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they
will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away.For we know in part and we prophesy in part.But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in
part will be done away.
When
I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as
a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face.Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am
known.
And
now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is
love."
--Bible,
Corinthians 13
"Wise
men learn by other men's mistakes, fools by their own." --H. G.
Bohn
"Wise
men don't need advice. Fools won't take it." --Benjamin
Franklin
"Do
not look where you fell, but where you slipped." --African proverb
"Those who dance are considered insane by those who
cannot hear the music." --George Carlin
Salvador Dali - The Dream (1937)
IF
If you can
keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, and blaming it on
you,
If you can
trust yourself when all men doubt you, but
make allowance for their doubting, too;
If you can
wait and not be tired by waiting, or
being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being
hated, don't give way to hating, and
yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can
dream--and not make dreams you master,
If you can
think--and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can
meet with Triumph and Disaster, and
treat those two impostors just the same,
If you can
bear to hear the truth you've spoken twisted by knaves to make a trap
for fools,
Or watch the
things you gave you life to, broken, and
stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools;
If you can
make one heap of all your winnings, and risk it on one turn of
pitch-and-toss,
And lose,
and start again at you beginnings and never breathe a word about
you loss,
If you can
force your heart and nerve and sinew to serve your turn long after they
are gone,
And so hold
on when there is nothing in you except the Will which says to them:
"Hold on!"
If you can
talk with crowds and keep your virtue, or walk with Kings--nor lose the
common touch,
If neither
foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men
count with you, but none too much,
If you can
fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the
Earth and everything that's in it--and--which is more--you'll be a Man,
my son!
