Fritjof Capra: Encounter at the Edge of the New Paradigm

In the summer of 1973, when I had just begun to write The Tao of Physics, I sat in the London Underground one morning reading The Guardian and as my train rattled through the dusty tunnels of the Northern Line the phrase "Buddhist economics" caught my eye. It was in a review of a book by a British economist, former adviser to the National Coal Board and now, as the reviewer put it, "a sort of economist-guru preaching what he calls 'Buddhist economics.'" The newly published book was entitled Small Is Beautiful; and the author's name was E.F. Schumacher. I was intrigued enough to read on. While I was writing about "Buddhist physics" somebody else had apparently made another connection between Western science and Eastern philosophy.

[Several years later,] when I planned to assemble a group of advisers for my project [of investigating the paradigm shift occurring in various fields], I naturally decided to approach Fritz Schumacher, and when I went to London for a three-week visit in May 1977 I wrote to him and asked him whether he would allow me to visit him to discuss my project.

Schumacher replied to my letter very kindly and suggested that I should call him from London to arrange a visit to Caterham, the small town in Surrey where he lived. When I did so he invited me for tea and said that he would pick me up at the railway station. Several days later I took the train to Caterham in the early afternoon of a glorious spring day, and as I rode through the lush, green countryside, I felt excited and yet calm and peaceful.

My relaxed mood was further enhanced when I met Fritz Schumacher at the Caterham station. He was easygoing and very charming—a tall gentleman in his sixties with longish white hair, a kind, open face and gentle eyes twinkling under bushy white brows. He welcomed me warmly and told me that we could walk to his house, and as we fell into a leisurely stroll I could not help thinking that the phrase "economist-guru" described Schumacher's appearance perfectly.

Schumacher's home was idyllic. The rambling Edwardian house was comfortable and open to the outdoors, and as we sat down to tea we were surrounded by an abundance of nature. The vast garden was luxuriant and overgrown. The flowering trees were alive with the activity of insects and birds, a whole ecosystem basking in the warm spring sun. It was a peaceful oasis where the world still seemed whole. Schumacher spoke with great enthusiasm about his garden. He had spent many years making compost and experimenting with a variety of organic gardening techniques, and I realized that this had been his approach to ecology—a practical approach, grounded in experience, which he was able to integrate with his theoretical analyses into a comprehensive philosophy of life.

After tea we moved to Schumacher's study to begin our discussion in earnest. I opened it by presenting the basic theme of my new book [The Turning Point]. I began with the observation that our social institutions are unable to solve the major problems of our time because they adhere to the concepts of an outdated worldview, the mechanistic worldview of seventeenth-century science. The natural sciences, as well as the humanities and social sciences, have all modeled themselves after classical Newtonian physics, and the limitations of the Newtonian worldview are now manifest in the multiple aspects of global crisis. While the Newtonian model is still the dominant paradigm in our academic institutions and in society at large, I continued, physicists have gone far beyond it. I described the worldview I saw emerging from the new physics—its emphasis on interconnectedness, relationship, dynamic patterns, and continual change and transformation—and I expressed my belief that the other sciences would have to change their underlying philosophies accordingly in order to be consistent with this new vision of reality. Such radical change, I maintained, would also be the only way to really solve our urgent economic, social, and environmental problems.

I presented my thesis carefully and concisely, and when I paused at the end I expected Schumacher to agree with me on the essential points. He had expressed very similar ideas in his book and I was confident that he would help me formulate my thesis more concretely.

Schumacher looked at me with his friendly eyes and said slowly: "We have to be very careful to avoid head-on confrontation." I was stunned by this remark, and when he saw my puzzled look, he smiled. "I agree with your call for a cultural transformation," he said. "This is something I have often said myself. An epoch is drawing to a close; a fundamental change is necessary. But I don't think physics can give us any guidance in this matter."

Schumacher went on to point out the difference between what he called "science for understanding" and "science for manipulation." The former, he explained, has often been called wisdom. Its purpose is the enlightenment and liberation of the person, while the purpose of the latter is power. During the Scientific Revolution in the seventeenth century, Schumacher continued, the purpose of science shifted from wisdom to power. "Knowledge itself is power," he said, quoting Francis Bacon, and he observed that since that time the name "science" remained reserved for manipulative science.

"The progressive elimination of wisdom has turned the rapid accumulation of knowledge into a most serious threat," Schumacher declared emphatically. "Western civilization is based on the philosophical error that manipulative science is the truth, and physics has caused and perpetuated this error. Physics got us into the mess we are in today. The great cosmos is nothing but a chaos of particles without purpose or meaning, and the consequences of this materialistic view are felt everywhere. Science is concerned primarily with knowledge that is useful for manipulation, and the manipulation of nature almost invariably leads to the manipulation of people.

"No," Schumacher concluded with a sad smile, "I don't believe at all that physics can help us in solving our problems today."

I was deeply impressed by Schumacher's passionate plea. This was the first I had heard of Bacon's role in shifting the purpose of science from wisdom to manipulation. At that moment, however, as I faced Fritz Schumacher in his study at Caterham, I had not given much thought to these issues. I only felt very deeply that science could be practiced in a very different way, that physics, in particular, could be "a path with a heart," as I had suggested in the opening chapter of The Tao of Physics.

In defending my point of view I pointed out to Schumacher that physicists today no longer believe they are dealing with absolute truth. "Our attitude has become much more modest," I explained. "We know that whatever we say about nature will be expressed in terms of limited and approximate models, and part of this new understanding is the recognition that the new physics is merely one part of a new vision of reality that is now emerging in many fields."

I concluded that physics, nevertheless, may still be helpful for other scientists who are often reluctant to adopt a holistic, ecological framework for fear of being unscientific. The recent developments in physics can show these scientists, I maintained, that such a framework is not at all unscientific. On the contrary, it is in agreement with the most advanced scientific theories of physical reality.

Schumacher replied that even though he recognized the usefulness of the emphasis on interrelatedness and process thinking in the new physics, he could not see any room for quality in a science based on mathematical models. "The whole notion of a mathematical model has to be questioned," he insisted. "The price of this kind of model building is the loss of quality, the very thing that matters most."

I pointed out that quantification, control, and manipulation represent only one aspect of modern science. The other, equally important aspect, I insisted, has to do with the recognition of patterns. The new physics, in particular, implies a shift from isolated building blocks, or structures, to patterns of relationships. "That notion of a pattern of relationships," I speculated, "seems to be closer, somehow, to the idea of quality. And I feel that a science concerned primarily with networks of interdependent dynamic patterns will be closer to what you call 'science for understanding.'"

Schumacher did not respond immediately. He seemed lost in his thoughts for a while, and finally he looked at me with a warm smile. "You know," he said, "we had a physicist in the family, and I had many discussions of this kind with him." I expected to hear of some nephew or cousin who had studied physics, but before I could make a polite comment Schumacher surprised me with the name of my own hero: "Werner Heisenberg. He was married to my sister." I had been completely unaware of the close family tie between these two revolutionary and influential thinkers. I told Schumacher how much I had been influenced by Heisenberg and recounted my meetings and discussions with him during the preceding years.

Schumacher then proceeded to explain the crux of his discussions with Heisenberg and of his disagreement with my position. "The guidance we need for solving the problems of our time cannot be found in science," he began. "Physics cannot have any philosophical impact because it cannot entertain the qualitative notion of higher and lower levels of being. With Einstein's statement that everything is relative the vertical dimension disappeared from science and with it the need for any absolute standards of good and evil."

In the long discussion that followed Schumacher expressed his belief in a fundamental hierarchical order consisting of four levels of being—mineral, plant, animal and human—with four characteristic elements—matter, life, consciousness and self-awareness—which are manifest in such a way that each level possesses not only its own characteristic element but also those of all lower levels. This, of course, was the ancient idea of the Great Chain of Being, which Schumacher presented in modern language and with considerable subtlety. However, he maintained that the four elements are irreducible mysteries that cannot be explained, and that the differences between them represent fundamental jumps in the vertical dimension, "ontological discontinuities," as he put it. "This is why physics cannot have any philosophical impact," he repeated. "It cannot deal with the whole; it deals only with the lowest level."

This was indeed a fundamental difference in our views of reality. Although I agreed that physics was limited to a particular level of phenomena, I did not see the differences between various levels as absolute. I argued that these levels are essentially levels of complexity which are not separate but are all interconnected and interdependent. Moreover, I observed, the way in which we divide reality into objects, levels or any other entities depends largely on our methods of observation. What we see depends on how we look; patterns of matter reflect the patterns of our mind.

To conclude my argument I expressed my belief that the science of the future would be able to deal with the entire range of natural phenomena in a unified way, using different aspects and levels of reality. But during that discussion, in May 1977, I could not justify my belief with concrete examples. In particular, I was unaware of the emerging theory of living, self-organizing systems that goes a long way toward a unified description of life, mind and matter. However, I explained my view well enough for Schumacher to leave the matter without further argument. We agreed on the basic differences between our philosophical approaches, each of us respecting the other's position.

During our discussion about the role of physics and the nature of science it had become clear to me that the difference in our approaches was too substantial to permit asking Schumacher to be an adviser to my book project. However, I did want to learn from him as much as I could during that afternoon, and so I engaged him in a long conversation about economics, ecology and politics.

The more I listened to Schumacher, the more clearly I recognized that he was not so much a man of grand conceptual designs as a man of wisdom and action. He had arrived at a clear set of values and principles and was able to apply these in most ingenious ways to the solution of a great variety of economic and technological problems. The secret of his immense popularity lay in his message of optimism and hope.

[As] my visit [drew] to a close I thanked Schumacher for making this such an inspiring and challenging afternoon. "It was a great pleasure," he graciously replied, and after a pensive moment he added with a warm smile: "You know, we differ in our approach, but we don't differ in basic ideas."

On the train journey back to London I tried to evaluate my conversation with Fritz Schumacher. As I had expected from reading his book, I found him to be a brilliant thinker with a global perspective and a creative, questioning mind. More importantly, however, I was deeply impressed by his great wisdom and kindness, his relaxed spontaneity, his quiet optimism and his gentle humor. In our conversation we did not talk much about religion, yet I felt very strongly that Schumacher's outlook on life was that of a deeply spiritual person. But notwithstanding my great admiration for Schumacher I also realized there were substantial differences in our views.