20 September 2020

The Web of Life I

"Constantly regard the universe as one living being, having one substance and one soul; and observe how all things have reference to one perception, the perception of this one living being; and how all things act with one movement; and how all things are the cooperating causes of all things which exist; observe too the continuous spinning of the thread and the contexture of the web." (Marcus Aurelius, "Meditations". cca. 121–180 AD)

"As a net is made up of a series of ties, so everything in this world is connected by a series of ties. If anyone thinks that the mesh of a net is an independent, isolated thing, he is mistaken. It is called a net because it is made up of a series of a interconnected meshes, and each mesh has its place and responsibility in relation to other meshes." (Gautama Buddha) [attributed] 

"Omnia vivunt, omnia inter se conexa" 

"Everything is alive; everything is interconnected." (Cicero) 

"Nature, displayed in its full extent, presents us with an immense tableau, in which all the order of beings are each represented by a chain which sustains a continuous series of objects, so close and so similar that their difference would be difficult to define. This chain is not a simple thread which is only extended in length, it is a large web or rather a network, which, from interval to interval, casts branches to the side in order to unite with the networks of another order." (Comte Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon, "Les Oiseaux Qui Ne Peuvent Voler", Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux Vol. I, 1770) 

"All Nature is linked together by invisible bonds and every organic creature, however low, however feeble, however dependent, is necessary to the well-being of some other among the myriad forms of life." (George P Marsh, From Man and Nature, 1864)

"When we try to pick anything out by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe." (John Muir, "My First Summer in the Sierra", 1911)

"We are seeking another basic outlook: the world as an organization.  This would profoundly change the categories of our thinking and influence our practical attitudes.  We must envision the biosphere as a whole with mutually reinforcing or mutually destructive interdependencies." (Ludwig von Bertalanffy, "Robots, Men and Minds", 1967)

"[...] everything is inter-linked. And therefore everything has numberless causes. The entire universe contributes to the least thing. A thing is as it is because the world is as it is." (Nisargadatta Maharaj, "I am That", 1973)

"If we recognise that every ecosystem can also be viewed as a food web, we can think of it as a circular, interlacing nexus of plant animal relationships (rather than a stratified pyramid with man at the apex). [...] Each species, be it a form of bacteria or deer, is knitted together in a network of interdependence, however indirect the links may be." (Murray Bookchin, "The Ecology of Freedom", 1982)

"Today the network of relationships linking the human race to itself and to the rest of the biosphere is so complex that all aspects affect all others to an extraordinary degree. Someone should be studying the whole system, however crudely that has to be done, because no gluing together of partial studies of a complex nonlinear system can give a good idea of the behaviour of the whole." (Murray Gell-Mann, 1997)

"We are beginning to see the entire universe as a holographically interlinked network of energy and information, organically whole and self referential at all scales of its existence. We, and all things in the universe, are non-locally connected with each other and with all other things in ways that are unfettered by the hitherto known limitations of space and time." (Ervin László,"Cosmos: A Co-creator's Guide to the Whole-World", 2010)


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