After the Clockwork Universe: The Emerging Science and Culture of Integral Society

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Summary: A guide for the perplexed modern
Review: If the modern world seems confusing read this book. This book helps me keep perspective when I see the turmoil of world events. It is a guide to the major intellectual and social transitons happening all around us. Most of us can see that our particular part of the world is in trouble -- look at any profession or social institution and the cracks in the foundation are evident. Sally Goerner's thesis is that we are undergoing the biggest social transformation since at least the middle ages and probably since the beginning of known history. The driving force behind the transition from medieval to modern was the development of a new mathematics, physics and astronomy which fundamentally changed how people saw the place of man in the cosmos. These intelectual tools eventually led to the development of the industrial society in which we now live. In the past 30 years there has been similarly powerful new developments in mathematics and all other sciences which Sally calls web dynamics. You may have heard of chaos theory which is one aspect of a much larger way of understanding complex systems which develop out of the operation of many forces. This new understanding is changing the old competitive, isolated, reductionist and individualistic social structures in favor of an understanding of the world based on complex, self-organizing systems which evolve cooperatively as well as competitively. It has implications for every aspect of social, poilitcal and intellectual life from physics and biology to medicine and education. This book helps us see the much larger patterns which are often obscured in the choas of world affairs and gives some hope and direction for making a positive difference in the outcome.

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Summary: This book is terrific!
Review: Ms. Goerner has managed to integrate the disparate cultural, scientific and intellectual trends of the late 20th Century into a cohesive and comprehensible whole. One could say that she has transformed chaos into order, at least for this reader. Bravo!