“The future is not given. Especially in this time of globalization and the network revolution, behavior at the individual level will be the key factor in shaping the evolution of the entire human species. Just as one particle can alter macroscopic organization in nature, so the role of individuals is more important now than ever in society.” - Prigogine, I., 2000. The Future Is Not Given, in Society or Nature. New Perspectives Quarterly, 17(2), pp.35–37.
Tuesday, 7 February 2012
6 comments:
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This quote has a distict Zorastrian note.
ReplyDeleteI had not thought of it that way, but the reason I selected the quote is that it highlights the role of the individual in bringing about changes we usually attribute to something larger than the individual; not simply being rewarded for doing "good" things.
ReplyDeleteYes, sometimes the simple actions of an individual can precipitate out cascading behaviors in the group. But is it the individual or the state of the group who should be credited with the results?
ReplyDeleteI knew this sounded familiar and I immediately pulled his book "Order out of Chaos" off my shelf. I suspect this will become an inspiration for me as well and I am looking forward to re-reading this book.
sorry for the double post but I couldn't get this out of my head.
ReplyDeleteAs humans, we must act. To do nothing is to die. And we can never know the complete state of the world when we do, nor can we predict the consequences of our actions. We are immersed in a web of influence and memes pass through this web impacting upon us, prompting action sometimes and inaction at other times. The timing of those messages can also never be predicted with certainty. Yet out of this chaotic mix of influence and apparent free will, we stumble forward as a people. We try our best to predict what this open system will do but we are continually surprised.
Is that from the book or your own?
ReplyDeleteNo, those are my own words. I won't reread Order Out of Chaos for at least a 2 weeks.
ReplyDelete