"Regeneration is the essence of life's self-organisation" Fritjof Capra & Daniel Wahl in dialogue

Well, this was another one of those 'special moments' when I get to have a chat with someone who is in good part responsible for me embarking on a different path than marine mammal biology and behavioural neuroscience some 30 years ago and who's writing led me to do a Masters in Holistic Science because I knew Fritjof taught there in person.
Fritjof Capra and I met at Schumacher in 2002, and many times since. This is the latest in a series of conversation with him that I recorded for the Voices of the ReGeneration series. This is my favourite one. We had such fun on March 16th, 2023.
We speak about:
Regeneration as the essence of life's self organisation
Regeneration at the cellular, organ, individual, and ecosystems scale
Regeneration as life's inherent impulse of "the exploration of novelty"
How health and resilience is not 'maintain level work' in all cases (ie bounce back) and how a salutogenic understanding of health and transformative resilience as the third dimension of resilience (after persistence and adaptive capacity). ... and how this relates to phase-shift or changing attractor in complexity theory
We talked about Ilya Prigogine's important work and his famous 'islands of coherence' - how the second law of thermal dynamics hold while life generates increases in 'order/complexity' as a neg-entropic or syntropic process
The work about Brian Goodwin on complexity science as a mathematician and biologists ... the shift from prediction and control to appropriate participation ... how complex dynamic systems are unpredictable but that does not mean they are not intelligible ...
The 'emergence of life', the 'emergence of cognition', the 'emergence of consciousness' ... the spiritual view of many wisdom traditions and the 'systems view of life'
A Science of Quality and the role of 'sensing, feeling and intuiting' in science and as reliable pathway to insight and wise action
CG Jung's 'Four Ways of Knowing', Maturana & Varela's 'Santiago Theory of Cognition', Leonardo Da Vinci 's dynamic biology, Goethe's Zarte Empirie, Gregory Bateson, Poincare, Mandelbrot, Darcy Thompson 'On Growth and Form', Goethe's metamorphosis
... living in an through relationship and life as networks within networks ...
and even got to Fritjof's work with the late Hazel Henderson on the shift from quantitative to qualitative growth in economic and natural systems - the shift from the exponential to the logistic curve (as a litmus test for the survivability of the human story).
I told you we had fun. Enjoy! ... and don't forget that the Capra Course is a gift worth giving to yourself and others. I have done it twice.

[@chimalpo]

Thanks Daniel to share this brilliant conversation with Dr. Capra. It is a source of inspiring references that I’d love to dive in!

[@volsen2427]

Fantastic Interview! I learned so much about things that I had been wondering about. Great questions by Daniel and great responses and reflections by Fritjof! Thank you

[@henkhadders9985]

Chapeau ! Balm for my soul, just what I needed. Thank you both, Fritjof and Daniel.

[@brunopapas]

Halfway through the conversation and so many interesting topics. I very much appreciate the acknowledgment of the fact that we usually use different labels or maps to talk about the exact same thing. We tend to forget about this, they’re all just different dimensions and perspective to explain the same no? Thank you so much for this, thoroughly enjoying going through the layers of your life studies 🙏

[@mirellajaber7704]

Thank you, gentlemen. It’s been over a decade that I began studying system sciences (was introduced to it through Jung’s psychology, his concept of “metanoia”) and mythology, the prevailing, worldwide spread myths of regeneration, most prominent in Neolithic. I have been waiting for a long time for such a “revival” (my own perception is that all of this so disappeared after Prigogine, even your own works have been rendered not so prominent, dear Professor Fritjof - because our society cannot tolerate true, real things when it cannot digest them) and the concept of chaos (the theme of the chaotic Trickster works Wonderfully here) regeneration and emergence, which I proposed in some Jungian discussions - particularly as it fits perfectly the social chaos we are presently experiencing. So, a very heartfelt “THANK YOU”!

[@alessandratotoli]

💚💚💚 Thanks Daniel and Capra!

[@worksmith5223]

Thanks for discussing health as a process.

[@nadesapanickeranilkumar4109]

We call these great minds sages! But not every generation see them born! We are lucky

[@ChristineCapra]

Thanks for this Daniel!

[@danielchristianwahl]

It was a treat for me

[@janecull]

I want to speak to the areas of this conversation about complexity, prediction and uncertainty - All systems do patterns of behaviour repeatedly as routines, habits. The sun goes up and comes down. The earth rotates, there are seasonal weather patterns etc. As a result of seeing patterns, we can make predictions about what they will do. However, sometimes these will change. As Humberto Maturana would say "all systems are conservative". So what we need to understand is patterns. Seeing patterns removes complexity.

[@amandar.carlson432]

Hmmm, perhaps life’s process itself is one of ever increasing qualitative over quantitative regeneration…