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The Tao of Physics

January 01, 1970

The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels Between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism is a 1975 book by physicist Fritjof Capra. A bestseller in the United States, it has been translated into 23 languages. Capra summarized his motivation for writing the book: “Science does not need mysticism and mysticism does not need science. But man needs both.”

The Tao of Physics
Cover of the first edition
AuthorFritjof Capra
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
SubjectPhysics
Published1975
PublisherShambhala Publications
Media typePrint (hardcover and paperback)
Pages356 pp. (Hardcover)
ISBN978-0704501423
Followed byThe Turning Point 

Origin edit

According to the preface of the first edition, reprinted in subsequent editions, Capra struggled to reconcile theoretical physics and Eastern mysticism and was at first "helped on my way by 'power plants'" or psychedelics, with the first experience "so overwhelming that I burst into tears, at the same time, not unlike Castaneda, pouring out my impressions to a piece of paper". (p. 12, 4th ed.)

Capra later discussed his ideas with Werner Heisenberg in 1972, as he mentioned in the following interview excerpt:

I had several discussions with Heisenberg. I lived in England then [circa 1972], and I visited him several times in Munich and showed him the whole manuscript chapter by chapter. He was very interested and very open, and he told me something that I think is not known publicly because he never published it. He said that he was well aware of these parallels. While he was working on quantum theory he went to India to lecture and was a guest of Tagore. He talked a lot with Tagore about Indian philosophy. Heisenberg told me that these talks had helped him a lot with his work in physics, because they showed him that all these new ideas in quantum physics were in fact not all that crazy. He realized there was, in fact, a whole culture that subscribed to very similar ideas. Heisenberg said that this was a great help for him. Niels Bohr had a similar experience when he went to China.[1]

Bohr adopted the yin yang symbol as part of his coat of arms when he was knighted in 1947,[2] it is claimed in the book that it was a result of orientalist influences.

The Tao of Physics was followed by other books of the same genre like The Hidden Connection, The Turning Point and The Web of Life in which Capra extended the argument of how Eastern mysticism and scientific findings of today relate, and how Eastern mysticism might also have the linguistic and philosophical tools required to undertake to some of the biggest scientific challenges remaining.

Afterword to the third edition edit

In the afterword to the third edition (published in 1982, pp 360-368 of the 1991 edition) Capra offers six suggestions for a new paradigm in science.

  • Consider the part and the whole as more symmetrically conditioning one another.
  • Replace thinking in terms of structure with thinking in terms of process.
  • Replace ‘objective science’ with ‘epistemic science’, where the approach to decide what counts as knowledge adapts to the subject studied.
  • Replace the idea of knowledge as buildings based on foundations with an idea of knowledge as networks.
  • Abandon the quest for truth with a quest for better approximations.
  • Abandon the ideas of domination of nature with one of cooperation and nonviolence.

Capra reconnects this new paradigm to the theories of living and self-organizing systems that has emerged from cybernetics. Here he quotes Ilya Prigogine, Gregory Bateson, Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela (p.372 of the 1991 edition).

Acclaim and criticism edit

According to Capra, Werner Heisenberg was in agreement with the main idea of the book:[3]

I showed the manuscript to him chapter by chapter, briefly summarizing the content of each chapter and emphasizing especially the topics related to his own work. Heisenberg was most interested in the entire manuscript and very open to hearing my ideas. I told him that I saw two basic themes running through all the theories of modern physics, which were also the two basic themes of all mystical traditions-the fundamental interrelatedness and interdependence of all phenomena and the intrinsically dynamic nature of reality. Heisenberg agreed with me as far as physics was concerned and he also told me that he was well aware of the emphasis on interconnectedness in Eastern thought. However, he had been unaware of the dynamic aspect of the Eastern world view and was intrigued when I showed him with numerous examples from my manuscript that the principal Sanskrit terms used in Hindu and Buddhist philosophy-brahman, rta, lila, karma, samsara, etc.-had dynamic connotations. At the end of my rather long presentation of the manuscript Heisenberg said simply: "Basically, I am in complete agreement with you."

The book was a best-seller in the United States. It received a positive review from New York magazine:

A brilliant best-seller.... Lucidly analyzes the tenets of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism to show their striking parallels with the latest discoveries in cyclotrons.

Victor N. Mansfield, a professor of physics and astronomy at Colgate University who wrote many papers and books of his own connecting physics to Buddhism and also to Jungian psychology,[4] complimented The Tao of Physics in Physics Today:[5][6]

"Fritjof Capra, in The Tao of Physics, seeks ... an integration of the mathematical world view of modern physics and the mystical visions of Buddha and Krishna. Where others have failed miserably in trying to unite these seemingly different world views, Capra, a high-energy theorist, has succeeded admirably. I strongly recommend the book to both layman and scientist."

However, it is not without its critics. Jeremy Bernstein, a professor of physics at the Stevens Institute of Technology,[7] chastised The Tao of Physics:[8]

At the heart of the matter is Mr. Capra's methodology – his use of what seem to me to be accidental similarities of language as if these were somehow evidence of deeply rooted connections. Thus I agree with Capra when he writes, "Science does not need mysticism and mysticism does not need science but man needs both." What no one needs, in my opinion, is this superficial and profoundly misleading book.

Leon M. Lederman, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and current Director Emeritus of Fermilab, criticized both The Tao of Physics and Gary Zukav's The Dancing Wu Li Masters in his 1993 book The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question?[9]

Starting with reasonable descriptions of quantum physics, he constructs elaborate extensions, totally bereft of the understanding of how carefully experiment and theory are woven together and how much blood, sweat, and tears go into each painful advance.

Philosopher of science Eric Scerri criticizes both Capra and Zukav and similar books.[10]

Peter Woit, a mathematical physicist at Columbia University, criticized Capra for continuing to build his case for physics-mysticism parallels on the bootstrap model of strong-force interactions set out at the end of the book,[6] long after the Standard Model had become thoroughly accepted by physicists as a better model:[11]

The Tao of Physics was completed in December 1974, and the implications of the November Revolution one month earlier that led to the dramatic confirmations of the standard-model quantum field theory clearly had not sunk in for Capra (like many others at that time). What is harder to understand is that the book has now gone through several editions, and in each of them Capra has left intact the now out-of-date physics, including new forewords and afterwords that with a straight face deny what has happened. The foreword to the second edition of 1983 claims, "It has been very gratifying for me that none of these recent developments has invalidated anything I wrote seven years ago. In fact, most of them were anticipated in the original edition," a statement far from any relation to the reality that in 1983 the standard model was nearly universally accepted in the physics community, and the bootstrap theory was a dead idea ... Even now, Capra's book, with its nutty denials of what has happened in particle theory, can be found selling well at every major bookstore. It has been joined by some other books on the same topic, most notably Gary Zukav's The Dancing Wu-Li Masters. The bootstrap philosophy, despite its complete failure as a physical theory, lives on as part of an embarrassing New Age cult, with its followers refusing to acknowledge what has happened.

In a 2019 commemoration in honour of physicist Geoffrey Chew, one of bootstrap's "fathers", Capra replied to criticisms such as Woit's:

However, the standard model does not include gravity, and hence fails to integrate all known particles and forces into a single mathematical framework. The currently most popular candidate for such a framework is string theory, which pictures all particles as different vibrations of mathematical "strings" in an abstract 9-dimensional space. The mathematical elegance of string theory is compelling, but the theory has serious deficiencies. If these difficulties persist, and if a theory of "quantum gravity" continues to remain elusive, the bootstrap idea may well be revived someday, in some mathematical formulation or other.[12]

Editions edit

See also edit

Notes edit

  1. ^ Fritjof Capra, interviewed by Renee Weber in the book The Holographic Paradigm, Shambhala/Random House. 1982. pages 217–218. ISBN 0-394-71237-4
  2. ^ Aaeserud, Finn (2015). "A Complementary Relationship: Niels Bohr and China*" (PDF). Berliner China-Hefte/Chinese History and Society. 46: 69–76 – via Niels Bohr Archive University of Copenhague.
  3. ^ Capra, Fritjof (1989). Howling with the Wolves. Werner Heisenberg, from "Uncommon wisdom: conversations with remarkable people". Toronto ; New York : Bantam Books. http://www4.westminster.edu/staff/brennie/wisdoms/uncowisd.htm
  4. ^ "Vic Mansfield". Templeton Press. Retrieved December 14, 2014.
  5. ^ . Archived from the original on October 9, 2010. Retrieved April 13, 2010.
  6. ^ a b Capra, Fritjof (1991). The Tao Of Physics (3rd Edition-Updated) Paperback – August 13, 1991. ISBN 0877735948.
  7. ^ "Jeremy Bernstein". Edge. Retrieved December 14, 2014.
  8. ^ Jeremy Bernstein (1982). Science Observed. New York: Basic Books. pp. 333–340. ISBN 0-465-07340-9.
  9. ^ Leon Lederman (1993). The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question?. New York: Bantam Doubleday. pp. 189–193. ISBN 0-385-31211-3.
  10. ^ Eric R. Scerri (1989). "Eastern Mysticism and the Alleged Parallels with Physics". American Journal of Physics. 57 (8): 687–692. Bibcode:1989AmJPh..57..687S. doi:10.1119/1.15921. S2CID 121572969.
  11. ^ Peter Woit (2006). Not Even Wrong: The Failure of String Theory and the Search for Unity in Physical Law. Basic Books. pp. 141–145. ISBN 978-0-465-09275-8.
  12. ^ "In Memoriam Geofrey Chew 1924-2019". fritjofcapra.net. Retrieved October 21, 2022.

References edit

  • The Holographic Paradigm and Other Paradoxes, edited by Ken Wilber, Boulder, Colorado: Shambhala, 1982, ISBN 0-394-71237-4
  • Woit, Peter (2006). Not Even Wrong – the Failure of String Theory and the Search for Unity in Physical Law. Basic Books. ISBN 0-465-09275-6.
  • Siu, R. G. H., The Tao of Science: an Essay on Western Knowledge and Eastern Wisdom, Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1957, ISBN 978-0-262-69004-1 / LCCN 57--13460

January 01, 1970
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The Tao of Physics An Exploration of the Parallels Between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism is a 1975 book by physicist Fritjof Capra A bestseller in the United States it has been translated into 23 languages Capra summarized his motivation for writing the book Science does not need mysticism and mysticism does not need science But man needs both The Tao of PhysicsCover of the first editionAuthorFritjof CapraCountryUnited StatesLanguageEnglishSubjectPhysicsPublished1975PublisherShambhala PublicationsMedia typePrint hardcover and paperback Pages356 pp Hardcover ISBN978 0704501423Followed byThe Turning Point Contents 1 Origin 2 Afterword to the third edition 3 Acclaim and criticism 4 Editions 5 See also 6 Notes 7 ReferencesOrigin editAccording to the preface of the first edition reprinted in subsequent editions Capra struggled to reconcile theoretical physics and Eastern mysticism and was at first helped on my way by power plants or psychedelics with the first experience so overwhelming that I burst into tears at the same time not unlike Castaneda pouring out my impressions to a piece of paper p 12 4th ed Capra later discussed his ideas with Werner Heisenberg in 1972 as he mentioned in the following interview excerpt I had several discussions with Heisenberg I lived in England then circa 1972 and I visited him several times in Munich and showed him the whole manuscript chapter by chapter He was very interested and very open and he told me something that I think is not known publicly because he never published it He said that he was well aware of these parallels While he was working on quantum theory he went to India to lecture and was a guest of Tagore He talked a lot with Tagore about Indian philosophy Heisenberg told me that these talks had helped him a lot with his work in physics because they showed him that all these new ideas in quantum physics were in fact not all that crazy He realized there was in fact a whole culture that subscribed to very similar ideas Heisenberg said that this was a great help for him Niels Bohr had a similar experience when he went to China 1 Bohr adopted the yin yang symbol as part of his coat of arms when he was knighted in 1947 2 it is claimed in the book that it was a result of orientalist influences The Tao of Physics was followed by other books of the same genre like The Hidden Connection The Turning Point and The Web of Life in which Capra extended the argument of how Eastern mysticism and scientific findings of today relate and how Eastern mysticism might also have the linguistic and philosophical tools required to undertake to some of the biggest scientific challenges remaining Afterword to the third edition editIn the afterword to the third edition published in 1982 pp 360 368 of the 1991 edition Capra offers six suggestions for a new paradigm in science Consider the part and the whole as more symmetrically conditioning one another Replace thinking in terms of structure with thinking in terms of process Replace objective science with epistemic science where the approach to decide what counts as knowledge adapts to the subject studied Replace the idea of knowledge as buildings based on foundations with an idea of knowledge as networks Abandon the quest for truth with a quest for better approximations Abandon the ideas of domination of nature with one of cooperation and nonviolence Capra reconnects this new paradigm to the theories of living and self organizing systems that has emerged from cybernetics Here he quotes Ilya Prigogine Gregory Bateson Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela p 372 of the 1991 edition Acclaim and criticism editAccording to Capra Werner Heisenberg was in agreement with the main idea of the book 3 I showed the manuscript to him chapter by chapter briefly summarizing the content of each chapter and emphasizing especially the topics related to his own work Heisenberg was most interested in the entire manuscript and very open to hearing my ideas I told him that I saw two basic themes running through all the theories of modern physics which were also the two basic themes of all mystical traditions the fundamental interrelatedness and interdependence of all phenomena and the intrinsically dynamic nature of reality Heisenberg agreed with me as far as physics was concerned and he also told me that he was well aware of the emphasis on interconnectedness in Eastern thought However he had been unaware of the dynamic aspect of the Eastern world view and was intrigued when I showed him with numerous examples from my manuscript that the principal Sanskrit terms used in Hindu and Buddhist philosophy brahman rta lila karma samsara etc had dynamic connotations At the end of my rather long presentation of the manuscript Heisenberg said simply Basically I am in complete agreement with you The book was a best seller in the United States It received a positive review from New York magazine A brilliant best seller Lucidly analyzes the tenets of Hinduism Buddhism and Taoism to show their striking parallels with the latest discoveries in cyclotrons Victor N Mansfield a professor of physics and astronomy at Colgate University who wrote many papers and books of his own connecting physics to Buddhism and also to Jungian psychology 4 complimented The Tao of Physics in Physics Today 5 6 Fritjof Capra in The Tao of Physics seeks an integration of the mathematical world view of modern physics and the mystical visions of Buddha and Krishna Where others have failed miserably in trying to unite these seemingly different world views Capra a high energy theorist has succeeded admirably I strongly recommend the book to both layman and scientist However it is not without its critics Jeremy Bernstein a professor of physics at the Stevens Institute of Technology 7 chastised The Tao of Physics 8 At the heart of the matter is Mr Capra s methodology his use of what seem to me to be accidental similarities of language as if these were somehow evidence of deeply rooted connections Thus I agree with Capra when he writes Science does not need mysticism and mysticism does not need science but man needs both What no one needs in my opinion is this superficial and profoundly misleading book Leon M Lederman a Nobel Prize winning physicist and current Director Emeritus of Fermilab criticized both The Tao of Physics and Gary Zukav s The Dancing Wu Li Masters in his 1993 book The God Particle If the Universe Is the Answer What Is the Question 9 Starting with reasonable descriptions of quantum physics he constructs elaborate extensions totally bereft of the understanding of how carefully experiment and theory are woven together and how much blood sweat and tears go into each painful advance Philosopher of science Eric Scerri criticizes both Capra and Zukav and similar books 10 Peter Woit a mathematical physicist at Columbia University criticized Capra for continuing to build his case for physics mysticism parallels on the bootstrap model of strong force interactions set out at the end of the book 6 long after the Standard Model had become thoroughly accepted by physicists as a better model 11 The Tao of Physics was completed in December 1974 and the implications of the November Revolution one month earlier that led to the dramatic confirmations of the standard model quantum field theory clearly had not sunk in for Capra like many others at that time What is harder to understand is that the book has now gone through several editions and in each of them Capra has left intact the now out of date physics including new forewords and afterwords that with a straight face deny what has happened The foreword to the second edition of 1983 claims It has been very gratifying for me that none of these recent developments has invalidated anything I wrote seven years ago In fact most of them were anticipated in the original edition a statement far from any relation to the reality that in 1983 the standard model was nearly universally accepted in the physics community and the bootstrap theory was a dead idea Even now Capra s book with its nutty denials of what has happened in particle theory can be found selling well at every major bookstore It has been joined by some other books on the same topic most notably Gary Zukav s The Dancing Wu Li Masters The bootstrap philosophy despite its complete failure as a physical theory lives on as part of an embarrassing New Age cult with its followers refusing to acknowledge what has happened In a 2019 commemoration in honour of physicist Geoffrey Chew one of bootstrap s fathers Capra replied to criticisms such as Woit s However the standard model does not include gravity and hence fails to integrate all known particles and forces into a single mathematical framework The currently most popular candidate for such a framework is string theory which pictures all particles as different vibrations of mathematical strings in an abstract 9 dimensional space The mathematical elegance of string theory is compelling but the theory has serious deficiencies If these difficulties persist and if a theory of quantum gravity continues to remain elusive the bootstrap idea may well be revived someday in some mathematical formulation or other 12 Editions editThe Tao of Physics Fritjof Capra Shambhala Publications 1975 Shambhala 2nd edition 1983 ISBN 0 394 71612 4 Bantam reprint 1985 ISBN 0 553 26379 X Shambhala 3rd edition 1991 ISBN 0 87773 594 8 Shambhala 4th edition 2000 ISBN 1 57062 519 0 Shambhala 5th edition 2010 ISBN 978 1590308356 Audio Renaissance 1990 audio cassette tape ISBN 1 55927 089 6 Audio Renaissance 2004 audio compact disc abridged ISBN 1 55927 999 0See also editQuantum mysticism Quantum Reality The Dancing Wu Li Masters The Turning Point War of the WorldviewsNotes edit Fritjof Capra interviewed by Renee Weber in the book The Holographic Paradigm Shambhala Random House 1982 pages 217 218 ISBN 0 394 71237 4 Aaeserud Finn 2015 A Complementary Relationship Niels Bohr and China PDF Berliner China Hefte Chinese History and Society 46 69 76 via Niels Bohr Archive University of Copenhague Capra Fritjof 1989 Howling with the Wolves Werner Heisenberg from Uncommon wisdom conversations with remarkable people Toronto New York Bantam Books http www4 westminster edu staff brennie wisdoms uncowisd htm Vic Mansfield Templeton Press Retrieved December 14 2014 An Exploration of the Parallels between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism Archived from the original on October 9 2010 Retrieved April 13 2010 a b Capra Fritjof 1991 The Tao Of Physics 3rd Edition Updated Paperback August 13 1991 ISBN 0877735948 Jeremy Bernstein Edge Retrieved December 14 2014 Jeremy Bernstein 1982 Science Observed New York Basic Books pp 333 340 ISBN 0 465 07340 9 Leon Lederman 1993 The God Particle If the Universe Is the Answer What Is the Question New York Bantam Doubleday pp 189 193 ISBN 0 385 31211 3 Eric R Scerri 1989 Eastern Mysticism and the Alleged Parallels with Physics American Journal of Physics 57 8 687 692 Bibcode 1989AmJPh 57 687S doi 10 1119 1 15921 S2CID 121572969 Peter Woit 2006 Not Even Wrong The Failure of String Theory and the Search for Unity in Physical Law Basic Books pp 141 145 ISBN 978 0 465 09275 8 In Memoriam Geofrey Chew 1924 2019 fritjofcapra net Retrieved October 21 2022 References editThe Holographic Paradigm and Other Paradoxes edited by Ken Wilber Boulder Colorado Shambhala 1982 ISBN 0 394 71237 4 Woit Peter 2006 Not Even Wrong the Failure of String Theory and the Search for Unity in Physical Law Basic Books ISBN 0 465 09275 6 Siu R G H The Tao of Science an Essay on Western Knowledge and Eastern Wisdom Cambridge Massachusetts MIT Press 1957 ISBN 978 0 262 69004 1 LCCN 57 13460 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title The Tao of Physics amp oldid 1174501862, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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