THE ART OF LIVING TOGETHER Life on Earth is complex and interactive, with organisms forming populations, which in turn form communities, or ecosystems, both locally and globally. The ecology is defined by the interactions between species and their composition within that system that drives natural selection, evolution, and genetic composition. The fitness for survival of an organism in any ecosystem is not dependent solely upon the species but includes the interactions of other organisms with that species. Symbiosis, the nature of the interactions between different organisms living in close physical association, is omnipresent and played an essential role in the…
The world now stands on the cusp of a technological revolution that may prove as transformative for economic growth and human potential as were electrification, mass production, and electronic telecommunications in their eras. Will these developments enable people to attain higher living standards, better working conditions, greater economic security, and improved health and longevity? The answers to these questions are not predetermined. They depend upon the institutions, investments, and policies that are deployed to harness the opportunities and confront the challenges posed by this new era. Innovation is being transformed by the penetration of converging technologies, in particular the reliance…
With its unprecedented changes in the earth’s geo-and biosphere, the fundamental and irreversible human imprint and impact on natural systems and processes has turned humankind into a geological agent, which has led to term this epoch and state of affairs, the ‘Anthropocene’. Under the techno human condition, anthropogenic-induced environmental change and the domination of the Earth’s ecosystems have reached a global scope and a permanent geological time-scale. Humanity has become the most successful parasite of any invasive species, a hominiscence appropriating the entire planet—taking without giving and engaging in continual (terrorizingly) territorialization. Conceptual disconnection and practical alienation from materialities and…
Over seventy years ago, Erwin Schrödinger in his famous book 'What is Life?', posed the following question: ‘How can the events that take place in space and time and within a living organism be accounted for by physics and chemistry?’. A fundamental change of metaphors: from seeing the world as a machine to understanding it as a network. The entire material world, ultimately, is a network of inseparable patterns of relationships, including the planet as a whole is a living, self-regulating system. Evolution is no longer seen as a competitive struggle for existence, but rather as a cooperative dance in…
