Carolyn and I have appreciated the work of physicist, activist, and ecologist Fritjof Capra, who is the founding director of the Center for Ecoliteracy, and author of several bestselling books, including The Tao of Physics, which explores the relationship between Eastern philosophy and modern physics.
Fritjof Capra was born in Vienna, Austria in 1939. His father was an attorney and his mother was a poet. Capra attended the University of Vienna and earned his Ph.D. in theoretical physics in 1966. Capra also studied numerous languages and is fluent in German, English, Italian, and French.
Capra conducted physics research at several prestigious institutions. Between 1966 and 1968, he was a researcher at the University of Paris. Between 1968 and 1970, he conducted research at the University of California, Santa Cruz. In 1970, he was a researcher at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center in Palo Alto, California, and then at Imperial College in London between 1971 and 1974. Between 1975 and 1988, Capra worked at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in Northern California.
Capra was involved in theoretical high-energy physics research, focusing on quantum field theory and particle physics. He worked on topics related to the physics of subatomic particles, exploring the fundamental forces and interactions that govern their behavior. Capra’s work included studying the properties and interactions of elementary particles, contributing to the understanding of quantum mechanics, and developing theoretical frameworks that describe particle interactions.
In 1975, while Capra was a researcher in Northern California, he joined the Fundamental Fysiks Group, which met weekly to discuss philosophy and quantum physics. Our friend Nick Herbert, who I wrote a profile about a while back, was also a member of this legendary group that revolutionized physics. David Kaiser’s book How the Hippies Saved Physics, chronicles how this group of unconventional physicists in the 1970s, blended psychedelic and counterculture influences with scientific inquiry, to help revive interest in the foundations of quantum mechanics and contribute to the development of quantum information science.
That same year Capra published his groundbreaking book The Tao of Physics, which became a bestseller and was translated into twenty-three languages. The book explores the parallels between modern physics and Eastern mysticism, suggesting that both realms offer complementary perspectives on the nature of reality. Capra argues that quantum mechanics and relativity discoveries reflect the holistic and interconnected worldview found in ancient spiritual traditions such as Taoism, Buddhism, and Hinduism.
In 1982, Capra published his book The Turning Point, which examines the failures of modern society’s mechanistic worldview and advocates for a paradigm shift towards a more holistic, ecological approach to science, economics, and society. In 1988, Capra published Uncommon Wisdom: Conversations with Remarkable People, a series of dialogues that he had with several brilliant thinkers, such as Alan Watts, Gregory Bateson, Krishnamurti, and R.D. Laing about the interconnectedness of life and the universe.
In 1990, the movie Mindwalk — starring Liv Ullmann, Sam Waterston, and John Heard— was released, and Capra co-wrote the screenplay. The film — which is about three people who engage in a deep philosophical discussion on a variety of topics, including science, politics, and the interconnectedness of life, while walking around the island of Mont Saint-Michel in France — is loosely based on his book, The Turning Point.
In 1991 Capra co-authored Belonging to the Universe: Explorations on the Frontiers of Science and Spirituality with a Benedictine monk David Steindl-Rast. The book explores parallels between new paradigm thinking in science and religion, and it won the American Book Award in 1992.
In 1995, Capra co-founded the Center for Ecoliteracy in Berkeley, California. The organization is dedicated to promoting ecological education in schools and integrates ecological principles into the curriculum to foster environmental awareness and sustainability among students. It has supported projects in habitat restoration, school gardens, and cooking classes, partnerships between farms and schools, school food transformation, and curricular innovation.
In 1996, Capra published his book The Web of Life, which presents a new scientific understanding of living systems, emphasizing the interconnectedness and interdependence of all life forms through the principles of complexity, networks, and ecology. In 1998, Capra received the New Dimensions Broadcaster Award, in 1999 he received the Bioneers Award, and in 2007 he was inducted into the Leonardo da Vinci Society for the Study of Thinking.
In 2002, Capra published The Hidden Connections, and he co-authored The Systems View of Life in 2014. Both books emphasize the interconnectedness and complexity of living systems, integrating perspectives from biology, ecology, and social sciences to understand the holistic nature of life. Capra has also taught physics classes at the University of California Santa Cruz, University of California, Berkeley, and San Francisco State University over the years.
In 2018, at an event hosted by our friend Ralph Abraham, I met Fritjof Capra. I told him how much I had enjoyed his book The Tao of Physics, and asked him about his inspiration for writing it. Fritjof then described to me how he was sitting on a beach in Santa Cruz when he experienced the revelations that led to his integration of physics with Taoism, and how mystical experiences that he had with “power plants” had played a role in his insight.
Some of the quotes that Fritjof Capra is known for include:
The mystic and the physicist arrive at the same conclusion; one starting from the inner realm, the other from the outer world. The harmony between their views confirms the ancient Indian wisdom that Brahman, the ultimate reality without, is identical to Atman, the reality within.
Mystics understand the roots of the Tao but not its branches; scientists understand its branches but not its roots. Science does not need mysticism and mysticism does not need science; but man needs both.
Quantum theory thus reveals a basic oneness of the universe. It shows that we cannot decompose the world into independently existing smallest units. As we penetrate into matter, nature does not show us any isolated “building blocks,” but rather appears as a complicated web of relations between the various parts of the whole. These relations always include the observer in an essential way. The human observer constitute the final link in the chain of observational processes, and the properties of any atomic object can be understood only in terms of the object’s interaction with the observer.
The more we study the major problems of our time, the more we come to realize that they cannot be understood in isolation. They are systemic problems, which means that they are interconnected and interdependent.
At the deepest level of ecological awareness you are talking about spiritual awareness. Spiritual awareness is an understanding of being imbedded in a larger whole, a cosmic whole, of belonging to the universe.
In ordinary life, we are not aware of the unity of all things, but divide the world into separate objects and events. This division is useful and necessary to cope with our everyday environment, but it is not a fundamental feature of reality. It is an abstraction devised by our discriminating and categorizing intellect. To believe that our abstract concepts of separate ‘things’ and ‘events’ are realities of nature is an illusion.