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Program Declaration
The objective of our web site
is to bring scientific information that to day is not given sufficient
attention, but that may be of special significance for humanity
tomorrow. History tells us that new scientific insight often meets
strong antagonism and may have great difficulties being heard.
The impending
climate crisis has made it clear that our generation has a great
responsibility towards the future. The ecological and climate crisis we
are facing is largely man made. It illustrates how our science and
technology has created the foundation for a development that may have
destructive consequences for life on earth. The development of nuclear
technology and gene technology also may pose potential threats to life
on earth. Our acts now will influence future conditions of life. We,
therefore, share a common, global responsibility.
This historic
situation is a consequence of modern science. At the same time our
attitudes and potential strategies to deal with present and future
problems will depend on our scientific knowledge. In this situation the
scientists of to day face a double responsibility. This responsibility
is now so acute that we may not allow forces resisting a free scientific
development to dominate, whether these are due to scientific prejudices,
power politics or economic interests.
We have chosen the
name ‘syntropy’ because syntropy is a term indicating an aspect of
reality that has been overlooked or given insufficient attention in
modern science. Syntropy is the opposite of entropy. Entropy is a
measure of statistical equilibrium. According to the second law of
thermodynamics the entropy in a closed physical system will increase
continuously as a measure of how all structure or order inevitably is
broken down with the passage of time. This is what in physics is called
‘thermal death’ because heat, as a measure of the accidental movements
of particles, is unstructured energy. In contrast to this, living
organisms are examples of how order and structure may develop in
apparent conflict with the second law of thermodynamics.
This is an old and
yet unsolved problem in modern science. Erwin Schrödinger, one of the
founders of quantum physics, formulated it thus in 1943: “How can the
events in space and time that take place between the spatial boundary of
a living organism be accounted for by physics and chemistry? ….. The
obvious inability of present-day physics to account for such events is
no reason at all for doubting that they can be accounted for by those
sciences.” (E. Schrödinger: “What is Life?, 1944) Science has since
then made some progress, but the fundamental problem, Schrödinger
emphasised, remains. In agreement with Schrödinger’s thought about this,
we believe the concept ‘syntropy’ may be a key to better insight.
A prerequisite that
order and structure may be broken down, is that it is present in the
first place. The second law of thermodynamics presupposes that structure
and order is present. The science of to day does not give a clear answer
how this order initially originated. It is, therefore, not strange that
creationism, the belief that this original order is due to a divine
force outside the order of nature, has many believers to day. Those of
us, who have taken the initiative to this web site, are of the opinion
that we in the first run have to look for the answer to this problem
within the order of nature. Although this is not apparent in present day
science, we have to think that entropy and its opposite, negentropy or
syntropy, are both present in natural processes. The deeper problems
concerned with this, is for us a central theme that we will take up in
time both in a scientific and a philosophical context.
We believe that the
one-sided focus on entropic processes implied in the mechanistic
paradigm has had practical consequences that we to day have to
understand in a broader context. We will here just mention how this
applies to two important fields.
The first of these
is energy production. Both the combustion of fossil fuels, like oil and
coal, and the present atomic reactors, based on nuclear fission, are
examples of entropic processes, increasing the total entropy of the
Earth and having negative effects on terrestrial ecological systems. The
task ahead will be to develop new technological solutions that may
better give a balance between entropy and syntropy.
The second of these
is medicine. Living beings have a great capacity for self repair and
spontaneous healing. Healing processes are syntropic processes in the
sense that they restore organic structure and order. Without this
syntropic capacity for self repair and healing life could not have
arisen and developed on our planet. And it is a prerequisite for all
medical work: Natura sanat – non medicina, it is nature that heals not
medicine. This is an old truth, no physician can deny. But we have so
far no adequate scientific theory to explain healing processes. As a
consequence this has not been given priority in medical research, and
has at times even been ridiculed as ‘pseudo science’. We may here,
indeed, talk about an entropic and a syntropic dimension, where medical
thought for a long time has been dominated by the entropic dimension
with all the practical consequences this has brought.
It is in the very
nature of science that it is fundamentally open as well as critical
minded, and this last aspect includes both self criticism and lack of
dogmatic assurance. Thought models are only rarely identical with the
reality they try to describe and explain. Science ought to combine
ambition and humility. We hope to be able to present theories and
viewpoints that open for critical discussions that may both serve our
ambition and our humility.
The development of
science and technology has opened for new challenges and a new and
greater responsibility. The ancient Greek myth about Prometheus may give
us an idea of what is demanded from us. Prometheus had stolen the fire
from the gods to give it to man. As a punishment he had to take over the
task from Atlas of carrying the globe of heaven on his shoulders. We
today are in a similar situation. And if we do not succeed in this task,
the globe of heaven may fall on us and we will risk to be crushed. This
task is so mighty and so demanding that in order to succeed without
having the globe of heaven coming out of balance with all the
consequences of that, we need the cooperation of all the peoples of the
Earth with the knowledge and wisdom they have developed through their
different traditions.
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