#systems

It is of first-class importance that our answer to the Riddle of the Sphinx should be in step with how we conduct our civilisation, and this should in turn be in step with the actual workings of living systems. ↗

— Gregory Bateson

#answer #civilisation #conduct #first-class #how

In all systems of theology the devil figures as a male person. Yes, it is women who keep the church going. ↗

— Don Marquis

#devil #figures #going #keep #male

If biologists have ignored self-organization, it is not because self-ordering is not pervasive and profound. It is because we biologists have yet to understand how to think about systems governed simultaneously by two sources of order, Yet who seeing the snowflake, who seeing simple lipid molecules cast adrift in water forming themselves into cell-like hollow lipid vesicles, who seeing the potential for the crystallization of life in swarms of reacting molecules, who seeing the stunning order for free in networks linking tens upon tens of thousands of variables, can fail to entertain a central thought: if ever we are to attain a final theory in biology, we will surely, surely have to understand the commingling of self-organization and selection. We will have to see that we are the natural expressions of a deeper order. Ultimately, we will discover in our creation myth that we are expected after all. ↗

— Stuart A. Kauffman

#emergence #science #systems #life

You can have many different selection systems, but the bottom line has to be a system that, once the judge takes office that judge will feel that he or she is to decide the case without reference to the popular thing or the popular will of the moment. ↗

— Stephen Breyer

#bottom line #case #decide #different #feel

The problem is that no ethical system has ever achieved consensus. Ethical systems are completely unlike mathematics or science. This is a source of concern. ↗

— Daniel Dennett

#completely #concern #consensus #ethical #ever

Our systems are all go. At 9:30 Monday morning trading will resume on both markets, and the message will be given to criminals who foisted this on America that they lost. ↗

— Richard Grasso

#both #criminals #given #go #lost

Consequently many large railroad systems of heavy capitalization bid fair to run into difficulties on the first serious falling off in general business. ↗

— John Moody

#business #consequently #difficulties #fair #falling

Knowing reality means constructing systems of transformations that correspond, more or less adequately, to reality. ↗

— Jean Piaget

#constructing #correspond #knowing #less #means

I think one has to say it's not just simply a matter of capturing people and holding them accountable, but removing the sanctuaries, removing the support systems, ending states who sponsor terrorism. And that's why it has to be a broad and sustained campaign. ↗

— Paul Wolfowitz

#broad #campaign #capturing #ending #holding

The point is not that Jesus was a good guy who accepted everybody, and thus we should do the same (though that would be good). Rather, his teachings and behavior reflect an alternative social vision. Jesus was not talking about how to be good and how to behave within the framework of a domination system. He was a critic of the domination system itself. ↗

— Marcus J. Borg

#politics #social-justice #systems #faith