ABSTRACT

Through the course of the text thus far, a path has revealed itself This path embodies the journey of life, in which periods of stability give way to perturbations, bifurca­ tions, complexity, and even chaos, which eventually displays a new form of stability self-organizing out of nonlinearity. Considered against the backdrop of a world that has been dominated by linear, mechanistic, logical positivistic assumptions, this holis­ tic epistemology almost strikes one as an alien life form. The set of assumptions and ideas housed within chaos and complexity challenge the very bedrock of science itself. In fact, it challenges not only science but also the culture that supports it (as is discussed in later chapters).