Erich Jantsch

Erich Jantsch (1929–1980) was an Austrian astrophysicist.

In the mid-1960s his increasing concern regarding the future led him to study forecasting techniques. He does not believe forecasting or science can be neutral,^[1]

Jantsch's Gauthier Lectures in System Science given in May 1979 at the University of California in Berkely became the basis for his book The Self-Organizing Universe: Scientific and Human Implications of the Emerging Paradigm of Evolution, published by Pergamon Press in 1980 as part of the System Science and World Order Library edited by Ervin László. The book deals with self-organization as a unifying evolutionary paradigm that incorporates cosmology, biology, sociology, psychology, and consciousness. Jantsch is inspired by and draws on the work of Ilya Prigogine concerning dissipative structures and nonequilibrium states.

Now out of print for many years, The Self-organizing Universe has been influential among interdisciplinary proponents of biomimicry alternatives to understanding science like holism, co-evolution, and self-organization. It was extensively cited in Ken Wilber's integral philosophy book Sex, Ecology, Spirituality: The Spirit of Evolution.

Bibliography

• Technological forecasting in perspective, OECD, 1967.
• Technological planning and social futures, Wiley, 1972. ISBN 0-470-43997-1
• The Evolutionary Vision (Aaas Selected Symposium), Westview Press. ISBN 0-86531-140-4
• Design for Evolution: Self-Organization and Planning in the Life of Human Systems (The International Library of Systems Theory and Philosophy), George Braziller Inc, 1975. ISBN 0-8076-0758-4
• The Self-Organizing Universe: Scientific and Human Implications of the Emerging Paradigm of Evolution, New York: Pergamon Press, 1980. hardcover ISBN 0-08-024312-6 ; softcover ISBN 0-08-024311-8
• (ed.) The Evolutionary Vision: Toward a Unifying Paradigm of Physical, Biological and Sociocultural Evolution. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1981.
  • Unifying principles of evolution. In The Evolutionary Vision, 83—116.

References

External links

• Book cover at Kheper.net
• Excerpts from TSOU at Kheper.net
• Description of book contents at Principia Cybernetica

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