August 31, 2026

No Isolated Parts

As we penetrate into matter, nature does not show us any isolated 'basic building blocks', but rather appears as a complicated web of relations between the various parts of the whole.

Fritjof Capra wrote The Tao of Physics in 1975, drawing on his years as a particle physicist to find striking parallels between quantum theory and Eastern mystical traditions. He had spent his career studying high-energy physics, watching subatomic particles refuse to behave as isolated, solid objects, revealing themselves only through their interactions. This overturned the old Newtonian picture of a universe built from separate building blocks, replacing it with a vision of reality as a dynamic web of relationships. For Capra this was not just physics but a new way to locate meaning, not in things themselves but in the connections between them.