Emilios Bouratinos
Emilios Bouratinos is a philosopher of science, who was born in Athens in 1931. Disenchanted
with 20th century analytical and positivistic philosophy, Bouratinos turned early on to the
thoughtful writings of the great physicists of our era. He discovered that quite a few consider
a better understanding of the mind indispensable for advancing further in the study of physical
reality. Thus, since 1972, Bouratinos has been devoted to the study of consciousness from a
footing that is equally inter-disciplinary and self-reflective. Today he advocates the creation of a
new science that, starting from the great breakthroughs of 20th century physics, will accept the
profound implications of these breakthroughs for the way we think about and handle the world.
24 September at 16.00 / A NEW POTENTIAL FOR SCIENCE:
Wholeness, direct experience and language
If we desire to uncover the potential of science on its terms, we need to stop perceiving reality as
a compilation of ever smaller fragments governed by the sense-informed logic of their interaction.
Instead, we must involve direct personal experience and self-reflective language in our quest for
scientific truth. This will help us not to be so preoccupied over what we perceive. It will also help us
care less for the known and strive more for the quality of knowing. New types of observation (let
alone new types of findings) demand new types of thinking. They don’t demand just new thoughts.
We cannot practice a holistic science with a fragmenting mindset. Our mindset must change before
our practices can. We need to re-train ourselves in such a way that language evokes for us a sense
of wholeness in the very act of carving up the world. We need to do this in such a way that we are
not conceptually trapped on either side of the divide. To bring about a new potential for science, a
new paradigm would be detrimental – even if it was ideal.
For the occasion the artist Simona Rinciari presented her beautiful works named "Stramonio e Veda".
See the gallery in Art section
D I S C U S S A N T S
Vasileios Basios is a physicist working on issues of Chaos and Complexity.
In his early formative years he was a member of Ilya Prigogine’s team, at the University of
Brussels, where he is currently researching on Physics of Complex Systems and Statistical
Mechanics as a Senior Researcher. He maintains an active interest on the history and
development of scientific logic and ideas. Aspects of emergence, e.g. interplay of the whole
and its parts, especially at the borderline between the living and non-living is for him an
everlasting source of motivation towards bringing forth self-reflective thinking in scientific matters.
David Lorimer is a writer, lecturer and editor who is programme director of the Scientific
and Medical Network. Originally a merchant banker then a teacher of philosophy and modern languages
at Winchester College, he is the author and editor of twelve books, most recently Thinking beyond
the Brain and Science, Consciousness and Ultimate Reality. He has a long-standing interest in the
perennial wisdom and has translated and edited books about the Bulgarian sage Peter Deunov. He
is also a member of the International Futures Forum and editor of its digest, Omnipedia - Thinking
for Tomorrow. He is the originator of the Learning for Life Values Poster Programme, which this year
involved 15,000 young people from more than 100 schools.