The science of life has nowadays to a certain extent become a crossroad, in which the contemporary intellectual developments converge. The biological… - Ludwig von Bertalanffy
" "The science of life has nowadays to a certain extent become a crossroad, in which the contemporary intellectual developments converge. The biological theories have acquired a tremendous ideological [weltanschauliche], yes even public and political significance... The condition of biology, problematic in many respects, has led to the situation that the “philosophies of life” were until now by no means satisfactory from the scientific as much as the practical point of view; we see all the more clearly the importance of the theoretical clarification of biology.
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About Ludwig von Bertalanffy
Ludwig von Bertalanffy (September 19, 1901 – June 12, 1972) was an Austrian-born biologist, who grew up in Austria and subsequently worked in Vienna, London, Canada, and the USA. He is known as one of the founders of general systems theory; an interdisciplinary practice that describes systems with interacting components, applicable to biology, cybernetics and other fields. Bertalanffy proposed that the classical laws of thermodynamics applied to closed systems, but not necessarily to "open systems," such as living things. His mathematical model of an organism's growth over time, published in 1934, is still in use today.
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Alternative Names:
Karl Ludwig von Bertalanffy
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