TRAMES 2, 6, 2002

ILYA PRIGOGINE’S PROGRAM FOR THE REMAKING OF TRADITIONAL PHYSICS AND THE RESULTING CONCLUSIONS FOR UNDERSTANDING SOCIAL PROBLEMS

Leo Näpinen

Tallinn Technical University

Abstract. Recent studies within the framework of Ilya Prigogine’s research program refer to the classical methods of exact sciences as being completely unsuitable for interpreting social life. In the conception of large Poincaré systems, consisting of an innumerable number of particles, which are in incessant mutual impact, Prigogine reached the incorporation of the real irreversibility (and through that, of the real chance) into the microscopic physics. The verifying power of the new exact science has by now shown that a human being can deliberately construct and organise a tiny part of the world merely because of the existence of the phenomenon of self-organisation. Therefore, it is necessary to acknowledge the fundamental indeterminacy of history of the integral (including humans) world.

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