Diederik Aerts: View

Diederik Aerts is Belgian theoretical physicist. Explore interesting quotes on view.
Diederik Aerts: 22   quotes 0   likes

“A world view is a system of co-ordinates or a frame of reference in which everything presented to us by our diverse experiences can be placed. It is a symbolic system of representation that allows us to integrate everything we know about the world and ourselves into a global picture, one that illuminates reality as it is presented to us within a certain culture.”

Diederik Aerts

Source: World views. From Fragmentation to Integration (1994), p. 8

World , Reality

“World views, as related to the sciences, ethics, arts, politics and religions, are integral parts of all cultures. They have a strongly motivating and inspiring function. A socially shared view of the whole gives a culture a sense of direction, confidence and self-esteem. Moreover, interactions between cultures change constantly.”

Diederik Aerts

Source: World views. From Fragmentation to Integration (1994), p. 8

World , Religion , Art , Confidence

“Although world views grow organic ly and historically, they can also be developed. The construction of world views is comparable to the work of cartographers in antiquity and in the Middle Ages. They mapped out the world on the basis of information from sailors, mer­ chants and explorers.”

Diederik Aerts

Source: Perspectives on the World: an interdisciplinary reflection. (1995), p. iv

Age , World , Lying

“The world around us can be construed as a huge "house" that we share with other humans, as well as with animals and plants. It is in this world that we exist, fulfilling our tasks, enjoying things, developing social relations, creating a family. In short, we live in this world. We thus have a deep human need to know and to trust it, to be emotionally involved in it. Many of us, however, experience an increasing feeling of alienation. Even though, with the expansion of society, virtually the entire surface of the planet has become a part of our house, often we do not feel "at home" in that house. With the rapid and spontaneous changes of the past decades, so many new wings and rooms have been constructed or rearranged that we have lost familiarity with our house. We often have the impression that what remains of the world is a collection of isolated fragments, without any structure and coherence. Our personal "everyday" world seems unable to harmonise itself with the global world of society, history and cosmos.
It is our conviction that the time has come to make a conscious effort towards the construction of global world views, in order to overcome this situation of fragmentation. There are many reasons why we believe in the benefit of such an enterprise, and in the following pages we shall attempt to make some of them clear.”

Diederik Aerts

Source: World views. From Fragmentation to Integration (1994), p. 1; About "The fragmentation of our world"

World , Family , Feeling , Home

“A world view is a coherent collection of concepts and theorems that must allow us to construct a global image of the world, and in this way to understand as many elements of our experience as possible.
Societies, as well as individuals, have always contemplated deep questions relating to their being and becoming, and to the being and becoming of the world. The configuration of answers to these questions forms their world view. Research on world views, although we are convinced of its practical value and necessity, will always be primarily an expression of a theoretical interest. It reflects the unlimited openness of the human mind to reality as a whole. Even if this research would not appear to be of any immediate value or necessity – quod non – we still should promote and encourage it energetically, because it also expresses the most unselfish striving of humanity “the desire to know,” a property of “Homo sapiens sapiens.””

Diederik Aerts

Source: World views. From Fragmentation to Integration (1994), p. 8

World , Way , Understanding , Question

“In the construction of world views one can distinguish seven important tasks that correspond with the various components of a world view and that must provide an answer to a number of fundamental questions. First we must design a model of the world. What is the world like in which we live? How is the world structured and how does it function? What are the most suitable metaphors for speaking of the whole? Are mechanistic or organic models to be given preference? An explanation of reality must then follow. Why are the world and mankind as they are? Is a completely different world possible? What general explanatory principles apply?”

Diederik Aerts

Source: Perspectives on the World: an interdisciplinary reflection. (1995), p. v : About "The seven tasks of World-view construction"

World , Question , Reality

“In classical Newtonian physics there was a clear understanding of 'what reality is'. Indeed in this classical view, reality at a certain time is the collection of all what is actual at this time, and this is contained in 'the present'. Often it is stated that three dimensional space and one dimensional time have been substituted by four dimensional space-time in relativity theory, and as a consequence the classical concept of reality, as that what is 'present', cannot be retained. Is reality then the four dimensional manifold of relativity theory? And if so, what is then the meaning of 'change in time?”

Diederik Aerts

Aerts, D. (1996). " Relativity theory: what is reality? http://www.vub.ac.be/CLEA/aerts/publications/1996RelReal.pdf". Foundations of Physics, 26, pp. 1627-1644

Understanding , Reality , Change , Time

“We continually speak of world views in the plural because a unique and monolithic world view - considering the immense complexity of reality - will remain an unattainable ideal.”

Diederik Aerts

Source: Perspectives on the World: an interdisciplinary reflection. (1995), p. iv

World , Reality