Looking Through Ulanowicz’s “Third Window”

摘要

After a “very personal” introduction, and a reference to how accurate indeed is the use of the “new window” metaphor by Ulanowicz and about what “can be seen through it”, the article dwells into the evolution of our understanding about the most general sources—material and/or non-material—of change and transformation; in order to examine further the item about the ways through which “information” can be a source of change and transformation also in pre-biotic processes, where commonly it is not taken into account. Thus, the article argues the convergence between Ulanowicz’s and the Author’s treatments of—non only biotic—networks of configuration of processes (a central theme in Ulanowicz’s book). Finally, the article pays attention to how Ulanowicz’s vision through his “new Third Window”, can indeed help us transcend the non desirable division of contemporary culture into two isolated compartments (science and technology versus the humanities and ethics), which has contributed not only to the globalization of communications, transactions, knowledge and so on, but also to the globalization of multiple crisis of different sort that need to be solved if we want “a better world to be possible”.