Levels of Reality: History of the Concept and
Consequences in Culture, Spiritualty and Social life
Basarab Nicolescu
Theoretical physicist at CNRS, University Paris VI,
Member of the Romanian Academy,
President of the International Center for Transdisciplinary Research and Studies,
Paris, France
Advisory member of indexicals – Centre of transdisciplinary cognitve and state-system sciences, Graz, Austria Abstract:
I will present the notion of levels of Reality as I introduced it in 1985 in my book Us, the Particle and the World. By “Reality” I designate that which resists our experiences, representations, descriptions, images, or even mathematical formulations. By “level of Reality” I designate a set of systems which are invariant under certain general laws: for example, quantum entities are subordinate to quantum laws, which depart radically from the laws of the macrophysical world. That is to say that two levels of Reality are different if, while passing from one to the other, there is a break in the applicable laws and a break in fundamental concepts (like, for example, causality). I will then compare this notion with a similar one introduced by Werner Heisenberg in his Manuscript of 1942.
Founded on the basic notion of levels of Reality, I will then present the transdisciplinary model of Reality and I will analyze its consequences for the dialogue of cultures and religions, for the formulation of a new spirituality in agreement with modern science and for search of new structures of social life.
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