Holistic worldview: Towards an integral understanding of the personal and the scientific

Resumen

There are two main currents that shape Western science and thus the acquisition of knowledge: the mechanistic and the holistic. These worldviews have a direct influence in the way we live our daily lives, how we perceive the world, and the way we organize our societies. History has proven that both worldviews portray numerous benefits for mankind, but recent events have showed the limits, and even the dangers, of the mechanistic worldview. By embracing a mechanistic worldview we have lost our sense of belonging with nature and the cosmos, and has produced an overall feeling of emptiness and loss of value. However, we have gained some valuable lessons through the mechanistic lens and it can be used to gain entrance to a much broader, integral, meaningful, and ethical vision, the holistic worldview. This is a necessary shift that will directly benefit science, ourselves, and the rest of nature.

Key words: Worldview, mechanistic, holistic, interconnectedness, cognition, nature, meaning, relationship, reduction, reconnection.