Tal vid invigningen av University for Global Well-Being på Holma vid Höör den 13 september 1998.

 I am going to tell you a short story, a very short one. It is about Ilya Prigogine, former professor in physical chemistry in Brussels and in Austin, Texas. Prigogine got the Nobel-prize in chemistry in 1977 for his theory of dissipative structures.

I happened to know that Prigogine was going to lecture in Lund not far from here on September 10th, so I got the idea to invite him to our inauguration to-day. He declined, however.

Though I was the one who invited him, I understand his decision very well. His theory, not to say his discovery of dissipative structures changed our world from the mechanical machine of Newton into a self-organizing system, something like a gigantic organism. To my opinion this is a contribution to our way of understanding the world that has few parallells. Prigogine is the Newton of our time.

If you have made a contribution of that importance, you have put yourself in a risky position. You are not popular among those who stick to the old views, in fact you are a controversial person. You have to be very careful not to be associated with ideas that are still more controversial than your own. Or, as Prigogine writes in his letter of declination to me: "The difficulty is to keep the clear border line between new ideas and extrapolations which have no scientific basis". (Unquote) Otherwise you may jeopardize what you have gained, jeopardize it for yourself, but still more for mankind.

This is what prevents Prigogine from being here to-day. He writes: "So regretfully I cannot accept your invitation. I regret it. Simply I have to be careful that my own ideas are not misunderstood as has been often the case." Yes, I know. For instance I have read a review of his latest book, The End of Certainty. Time, Chaos, and the New Laws of Nature, a review in New Scientist by the Danish physicist Per Bak. Bak calls the book a "crackpot paper" (en stollig uppsats), a piece of "pseudoscience". Physicists have a strong tendency to defend their territory. I can add that in the last number of the Swedish magazine Sökaren I have shown how terribly wrong Per Bak is.

Now I just have to add one small detail. On the 10th of September in Lund we were many Prigogine fans who met up to greet our master. But he was not there. Two days earlier he had called to tell that he was ill and didn´t dare to make the journey; Prigogine is 81 years old. He sent a messenger to read his paper, but that certainly was not the same. So anyhow, he couldn´t have been here to-day.

But now it should be said that we are not in Prigogines position. We can feel free to study and engage ourselves in border cases - and there are many. New ideas have always been problematic. Or with Prigogine again, in another letter to me: "it seems that new ideas have a difficult time". But we can afford such a freedom in thinking, and that is what we are going to do at the UGWB. This university is a great adventure, especially in Sweden where the universities seem to be more conservative than in many other countries.

What most people don’t know in Sweden is that there is a tremendous amount of new scientific literature knocking at the door to be let in. Literature of a new kind: well-informed, critical but with a whole fan of new perspectives. It is not restricted to any of the old university disciplines but operates on a general level: general science. I know because, on the basis of 40 years studies in literary criticism, I have spent my last 15 years trying to read, understand, discuss and make this literature known in Sweden. An impossible task, though, not only because Sweden is not very receptive in this field, but still more because this kind of literature grows with tremendous speed. While you work with one volume, five more seem to be published. You can get a survey of the field on Internet by trying Amazon book store and keywords like "Philosophy of Science", "Science and Nature" and "Chaos and Systems". Mostly you are offered 50 titles and 50 more, if you want. As for me, this is more than I can handle during the rest of my life.

This literature is scientific but it differs from the modern academic science that has its roots in the 17th century. In fact there are two kinds of science to-day. The so called modern science with its old ideals, ideals of analysis, reductionism, objectivity and safety. But what if the world doesn’t permit any safety except in abstract logic and mathematics. What if the world, including ourselves, is a collection of dynamic feedback systems. And systems within systems up to Gaia and the universe itself, systems ever changing, creating themselves in the way Prigogine has taught us, creating themselves in ways that cannot be predicted? Then we need another kind of science. Also this one, though, empirically responsible and logically controlled. And exactly that is what we find in this new literature in general science.

Formerly I often envied the bright people in the 17th century, who had the privilege to create a new world picture, a new way of thinking. Until suddenly I discovered that I - and you! - live in a time that is just as fascinating. We, too, see a new world, thinking and science on the brink of being born.

And we have the privilege to take part in it, contribute to it. In the UGWB or outside.

But now back again to Prigogine and his borderlines. Of course there are borderlines. One is the line between ideas that have scientific basis - whatever that can mean - and others that have not - not yet. Another is the line behind which ideas do not seem to have anything to do with science at all. Naturally there is no general agreement concerning the location of these lines, but I think we should be careful, not to go too far in this last direction. Loose speculations lose their flavor rather soon.

Be open, yet critical.

But then there is still another danger. It is very popular in this country to be sceptical, it is even a declared policy on the arts page in one of our big newpapers. Those who are sceptical live in the illusion that they are superior to everybody else. And they are always sceptical. Except against their own scepticism. So they deny everything that is new and prosperous. And in this way they maintain status quo.

The conclusion is still another rule: be critical, yet open.

So I’ll propose a double motto for the university we inaugurate to-day. To be open, yet critical. To be critical, yet open.

Holma, Höör, Sweden September 13th, 1998

Erland Lagerroth