Laws of Nature - LAW OF NATURE

12 Laws of Nature

For what qualifies as a Law of Nature — and why humankind can no longer afford to neglect the following Laws of Nature — please see the Nature and Root Cause sections on the homepage

Our Selection Criteria for the Laws of Nature Listed Below

Provide the highest impact at the lowest costs and risks across areas, fields and subjects
May provide a common direction
Make top-down and bottom-up solutions complement each other
Enable both, bottom-up and top-down solutions of high-to-highest impact to get through the system with high speed and reliability
Enable projects to get over the Tipping Points where they become practical, executable and their solutions durable — at the system level (Tipping Point Law of Nature applied)

The following Laws of Nature are expected to be relevant to:

Decision-makers

Experts

Stakeholders

Partners

Collaborators

Beneficiaries

Laws of Nature

1. Tipping Point Law

Law of Nature

When a Tipping Point is crossed, something fundamental changes

Experiences, Examples and Add-ons

Missing this law prevented us from applying various Laws of Nature from physics, engineering, chemistry, mathematics and the like when a first level of complexity was crossed.

This became a standard situation in fields supposed to resolve the colossal problems we face now.

Alternative expressions for Tipping Points are

Inflection Points
Phase shifts

See Manifesto Tutorial 1

Possibilities

Laws of Nature from physics, engineering mathematics, chemistry and the like becoming executable beyond the Level-1 Tipping Point of complexity

Enabling solution seekers in societal, managerial, organizational and health areas to identify and apply Laws of Nature beyond the Level-1 Tipping Point of complexity

2. Capacity Bottleneck Law

Law of Nature

When the demand for a resource exceeds its capacity, a tipping point is crossed. Queues build up.

Experiences, Examples and Add-ons

Missing this law beyond the Level 1 Tipping Point of complexity prevented us from recognizing overloaded agendas and information, waiting lists, bureaucratic processes and much more as capacity bottlenecks.

Practices working well before this Tipping Point turned into practices worsening these bottlenecks for 2+ decades.

Available practices

One word to choose the correct practices
Natural process flows
Alternative routes
Roundabouts for processes
Flight paths to leave bureaucracy and complexity

See Manifesto Tutorial 2

Possibilities

Applying this law when the bottleneck cannot be calculated mathematically

Recognizing, reducing and/or solving hidden capacity bottlenecks with reliable practices like natural process flows and a simple policy people can remember and apply

For more information, see Manifesto Tutorials 3.2 and 3.3

3. Health Law (as observed)

Law of Nature

Nature thrives when the environment is healthy

Over time and even with disturbances like meteors and viruses, Nature develops towards healthy and balanced systems

Experiences, Examples and Add-ons

The environments, organizations and systems we live and work in are all part of Nature

The health of

People
Organizations
Initiatives and projects
Environments
Planet

Possibilities

Closing a structural gap in decision-making processes

That is the gap where exact practices like those of mathematics fail as they cannot create reliable outcomes. This is typically the case for situations beyond the Level 1 Tipping Point of complexity.

4. Darwin's Survival Law Extended (proposal)

Law of Nature

Survival level 1

Survival of the fittest (Darwin) or

Survival by natural selection (Herbert Spencer, used by Darwin as well)

Survival level 2

Survival by merit and intelligence

Survival level 3

Survival by intelligence being in harmony with Nature

Experiences, Examples and Add-ons

In recent years, Darwin and his survival law have been criticized. We believe this is partially due to missing the Tipping Point Law of Nature. It allows us to add survival levels 2 and 3.

Tipping Point from Survival level 1 to 2:

When intelligence led to the ability to create tools and the tools changed our environments via building houses and early farming

Tipping Point from Survival level 2 to 3:

When intelligence achieves harmony with Nature

Right now, humanity is at the crossroad where it is forced to decide which path to take:

The path of denying the existential threats

Moving on to Survival Level 3

Possibilities

Moving huge funds and resources away from further fueling the colossal problems we face and to enabling Survival Level 2

By:

Reducing the unnecessary bureaucracy and complexity drastically through applying the Tipping Point, Capacity Bottleneck and Health Laws of Nature

Requiring improvement, innovation and research projects to
- Be in line with relevant Laws of Nature
- Apply the practices suited for the position against the Tipping Point Law of Nature

Making non-technical solutions for managerial, organizational, societal, and psychological matters part of innovation programs

Creating complementary innovation and research tracks for high-to-highest impact innovations and solutions addressing situations beyond Level-1 Tipping Points; these tracks being based on
- Value creation over procedures and traditional ways of thinking
- Einstein-Newton-Darwin practices and practices of other individuals like Rabindranath Tagore and Steve Jobs (smartphone)

Getting innovation and research projects as well as supporting programs in line with the deadlines set by Nature

5. Integrity Law — Adaptive Integrity

Law of Nature

Integrity: Without it nothing works¹

People, objects (organisations, products, services, etc.), and systems are IN or OUT of INTEGRITY.³

Experiences, Examples and Add-ons X

We call the associated practice Adaptive Integrity^TM

Integrity, when examined through the lenses of circularity, context, choice, action, and relationality, emerges as a dynamic and interconnected concept. This perspective moves beyond viewing integrity as a static personal virtue, instead framing it as an ongoing, relational practice that aligns individual actions with the well-being of broader systems.

Integrity therefore is not a matter of morality or ethics alone1:

It is a purely positive phenomenon and a foundational Law of Nature
Has nothing to do with good vs. bad, right vs. wrong behavior
Like the law of gravity the Law of Integrity just is
If you attempt to violate the law of integrity as we define it you get hurt just as if you try to violate the Law of Gravity with no safety device

How Adaptive Integrity works

In today’s world — environments can and do change quicker than promises, commitments and the like can be delivered.

We give our word — a promise, commitment, contract — when we have sufficient confidence that we can keep our word. As soon as we know that we cannot keep our word: ^{1, 2}

We inform all parties counting on us
Take responsibility AND
Clean up any mess that we caused in their lives

Adaptive Integrity goes hand in hand with the Core Human Values and Essential Behaviours we have identified. It is an Essential Behaviour as well.

The scientific foundation: A Law of Nature identified

Integrity has been identified as a Law of Nature by one of the most cited economists of all time⁴: Prof. Michael C. Jensen, in co-creation with Werner Erhard and Steve Zaffron (see abstract¹).

Jensen is widely known as a key originator of Agency Theory, a concept that contributed to decades of misaligned incentives and the erosion of trust in organisations.
Later, he did something rare but essential — both to address the damage his earlier theory had created and to help solve today’s complex problems:

He took personal responsibility for the unintended consequences of his earlier work through developing and teaching two executable solution possibilities with the potential for highest impact at the lowest costs and risks:

While many experts call for paradigm shifts, Jensen actually went through one himself — and created two foundations to enable paradigm shifts:

This Integrity Law
A class designed to enable people break free from fixed ways of thinking. ^{3, 5, 6}

Observed characteristics of Jensen’s personal paradigm shift—before this Manifesto was developed

Applying the Einstein-Newton-Darwin practices:

Jensen went straight to the system level

He stepped out of the box (when he realized current methods were insufficient)

He searched for simple rules at the system level

He created a verbal Law of Nature (this integrity law¹), like Darwin did and Newton (Third Law of Motion: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction)

Applying intervention possibilities identfied by this Manifesto

Jensen switched from exact practices to open practices beyond the Level-1 Tipping Point of complexity: i.e. this Integrity Law and the class

He intervened where the highest impact can be made at the lowest costs and risks at the system level: This Law of Nature, and a class that opens mental blockades of the unconscious mind⁵

The class was designed for situations beyond the Tipping Point where it becomes executable (opening mental blockades), and scalable (given in multiple countries^{3, 5, 6}).

Durability at system level was missed, because the gaps addressed by this Manifesto were unknow at the time.

References

¹ Integrity: Without it Nothing Works. Jensen, Michael C., Harvard Business School. Jesse Isidor Straus Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus. April 6, 2014. https://ssrn.com/abstract=1511274

² Adjustments made to meet communication and executability needs

³ Seminar by Michael C. Jensen, Erasmus University, Rotterdam. 2011.

⁴ Michael C. Jensen. Wikipedia. June 12, 2025.

⁵ Sands Leadership Lecture Series: Being A Leader And The Effective Exercise Of Leadership. Michael C. Jensen, Werner Erhard. 2014. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVRAMb2kP6o

⁶ Being A Leader And The Effective Exercise Of Leadership given at Rotterdam, 2011. Full class. Prof. Richard De Mulder (retired), Helen Gubby.

Possibilities

The example of an influential scientist taking on the responsibity to solve critical gaps in our long-standing but failed solutions attempts: Michael C. Jensen!

6. Growth Law (as observed)

Law of Nature

In Nature, there is no indefinite growth

Experiences, Examples and Add-ons

Our economic systems are based on

Endless growth
Practices designed for situations prior to the Level 1 Tipping Point of complexity

and demonstrate increasing patterns of Darwin’s Survival Level 1 only

A Level-1 Tipping Point was crossed when the resources we consumed started to exceed what our planet can recreate

With droughts, increasingly violent protests, divided populations and war spreading, we are at the Level 2 Tipping Point of complexity

Possibilities

An economic system based on being in harmony with Nature

By this model:

Applying
- Relevant Laws of Nature and in particular the Tipping Point, Capacity Bottleneck and Health laws
- Core Human Values & Essential Behaviours (Manifesto Extenvion to Intervention 7)
Cascading development funding towards social and institutional upgrades such as public health, transport system and education
Tapping into indigenous knowledge systems to create indigenous economic systems which respond to the local dynamics

7. Break-Into-Parts Law (as observed)

Law of Nature

Breaking challenges into parts works well when

all the parts,
their dependencies and
the implications of changes

are understood and addressed accordingly.

When complex problems are broken into parts, they cannot be understood to the level required to solve the whole of a complex problem

Specifically problems involving situations or environments beyond the Level 1 Tipping Point of complexity

Experiences, Examples and Add-ons

A living being cannot be divided into its parts, put together again, and expected to be alive again

The same or something close applies when the environment or problem is beyond the Level-1 Tipping Point of complexity

Complexity as experienced by people in the middle of a complex environment:

Implications of a change cannot be foreseen
The dependencies between parts cannot be fully understood
Solved problems re-open
The ‘unexpected unexpected’ keeps popping up despite extensive efforts to prevent it (a discovery from project management)
Environments change quicker than traditional documentation, processes and IT-apps can be updated
Nobody feels responsible for addressing the tough parts, root causes located outside the addressed parts or the whole of a complex problem. Too many obstacles remain unresolved.

Possibilities

Solving many if not most complex problems by switching to

(Re-)learning how to apply relevant Laws of Nature beyond the Level 1 Tipping Point
System-level approaches via The Einstein-Newton-Darwin practices (see Manifesto Tutorials 1 and 2, as well as related recordings under Fresh Thinking at this webpage’s menu)
Rapid whole-system changes by intervening where the high-to-highest impact can be made at the system level and by keeping costs and risks low

Various wicked problems becoming solvable

Creating highly effective solutions and far-reaching spin-off effects by making break-into-parts and the Manifesto’s system approach complement each other

Example: The Law of Nature Manifesto

8. Simplification Law (as observed)

Law of Nature

When a problem or challenge is complex, the effective solution may need to be amazingly simple. However, a package of (simple) solutions complementing each other may be required.

The package must be designed to get over the Tipping Point where it becomes practical, executable and durable.

A simplification activity in a box easily creates more damage at the system level than the simplification’s value inside the box.

Experiences, Examples and Add-ons

Examples of simple solutions versus standard practices

The attentiveness created through the 17 SDGs – Partnership For the Goals versus ‘not my problem’
Two Laws of Nature (Tipping Points and Capacity Bottlenecks) led to the treatments that delivered the needed results after Health Services had given up: See also Manifesto Tutorials 1 and 2

With simplification pressures, people inside the box argue “We focus on what matters to our box or on what is proven”. Consequences observed:

The box stopped delivering what groups outside the box needed to make better decisions or do their jobs
Practices and solutions working well but unprovable via exact practices were stopped
Those outside the box had to initiate corrective actions. Different groups made different decisions. In our connected world, this fueled the exponential growth of non-productive work, bureaucracy, and complexity.
Alternative but effective treatments for health matters (physical, mental, organizational, etc.) disappeared or remained excluded from insurance packages and organizations

Possibilities

Creating system-wide simplification by way of the Einstein-Newton-Darwin practices and the Manifesto

9. Newton's Third Law of Motion Extended for Complex Environments (proposal):

Law of Nature

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction

Complexity Extension

When the Level-1 Tipping Point of complexity is crossed, anything can happen (positive or negative).

The opposite reaction may differ, including: not being opposite, or being weaker, stronger, absent altogether or increasing in magnitude.

It may take time for the reaction to unfold.

Experiences, Examples and Add-ons

The propulsion of the rocket takes place by burning fuel. This creates a push on the front of the rocket, generating an equal and opposite push on the exhaust gas backwards (Source: NASA’s Glenn Research Center)

In organizations and society, we are bombarded by information, bureaucracy and complexity demanding high levels of energy to process and respond. We experience how practices and actions that worked well earlier now fuel opposite reactions like lack of interest, opposition, violent protest, divided populations and conflict. Sadly, we have lost the ability to build the ‘rocket’ that works for complex matters

Possibilities

A ‘rocket-like’ approach that responds to the negative and positive outcomes with equal focus to incrementally solve situational challenges

Examples

The Law of Nature Manifesto
The United Nations SDGs

10. Attractor Law

Law of Nature

An “attractor” is a unifying trend to which a dynamic system evolves over time and then stays there, regardless of any outside disturbance

Source: Wikipedia, Dutch Version

Experiences, Examples and Add-ons

From the perspective of solving complex problems with countless disturbances created across the globe¹, we observe the following patterns:

The systems stayed where they were or collapsed to levels we thought to have left behind us
Disturbance created towards different and even opposite directions fueled confusion, disbelief, shame and blame, opposition, and downward spirals

¹ Marginal improvements, in-the-box solutions, movements, ‘follow the science’ while science-based solutions are too many years away or others may have effective solutions, and so forth

Possibilities

Choosing to be in unity with Nature is a powerful attractor to move us away from problem-fueling into problem-solving activities, decisions and projects

By starting from the Laws of Nature providing the high-to-highest impact at the lowest costs and risks

11. Possibility Law (as observed)

Law of Nature

In Nature, there is an indefinite number of possibilities as to how life can develop

Extension:

Since the colossal problems we have created are part of Nature, countless solution possibilities can be expected to surface

Experiences, Examples and Add-ons

Sadly, the systems we created and fixed ways of thinking prevent us from exploring the high and highest-impact solution possibilities available today.

Possibilities

Unleashing the solution possibilities by

Letting go of the thinking that created the colossal problems
Creating complementary research and innovation tracks based on relevant Laws of Nature, the Einstein-Newton-Darwin practices, Core Human Values and Essential Behaviours

Including

Societal, psychological, managerial, organizational and systemic health innovation
High(est) value creation at lowest costs and risks over bureaucratic processes and fixed ways of thinking

12. Information Access (as observed)

Law of Nature

Information in a system is infinite. The abilities to access information and make sense of it are limited.

Experiences, Examples and Add-ons

We have countless tools to share and access information. However, …

When people need to make decisions or do their jobs, the following patterns emerged as standard situations in medium and large organizations and beyond:

Information that should be available within a few mouse clicks cannot be found (on the Intranet)
When it is found, there is a good chance it is outdated or conflicting with other information
Important information is hidden in an overload of content and conflicting advice
While users expect information tools to be user-friendly, tool providers expect users to learn how their tools work. Users get blamed when they do not adjust.

Consequences

Lessons learned are re-learned again and again
The wheel is reinvented again and again
So-called management mistakes with far-reaching consequences have become common occurrences
Ongoing stress and burnout
Competitive weakness

Possibilities

Agile yet reliable decision-making at all levels

Guided Self-Organization: As much guidance and direction as needed, as little as possible to act as a single entity

Created by human and digital systems providing

High-to-highest impact collaboration
Quick and reliable access to up-to-date and concise guidance, strategies, directions and lessons learned of high(est) impact for
- Making better decisions
- Enabling employees to do their jobs as expected

Reduced domain-specific skill shortages

Through skilled people being freed from the burdens of

Unnecessary bureaucracy
Unnecessary complexity
Relearning lessons learned
Reinventing the wheel
Projects failing for the same reasons as those before

And much more

Given that the practices which could solve this have been lost, and we could not find (agile) movements making this matter a priority:

A white paper on how the above was made possible in a highly complex and bureaucratic environment