keep reading on the web of life

This week I kept reading on the book of the web of life, below is the section I read.

"Ultimately--as quantum physics showed so dramatically--there are no parts at all. What we call a part s merely a pattern in an inseparable web of relationships. Therefore the shift from the parts to the whole can also be seen as a shift from objects to relationships. In a sense, this a a figure/ground shift. In the mechanistic view the world is a collection of objects. These, of course, interact with one another, and hence there are relationships among them. But the relationships are secondary, as illustrated schematically below in figure 3-1A. In the systems view we realize that the objects themseleves are networks of relationships, embedded in larger networks. For the systems thinker the relationships are primary. The boundaries of the discernible patterns("objects") are secondary, as pictured--again in greatly simplified fashion--in figure3-1B.

perception of the living world as a network of relationships has made thinking in terms of networks--expressed more elegantly in German as vernetzte Denken--another key characteristic of systems thinking. This "network thinking" has influenced not only our view of nature but also the way we speak about scientific knowledge. For thousands of years Western scientists and philosophers have used the metaphor of knowledge as a building, together with many other architectural metaphors derived from it.

We speak of fundamental laws, fundamental principles, basic building blocks, and the like, and we assert that the edifice of science must be built on firm foundations. Whenever major scientific revolutions occurred, it was felt that the foundations of science were moving. Thus Descartes wrote in his celebrated Discourse on Method:In so far as (the sciences) borrow their principles from philosophy, I considered that nothing solid could be built on such shifting foundations.

Einstein, in his autobiography, described his feeling in terms very similar to Heisenberg's:

It was as if the ground had been pulled out from under one, with no firm foundation to be seen anywhere, upon which one could have built.

In the new systems thinking, the metaphor of knowledge as a building is being replaced by that of the network. As we perceive reality as a network of relationships, our descriptions, too, form an interconnected network o f concepts and models in which there are no foundations. For most scientists such a view of knowledge as a network with no firm foundations is extremely unsettling,and today it is by no means generally accepted. But as the network approach expands throughout the scientific community, the idea of knowledge as a network will undoubtedly find increasing acceptance."

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so, my thinking is that should we rethinking about the definition of information architecture? if it is possible, that are the main features or characteristic of web or network?