1-7
8-14
15-21
22-28
29-35
36-42
43-49
50-56
57-63
64-70
71-77
78-84
85-91
92-98
99-105
106-112
113-119
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8-14
15-21
22-28
29-35
36-42
43-49
50-56
57-63
64-70
71-77
78-84
85-91
92-98
99-105
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113-119
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their own depths, or to the mountain top to commune with GOD, and returned
with a teaching for their followers. But that is all past. Twentieth century
humanity has come of age. It is not to be led, but must draw out of itself the
wisdom it needs. That is why I say we must look at what we already have in
the earliest and undistorted traditions. It needs no new doctrine because the
printed word makes available today the accumulated wisdom of all ages and of
all teachings, which with the help of science, we can now sort out and
interpret. By science, I do not mean cultural anthropology but the ontology
provided by quantum physics.
right. These divisions are the cause of our splitting up and can hardly lead to
its cure. We need a new, integrating direction, but we cannot discover an
integrating and unitary theory common to science and religion without
postulating the unityof all things.
universal set of principlesor of truth. To discover these principles or truth,
we must enlist both religious and scientific inquiry, and, recognizing the
variety of expressions of both, be prepared to seek out the unityin its true
implication and significance.
disciplines, and these disciplines seem not necessarily to indicate a common
truth, we must look for their connection. Likewise, religions, which for
thousands of years have been manufacturing schisms often merely to justify
self-determination, need that overall survey that can see them as the various
expressions of one truth.
facets, yet is one body of matter, so does our culture with its religions, and
sciences present many facets, yet is one body of life. Our task then is to seek
out this unity.”10
Arthur Young, Quoted by: Frank Barr, M.D., The Theory of Evolutionary Process as a Unifying
Paradigm, The Institute for the Study of Consciousness, Berkeley, 1974
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Unity
reveals that ‘Universe’ is a unity—that ‘Universe’ is a whole. Unity is
always plural and at minimum two. That within this unity are other unities and
within those unities still others.
everything into parts in its search for meaning.This is the basis of our analytical
power—our power to understand. And yet, we live in a Universe of ‘wholes’.
essential to our understanding of ourselves and our place in ‘Universe’. Without this
understanding, we are at odds with ourselves. Without this understanding, we are
divided from each other. And it is this division that is the source of most of our
problems.
Principle of Non-Elementalism
unities—if all the ‘things’ in Universe are also wholes—then these ‘things’ cannot be
broken down into basic ‘elements’. Alfred Korzybski called this the Principle of Non-
Elementalism11. Writing in 1933, Korzybskiexplained:
period has gradually evolved from its predecessor. The beginning of one period
overlaps the other. As a base for my classification I shall take the relationship
between the observer and the observed. …
Period. In this period the observer was everything, the observed did not
matter.
reigning in most fields—where the observer was almost nothing and the only
thing that mattered was the observed. This tendency gave rise to that which
we may call gross empiricism and gross materialism.
Alfred Korzybski, Science and Sanity, The Colonial Press Inc., Clinton, Mass., 1933-48
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this period mankind will understand (some understand it already) that all
that man can know is a joint phenomenon of the observer and the observed. …
simple and positive. It is a fallacy of the old schools to divide man into parcels,
elements; all human faculties consist of an inter-connected whole. …
Minkowski four-dimensional language, for ‘space’ and ‘time’ cannot be
separated empirically, and so we must have a language of similar structure
and consider the facts of the world as series of interrelated ordered events, to
which, we must ascribe ‘structure’. Einstein’s theory, in contrast to Newton’s
theory, gives us such a language, similar in structure to the empirical facts as
revealed by science 1933 and common experience.”
generalizations should appear that contain serious structural, epistemological
and methodological implications and difficulties. One such generalization that
becomes of unusual importance states: that any organism must be treated
as-a-whole; in other words, that the organism is not an algebraic sum, a
linear function of its elements, but always morethan that. It is seemingly
little realized, at present, that this simple and innocent-looking statement
involves a full structural revision of our language, because that language, of
great pre-scientific antiquity, is elementalistic, and so singularly inadequate
to express non-elementalisticnotions. The problems of structure, ‘more’ and
‘non-additivity’ are very important and impossible to analyse in the old way.
separate ‘body’, ‘mind’, ‘emotions’. ‘intellect’, ‘intuitions’, etc., but must
examine ourselves from an organism-as-a-whole-in-an-environment
(external and internal) point of view. This parallels the Einstein-Minkowski
space-time integration in physics, and both are necessitated by the modern
evolution of sciences.
‘intellect’ cannot be divided, that this division structurally violates the
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Organism-as-a-Whole-in-an-Environment. And
something similar can be said about the distinction of ‘body’ versus ‘soul’,
and other verbal splittings which have hampered any sane advance in the
understanding of ourselves, and have filled for thousands of years the
libraries and tribunes of the world with hollow reverberations.”12
Organism-as-a-Whole-in-an-Environmentor the
Principle of Non-elementalism1933can now be seen to bean earlier statement of
what we now call thePrinciple of Synergy.
Principle of Synergy
can be defined as the workingtogetherof two or more things to produce an
effect greater than the sum of their individual effects. Examples include a group of
muscles working together in an olympic athlete or several medications combined to
treat multiple symptoms in a sick patient. The following isrequotedfrom UCS•1—
We Can All Win!. R. Buckminster Fullerwriting in 1975 explained:
their parts taken separately. Synergy means behavior of integral, aggregate,
whole systems unpredicted by behaviors of any of their components or
subassemblies of their components taken separately from the whole. Synergy
is the only word that means this. The fact that we humans are unfamiliar
with the word means that we do not think there are behaviors of “wholes”
unpredicted by the behavior of “parts”.
nickel, and iron. The most important characteristic of strength of a material is
its ability to stay in one piece when it is pulled – this is called tensile strength,
it is measured as pounds per square inch, PSI. The commercially available
strength of iron at the very highest level is approximately sixty thousand PSI;
of chromium about seventy thousand PSI; and of nickel about eighty thousand
PSI. The weakest of the three is iron.
experiment on chrome-nickel-steel, pull it apart, and you will find that it is
Alfred Korzybski, Science and Sanity, 1933-48, ibid
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stronger than the eighty thousand PSI of its stronger link. Thus the saying
that a chain is as strong as its weakest link doesn't hold. So, let me say
something that really sounds funny: Maybe a chain is as strong as the sum of
the strength of all its links. Let’s add up the strengths of the components of
chrome-nickel-steel and see. Sixty thousand PSI for iron and seventy
thousand PSI for chromium and then and eighty thousand PSI for the nickel,
that gives you two hundred and ten thousand PSI. If we add in the minor
constituency of carbon and manganese we will add another forty thousand
PSI giving us a total of two hundred and fifty thousand PSI.
and fifty thousand PSI—or one hundred thousand PSI more than the
combined strength of all the links.
that have enabled industry to do all kinds of things that man never knew
would be able to be done based on the characteristic of the parts.”13
Principle of Synergic Attraction
synergic phenomena. This relationship of synergy to gravity has been discovered only
recently.
Issac Newton’s choice of “inverseness” in his statement of the
Principle of Gravitation1687made “synergy” invisible to science for nearly 300
years until R. Buckminster Fullerrestated the Principle of Gravitationas the
Principle of Synergic Attraction1975. Fullerexplained:
is what is called mass attraction.
Examine the solar system. One great massive sphere and another sphere
hung by tension members are attracted to one and other.We find there is
nothing in one sphere, in its own right, that predicts that it's going to be
attracted to the other sphere. You have to have the two. The behavior of these
two together is unpredicted by either one by itself. There is nothing that a
R. Buckminster Fuller, SYNERGETICS, 1975-1979, ibid
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and yield attractively with a neighboring massive sphere and that it yields
progressively: every time the distance between the two is halved, the
attraction will be fourfolded. This unpredicted, only mutual behavior is
synergy. Synergy is the only word in any language having this meaning.
was in fact a discovery of synergic
attraction. He overlooked this when he described the mathematical gain in
mass attraction as an inverse relation. This “inverseness” led him to speak
in terms of progressive diminution of the attraction: as the distance away was
multiplied by two, the attraction diminishedby four; ergo, he could speak of
it as “squared”. If he had been sensitive to synergy he would have stated that
the attraction of one mass for the other increasedas the second power of the
rate of increase of their proximity to one another: halve the distance and the
interaction is fourfolded.
cannot be predicted by any characteristic of any one massive body considered
alone. Arthur Eddington, one of our greatest astrophysicists, explained, “We
often think that when we have completed our study of one we know all about
two, because two is one and one. We forget that we have still to make a study of
and.””14
behavior of‘wholes’, not predicted by examination of the‘parts’.
whole—a unity—an integrity. Universe is not a part—not a diversity—not a
component—not a thing. Nor is it composed of parts, diversities, components, nor
things. Universe is composed of other wholes—other unities—other integrities, which
in turn are composed of other wholes, other unities, other integrities.
Particles, Atoms, Molecules, Plants, Animals, and Humans are themselves all
wholes—they are all unities—they are all integrities. That they like all unities are
plural and at minimum two. That while they appear to contain other so called
R. Buckminster Fuller, SYNERGETICS, 1975-79, ibid
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really other wholes—other unities—other integrities. Fuller1975continued:
are complexes of behavior aggregates wholistically unpredicted by the
separate behaviors of any of their subcomplex components. It is manifest that
Universe is the maximum synergy-of-synergies, being utterly unpredicted by
any of its parts.”15
Principle of the Whole System
is what allows Nature to be comprehensible. Unity makes sense—whole
systems make sense. Fuller1975explained:
of the Principle of Synergyknown as thePrinciple of
the Whole System, which states that the known behaviors of the whole plus
the known behaviors of some of the ‘parts’ may make possible discovery of the
presence of other ‘parts’ and their behaviors, kinetics, structures, and relative
dimensionalities. As example, the known sum of the angles of a triangle plus
the known characteristics of three of its six parts (two sides and an included
angle or two angles and an included side) make possible to determine the
others.”16
humans to know. Universe is comprehensible because it is a unity—because it is a
whole. This is what makes understanding possible. This is what makes Universe
meaningful. This is what makes our world ‘knowable’.
16 R. Buckminster Fuller, SYNERGETICS, 1975-79, ibid
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