The Whole Is [NOT] The Sum Of Its Parts

 

I am NOT a math wizard BUT in the past, I always did stick to the principle that THE WHOLE IS EQUAL TO THE SUM OF ITS PARTS.  Then, WHEN  you interject the Psychological Gestalt Theory into this, our discussion could be more interesting than it seems because this theory espouses that the WHOLE is something else OR something different than just the very sum of its parts.  To quote the technical explanation by psychologists, merely adding up the component parts is meaningless compared with that 'part-whole' relationship📗📙📘

This gap is triggered more than just by semantics.  In the NBA, the favorite spiel of big-league coaches like Erik Spoelstra is exactly this, i.e. THE WHOLE IS MORE THAN THE SUM OF ITS PARTS and this perfectly dovetails with organizational pundits WHO maintain that this principle describes the synergy WHICH exists between individuals working together in a collaborative manner as collectively, they are able to achieve an outcome superior to that of just one OR two people working on their own💧💧💧

Through the years, though, many of us would say this occassionally OR hear that same phrase without even giving it a second thought.  BUT in the highly technical fields of the sciences, the main idea of this phrase is tapping into a much deeper and far-reaching complex reality in life.  Let's translate this in layman's terms.  If someone has the positive attributes of being motivated, hard working, focused, committed and with that 'eye for details', if he manifests all these attributes as a person, he may end up much just akin to those attributes💥💥💥

In the academe, this idea that the WHOLE is greater than the mere SUM OF ITS PARTS is more commonly termed by academicians as EMERGENCE.  Tapping a bit on historical notes, WHAT somehow surprised me [as I am NOT really into history] is that apparently, that concept of EMERGENCE in its modern form dates back to the final quarter of the nineteenth century [BUT somehow mostly limited in debates in the sciences].  And it the end, it got relegated to the margins by the twentieth century.  The main insight of EMERGENCE is that the interaction of two OR more things brings forth a new thing at a much higher level✅✅✅

Our takeaway:  The best and probably simplest real-life situations are at the workplace.  Let's pick the I.T. field as an example where you can have a team composed of a manager, systems analyst and a couple of developers.  Once these individually gifted resources collaborate together to achieve a project's set of goals, they can end up with a result that far exceeds than just summing up their individual skills.  YES dude, in life, we can make things happen such that the end result exceeds the SUMS OF ALL PARTS😋😋😋