The most complex system that we know of is the human mind, and that was the focus of study for one group of thinkers, who developed what became known as Gestalt psychology. Their fundamental insight was that the mind works by creating a holistic, integrated pattern of meaning from its surroundings, which cannot be reduced into an aggregation of its discrete elements. Its central finding, “The whole is other than the sum of its parts,” has become a hallmark of much systems thinking since then.
Gestalt psychology. Human mind
