La méthode Quotes

“As soon as we conceive a system, the idea of global unity imposes itself to such a point that it blinds us, which means that, instead of reductionist blindness (which sees only the constitutive elements), there follows "holistic" blinding (which sees only the whole). Consequently, if it has been very often noticed that the whole is more than the sum of the parts, the contrary proposition: the whole is less than the sum of the parts, has been very rarely formulated. And nobody at all, to my knowledge, has thought of linking the two propositions:

S > s^1 + s^2 + s^3 + s^4 + … > S
S > s^1 + s^2 + s^3 + s^4 + … < S

This is a formulation by Jacques Sauvan which made me conceive the second proposition; I linked it to the first in an apparently absurd fashion”
― Edgar Morin, La méthode

“As soon as we conceive a system, the idea of global unity imposes itself to such a point that it blinds us, which means that, instead of reductionist blindness (which sees only the constitutive elements), there follows "holistic" blinding (which sees only the whole). Consequently, if it has been very often noticed that the whole is more than the sum of the parts, the contrary proposition: the whole is less than the sum of the parts, has been very rarely formulated. And nobody at all, to my knowledge, has thought of linking the two propositions:

S > s^1 + s^2 + s^3 + s^4 + … > S
S > s^1 + s^2 + s^3 + s^4 + … < S

This is a formulation by Jacques Sauvan which made me conceive the second proposition; I linked it to the first in an apparently absurd fashion, that is to say S = S or S> ”
― Edgar Morin, La méthode