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14
The Whole Is Bigger Than the Sum of Its Parts
There's a strange concept in the philosophy of science called an
"entelechy." An entelechy is something complex that emerges when you
put a large number of simple objects together. Examine one molecule of
water in a vacuum, and you'll be utterly bored by the lack of activity in
your vacuum tube. Pour a bunch of molecules into a glass, and a new
phenomenon crops up--a ring of ripples on the water's surface.
Combine enough glasses of water in a big enough basin and you'll end
up with something entirely different: an ocean. Take the 26 letters of the
English alphabet, lay them out in front of you, and you'll have a set of
small squiggles, each of which evokes just one or two specific sounds.
String a few million together in precisely the proper order and you'll
have the collected works of Shakespeare.6
These are entelechies. A city, a town, a culture, a religion, a body
of mythology, a hit record, a dirty joke...these, too, are the results of
entelechies. Take one human being, isolate him in a room from the time
he's born until the time he dies, and you'll end up with a creature
incapable of using language, with little in the way of imagination--an
emotional and physical wreck.7 But put that baby together with 50
others, and you'll end up with something entirely new--a culture.
Cultures spring into existence only when the crowd is large
enough. They are a phenomenon that sweeps across the face of the
multitude like a wave. The phenomenon that creates the Beatles, the
phenomenon that makes a Hitler, the phenomenon that launches a new
philosophy like Communism or Christian Fundamentalism, these are all
entelechies at work, waves rolling over the surface of society,
incorporating the minor moves of individual human beings into a
massive force the way swells of the sea orchestrate insignificant twitches
of water molecules into an overwhelming motion.
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14
14
The Whole Is Bigger Than the Sum of Its Parts
There's a strange concept in the philosophy of science called an
"entelechy." An entelechy is something complex that emerges when you
put a large number of simple objects together. Examine one molecule of
water in a vacuum, and you'll be utterly bored by the lack of activity in
your vacuum tube. Pour a bunch of molecules into a glass, and a new
phenomenon crops up--a ring of ripples on the water's surface.
Combine enough glasses of water in a big enough basin and you'll end
up with something entirely different: an ocean. Take the 26 letters of the
English alphabet, lay them out in front of you, and you'll have a set of
small squiggles, each of which evokes just one or two specific sounds.
String a few million together in precisely the proper order and you'll
have the collected works of Shakespeare.6
These are entelechies. A city, a town, a culture, a religion, a body
of mythology, a hit record, a dirty joke...these, too, are the results of
entelechies. Take one human being, isolate him in a room from the time
he's born until the time he dies, and you'll end up with a creature
incapable of using language, with little in the way of imagination--an
emotional and physical wreck.7 But put that baby together with 50
others, and you'll end up with something entirely new--a culture.
Cultures spring into existence only when the crowd is large
enough. They are a phenomenon that sweeps across the face of the
multitude like a wave. The phenomenon that creates the Beatles, the
phenomenon that makes a Hitler, the phenomenon that launches a new
philosophy like Communism or Christian Fundamentalism, these are all
entelechies at work, waves rolling over the surface of society,
incorporating the minor moves of individual human beings into a
massive force the way swells of the sea orchestrate insignificant twitches
of water molecules into an overwhelming motion.
<< < GO > >>