Synergetics - 35 years later, part 2 - chaper 100

Following up on my last post about Buckminster Fuller’s tome Synergetics published 35 years ago I am continuing on to chapter 100.00 – Synergy.
“101.01 Synergy means behavior of whole systems unpredicted by the behavior of their parts taken separately”

Fuller found this in science and geometry. If you take 2 triangles and put them together you get four sides, his 1+1=4 is synergy. A triangle describes a flat spiral by disconnecting one vertex and adding a dimension variable at each vertex. Shape + Dimension shift + shape= object. Subject shapes don’t account for dimensionality by themselves. A cube is 6 squares, but each individual shape doesn’t account for the 3rd dimension that actually gives the cube it’s nature.
In the science of materials, Fuller likes to bring up Chromium Steel. It becomes a material that none of the ingredient’s share. It is natural synergy all around us that we take for granted but we like to see only the ego satisfying “a chain is only as strong as it’s weakest link” – if something fails and we were not the direct cause, we can blame it all on the weak link. In all truth nature is “stronger than it’s links combined”.

We see the negative perspective a lot in the bad media around us all the time. They keep trying to separate every subject into the smallest parts, and not consider the whole. They are always looking for the weak link, never looking at the strength of the whole chain that is so much that a bunch of links. Nature and the universe favors the synergistic view, not the specialized, which lead Fuller to comment “…we may conclude that society does not understand nature.”

Fuller saw a dichotomy between specialization and synergy. Specialization of any species, trade, or function always leads to an unsustainable relationship. Our society embraces industrialization, a process that is only efficient if everyone is specialized. One person, one job, one function, one single way to be useful. Agrarian societies need multi-tasking, multi-function people.
Industrial society needs parts. This is the leading cause of our increasingly unstable society, people but their identity and worth in what their function is. But when technology and the economy changes the old parts are thrown out for new ones. People feel lost and rejected, no longer useful. Now they have to break-down their identity and retrain to do something else. Additionally we have the unstable specialization trends in education – specialized degrees over generalized ones, if the economy changes right after you get out of school and your industry has crashed (like architecture, construction) you are working with a disadvantage. In addition, our whole industrialized society is specialized to consume oil for all products – manufacture, transport, packaging, including food. Add in that we mono-crop all of our food staples to maximize output and profits, we have done just about everything make our civilization the most specialized in history. “All or nothing will eventually lead to nothing once all is used up”.

Back to basics of synergy; synergy is looking at the whole vs. some of the parts in a system, however study of how the parts interact can lead to learning more about the whole. The relationship is more important than the actual thing. In his study of the tetrahedrons, he studies the relation of the triangles to their legs, points and angles. How these relate to other triangles that form a tetrahedron, how those tetrahedrons combine to make cubes and so forth. He saw parallels in science, how Newtonian physics and gravity can predict unseen planets, conservation of energy and so forth. It is the study of how systems interact together, forming a new greater system and up the line, every system is part of a larger system.

“Synergetics is the exploratory strategy of starting with the whole and the known behavior of some of it’s parts and the progressive discovery of the integral unknowns and their progressive comprehension of the hierarchy of generalized principles”

Fuller liked to put his ideas into formulas, first because it looks more scientific, and second, it illustrates the relationships a little clearer. Wisdom is understanding multiple layers of synergy. First his formula for the universe U=MP. Universe = Metaphysics (Physical). If you try to describe the universe ignoring either of these values you will not have the whole picture. Studying the physical universe (P) is the study of Er(Em); Energy of radiation and Energy of mater. Physics has shown that everything is energy, either in an excited high energy or low energy stable state. Photons can be frozen, teleported, solid mater can be converted into energy. Energy and mater are ruled by the general principles, and that general principles do not negate each other. And the P is not equal to M, and the general principles for P do not apply to M and vice versa. So what is this metaphysical component?

Fuller states that metaphysical; “It is comprehending the relationship of eternal principles”, all metaphysical general principles are compatible with each other. He likened metaphysical principles to understanding math vs. reading the symbols. It is the conscious thought and comprehension, and that thought is more than the chemical reactions in the brain cells. Human intellect is design, but not designed.

So first some corollaries about systems and synergies:
-Simplest is the most enduringly reproducible (for Fuller the triangle)
-The more symmetrical, the more reproducible
-Optimum simplicity and symmetry occur at the minimum and maximum limits (it’s always more interesting on the edges)
-Minimum set of principles that interact between ordered systems – this makes a nucleus
-The more simple and symmetrical the nucleus, the more frequently employable, thus the more useful
-The larger, more complex, asymmetrical the rarer it will be in the universe. (specific tools, objects, synthetic elements, uniqueness essentially)

So basically the start of design, anything, begins with the simplest unit, one that is generalized, and is basic enough to form a larger system, or complex enough to be a complete system by it’s self. This unit is formed into systems that can form a stable configuration, one that is also generalized, and thus able to be employed for various solutions. That solution be unique to the problem, client, situation.
Fuller saw this design corollary in the universe itself; “In it’s complexities of design integrity, the Universe is technology”. All human technology pales in comparison to the evolved design found in biology, the power of the universe, the forces at play in the universe. Humanity was not here to design the universe, but understand it’s part in the system; “…the gradual discovery of the function in universe which humanity has been designed to fill.”

This leads to Fuller’s further definition of synergy and how it relates to systems. First, it is not useful to talk about wholes by discussing parts or ignoring how the whole works in a larger system. Also it will yield nothing to ignore the metaphysical components of the whole and the metaphysical system the whole resides in. For example to talk about a house as just a bill of materials ignores completely the metaphysical aspects of the house. The clients, their activities, the neighborhood, the site, the environment, what is the sound of the roof in the rain, how does it smell in the winter, how does it make a guest feel?

Humanity needs to understand that the universe is a system – one we fit into, not one we try to disrupt, change or modify. The goal of industrialized civilization is the wholesale manipulation of the environment to provide the highest profit margin on any activity. As we disrupt the system, we must expect the system to disrupt us eventually.

So, to think by sheer will and energy we will blindly plow through our resources and be able to do it year after year is delusional. The universe is far more powerful complex and still sustainably simple that our designs will not last. If we want to last we have to live in the system, to more with less, and design for the highest return on efficiency, not the dollar.