The Art of Clean Up, which organizes whole objects into their parts, like this bouquet of flowers: — Bitter Crank
Clearly, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, because as part of the whole, nerve cells, flower petals, and so on can do things that they can't do alone. Actually, as parts, nerve cells can't do much of anything. — Bitter Crank
The "whole is more than sum of its part" means nothing. It is a just a bumper sticker, a symbol of our ignorance to understand complex phenomena like brain. — miosim
contentious. We could be mereological nihilists and think that the parts of the flower are arranged "flower-wise", but not believe that there is such a thing as a "flower". — darthbarracuda
As such, the world is messy. — darthbarracuda
What is an example of an existing object without parts? — jkop
What is an example of an existing object which is anything and simple, not compound?Anything which is simple, not compound. — Metaphysician Undercover
What is an example of an existing object which is anything and simple, not compound? — jkop
Are there unities without parts?'all things which have no matter are without qualification essentially unities.' Things with matter are however inescapably matter/form. — mcdoodle
Interesting. So, could an elementary particle exist without having any real properties by itself but getting properties from other things?The higher order reality has modified the lower order constituent. — Wayfarer
The problem with that is that I disagree that relations and processes aren't parts. — Terrapin Station
It seems to me that an elementary particle is also a compound of the particle plus some property that it has. Or is that just a property of language imposed on the thing described? — jkop
Or are there - as I would see it - different levels of abstraction appropriate to different forms of analysis, without the supposed component parts being in some way 'superior' or 'more fundamental'? — mcdoodle
It seems to me that the concept of 'elementary particle' can't really be sustained any more. The original idea of the atom was literally an 'indivisible particle', but I think it's really been rendered untenable by physics itself; fields are now said to be fundamental — Wayfarer
The phrase "the whole is more than the sum of its parts" is not a bumpersticker slogan. Its an accurate assessment of a world in which many phenomena (including us) are emergent, always exceeding the sum of our parts. — Bitter Crank
Another example. A rich delicious soup has a fixed list of ingredients. Eat the raw ingredients ground up together and it won't taste very good. Simmered in a pot for several hours, and it's heavenly. Flavors emerge in the soup that weren't there in the "un-stewed" parts. — Bitter Crank
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