Ramblings and thoughts from August 23, 1994
Ramblings from August 23, 1994
More thoughts on gestalt. As a term, it means, or at least my
understanding of it is, that one has to consider the issue at hand as a
whole rather than focussing on any one part. This idea is being more
and more reinforced by the books
I'm currently reading. In particular, the Rise and Fall of the
Great Powers examines how many factors contribute to which countries
have risen and fallen over the last 500 years. It's not just a
questions of military might, or economic might, or geopolitics. It's a
combination of all of the above and more. You have to look at the whole
picture to explain why the transitions in power took place. This idea
of examining events as a whole also is strongly supported by the entire
idea of complexity as in the Quark and the Jaguar. I believe it was
John Gribbin in Chaos, who coined the term the butterfly effect or at
least that is where I first read it, but that seems like the best symbol
to me. The fact that a butterfly could flap its wings in one place, and
cause a thunderstorm instead of nice weather 2 weeks later in another
place, just reinforces the idea that you have to look at systems as a
whole, a gestalt, and not focus exclusively on the minor details. This
may be one reason why I am somewhat dissatisfied with physics at the
moment, in that physicists are so wrapped up in the tiny, tiny details
of their work, that they have no conception of the larger picture. And
that is a fatal shortcoming I think.
Another aspect of the gestalt thing is that there are no absolutes as
once again emphasized by Kennedy in The Rise and Fall of the Great
Powers. Even if a country was increasing its military/economic strength
greatly during a certain time, it meant nothing if another country were
growing FASTER. The relative position of each country was what
mattered, not the absolute numbers. I think this holds over to most
everything in that there are no absolutes - only relatives. But I
haven't really thought this through yet, so no guarantees.
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