Synergetics (Fuller)

Synergetics (Fuller)

Synergetics is the empirical study of systems in transformation, with an emphasis on total system behavior unpredicted by the behavior of any isolated components, including humanity's role as both participant and observer. Since systems are identifiable at every scale from the quantum level to the cosmic, and humanity both articulates the behavior of these systems and is composed of these systems, synergetics is a very broad discipline, and embraces a broad range of scientific and philosophical studies including tetrahedral and close-packed-sphere geometries, thermodynamics, chemistry, psychology, biochemistry, economics, philosophy and theology. Despite a few mainstream endorsements such as articles by Arthur Loeb and the naming of a molecule "buckminsterfullerene," synergetics remains an iconoclastic subject ignored by most traditional curricula and academic departments.

Buckminster Fuller (1895-­1983) coined the term and attempted to define its scope in his two volume work Synergetics. His oeuvre inspired many researchers to tackle branches of synergetics. Three examples: Haken explored self-organizing structures of open systems far from thermodynamic equilibrium, Amy Edmondson explored tetrahedral and icosahedral geometry, and Stafford Beer tackled geodesics in the context of social dynamics. Many other researchers toil today on aspects of Synergetics, though many deliberately distance themselves from Fuller's broad all-encompassing definition, given its problematic attempt to differentiate and relate all aspects of reality including the ideal and the physically realized, the container and the contained, the one and the many, the observer and the observed, the human microcosm and the universal macrocosm.