Responding to Leo Minigh in LO27720 --
Leo writes, in part:
>Wholeness is more than the sum of its parts. That is the description of
>Jan Smuts and it is the common definition.
That is also the definition of "gestalt" as I learned that term so many
years ago. Are "holism" and "gestalt" one and the same?
>Dear learner, do you have also difficulties to comprehend this
>description. It generated with me a feeling of understanding, but as soon
>as I started to think of it, I couldn't find clear examples sustaining it.
>Could we live with a feeling of understanding, or do we need more?
I'm going to offer up what some might view as an absolutely inane example,
but it has always worked for me in trying to get across my understanding
of the concept of "gestalt." I first developed it when I was training
Navy instructors back in the 60s and 70s. The example? A hamburger.
At its simplest, a hamburger has two parts: a bun and a ground beef meat
pattie. The bun could be viewed and probably should be viewed as having
two parts: a top half and a bottom half. Imagine, if you will, a table
top on which there is arrayed the top half of a bun, the bottom half of a
bun and a raw meat pattie. "Is this a hamburger?" I would ask my
instructor trainees. "No," they would respond. "Why?" I would ask.
"Because the meat has to be cooked, it has to be resting on the bottom
half of the bun and the top half of the bun has to be resting on the meat
pattie," they would inform me.
I would use their responses to point out that the "something more" in
addition to the parts that makes up a "gestalt" or a whole is the
relationships between and among the parts. In the case of the hamburger,
one such relationship was temporal. You had to have all three parts
together at the same time. Another relationship was spatial; they had to
occupy certain spatial relationships to one another. A third element was
the condition of the parts; for example, the meat pattie had to be cooked,
not raw.
Depending on the whole or the "gestalt" in question, the relationships can
vary but spatial and temporal relationships are often central.
Just a passing thought in response to Leo's question.
Regards,
Fred Nickols
nickols@att.net
"Assistance at A Distance"
http://home.att.net/~nickols/articles.htm
--Fred Nickols <nickols@att.net>
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