WHOLE

Without recognition of its parts a whole is an essentially structureless and unanalyzable unity. If its parts are independent or randomly sampled by an observer, a whole has no outstanding quality other than that of being an observer's aggregate (see aggregation). If a whole is qualitatively different from a mere aggregate of its parts, the difference lies in its structure or organization. Thus any whole may be understood as, described in terms of, and considered equal to a structure or an organization of component parts (see gestalt, holism, system). In some cases the properties of its parts may be ignored without appreciable loss of understanding a whole, particularly when parts are numerous, simple and the same as in the objects of computer sciences, macro-economics, and quantum physics all of which heavily rely on mathematics for their constructions. When the parts are few, complex, different, and tenuously related, as in a marriage, the properties or the parts figure more prominently in the understanding of a whole and can not be ignored in favor of such wholes' organization. (Krippendorff))

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