Synergetics

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.

=What is Synergetics?=

Synergetics is defined by R. Buckminster Fuller (1895-­1983) in his two books Synergetics: Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking and Synergetics 2: Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking as:

"A system of mensuration employing 60-degree vectorial coordination comprehensive to both physics and chemistry, and to both arithmetic and geometry, in rational whole numbers... Synergetics explains much that has not been previously illuminated... Synergetics follows the cosmic logic of the structural mathematics strategies of nature, which employ the paired sets of the six angular degrees of freedom, frequencies, and vectorially economical actions and their multi-alternative, equi-economical action options... Synergetics discloses the excruciating awkwardness characterizing present-day mathematical treatment of the interrelationships of the independent scientific disciplines as originally occasioned by their mutual and separate lacks of awareness of the existence of a comprehensive, rational, coordinating system inherent in nature." [see //Synergetics//, Sec. 200.01-203.07 ]

Other passages in Synergetics that outline the subject are its introduction (The Wellspring of Reality) and the section on Nature's Coordination (410.01). The chapter on Operational Mathematics (801.00-842.07) provides an easy to follow, easy to build introduction to some of Fuller's geometrical modeling techniques. So this chapter can help a new reader become familiar with Fuller's approach, style and geometry. One of Fuller's clearest expositions on "the geometry of thinking" occurs in the two part essay "Omnidirectional Halo" which appears in his book No More Secondhand God.

=Synergetics' Geometrical Innovations= Here's an abridged list of some of the discoveries Fuller claims for Synergetics (see Controversies below); where possible, we use Fuller's description:


 * The rational volumetric quantation or constant proportionality of the octahedron, the cube, the rhombic triacontahedron, and the rhombic dodecahedron when referenced to the tetrahedron as volumetric unity.
 * All geometric forms known previously as polyhedra can be modelled as tensegrities.
 * The trigonometric identification of the great-circle trajectories of the seven axes of symmetry with the 120 basic disequilibrium LCD triangles of the spherical icosahedron. (See Sec. 1043.00.)
 * The rational identification of number with the hierarchy of all the geometries.
 * The A and B Quanta Modules.
 * The volumetric hierarchy of Platonic and other symmetrical geometricals based on the tetrahedron and the A and B Quanta Modules as unity of coordinate mensuration.
 * The identification of the nucleus with the vector equilibrium.
 * Omnirationality: the identification of triangling and tetrahedroning with second- and third-powering factors.
 * Omni-60-degree coordination versus 90-degree coordination.
 * The integration of geometry and philosophy in a single conceptual system providing a common language and accounting for both the physical and metaphysical.[251.50]