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 Synergism and the Cosmic Human-- in Cosmology, Philosophy, & Spirituality

Synergism and the Biological Human-- in Anatomy/Physiology, & Biosphere (symbiosis, bio-diversity in ecosystems, etc.)

Synergism and the Social Human-- in Social Basics, in Economics, in Health and Health Care, in Aesthetics, & in Culture

  1. Total Human Development and Harmony Through Synergism

  2. Holistic Health Care and Medicine

  3. Deep Ecology and Harmony with Nature 

  4. Sense of History and Sense of Mission

  5. Civics and Democratic Governance

  6. Culture as Community Creativity

  7. Light-Seeking and Light-Sharing Education

  8. Gender Sensitivity, Equality & Harmony

  9. Reconstructive/Restor-ative Justice

10. Associative Economics, Social Capital and Sustainable Development

11. Synergetic Leadership and Organizations

12. Appropriate/Adaptive Technology

13. Mutual Enrichment of Families and Friendships

14. Human Dignity and Human Harmony: Human Rights and Peace

15. Aesthetics Without Boundaries: 'Art from the Heart'   

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 Synergism: Descriptions of Diverse Applications are Consistent

By Ed Aurelio C. Reyes

Prof. Reyes is one of the foremost champions in the Philippines of the serious study and conscious application of the synergism principle on various fields of human concern.  He taught synergism-oriented subjects of Applied Cosmic Anthropology, the doctoral program of Asian Social Institute (ASI) in Manila.

This is excerpted from “Synergism in Etymologies and Metaphors,” Chapter One of Human Holons: Power-Packed Synergies, Pilot Edition, SanibLakas Editorial and Publishing Services, Manila, 2002. (244 pp.).

THE SYNERGISM PRINCIPLE pertains to a "value-added" to synergy, a perceptible increase in combined magnitude over the total effect the same elements would have if each were acting separately.

Physical effect measurable

The perceptible increase in magnitude is actually physically measurable. In his article "Synergism and the Holy Spirit," Rev. Roy Shepherd shares with us how a police unit conducted a physics experiment after losing their championship in the police games. Using a special “pull meter,” they measured the maximum force exerted by each member of their team. Then they measured the force exerted by the whole team; the team result was 1½ times more than the sum of the individual team members.

Some other words are akin in meaning to synergy: teamwork, harmony, complementation, but the only principle I know of that explains the magnification or "value-added" resulting from the attainment of synergy, of harmony, of teamwork, of complementation, is synergism. And the principle has much more to it than simply knowing that "in union there is strength"; in fact the principle of synergism would qualify our notion of "strength in numbers" to be conditional and would offer workable ways to raise the quality of unity and consequently attain much more "value-added," much more magnification of capability or effect.

A certain Dan Zedra is quoted (in an attractive poster showing wild geese in formation flying), saying: "Instinctively, the Great Northern Geese travel thousands of miles in perfect formation — and therein lies the secret. Formation flying is 70 percent more efficient than flying alone."

Sean Covey (Stephen's son), in his own book The Seven Habits of Highly-Successful Teenagers, gives a slightly higher figure for the aerodynamic efficiency of formation flying — 71 percent, explaining that when a goose flaps its wings, it creates an updrift for the goose that follows. "Whenever a goose falls out of formation, it immediately feels the resistance of trying to fly alone and quickly gets back into formation. As the lead goose gets tired he will rotate to the back of the 'V' (formation) and allows another goose to take the lead position."

(He adds something else that goes beyond aerodynamics: "The geese in the back honk to encourage those in front." And this: "Finally, when one of the geese gets sick or is wounded and falls out of formation, two geese will follow it down to help and protect it. They will stay with the injured goose until it is better or dies, and they will join a new formation or create their own to catch up with the group.")
 

Diversity not a problem

Diversity is not something to be tolerated or "solved" in the context of synergy-building. While commonalities among the elements provide the bonding element, the glue or the magnetic waves among them, diversity is the enriching, catalyzing factor that gives the collectivity its dynamism.

In chemistry, a chemical reaction can only occur when identical substances are combined. In an orchestra, the richness of the musical sound produced comes from the wide variety of instruments played simultaneously in the arrangement. In choral group singing, the blending of voices cannot occur and be enjoyed if all would sing only the melody, the "first voice."
Despite the diversities there is need for some commonality over certain ground rules. Despite the divergences, and precisely because these divergences exist, diverse people or groups coming together into the process of building partnerships and sustainable unities must have at least a modicum of agreement that:

(1) diversity is richness and it is not necessarily a conflict;

(2) diverse groups actually have essential commonalities; and

(3) these diverse groups make up a great whole.

As long as they agree to unite on these points, they can turn diversity into strength.
 

Abundant Force in Nature

Manifestations of synergism abound in Nature, where every ecosystem, the complex sum of all symbiotic relationships among all species in a given area, exists and thrives in greater stability the more harmoniously interacting and interdependent species participate and the more diverse these species are.

Harmony in this sense does not imply that predators would hunt and kill their prey very gently; rather it is in the interdependence preponderant in the entire food web, in pollination processes, in seed dispersal, in umbrella canopies and carpets of grass bushes, in everything that makes a jungle a jungle. Violence does not negate the synergy in the food web. As I have once written in a very short poem for a poster featuring with a lion baring all his teeth:

A lion kills

But never for thrills,

Devours only for need

For he knows no greed.

Applications of synergism abound in physics, chemistry and engineering. The very term synergism was first popularized as it pertained to the combining of substances as active ingredients in pharmaceutical preparations. The substances in tandem were proven to work wonders in synergy so much so that the medicines were approved for marketing according to their therapeutic claims.

Synergies in engineering pertain to mechanical advantage and durability from precise combination and arrangement of elements. Stephen Covey (in his Seven Habits of Highly Effective People) mentions that: If you put two pieces of wood together, they will hold much more than the total of the (maximum) weight that can held by each separately.

Synergies in Substance Complementations or “Composite materials” (combined characteristics of plastic, glass, metals, ceramics, etc., in various uses, especially in construction and electronics.) From “How Things Work Today” (published in Scientific American, 2000): “Composites are made by combining two or more materials in order to maximize their useful properties and minimize their weaknesses.

One of the earliest composites was developed by the ancient Greeks who inserted iron rods into marble to strengthen it. Steel rods are now used in this way to reinforce concrete. Modern composites were developed from light and strong materials for the aerospace industry. Most modern composites consist of fibers of one material tightly bound into another material called a matrix. The matrix binds the fibers together like an adhesive and makes them more resistant to damage, while the fibers make the matrix stronger and stiffer.”

From R. Buckminster Fuller’s website on synergy and synergism:

“Synergy alone explains metals increasing their strengths. All alloys are synergetic. Chrome-nickel-steel has an extraordinary total behavior. In fact, it is the high cohesive strength and structural stability of chrome-nickel-steel at enormous temperatures that has made possible the jet engine. The principle of the jet was invented by the squid and the jellyfish long ago. What made possible man's use of the jet principle was his ability to concentrate enough energy and to release it suddenly enough to give him tremendous thrust. The kinds of heat that accompany the amount of energies necessary for a jet to fly would have melted all the engines of yesterday.

"Not until you had chrome-nickel-steel was it possible to make a successful jet engine, stable at the heats involved. The jet engine has changed the whole relationship of man to the Earth. And it is a change in the behavior of the whole of man and in the behavior of whole economics, brought about by synergy.”

The physical reality of physical synergies is illustrated in a reversed sort of way by a new technological product from Korea that claims, with statistics from satisfied users, to reduce the total electric energy consumption of a crowded set of appliances and other electric equipment. The technology applied is called “electromagnetic field harmonizer.”

The way I understand it, this is how it works: All electric currents in all electric appliances and equipment create electromagnetic fields around them that are vectorial, that is, with a definite direction. Crowding many appliances and other electric equipment that have strong electromagnetic fields in varying directions, create a certain degree of clashes among these fields, and creating more resistance in each of the electric circuits (appliances, equipment) involved, and turns part of the electric energy into unutilized heat energy.

The gadget solves this problem by harmonizing these electromagnetic fields (I still don’t know how it does that), instead of allowing them to clash all around with one another. This does not only prevent the “clashing-fields” effect, it allows each of the circuits to be helped along by the harmonized electromagnetic fields, and the mutual-helping for greater mechanical efficiency is synergism at work. It is also safer for the health of persons who frequent areas where the magnetic fields would otherwise be clashing.

Stephen R. Covey wrote in his The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (Simon and Schuster, NY): "What is synergy? Simply defined it means that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. It means that the relationship that the parts have to each other is a part in and of itself. It is not only a part, but the most catalytic, the most empowering, the most unifying, and the most exciting part."
R. Buckminster Fuller (in Critical Path, St. Martin's Press, NY) describes synergism as "the behavior of whole systems unpredicted by the behavior of their parts."
 

Descriptions gathered by SanibLakas

A foundation in the Philippines named after the nearest Filipino term for synergism (“sanib-lakas”) has been gathering descriptions of the diverse applications of the synergism principle. The foundation, whose twin tasks are (1) to promote the synergism principle; and (2) to build actual synergies, will soon start to build a conscious synergy for these twin tasks among a much wider number of people than its official roster of members.

Not at all surprisingly, the various descriptions are consistent with one another.
In his foreword to the SanibLakas Foundation’s pamphlet on cooperative education on synergism (2000), former Bulacan Gov. Roberto Pagdanganan described synergy as "a fusion to create a newer dimension broader that the totality of the parts."

During a SanibLakas-convened “Sharings at the Park” in 2001, Dr. Ernesto R. Gonzales, secretary-general of the Lambat-Liwanag Network of Centers for Empowering Paradigms, said: “Synergism is a process where the essence of life grows. When synergy enters her orbit, the life-giving process of persons, as well as of institutions, begins to flourish. In our homeland, this is the ignition point for genuine progress and nationhood.”

In another sharing, Dr. Mina Ramirez, president of the Asian Social Institute in Manila, defined synergism as “the interweaving of ourselves into the web of energies that are life-promoting of all life-forms. It is being with the spirit of life itself, harnessing ethical for the good and sacred in us and in all of God’s Creation!”

This dovetails with how synergism was described by SanibLakas Foundation’s Palawan-based Board Member Romy Lee B. Ancheta: “getting back to our Creator, who is the essence of all synergies.”

Lambat-Liwanag Network Council Vice Chair Enrique D. Torres, also the Board Chairman of the Philippine Human Rights Information Center said that he “found synergism as an effective unifier of both the individual and collective efforts to advance human development and harmony,” and that his “current commitment to human rights will be enhanced by a wider awareness and deeper understanding of synergism.”

Luis B. Gorgonio, also of PhilRights and SanibLakas, wrote in the March 1998 issue of the Sanib-Sinag journal: “Synergism is a journey from the self to kapwa. Individualism happens when the self is locked into itself, calls everything beyond its own narrow confines as the other, and separates from the others. Synergism is a movement from an individualist self to a shared self or kapwa. In synergism the other-ness is lost and the self becomes a unique trait that innately longs for communion.”

Mila Reyes Garcia, chair of the SanibLakas Human Resources Development Committee, describes synergism as “the Divine Plan, the scheme of things.” She explains: We were created with different personalities, gifts, talents, etc. The Creator apparently meant for us to complement and supplement one another, to work together harmoniously. Look around us, it’s happening everyday. In building a house, there is an architect, an engineer, the carpenters. Each one is an essential part of the whole.” Further, she says: “We should flow together, like little streams flowing into rivers, and rivers flowing into the sea, till there is just one huge wave of harmony. That, to me, is synergy.”

Maraya Chebat, who was behind the prize-winning initial draft of the Earth Charter, emphasized the role of healthy attitude on diversity: “Only when we can expect the differences of one another can we learn to synergize.”
 

'T.E.A.M.' for Teamwork works

And well-known life coach and educator on leadership John Maxwell has this to say: “Together, Everyone Achieves More.” The acronym of this quote is “team” and this is how teamwork works.

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