holistic theory

Sometimes I end up posting some links related to some particular topic, and I am asked by some who mail me, not in any offensive way but out of curiosity, where I find endless hours of time to google for such links.

Since I have heard this enough number of times, I thought of explaining things a bit assuming hopefully that the explanation might be worth a post.

In short, the answer is no – I usually don’t spend endless hours of time googling for something just to post about it. The links get emailed to me from somewhere or the other, by coincidence.

Though there are times when I remember part of some quote from some book or webpage, …and do resort to googling to dig it up, but this is far less than the average case, and usually I find it within the first few hits. And of course, theres the soft copy of h2g2, and because there’s something related to almost anything in that book, a search within that takes only a few seconds.

Anyway the main point is… the coincidence. As if to prove it, I was asked this question end of last week for the nth time which provoked me to give a reply. Was wondering how I could explain but then didnt bother. Was reading a book over the weekend… and came across this para (note the explanation of the holistic theory).

Sally Mills: "You don't look like a private detective."

Dirk Gently: "No private detective looks like a private detective. That's
one of the first rules of private detection."

"But if no private detective looks like a private detective, how does a
private detective know what it is he's supposed not to look like?
Seems to me there's a problem there."

"Yes, but it's not one that keeps me awake at nights," said Dirk in
exasperation. "Anyway, I am not as other private detectives. My methods are
holistic and, in a very proper sense of the word, chaotic. I operate by
investigating the fundamental interconnectedness of all things."

Sally Mills merely blinked at him.

"Every particle in the universe," continued Dirk, warming to his subject and
beginning to stare a bit, "affects every other particle, however faintly or
obliquely. Everything interconnects with everything.
The beating of a butterfly's wings in China can affect the course of an
Atlantic hurricane. If I could interrogate this table-leg in a way that made
sense to me, or to the table-leg, then it could provide me with the answer
to any question about the universe. I could ask anybody I liked, chosen
entirely by chance, any random question I cared to think of, and their
answer, or lack of it, would in some way bear upon the problem to which I am
seeking a solution. It is only a question of knowing how to interpret it.
Even you, whom I have met entirely by chance, probably know things that are
vital to my investigation, if only I knew what to ask you, which I don't,
and if only I could be bothered to, which I can't."

 

– The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul (Adams)

Of course “knowing how to interpret the answer” is the tricky part which is why it isn’t always as helpful to know this theory as one might like to assume.

So anyway thats how the Universe works. Or atleast it did, at the time of this posting 😉

“There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers
exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will
instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more
bizarre and inexplicable.

There is another theory which states that this has already
happened.”

– h2g2

PS: needless to say, all the excerpts are from science-fiction books, not scientific journals… so all this is to be taken with a pinch of salt 😉

See also: holistic theory of learning