|
# States and similar group organizations characterized by central control that involve many people
# Holistic Ideals, or absolute Values, distinct from human personality that are creative factors in the creation of a spiritual world, for example Truth, Beauty and Goodness.
==Holism in physical sciences==
{{main |Holism in science}}
=== Agriculture ===
There are several newer methods in [[agricultural science]] such as [[permaculture]] and holistic planned grazing ([[holistic management]]) that integrate [[ecology]] and [[social sciences]] with food production. [[Organic farming]] is sometimes considered a holistic approach.
=== Chaos and complexity ===
In the latter half of the 20th century, holism led to [[systems thinking]] and its derivatives. Systems in biology, psychology, or sociology are frequently so complex that their behavior is, or appears, "new" or "[[emergence|emergent]]": it cannot be deduced from the properties of the elements alone.{{Sfn | von Bertalanffy | 1971 | p = 54}}
Holism has thus been used as a catchword. This contributed to the resistance encountered by the scientific interpretation of holism, which insists that there are [[ontology|ontological]] reasons that prevent reductive models in principle from providing efficient algorithms for prediction of system behavior in certain classes of systems.{{Citation needed|date=June 2011}}
Scientific holism holds that the behavior of a system cannot be perfectly predicted, no matter how much data is available. Natural systems can produce surprisingly unexpected behavior, and it is suspected that behavior of such systems might be [[computational irreducibility|computationally irreducible]], which means it would not be possible to even approximate the system state without a full simulation of all the events occurring in the system. Key properties of the higher level behavior of certain classes of systems may be mediated by rare "surprises" in the behavior of their elements due to the principle of interconnectivity, thus evading predictions except by brute force simulation.
[[Complex systems|Complexity theory]] (also called "science of complexity") is a contemporary heir of systems thinking. It comprises both computational and holistic, relational approaches towards understanding [[complex adaptive systems]], and especially in the latter, some argue that it can be seen as the polar opposite to reductive methods. General theories of complexity have been proposed, and numerous complexity institutes and departments have sprung up around the world. The [[Santa Fe Institute]] is arguably the most famous of them.
=== Ecology ===
[[File:The Earth seen from Apollo 17.jpg|240px|thumb|right|The Earth seen from [[Apollo 17]]]]
{{See also|Holistic community}}
Holistic thinking is often applied to ecology, combining biological, chemical, physical, economic, ethical, and political insights. The complexity grows with the area, so that it is necessary to reduce the characteristic of the view in other ways, for example to a specific time of duration.
[[John Muir]], Scots-born early American conservationist,<ref>Reconnecting with John Muir By Terry Gifford, University of Georgia, 2006</ref> wrote "When we try to pick out anything by itself we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe".
More information is to be found in the field of [[systems ecology]], a cross-disciplinary field influenced by [[general systems theory]].
=== Medicine ===
In [[primary care]] the term "holistic," has been used to describe approaches that take into account social considerations and other intuitive judgements.<ref name="TudorHart2010">[[Julian Tudor Hart]] (2010) [https://books.google.com/books?id=h5_6-NeAqcsC&pg=PA258 ''The Political Economy of Health Care''] pp.106, 258</ref> The term holism, and so-called approaches, appear in [[psychosomatic illness|psychosomatic]] medicine in the 1970s, when they were considered one possible way to conceptualize psychosomatic phenomena. Instead of charting one-way causal links from [[psyche (psychology)|psyche]] to [[Soma (biology)|soma]], or vice versa, it aimed at a systemic model, where multiple biological, psychological and social factors were seen as interlinked.<ref name="Lipowski1977"/>
Other, alternative approaches in the 1970s were psychosomatic and somatopsychic approaches, which concentrated on causal links only from psyche to soma, or from soma to psyche, respectively.<ref name="Lipowski1977">Lipowski, 1977.{{Page needed|date=June 2011}}{{Request quotation|date=June 2011}}</ref> At present it is commonplace in psychosomatic medicine to state that psyche and soma cannot really be separated for practical or theoretical purposes.{{Citation needed|date=April 2008}} A disturbance on any level—somatic, psychic, or social—will radiate to all the other levels, too. In this sense, psychosomatic thinking is similar to the [[biopsychosocial model]] of medicine.{{Citation needed|date=June 2009}}
Many [[alternative medicine]] practitioners claim a [[Holistic health|holistic approach to healing]].
=== Neurology ===
A lively debate has run since the end of the 19th century regarding the functional organization of the [[brain]]. The holistic tradition (e.g., [[Pierre Marie]]) maintained that the brain was a homogeneous organ with no specific subparts whereas the localizationists (e.g., [[Paul Broca]]) argued that the brain was organized in functionally distinct [[cortical area]]s which were each specialized to process a given type of information or implement specific mental operations. The controversy was [[epitome|epitomized]] with the existence of a [[language]] area in the brain, nowadays known as [[Broca's area]].<ref>'Does Broca's area exist?': Christofredo Jakob's 1906 response to Pierre Marie's holistic stance. Kyrana Tsapkini, Ana B. Vivas, Lazaros C. Triarhou. ''Brain and Language'', Volume 105, Issue 3, June 2008, Pages 211-219 {{DOI|10.1016/j.bandl.2007.07.124}}</ref>
==Holism in social sciences==
| 