Synthesis as fundamental idea for sustainable development

"Authentic morality is the child of understanding"
Jacob Needleman, "Money and the Meaning of Life"

Today, we have access to a huge amount of collected knowledge. Modern communication media allow accessing information about any special subject we can think of.

At the same time, the tasks we have to deal with, are growing more and more complex and multi-layered. Therefore, they become less targetable through a strictly analytic approach.

If we understand in addition, that we bear responsibility for sustaining our surrounding live space, it becomes obvious that a further development of civilistation must occur in a sustainable way.

Therefore, current challenges are not any more resolvable within the context of a single special subject. The connection of subtasks and their mutual influence as well as their interdependence with the environment gain priority.

A strictlty analytical approach will render a collection of "sub-solutions" for single problems. The common effect of these singular solutions however is very unclear and has often proved destructive in the past.

The idea of synthesis turns its focus to interconnections rather than single effects. Resulting views might break barriers of special subjects and especially question "facts" that are taken "as-is" without thinking about possible alternatives.
It is all about recognizing and really understanding a problem as a whole. From there, surprisingly simple and elegant solutions can emerge, where the innovation lies in the intelligent, efficient combination of already available ressources.

The idea of synthesis...

• follows the principle of "maximal observation and minimal intervention". Exact and extensive knowledge lead to elegant solutions, whereas huge intervention in systems cause undesired side effects (and often also cause massive waste of ressources).
• leads to optimally customized solutions, which only contain what is really required. (In contrast to clumsy "standard" solutions, which try to cover all single requirements ever heard of without being able to honour the interdependence of these requirements)
• seeks a view of the whole and therefore renders mutual influences and feedbacks visible, such that they can be made use of or prevented. Purely analytical solutions however are made worthless by the surrounding dynamics which were not taken into account.
• faces contradictions and accepts the paradox in reality. Completely conclusive theories always exclude a part of reality - and therefore cannot be absolutely true, no more than this sentence can be...

© 1996 LuZ/Synthesis AG

Definition of synthesis according to Encyclopedia Britannica

in philosophy, the combination of parts, or elements, in order to form a more complete view or system. The coherent whole that results is considered to show the truth more completely than would a mere collection of parts.