"awkward and nonspontaneously illuminating"

	101.01  Synergy means behavior of whole systems unpredicted by the behavior of their parts taken separately.
	102.00 Synergy means behavior of integral, aggregate, whole systems unpredicted by behaviors of any of their components or subassemblies of their components taken separately from the whole.

This is a rather unconventional definition. The conventional definition is “the whole is greater than the sum of the parts”. Or formally, “The interaction of two or more agents or forces so that their combined effect is greater than the sum of their individual effects.” (American Heritage Dictionary) Fuller's definition based on predictability does not exclude the possibility of the whole being less than the parts. Whereas the conventional definition is positive, Fuller's is merely neutral.

But for the context of his own exposition, it is fair since he tells us what he intends by it. “`The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, `which is to be master -- that's all.'”

	103.00 A stone by itself does not predict its mass interattraction for and by another stone. There is nothing in the separate behavior or in the dimensional or chemical characteristics of any one single metallic or nonmetallic massive entity which by itself suggests that it will not only attract but also be attracted by another neighboring massive entity. The behavior of these two together is unpredicted by either one by itself. There is nothing that a single massive sphere will or can ever do by itself that says it will both exert and yield attractively with a neighboring massive sphere and that it yields progressively: every time the distance between the two is halved, the attraction will be fourfolded. This unpredicted, only mutual behavior is synergy. Synergy is the only word in any language having this meaning.

A physicist could argue that gravity is itself an intrinsic characteristic of the matter which makes up the stone, and that a sufficiently detailed examination of the behaviors of the individual particles of the stone could elucidate the effects of gravity to allow the extrapolation of a prediction of its effects on larger objects. Indeed, it was Newton's observation of one clump of matter (an apple) and its behavior (the tendency to fall downward) which led him to develop the theory of gravity which predicted the motions of the moon and planets.

I have not taken a survey of languages to see if there are not in fact any other words in any language with that meaning, but as we have seen above, synergy does not even have that meaning in dictionary English. It only has that meaning in Fuller's exposition because he has explicitly assigned that meaning to it.

	104.00  The phenomenon synergy is one of the family of generalized principles that only co-operates amongst the myriad of special-case experiences. Mind alone discerns the complex behavioral relationships to be cooperative between, and not consisting in any one of, the myriad of brain-identified special-case experiences. 

This paragraph has too many undefined terms to be either refuted or understood.

	105.00  The words synergy (syn-ergy) and energy (en-ergy) are companions. Energy studies are familiar. Energy relates to differentiating out subfunctions of nature, studying objects isolated out of the whole complex of Universe__for instance, studying soil minerals without consideration of hydraulics or of plant genetics. But synergy represents the integrated behaviors instead of all the differentiated behaviors of nature's galaxy systems and galaxy of galaxies.

Synergy and energy are companions. Entomologically, energy is from the Greek, “work”, and synergy is from the Greek, “work together.” However, Fuller's definition of energy is even more unconventional than his definition of synergy. He tells us exactly what he wants it to mean, so that is fair in this context, but we should not assume anyone will understand us if we use Fuller's meaning out of the context of Fuller himself.

	106.00  Chemists discovered that they had to recognize synergy because they found that every time they tried to isolate one element out of a complex or to separate atoms out, or molecules out, of compounds, the isolated parts and their separate behaviors never explained the associated behaviors at all. It always failed to do so. They had to deal with the wholes in order to be able to discover the group proclivities as well as integral characteristics of parts. The chemists found the Universe already in complex association and working very well. Every time they tried to take it apart or separate it out, the separate parts were physically divested of their associative potentials, so the chemists had to recognize that there were associated behaviors of wholes unpredicted by parts; they found there was an old word for it--synergy.

It may or may not be true that “It always failed to do so” (in the past tense), but it is definitely not true that it continues to fail to do so. When chemists discovered that compounds had different properties from their compound elements, they proceeded to develop theories, with more or less success, to help them make predictions about the compounds which would be formed from the elements. Linus Pauling's theory of electronegativity is one example of such a theory. Each element can be assigned a value for its electronegativity, so that certain properties of the compounds of those elements can be predicted with at least approximate values. (Fuller continues to confuse the conventional definition of synergy with his own definition, but I think I have gone on long enough about that.)

	107.00  Because synergy alone explains the eternally regenerative integrity of Universe, because synergy is the only word having its unique meaning, and because decades of querying university audiences around the world have disclosed only a small percentage familiar with the word synergy, we may conclude that society does not understand nature.

This is a logical fallacy of mind-boggling proportion. First, his basis facts: 1) in my opinion, only “God” explains the “eternally regenerative integrity of universe”, and 2) synergy is quite a popular term these days, so his argument has lost any force it once had. And the logical fallacy: being unfamiliar with the name of a concept does not imply being unfamiliar with the concept itself. Even Fuller's definition of synergy is easily expressed in two words, “unpredicted interaction”, which no university audience would deny understanding.

	108.00   Four Triangles Out of Two
 	108.01 Two triangles can and frequently do associate with one another, and in so doing they afford us with a synergetic demonstration of two prime events cooperating in Universe. Triangles cannot be structured in planes. They are always positive or negative helixes. You may say that we had no right to break the triangles open in order to add them together, but the triangles were in fact never closed because no line can ever come completely back into itself. Experiment shows that two lines cannot be constructed through the same point at the same time (see Sec. 517, "Interference"). One line will be superimposed on the other. Therefore, the triangle is a spiral--a very flat spiral, but open at the recycling point.

The problem here is that Fuller is talking about line drawings of triangles and not real triangles, and he is rejecting the well-known definitions of those objects which have been agreed upon since at least the time of Euclid. If Euclid were to say they are “superimposed”, he would mean that they are in the same place at the same time, and any five year old child could easily create a planar tiling if given a bag of real triangles.

Fuller has the right to do anything he wants with his own line drawings, but he does not have the right to assume that proves anything about real triangles. Real triangles meet at all three corners, which I confirmed by observation of my child's triangular blocks, not detecting any leakage of matter from any of the corners.

	108.02  By conventional arithmetic, one triangle plus one triangle equals two triangles. But in association as left helix and right helix, they form a sixedged tetrahedron of four triangular faces. This illustrates an interference of two events impinging at both ends of their actions to give us something very fundamental: a tetrahedron, a system, a division of Universe into inside and outside. We get the two other triangles from the rest of the Universe because we are not out of this world. This is the complementation of the Universe that shows up time and again in the way structures are made and in the way crystals grow. As separate actions, the two actions and resultants were very unstable, but when associated as positive and negative helixes, they complement one another as a stable structure. (See Sec. 933.03.)

This paragraph is mostly consistent with itself at least. The arithmetic is correct, and he certainly does form four Fuller-triangles in this method. My only argument is the division of Universe into inside and outside. In the previous paragraph he argued that triangles were always “open at the recycling point”, which implies the inside and outside are still connected. If a triangle has no inside and outside, then a tetrahedron formed from two distorted triangles could hardly be said to have an inside and outside.

	108.03  Our two triangles now add up as one plus one equals four. The two events make the tetrahedron the four-triangular-sided polyhedron. This is not a trick; this is the way atoms themselves behave. This is a demonstration of synergy. Just as the chemists found when they separated atoms out, or molecules out, of compounds, that the separate parts never explained the associated behaviors; there seemed to be "lost" energies. The lost energies were the lost synergetic interstabilizations.

His line-drawing triangles have no relevance to how atoms behave. Where he manipulates the lines and denies the existence of the connecting corners, atoms inhabit the corners of structures and the forces between them form the connecting lines. A crystalline tetrahedron is composed of four atoms. When broken into two roughly equal parts, each part must contain 2 atoms, which naturally form an elongated structure, not a triangle.

	109.01

The strength of an alloy is highly variable depending on the relative proportions of the constituents, and some alloys are weaker than the component metals.

	109.02

The behavior of the whole is not predicted by the behavior of the parts because Fuller does not understand the nature of the parts. The tensile strength of a material is primarily determined by the bonds between the atoms, not by the atoms themselves. Thus pure carbon can form the strongest substance known, as well as very weak powdery substances. In a monoelemental substance, you essentially have a group of identical spheres placed together. A simple gedankenexperiment will reveal that even in their tightest packing, there are still empty gaps between the spheres. If we could get the spheres closer together the substance would become stronger, since the bonds would be shorter and their strength would increase by the inverse square law. This is not possible with identical spheres, but if we introduce another size of sphere, small enough to fit neatly into the gaps between the large spheres, new bonds will be formed between the large spheres and the small spheres which are shorter than the bonds between neighboring large spheres. This neatly accounts for and predicts the increase in tensile strength in an alloy.

	112.00 “Gravity explains why these metals, when in proper association, develop such extraordinary coherence,”

Electromagnetism explains it, not gravity.

	113.00

The tetrahedra do not represent the way atoms cohere. See above.

	114.00

A very lucid paragraph. I think he may finally be touching on a point, although when he uses phrases like “in rare breakthroughs” I feel less guilty about being so harsh on his ideas.

	115.00 

Good and valid point: “The known behavior of the whole explained in terms of gravity and the known behavior of some of the parts permitted the prediction of the behavior of some of the other__at that time unknown__parts.” Another point: the known behavior of the whole was worked out by Newton based on the behavior of the parts alone, and not even all of them.

	120.01

Using non-conventional definitions of words like energy and synergy is “awkward and nonspontaneously illuminating.” Come to think of it, that is a generous description of Fuller's writings as a whole.

	121.00

Newton showed that it is not the distance from the Earth that creates the orbital independence, it is the lateral speed. Any object could orbit the earth at any distance if it was going the correct speed. Being far away reduces the necessary speed and avoids the slowing of friction with the atmosphere.

His definition of precession is another Fullerism. Here is a dictionary definition:

1. The act or state of preceding; precedence.
2. Physics. The motion of the axis of a spinning body, such as the wobble of a spinning top, when there is an external force acting on the axis.
3. Astronomy.
   1. Precession of the equinoxes.
   2. A slow gyration of the earth's axis around the pole of the ecliptic, caused mainly by the gravitational pull of the sun, moon, and other planets on the earth's equatorial bulge.

	130.01

Wrong on every point. Mainly because there is no dichotomy between the 180-degree falling and 90-degree orbiting. Newton showed that the orbiting object is still falling at exactly the same rate it would be if it had no lateral motion. The difference is that the lateral motion moves it away from the object it is orbiting at the same rate that it is falling. The definition of entropy is completely wrong, and there is no such thing as antientropy.

	131-132

...and it only gets worse...

141-142 are a good point.

143 is unintelligible gobbledeegook.

150 Logical, if you agree to his definition of synergy.

151-153 He says one should start with the whole, but he also says “No single part of experience will ever be able to explain the behavior of the whole.” That is not a complete contradiction, but near enough that I wish for a better explanation of how to start with that which I cannot understand.

161 descends into sleep-inducing prose, and does not appear to emerge.