THINGS WORK WHEN WE ARE MINDFUL OF HOW PARTS FUNCTION AND RELATE AS A WHOLE
The core of a functional approach is computation—evaluating the functions of all parts.
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Key traits:
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Uses immutability (functions can’t change once created).
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Relies on pure functions (same input always gives the same output).
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Emphasizes pathways. Scenarios are planned in advance. A situation is read, a response is calculated, and a function is selected to execute it.
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It’s easy to focus only on function. Yet even fully functioning parts can fragment when they lose sight of the whole.
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Emergence: When parts combine, they create new functions that do not exist in the individual parts.
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Nonlinearity: Small changes in the beginning can lead to massive, completely unexpected results later. This is called the butterfly effect.
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Complex Interactions: As the number of connections between parts grows, the total system becomes too difficult to calculate fully.
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Information Limits: We never have exact data on every single starting condition or outside force.
Examples
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Water Molecules: Knowing how a single H₂O molecule acts does not let you predict the exact shape of a splashing wave or ice crystals without seeing the whole system.
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The Brain: You can study a single neuron, but you cannot predict a specific human thought or memory just from that piece.
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Weather: We understand air and heat, but tracking every wind current to predict rain weeks away is impossible.
The ability to anticipate comes from reading the relationships between the parts of the whole, not from knowing how individual parts function.
Insight comes from the relationship of the whole, not from a reduction to the parts.
The whole is not the sum
of its parts. It's the
relationship
between them.
Be mindful of how functional parts relate as a whole.
Feel how all parts of the body connect as a whole. Add awareness of everything around you. Let go of any conditioned reliance on what you know functions. Relax into an alert awareness of connection. Without thought, anticipate mini adjustments for a dance, a contest of anticipation.
Basketball - younger teenagers, all ability, mixed, @ Bushey (18)
Sun 26 Jan
|Bushey
Play basketball to be enjoy being more human than machine.
Time & Location
26 Jan 2025, 18:00 – 19:00
Bushey, Aldenham Rd, Bushey WD23 2TD, UK
Guests
About the event
Sport has long been caught in a cultural clash between the individualistic, daring players and the efficient, functional ones. We offer an alternative. The relationship-based team. This is where every player times their movements in relationship to others to open and close space. This style is fun to play and thrilling to watch and more competitive in today’s sports, where games are refereed with an emphasis on player welfare making it harder for the attritional system formats to work.
Most Sports coaches don't know how to set up these relational teams. Sports coaches are generally trained to break down their sport into specific, measurable functions. They instruct their players on how to execute each defined function and create systems to help players react at speed to execute the correct function. When any of us, including coaches focus on fulfilling a specific function assigned to us, we often become more mechanical…
SkillsofWow.org is the governing body for those who coach the skills of Wow.