Two helicopters hovered near each other in the sky this evening. It was more than twice as noteworthy a sight than a single helicopter. It was, therefore, an affirmation of the validity of the sometimes true notion that the Whole Is Greater Than The Sum Of Its Parts (WIGTTSOIP). In this universe of duality, however, it should come as no surprise that a counterbalancing notion exists so that the unoccupied playground seesaw is parallel to the ground and freaking out the children. Specifically, Less Is More (LIM). These two contrasting ideas are not mutually exclusive, there is some overlap.

Whether a system is described more accurately by WIGTTSOIP or LIM, or is described equally by both, depends principally on how the system compares with similar systems previously documented in the library of human experience. If, for example, helicopters were normally seen in pairs, then seeing one alone would make LIM true. And here it should be noted that these contrasting ideas are not strictly opposite, so the seesaw actually slants slightly. Whereas if LIM is true than WIGTTSOIP must necessarily be, if WIGTTSOIP is true, LIM need not be. Graphically,

Incidentally, I’m reading Breakfast of Champions, and Vonnegut’s artwork seems to be influencing my own.

Pushing a system to the limit of LIM results in the removal of everything from that system. The result is commonly referred to as a void or vacuum, but it is actually less than that. Words attempting to describe a system that has been pushed to the LIM limit are removed from the vicinity before they can stick, because anything relating to a system, including vocabulary describing it, threatens to become part of the system, and a system at the LIM limit has zero parts. Here is what is funny: there could be an infinite number of zero-part systems all around us or there could be none, and we wouldn’t know the difference.