CONNECTEDNESS

"If you wish to understand a system, and so be in a position to predict its behavior, it is necessary to study the system as a whole. Cutting it up into bits for study is likely to destroy the system’s connectedness, and hence the system itself." (Sherwood, 2002)

"If you wish to influence or control the behavior of a system, you must act on the system as a whole. Tweaking it in one place in the hope that nothing will happen in another is doomed to failure - that’s what connectedness is all about." (Sherwood, 2002)