PSI - Issue 68

Tamás Fekete et al. / Procedia Structural Integrity 68 (2025) 915–921 T. Fekete / Structural Integrity Procedia 00 (2025) 000–000

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occur when there is partial knowledge of the state of two systems, or of different parts of a large system, in which the parts involved are for some reason temporarily considered independent. On the other hand, two subsystems of a system are entangled if information about one improves knowledge about the other, or more generally, the subsystems of a system are entangled if information about one improves knowledge about the others. From another perspective, the entangled nature of a system expresses the fact that it is not a set of independent entities. Based on the previous arguments, human culture can be considered as a holistic system. This raises the question of whether and how a disciplinary segmentation can be understood in a holistic worldview. The answer is that historically formed disciplines can exist in a holistic worldview because each discipline is based on the observation that in order to observe and describe the phenomena, a distinction is made according to the aspect of inquiry, in which features that are judged to be relevant to the description are distinguished from those that are not – Primas (2017 12.); the distinction neglects information about irrelevant features. Let the disciplines ‘ D 1 ’, ‘ D 2 ’, ... ‘ D N ’, each of which has partial knowledge of the system ‘ S ’ corresponding to its own aspect. According to the disciplinary worldview, the information provided by the set of independent disciplines ‘ D 1 ’, ‘ D 2 ’, ... ‘ D N ’ is sufficient to characterize the system ‘ S ’ – and even its evolution. According to the holistic worldview, the disciplines ‘ D 1 ’, ‘ D 2 ’, ... ‘ D N ’ are not independent, but together form the multidisciplinary system < ‘ D 1 ’, ‘ D 2 ’, ... ‘ D N ’ > . The description of the system ‘ S ’ can be realized by the system < ‘ D 1 ’, ‘ D 2 ’, ... ‘ D N ’ > – Ván (2017). In general, there are ‘cross effects’ between the elements of the < ‘ D 1 ’, ‘ D 2 ’, ... ‘ D N ’ > , but in special cases the elements can be seen as independent. This situation is like the situation in modern theories of manifolds, where a local environment of a point is considered to be Euclidean space, but when moving from one environment to another, one must not neglect the contributions resulting from the non-Euclidean nature of the manifold – see e.g. Amari (2015 3.), Wells (2008 36.). In summary, human culture is essentially a single, holistic system, the discussion of which builds on the knowledge accumulated in the existing disciplines by incorporating into the discussion the useful parts of the results already available – see Rovelli (2024, 44.). 2.3. A Conceptual Shift in the methodology of science As already mentioned in the introduction, the daily Practice of many modern individuals is supported by industrial products, the development and Engineering of which was largely made possible by the progress of natural Sciences throughout the first half of the 20 th century. The development of natural sciences is highly dependent on the methodology of Knowledge Acquisition –i.e. Epistemology – developed in the framework of Philosophy , as evidenced by the fact that the creators of modern science (e.g., Newton, Galileo) applied Aristotle's Analytic Synthetic Method ( ASM ) in the development of modern physics – Cellucci (2017 174.). Aristotle's ASM is now widely referred to as the Scientific Method , and its invention is often attributed to Galileo. Figure 1 illustrates that the Scientific Method – see Simonyi (2012 8.) – is a slightly modified version of Aristotle's ASM – Cellucci (2013 137–138.), (2017 174–175.). The ‘ Induction ’ part of the Scientific Method is called ‘ Analysis ’ in the ASM , while the ‘ Deduction ’ part is what Aristotle called ‘ Synthesis ’. Aristotle described another method that plays a fundamental role in today’s methodology of theory development in the natural sciences, the Axiomatic Method, also known today as the Hypothetico-Deductive Method – see e.g. Cellucci (2017 176–178).

Fig. 1. (a) The Scheme of Aristotle's Analytic-Synthetic Method; (b) A simplified scheme of the Scientific Method –from Simonyi (2012 8.)–.