Topic summary
Holistic
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Holism.
Nonseparability
The advent of holism in the 20th century coincided with the gradual development of quantum mechanics. Holism in physics is the nonseparability of physical systems from their parts, especially quantum phenomena. Classical physics cannot be regarded as holistic, as the behavior of individual parts represents the whole. However, the state of a system in quantum theory resists a certain kind of reductive analysis. For example, two spatially separated quantum systems are described as "entangled," or nonseparable from each other, when a meaningful analysis of one system is indistinguishable from that of the other. There are different conceptions of nonseparability in physics and its exploration is considered to broadly present insight into the ontological problem.