Synergy

Synergy or synergism (from the Greek συνεργία, Synergia, or συνεργισμός, synergismós, " cooperation " ) refers to the interaction of living organisms, substances or forces in the sense of " mutually promote " or a resulting common benefit.

A description of synergy is found in the saying of Aristotle "The whole is more than the sum of its parts", also known as holism. Interdisciplinary synergies are studied in synergetics.

Religion

The synergism is in Christian dogmatics the " participation" of the human will in justification. During the Reformation the Gnesio-Lutherans Melanchthon and his school accused of being supporters of the synergism. The strict doctrine of Gnesio-Lutherans, who claimed to be based on Luther held to the absolute inability of the natural will to participate in the justification. However, Melanchthon represents primarily an at Augsburg Confession (CA ) Article XVIII. ajar and thus represented also by Luther and the purposes of the CA konfessionalisierten churches position: Man is in worldly acts freely, "but without grace, Help and of the Holy Spirit, man is not able to be pleasing to God ." (CA Art. XVIII)

The rise of the German Evangelical Church since 1557 synergistic disputes had this issue on the content and were gradually resolved. The later Lutheranism approached to Melanchthon's view of justification, by the cooperation of the people would not take place in justification with its natural, but with the gift of grace through the preparatory forces.

Economy

In business, it leverages synergies at about the fusion of several individual companies to a large company or contractual cooperation, for example in research and development. Mergers these synergies can however also be counterproductive effect if the merged companies about parts work against each other because of each growing corporate cultures.

Since the mid-20th century, the game theory is concerned with scientific procedures in which mutual benefits implicitly, ie without specific planning or even occur in competitive situations. The theoretical foundations provided, inter alia, John Forbes Nash, who 45 years later received the Nobel Prize in Economics for the year 1950 he presented Nash equilibrium. For such game-theoretic situations the term coopetition became popular in the U.S. space.

Pharmacology

By synergy we also speak in pharmacology, if two drugs taken at the same time strengthen their effects are mutually exclusive.

One example is the synergistic effect of sulphonamides and trimethoprim.

Chemistry

Also during the interaction of chemicals is called synergistic or synergistic effects when combined potentiate the effects. This happens eg with halogenated flame retardants in combination with antimony oxide as well as in the compilation of rocket fuels ( Oberth effect).

Forestry

One meaning is assigned the term in silviculture, also known as synergism. He called there the increased productivity of a mixed stand on a site as compared to a pure stand for the same number of stems. The increase can be explained by better utilization (eg by means of staged inventory layer or different requirements of different tree species ) or improvement (eg through better decomposition of the "mixed litter" ) of the site conditions.

Philosophy

Generally, the term is used in the more abstract meaning of " synergy " is used when concepts, processes or structures complement each other. This use was fundamentally influenced by Richard Buckminster Fuller, who, inter alia, in the architecture explained so that the properties of its dome or geodesic domes.

Physiology and Anatomy

The simplest example of synergistic effects is the harmonious interaction of muscle groups. Synergistic muscles are, for example, all of the muscles that contribute to a particular link to the same motion, for example, diffraction effect, cf → agonists. In addition, in the physiology of synergy, the organization of the CNS will be described. Thus, the interaction of different brain structures is meant. Thus, a combination of different somatotopically structured brain areas is required in motor skills during complex movements. These brain areas are for example the different motorized projection fields (PS, EPS), basal ganglia, cerebellum, etc. This is necessary in order to coordinate movements and coordinate. Disturbances of these processes can make, for example, as ataxia or apraxia noticeable. Similarly we distinguish muscle groups agonists and antagonists, there are not only in the nervous system, a variety of systems, among themselves turn out to be the opponent, the already mentioned systems PS and EPS in the motor, the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system as well as different for T. controlled opposite biochemical and hormonal regulations that also at higher levels of the nervous system ( neurohypophysis ) from. Opponent may also act together, as they are subject to very different control mechanisms in certain circumstances. This phenomenon is known in the physiology as synergism.