"[The Alori's] wholeness-principle was something which had never been properly formulated in Union logic. It should be possible to make integrators which would not fit isolated data together but consider a local complex - society and its needs, physical environment, known scientific laws - in its entirety. Alori science, with the knowledge it had of the nervous system, would indicate ways to build such computers." (p. 161)
How much does the Coordination Service rely on its computers to understand society? Surely the brains of economists and ecologists do more than "...fit isolated data together..."? Each datum is not "isolated" but is as it is because of its relationships to every other datum, including the many that we do not know - although we do try to identify the principle factors. We cannot change one part of society without changing others accordingly. While the British transport system was nationalized, someone thought that it had nothing to do with profit. I replied that it moved workers to where they produced or consumed and therefore had everything to do with profit. He regarded the economy as a number of merely coexisting systems whereas I had got into the habit of regarding it as an interactive totality. (I did this with the help of a lot of reading and discussion, not just by my own efforts!)
Addendum, 20/12/15: Given the meaning of "data," I should not have written of "data" that are unknown to us! However, I hope that the meaning is clear enough.
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