Editing Synergy (section)

==History==
The words ''synergy'' and ''synergetic'' have been used in the field of [[physiology]] since at least the middle of the 19th century:
<blockquote>
SYN'ERGY, ''Synergi'a'', ''Synenergi'a'', (F.) ''Synergie''; from ''συν'', 'with', and ''εργον'', 'work'. A correlation or concourse of action between different organs in health; and, according to some, in disease.
:—Dunglison, Robley [https://books.google.com/books?id=jAm6AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA835 ''Medical Lexicon''] Blanchard and Lea, 1853
</blockquote>
In 1896, [[:fr:Henri Mazel|Henri Mazel]] applied the term "synergy" to social psychology by writing ''La synergie sociale'', in which he argued that Darwinian theory failed to account of "social synergy" or "social love", a collective evolutionary drive. The highest civilizations were the work not only of the elite but of the masses too; those masses must be led, however, because the crowd, a feminine and unconscious force, cannot distinguish between good and evil.<ref>{{cite book | vauthors = Werth M | chapter = Idyl of the Living Dead | page = 51 | chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=-gDaqOcUMhgC&q=%22social+synergy%22&pg=PA51 |title=The joy of life : the idyllic in French art, circa 1900 |date=2002 | orig-date = 1900 |publisher=University of California Press |location=Berkeley |isbn=978-0-520-22182-6}}</ref>

In 1909, [[Lester Frank Ward]] defined synergy as the universal constructive principle of nature:
<blockquote>
I have characterized the social struggle as centrifugal and social solidarity as centripetal. Either alone is productive of evil consequences. Struggle is essentially destructive of the social order, while communism removes individual initiative. The one leads to disorder, the other to degeneracy. What is not seen—the truth that has no expounders—is that the wholesome, constructive movement consists in the properly ordered combination and interaction of both these principles. This is ''social synergy'', which is a form of cosmic synergy, the universal constructive principle of nature.
:—Ward, Lester F. [https://archive.org/stream/glimpsescosmos00wardgoog#page/n405/mode/1up/search/synergy ''Glimpses of the Cosmos'', volume VI (1897–1912)] G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1918, p. 358
</blockquote>

In [[Christian theology]], [[synergism]] is the idea that salvation involves some form of cooperation between divine grace and human freedom.

A modern view of synergy in natural sciences derives from the relationship between energy and [[Information theory|information]]. Synergy is manifested when the system makes the transition between the different information (i.e. order, [[complexity]]) embedded in both systems.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Jaffe |first=Klaus |date=2023 |title=A Law for Irreversible Thermodynamics? Synergy Increases Free Energy by Decreasing Entropy |journal=Qeios |language=en |doi=10.32388/2VWCJG.5 |issn= |doi-access=free}}</ref>

[[Abraham Maslow]] and [[John Honigmann]] drew attention to an important development in the cultural anthropology field which arose in lectures by [[Ruth Benedict]] from 1941, for which the original manuscripts have been lost but the ideas preserved in "Synergy: Some Notes of Ruth Benedict" (1969).