An arrangement or pattern of smaller elements, whose properties cannot all be predicted from the elements that comprise it. Atoms combine to form molecules that have new properties. These molecules develop new behaviors when combined into living cells. Cells combine to form organisms, and a few of those organisms create web pages like this one. Related terms: holism, emergence If you take patterns as the ultimate structure of the world, if it is arrangements and not stuff that make up the world, the new concept leads you to the concept of wholes. Wholes have no stuff, they are arrangements. Science has come round to the view that the world consists of patterns, and I construe that to be that the world consists of wholes.-- Jan Christian Smuts