[DSRP Evidence](https://dsrpevidence.org/)

# R5. A whole consists of its parts and the relationships among those parts

On Systems

Is a whole an additional object over and above its parts?

## Short answer

No. The whole is the organization constituted by its parts and the relationships among them. Relationships are not merely “part of” the whole; they are parts of the whole.

## Complete explanation

DSRP does not require a mysterious composite added on top of the parts. A whole consists of the identities and relationships that constitute its organization. People often treat relationships as part of a whole while failing to count them as parts of the whole. That omission creates many apparent paradoxes of composition. Changing the relationships can change the whole even when all object-parts remain the same; changing the object-parts can change the whole even when a relational pattern remains similar. Thus, “there is no whole over and above the parts” is compatible with DSRP when the parts include the relationships that organize them.

## Why the apparent counterexample arises

The apparent difficulty arises because the inventory of parts is restricted to object-like identities and excludes the relationships that constitute the organization.

## Cases this settles

- [Entangled pair: is there a whole at all?](https://dsrpevidence.org/case/1)

- [No-macro-object models](https://dsrpevidence.org/case/4)

- [Mereological nihilism: simples arranged chairwise](https://dsrpevidence.org/case/16)

- [Strong emergence and trans-ordinal laws](https://dsrpevidence.org/case/30)

[All cases and resolutions](https://dsrpevidence.org/counterexamples)