{"id":"part-whole-traces","title":"How much of a whole can a part carry?","regions":["representation","collective-structure"],"question":"When a small social or representational structure resembles a larger one, which information about the whole can actually be recovered?","formulation":"Fractal repetition and holographic storage are invoked as neighboring analogies. A small group can reproduce some organizational patterns while differing in scale and detail.","representations":[{"name":"Structural self-similarity","affords":"Compares repeated relations across scales.","loses":"Does not imply recovery of all information in the larger system.","epistemic_kind":"reconstruction"},{"name":"Distributed information about a whole","affords":"Asks what a part can reconstruct.","loses":"Needs an encoding and a recovery criterion; resemblance is insufficient.","epistemic_kind":"reconstruction"}],"tension":"Repeated structure and recoverable information are different claims.","challenge":"Which properties are transmitted through a part, and which require interactions among multiple parts?","development":"active","epistemic_kind":"reconstruction","evidence":["basis-part-whole-traces"],"next_move":{"text":"Select one organization pattern and distinguish a structural match test from an information-recovery test.","epistemic_kind":"model_proposed"},"open_questions":["When a small social or representational structure resembles a larger one, which information about the whole can actually be recovered?","Which properties are transmitted through a part, and which require interactions among multiple parts?"],"formal_status":"open_problem","version":1,"content_hash":"b99771d8786086a650d29f5269935c25df069c5502af23772eade93e2bbb2c65"}