[A scientific-cultural approach to the Gestalt concept].

In the descriptions of the gestalt process formulated by F. S. Perls (Gestalt Therapy Verbatim, Real People Press, Lafayette, 1969) and other gestalt psychologists, it appears as if the gestalt formation was a general and universal tendency of living and non living matter as well. Broadly speaking, they state that a gestalt is something that in itself wants to be formed and completed, something which emerges as a distinct entity (figure) from a undifferentiated environment (background). From experience we know that perceptions of any kind, have this as a prerequisite: the perceived object or process has to out of equilibrium with the environment, otherwise it remains undetectable. On the other hand, the second law of thermodynamics prescribes that the tendency for spontaneous isolated processes is exactly the opposite. With time, processes tend towards equilibrium, things tend to equalize, heterogeneity tends to become homogeneity, order into disorder. Thus these two very important "rules of the game" for natural processes are seemingly contradictory. While one states that matter tends to differentiate into figure and ground, the other states that exactly the opposite is what will occur - with time, all distinction and differentiation will disappear. Of the many problems posed by biological entities to the physical sciences, their obvious differentiation within the growth span of the organism, is a flagrant violation of the second law and hence they, as a whole, escape the realm of thermodynamics. Only living organisms can go against the second law. Living organisms tend to form gestalts and they perceive the world through the formation of gestalt pairs. However, the first man-made creature that knowingly could obviate the results prescribed by the second law, was Maxwell's Demon. He can produce heterogeneity from homogeneity since he can handle information. In Maxwell's hypothetical experiment, his Demon can pick out fast molecules from slow molecules taking a system initially in equilibrium to a new state in which there are differences. Information, in its mathematical context or neg-entropy is thus essential to systems that are out of equilibrium with their environment. In particular this is true of biological organisms. At an early stage genetic information is all that is required to produce differentiation. With growth and differentiation other forms of information come into play. From an engineer's point of view, energy without information does not serve in the production of work. From a psychotherapist's point of view, energy without information does not serve in the production of growth. In all schools of psychotherapy, the therapist can be considered as a Maxwell Demon; the outcome depending on the particular bias of his school. Gestalt Therapy with its strong emphasis on the "awareness of the ongoing process" relies heavily on all organismic functions as the means of producing information relevant to the patient...