So far we have been diving into singular links in the context of adding one thing to another thing to create an altogether new thing. This describes a cumulative process. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. One plus one equals three. But there is another way to think about singular links, where you create a new thing by subtracting something. It is a process of refinement. The whole is increased by removing one of its parts. One minus one equals three.
Think of sculpture. The original state is a block of marble. The process of removing excess stone results in a statue. This too is a singular link. Stone minus excess stone equals art. As the Renaissance artist Michaelangelo said, “I saw the angel in the marble and I carved until I set him free.”
In the realm of logical reasoning, this is a deductive process. Deduction begins with a general premise and then eliminates possibilities to arrive at a specific conclusion. Many of the whodunnit novels and movies use deduction to identify the murderer. Sherlock Holmes concludes that one suspect is guilty by proving all other suspects are innocent. The only suspect that cannot be unmistakenly proved to be innocent must, therefore, be guilty. All possibilities are negated except one. In mathematics, it’s the equivalent of adding negative values until the sum of all values is equal to one.
Architects understand this concept. They know how to use negative space creatively designs of buildings. Think of a skylight at the top of a tall building that lets in natural light all the way to an indoor courtyard many floors below. In that courtyard there may be live trees, and the lives of those trees depend on the sunlight they get from the skylight many floors above. Negative space gives indoor people a sense of being outdoors. Minus the temperature swings. And no rain.
In graphic design, artists remove imperfections to create uniformity in the images. The fashion model may have a blemish deleted, a wrinkle softened, a droplet of saliva airbrushed from her lip. These asymmetries could be distracting to the viewer. Removing them creates imagery that has greater effect, greater impact. “Narrow the focus, increase the impact.”
Genetic engineers also know the power of less-is-more. They create genetically modified organisms (GMOs) by removing specific genes from the organism’s DNA. They may, for instance, remove the gene that makes a crop more vulnerable to parasites. With that gene removed, the crop is more resistant.
Traveling in Central America years ago, I remember eating breakfast with a nutrition scientist. He told me there are over 1,000 species of bananas in the world, but just one – the dessert banana – accounts for 99 percent of bananas consumed each year. This strain of banana gained popularity because it was easy to grow and was highly resistant to the Panama disease which had devastated other varieties of banana in the 19th century. Engineers have been studying its properties and tweaking them ever since.
The point is, reduction can be just as effective as addition to create something stronger, larger, greater, or more impactful.