In the July 2023 edition of the University of Queensland’s “Contact” magazine, the following short but useful article appears regarding “memory health” and some of the myths concerning the same.  The article notes “… forgetting is an active process that is considered an actual form of memory, as the brain is capable to selectively forget non-essential information while retaining useful knowledge.  The ability to forget is in fact critical, and there are forms of autism that are associated with an altered ability to forget”.  Measures to sustain and improve memory are identified. This article is published with the consent of the University of Queensland, for which we are grateful, with the link to be found here:

https://stories.uq.edu.au/contact-magazine/2023/memory-hacks-popular-myths-recent-discoveries/index.html?utm_source=contact-friends&utm_medium=edm&utm_campaign=45130&utm_term=owned&utm_content=myths-memory

This reasonably common expression – which otherwise entails the concept of synergy – is defined in the Collins Online Dictionary of Language as:

If you say that something is more than the sum of its parts or greater than the sum of its parts, you mean that it is better than you would expect from the individual parts because of the way they combine adds a different quality.

The archetypal example of use of the language is a sporting or other team.

The phrase has its genesis in Aristotle’s “Metaphysics”.  He used it, however, in a mathematical or scientific context.  In a 1908 translation of Aristotle’s work by WD Ross, the following translation is ascribed:

In the case of all things which have several parts and in which the totality is not, as it were, a mere heap, but the whole is something besides the parts,  there is a cause; for even in bodies contact is the cause of unity in some cases, and in others viscosity or some other such quality.

Use in jurisprudence includes the following:

• State of Western Australia v Johnson [2009] WASCA 224 per Owen JA at [17]:

I think the import of the State’s position is that none of those six matters, alone or in combination, would have justified suspension of the terms. If each of those factors is looked at by itself the State’s contention is probably correct. But her Honour did not rely on any one consideration to the exclusion of the others. It is apparent from the sentencing remarks that she considered them in combination. Where a number of matters are taken together they can have a compounding effect so that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

• Wyer v State of Queensland (Department of Education) [2022] QIRC 408 per Dwyer IC at [105]:

The Conflict Form very clearly points to a reasonable perception of bias (conscious or unconscious) on the part of three of the four panel members. Had it been the case that Mr Wyer or another candidate had been interviewed in addition to the appointee I would have been less inclined to this conclusion. And while the objective facts of this matter considered individually may not (of themselves) justify an adverse conclusion, this is very much a case where ‘the whole is greater than the sum of its parts’.

The Macquarie Dictionary (Online) defines this collocation of words as “something imagined to be an extraordinary discovery but proving to be a delusion or a hoax”.

Other dictionaries afford a supplementary meaning.  In the Merriam-Webster (Online) Dictionary, a like definition appears, but with a further meaning being “a place, condition or situation of great disorder or confusion”.

In old English a “mare” – or “maere” – was a malicious entity of some kind.

Used in jurisprudence, the following are examples, redolent of the latter meaning above:

• CGU Insurance Ltd v Watson (as Trustee of the Deed of Arrangement in respect of Graves) [2007] NSWCA 301, per Giles JA at [44]:

Use by r 12.4 of “cause of action” brings something of a mare’s nest.  Instead of the relatively flexible concept of abuse of process, consideration of a stay requires identification of causes of action;  even the room allowed by “substantially the same” requires the identification. What is meant by “cause of action” is notoriously difficult.  Further, proceedings for declaratory relief … may not be proceedings on a cause of action as ordinarily understood.  The rule can be difficult to apply, and it may  not extend, or readily extend, to the full range of proceedings which can be brought.

• R v Hillen [2019] NTSC 27, per Graham AJ at [25]:

What does the jury make of the mare’s nest?  Is it invention, is he confused?  Is it Mr Nguyen’s fault for not putting the allegation to his wife or to him in examination in chief?  This type of factual dilemma was not untypical.

• Windsurfing International Inc v Sailboards Australia Pty Ltd (1996) 69 ALR 534, per Burchett J at [549]:

But the second respondent’s tortious attempt at justification did not end there;  for the examination of the circumstances shows that he decided to ignore his obligation under the undertaking, at a time when he knew that he could not fulfil the conditions of the concession, even if they had been applicable.  The whole chapter of evidence is reminiscent of CS Lewis’ brilliant mixed metaphor about chasing a red herring all the way into a mare’s nest!

‘Well done Matildas!’