Talk:Gestalt

Removals and reasons

Please add these back when articles are present or anticipated:

External-only links

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Someone ought to work in the mecha term, in which several robots which combine into one and are called a gestalt.

Gestalt also pertains to creative composition. I learned the word while in art school.

the german word is highly complex and refers to all sorts of things. it is not just form or shape, but also means person (eine finstere Gestalt, a scary person)-

NO: A dark person, combining appearance and mood - more in the sense of sinister ...

But here my Addition to the understanding of the definition (please check, dicuss and include /reflect as deems appropriate by native speakers working on these topics):

Above and first of all - and not only in English - the term Gestalt itself requires better definition and understanding. What does it mean, when we learn, that its meaning refers to any "Whole"? Holism is a nice reference. However, in more concrete terms, and departing from the visual perception (which is NOT the whole, it refers to, but rather an inadmissible self limitation of our understanding of Gestalt) we can translate Gestalt as the continuum / continuity of: Shape /Form, Colour, Texture, light effects like glare, movement and sound. Gestalt transmits physical properties and haptic experiences, which one may anticipate and may (or may not) experience, when getting closer and touching the artefact or natural being which we are thus observing. Talking of artefacts (as well as animals), we anticipate a sound, which fits the visual image. And also a kind of movement. E.g.: An Elephant moves differently from a Tiger. So: Why should a Jaguar (car) move like a Truck? However, beyond such simple example, we also anticipate a character, a way of being, based upon our perception of the whole, thus of a "Gestalt". Psychology of Perception, Information - Aesthetics and Semiotics are a key to nonverbal communication among beings as well as in the Design of Artefacts, in order to serve people, starting from a airplane cockpit, where information should rather not mislead the "operators of complex systems" - Thus, we also relate Gestalt to Cybernetics: The art of steering a ship (team, company) by means of information and feedback. All this may illustrate the enormous importance of conscientious understanding, use and criticism of Gestalt and Psychology of Perception, where ever decisions are made. Not only as customers, but as directors deciding about offers and their reason to exist, in the eyes of their planned audiences as well as in the eyes of the rest... May this relate your theoretic perception and improvements regarding Gestalt and relate it to the responsibility of us all for a better world, which opens choices rather than directing the public. A comment by a "Gestalter" - a Definer of Gestalt - or, as current fashions call this profession occupied by too many unprofessional Wannabees: Design. Gerhard Eichweber www.value-design.org

"Too technical" header

I am not a psychologist, just an educated person. I did not find the article too technical to understand. If you want to see 'too technical', take a look at the article on adrenaline...

I do not feel like I have enough editing experience to go ahead and remove the 'too technical' header, but I feel strongly that it doesn't need to be there -- at least, with the article in its current form.Star-lists (talk) 16:55, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Agreed, done.  Sandstein  17:29, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

MOS:DP compliance

I have updated this page to comply with the Manual of Style on disambiguation pages. Unfortunately, to do so, I had to remove some content present in the prior version. Disambiguation pages are navigational aids, not articles, and should contain no content not found in the articles referred to. Since Dungeons and Dragons, Red Dwarf, Anne McCaffrey, Theodore Sturgeon, and Transformers do not make any reference to "gestalt", I have removed the entries here. If you think these references are important, I'd invite you to add the information about gestalt to the other articles and relink them here. --TreyHarris 09:13, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

I add information about Gestalt as defined in the perceptual psychology and then Gestalt therapy which is not directly based upon the psychology itself but which applies concepts of a perceived gestalt as regards a configuration of a collection of minutae about an individual and physiognomic isomorphism.DrJohnGPhD (talk) 17:10, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Transformers reference

I have removed the reference to gestalt as a fan-coined concept in Transformers (toyline). The word "gestalt" does not appear in any of the pages referenced. Disambiguation pages should not introduce any information not found in the article referenced; they are for navigation, not reference. --TreyHarris 04:55, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

use of term in biology?

Ficus links here, but none of the disambig links fits the sense of the word used in that article. Should there be another article or section of this one on the sense of 'gestalt' used in biology? --Jim Henry (talk) 13:57, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Charlie Rose Show

A guest on the "Charlie Rose Show" last week, on the second of three special shows about the brain, used "gestalt" as if he knew what it meant. Unfree (talk) 15:55, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

What about sci/fi comic book use of this word?

I have heard gestalt to mean group mind in Star Trek for the Borg. As in this article: Seven_of_Nine

And, lots of times Marvel Comics uses it to describe people who combine powers... The best example of Gestalt Power in the Marvel Universe was the Beaubier twins, Aurora and Northstar, who could generate light when they touched. But also the New Universe Group called Psi-Forcecreated a "Gestalt" ghost of their mentor... The power they use is documented in the book the Ultimate Powers Book by David E. Martin which was sanctioned by TSR and Marvel Comics here -> Marvel Super Heroes (role-playing game).

So, maybe that's I've heard this word "gestalt" to mean things like the Captain Planet summons and the Transformers combining... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Youbetterwork (talk • contribs) 16:41, 30 January 2011 (UTC) Youbetterwork (talk) 16:45, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Proposal for de-disambiguation.

A proposal to de-disambiguate this page has been made at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Disambiguation#Gestalt. Please weigh in there. Cheers! bd2412 T 16:16, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Whether to include certain entries

@Sandstein: WP:PTM begins: "A disambiguation page is not a search index."

And continues: "A link to an article title that merely contains part of the disambiguation page title, or a link that includes the page title in a longer proper name, where there is no significant risk of confusion between them, is considered a partial title match, and should not be included."

In my opinion, you are misreading the guideline. For example, Gestalt psychology contains the full DAB page title and is not a proper noun; and there is significant risk of confusion. How are readers supposed to find that article, which relates to the commonest use of "Gestalt" in English, if it's not on the DAB page? At the very least, the entries you deleted should be listed per MOS:DABSEEALSO. Narky Blert (talk) 14:02, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Narky Blert, I don't quite follow you. Gestalt psychology is "a link that includes the page title in a longer proper name", as per WP:PTM, and is therefore not a valid disambiguation entry. Whether it is a proper noun or not (it is) does not matter, and nor does how people are supposed to find it, because WP:PTM is clear that searching for topics that happen to have a similar name is not the purpose of a dab page. That purpose is served by links in related articles or the search field. The "see also" section is only for "easily confused terms or commonly confused alternate spellings", which is also not the case with the entries at issue. Sandstein 20:32, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

@Sandstein: WP:PTM is out-of-date, not to say outright wrong. On its clear wording, it excludes personal names (given names and surnames, as part of a full name) from DAB pages. It is nevertheless universally accepted that DAB pages not only can but should include people with a matching given name or surname; see Category:Disambiguation pages with given-name-holder lists (4,024 entries) and Category:Disambiguation pages with surname-holder lists (14,884 entries). Given names are a murky area, because anyone can invent one, but surnames are a different matter. There are three, and so far as I know only three, ways to categorise a surname: {{R from surname}} (one article), {{disambiguation|surname}} (one or more articles, but not enough to justify a name page), and {{surname}} (multiple articles, whether or not there are citations about the surname as such).

The search tool is horribly clunky if a page with the name exists. I know at least three workarounds (one of them undocumented); I do not expect the average reader to know any of them. DAB pages are intended to help readers easily find the article they are looking for, not to make it difficult.

DAB pages are indeed not directories. The example in WP:DPL of Louisville Zoo is apposite. It would be wrong to include it in Zoo (disambiguation); but it would be entirely appropriate to add it to Louisville (disambiguation), because "Zoo" is an addition to the memorable part of the name.

I am inviting contributions to this discussion at WT:DAB#Gestalt, WT:WPDAB#Gestalt and WT:DPL#Gestalt. Narky Blert (talk) 19:38, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

Narky Blert, since this is not a surname article, I don't quite see what surnames have got to do with this. Certainly it is possible that WP:PTM should be changed, but that would need a proper RfC and discussion, and until then it is a guideline that should be followed. And it clearly disallows partial title matches such as "Gestalt psychology" from being included here. Thanks for asking others to comment. Sandstein 20:34, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

The point of PTM is that articles shouldn't be added simply because the disambiguated term is part of their title. However, it is not a corollary that all entries where the disambiguated term is part of the title are inappropriate. A dab page is not an index of articles whose titles follow a certain format, it is an index of encyclopedic topics referred to by a term, regardless of whether those topics have articles of their own or are covered within another one, and regardless of how the relevant article happens to be titled. Surnames are an example: the dab page Trump contains an entry for what may look like an obvious PTM: Donald Trump and that's because the term "Trump", without qualifiers, can refer to him. The unqualified term "gestalt" can refer to a concept in psychology and as far as I can see that concept is covered by Gestalt psychology, so there definitely should be a link to that article. I haven't looked closely at the others (some do appear like inappropriate PTMs), but at least Gestalt intelligence should also stay: from its text it's apparent that there are entities described there that are referred to as just "gestalts". – Uanfala (talk) 20:49, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

@Uanfala: I concur. These articles are closely associated with the term and should be included. Omitting them is an impediment to navigation. Also, @Sandstein: though it's not of the greatest importance here, "gestalt psychology" is not a proper noun. What it refers to is very close to the opposite of an individual entity. Nick Number (talk) 21:37, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

We should certainly include topics which can be referred to as "Gestalt". For example, the author of redirect Gestalt (design) presumably thinks that its target Principles of grouping (aka Gestalt laws of grouping) is so called. An apparent PTM probably passes that test if it is what many readers finding the dab were seeking – so let's ask them. Here are the monthly WP:Clickstream counts showing where visitors to Gestalt went next:

• Gestalt psychology 720 (PTM)
• Holism 170
• Gestalt therapy 78 (PTM)
• Principles of grouping 99 (PTM as Gestalt laws of grouping)
• Music psychology 72
• Gestalt theoretical psychotherapy 46 (PTM)
• Group mind (science fiction) 45 (PTM as Gestalt intelligence)
• Gestalt (manga) 28
• Gestalt Practice 22 (PTM)
• Nier (video game) 18
• Others <10 each

It seems that 78% of readers whose preference was recorded were looking for one of the PTMs, and might appreciate at least some of them being included. Certes (talk) 22:18, 30 August 2021 (UTC)

From that analysis, it appears that the great majority of readers looking for Gestalt won't find the article they're looking for on the DAB page. I despair. Narky Blert (talk) 20:20, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

I rephrased the entry for Gestalt psychology and removed the phrases with the word. There are plenty of other special terms that are used in article titles. I tried the first term that came to my mind: All pages with titles containing electromagnetism - and surely we do not put all them into disambig pages no matter how hard one will try to argue that this would be very useful. Lembit Staan (talk) 20:11, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

Apple developer function

It was also an Apple developer function, to obtain informations about the operating environment. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/coreservices/1471624-gestalt

Isidoro Ghezzi.

An article on that topic was recently deleted: see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gestalt (Mac OS). Gestalt is a disambiguation page which lists articles where Wikipedia describes topics called Gestalt, rather than being a dictionary of all meanings. Certes (talk) 20:15, 27 September 2021 (UTC)