A SYSTEM IS LESS THAN OR EQUAL TO THE SUM OF ITS PARTS

Imagine an arbitrary object or goal with the following geometric realization:

Now imagine the action of TWO parts or activities on the object/goal arranged such that at least one of them is indirectly acting on the object/goal.

The RESULTANT action of the two parts/activities on the goal can be geometrically represented as follows:

For convenience, let’s use the following notation to represent the identified notions.

Proof: