Seven

THE ARCHITECTURE OF COMPLEXITY

p 195-196

In the face of complexity, an in-principle reductionist may be at the same time a pragmatic holist.

[Four aspects of complexity:

hierarchical systems
time to emerge through evolutionary processes
dynamic properties of hierarchical systems
complex systems and their description]

HIERARCHIC SYSTEMS

Social Systems

Biological and Physical Systems

p 198-199

In discussing formal organizations, the number of subordinates who report directly to a single boss is called his span of control. I shall speak analogously of the span of a system. [...] a hierarchic system is flat at a given level if it has a wide span at that level.

Symbolic Systems

THE EVOLUTION OF COMPLEX SYSTEMS

p 200

[Parabel of Hora and Tempus, watchmakers. Stable intermediate states; small increments]

Biological Evolution

Problem Solving as Natural Selection

p 205

Problem solving requires *selective* trial and error.

The Sources of Selectivity

On Empires and Empire Building

Conclusion: The Evolutionary Explanation of Hierarchy

NEARLY DECOMPOSABLE SYSTEMS

Near Decomposability of Social Systems

p 213

In the dynamics of social systems [...] near decomposability is generally very prominent.

Physicochemical Systems

Some Observations on Hierarchic Span

Summary: Near Decomposability

THE DESCRIPTION OF COMPLEXITY

Near Decomposability and Comprehensibility

p 219

I shall not try to settle which is chicken and which is egg: whether we are able to understand the world because it is hierarchic or whether it appears hierarchic because those aspects of it which are not elude our understanding and observation. I have already given some reasons for supposing that the former is at least half the truth —that evolving complexity would tend to be hierarchic— but it may not be the whole truth.

Simple Descriptions of Complex Systems

p 221

A generalization of the notion of near decomposability might be called the "empty world hypothesis" [...]. By adopting a descriptive language that allows the absence of something to go unmentioned, a nearly empty world can be described quite concisely.

State Descriptions and Process Descriptions

p 222

The former [state descriptions] characterize the world as sensed [...] the latter [process descriptions] characterize the world as acted upon.

p 223

The distinction between the world as sensed and the world as acted upon defines the basic condition for the survival of adaptive organisms. The organism must develop correlations between goals in the sensed world and actions in the world of process.

The Description of Complexity in Self-Reproducing Systems

Ontogeny Recapitulates Philogeny