Seven

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
- Summary: The Description of Complexity

  CONCLUSION