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TERMS: NESTED HIERARCHIES Complex systems may be thought of as having different levels, and these levels are generally referred to as being a hierarchy. The cells in our body are at a different hierarchical level than organs, which in turn are at a different level than "us" as an organism or "us" as viewed from the level of a city or a country. What is powerful about thinking of hierarchies in terms of complex systems is that it makes clear that there may be (probably are) different characteristics of a system at one level than at a "higher" or different level—that is, emergence. It also makes clear that a complex system is really a system of systems, such that there are both interactions between the parts, or agents, of systems on a given level, and interactions across different hierarchical levels. For example, we might talk about a high level of a hierarchy such as how the economies of Japan and the United States "interact" with each other. However, to really understand "why" certain characteristics of this economic interaction exist, one would need to examine the agent interactions at "lower" hierarchical levels. These interactions would consist of complex systems such as various companies that make products in the two countries (with the companies themselves being complex systems), distribution channels that move products, marketing approaches companies use, consumers in each country selecting which products they are going to buy, and so on. |
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