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Howard H. Pattee, ed.
Hierarchy Theory: the challenge of complex systems.
George Braziller. 1973

We are well into a decade in which man can no longer evade the responsibility for his own survival. This is not a question of survival over geological or evolutionary time spans. It is a question of survival of his children and grandchildren in a society dominated by increasingly complex local constraints, but lacking stability and rational control.

It is a central lesson of biological evolution that increasing complexity of organization is always accompanied by new levels of hierarchical controls. The loss of these controls at any level is usually malignant for the organization under that level. Furthermore, our experience with many different types of complex systems, both natural and artificial, warns us that loss of hierarchical controls often results in sudden and catastrophic failure. Simple tools may wear out slowly and predictably, but as systems grow in size and complexity they reach a limit where a new level of hierarchical control is necessary if the system is to function reliably.

This is common knowledge to administrators, industrial managers, systems engineers, and to anyone who has successfully operated a complex organization, but all too often this knowledge has only come from trial and error type of experience. The theory and understanding of complex hierarchical systems is still in a rudimentary state.

This book explores the nature of hierarchical organization from different points of view. The aim is to give a broad perspective of the problem in non-technical language. The contributors agree that the problems of hierarchical organization are of universal and fundamental significance, and that we must learn much more about their origin and evolution if we are to claim any abilities to rationally control the complexities of survival which we now face.

The papers were originally presented to a diverse audience with the hope of emphasizing the fundamental necessity of hierarchical control in all living organizations, as well as generating more interest and support toward solving fundamental problems of the origin and functioning of complex hierarchical organizations.

The purpose of this volume remains much the same; however, the editor of The International Library of Systems Theory and Philosophy has asked me to give further examples of hierarchical control, as well as some ideas on the directions the development of hierarchy theory may take. I have tried to do this in a postscript, as well as point out some of the fundamental problems about hierarchical control, which we must solve before we can safely predict the consequences of imposing such controls artificially on biological organizations.

Contents

• Herbert A. Simon. The organization of complex systems. 1973
• Clifford Grobstein. Hierarchical order and neogenesis. 1973
• James Bonner. Hierarchical control programs in biological development. 1973
• The physical basis and origin of hierarchical control. 1973
• Richard Levins. The limits of complexity. 1973
• Unsolved problems and potential applications of hierarchy theory. 1973

Howard H. Pattee, Joanna Raczaszek-Leonardi.
Laws, Language and Life: Howard Pattee's classic papers on the physics of symbols with contemporary commentary.
Springer. 2012

The present volume provides Pattee’s in-depth treatment of the physical basis of symbolic functions. Understanding the physical preconditions for the origin of symbols is essential at all levels, from the origin of life to the measurement problem of physics. The entire field of biosemiotics depends on understanding the physical nature of structures that can have a symbolic function.

The importance of Pattee’s work lies not only in its clarification of biosemiotics scientific bases. By relating symbols to dynamics it becomes relevant to cognitive science, which today acknowledges the importance of embodied cognition in a physical and social environment. Pattee’s views forge links between dynamical, continuous processes and symbolic thought that create a basis for a viable third way-combining the purely symbolic, computational models of cognition and purely dynamic, non-representationalist models. It is a step toward showing that the unfeasibility of reductionism may have different reasons than proposing non-material entities.

Howard Pattee is an active, publishing, scientist; however his early fundamental, now classic, papers are difficult to access. They are not present in large databases, nor reprinted in other widely accessible journals or books. The book aims at making those papers available for a wider public with contemporary Introduction by the Author and Afterword by Joanna Rączaszek-Leonardi, which link the original papers to current discourse in biosemiotics and the cognitive sciences.