There is too much confusion in our dialogue on these subjects. I find you
want to tie everything down too quickly and you get into fine details and
definitive statements before we even grasp the basics.
There is no need to create "Boris type" hierarchies (thanks for the credit
-- or discredit, as the case may be!) or anything else; what we are trying
to do is understand the differences ( if any) and similarities between
hierarchical and recursive systemic architectures -- and it does not help if
you simply define everything as a hierarchy.
It does not help if, at the same time, you hang on to the theory that you
can define anything in any way you want and use any words or names you
choose so long as you put it "up front:" that only blurs the ideas, images
and concepts that lie behind the words we use to describe them.
A hierarchic system is one in which the relationship between the component
parts is premised on a command/obey correlation -- hence "The Hierarchy" in
the Roman Church.
The relationship between components in a recursive system is interactive and
the decision making process (for example) takes negative and positive
feedback between the components into consideration.
This is not a comprehensive "definitions" of either systems, but
descriptions of a particular feature of each of them -- so please don't
start redefining or narrowing and limiting everything that follows on this
single consideration!
Here are some other observations that, generally, apply to relationships
between components in systems (at least, social systems) that are structured
hierarchically: linear, centralized, closed, reliant, dependent, competitive.
And here are some observations that generally apply to relationships in
recursive structures: neural, decentralized, open, autonomous,
interdependent, collaborative.
In my previous contributions to our dialogue, I have referred to several
other characteristics of each architecture.
What am I trying to demonstrate? That, as Stafford Beer says, "...the
question of relationships is not a trivial one."
Please visualize the component parts in a recursive system as being embedded
in each other like a number of Russian dolls. Then re-visualize a hierarchic
system as that familiar, pyramid or tree-like structure.
Now, let me repeat the quote from Beer's book which I referred to in a prior
message:
"Recursion...loosely expressed...looks at systems as embedded within each
other, like so many Russian dolls, each of which has a unique identity,
despite the embedment... Although such arrangements involve various sorts of
dependence, they do not necessarily imply hierarchical dependence in the
command- obedience sense, nor compromise the identity of the included
identity. A capacitor in a radio, a piston in an engine, a rabbit in a wood,
and a star in the galaxy are all examples of embedded identities. But the
question of relationships is not a trivial one. Hegel's axiom of internal
relations reminds us that the relations by which the terms are related are
an integral part of the terms they relate. Already we are speaking about
terms rather than things themselves; and even the physical Russian doll Q
cannot be itself if it is not both larger than the P it contains and smaller
than the R that contains it."
Am I helping you to understand how hierarchic and recursive systems differ?
What is the point, in any event?
My thesis/proposition is that our world is more clearly understood in terms
of models that are recursive rather than hierarchic; and that we, therefore,
might more competently manage our complex human affairs if we used recursive
systemic models and logic. To me, that is consistent with "tackl[ing]
age-old philosophical questions with the help of the most recent cybernetic
theories and technologies."
You have asked me, in the past, to "bend my mind": are you opening yours?
Sincerely,
Boris.
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Boris G Freesman, Q.C.
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"Collaborating in the task of reshaping the future of humanity."
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"Caminante, no hay camino; se hace camino al andar." (Antonio Machado)
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Toronto, Canada
Phone, (416) 512 8965; Fax, (416) 512 8964
e mail, freesman@inforamp.net
snail mail, 4 Rollscourt Drive, Toronto, Canada, M2L 1X5
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