7.2 Does complexity increase over evolution?

7.2.4 Meta-system transitions

Heylighen*1 suggests that the complexity of organisms can increase with the emergence of meta-levels. The truth of this might critically depend on what variety of complexity was intended. The biological fitness complexity may well increase with the introduction of meta-levels, because such stacked meta-levels can produce very unpredictable behaviour (based on knowledge of the levels), but it will also accompany a decrease in the biological analytic complexity because a structured system of hierarchies is more decomposable and hence more easily analysed than one that has no separable hierarchies. Perhaps this forms the basis of the evolutionary advantage of such an emergence*2.

What is Complexity? - The philosophy of complexity per se with application to some examples in evolution - 14 JUN 95

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