Re: Dynamical Hierarchies

[Judith Rosen <***>]

> James Rose wrote: Did RR generate any specific equations that identified
> specific performace relations - among entailed heirarchies?

Well, Jamie...

He generated a hell of a lot of equations! As for specific equations for identifying specific performance relations among entailed hierarchies; I'm not entirely sure what you mean. For him, "hierarchies" simply were another way to say "relations" and the word relations was his preference-- in part because it's NOT specific. The word "hierarchy" was not one he used routinely because it carries certain connotations that aren't really conducive to the way he viewed complexity. The root-based definition of hierarchy, according to my dictionary, is "sacred rule" and while that may not be the way most people mean it when using that word, there is a certain rigidity involved in hierarchical associations; what a certain place in the hierarchy means in terms of causality or causal effect. It's kind of slippery, really. I can see a few similarities but somehow I think caution is advised.

In a human hierarchy, for example, like a royal family; birth order matters. So does gender. It is purely an issue of "luck" and has nothing to do with local contexts of time, country, need, optimality... the relation between the "fitness" of the next-in-line for the throne to the functional requirements of the role of government. So, in this case, "hierarchy" is completely formalized and the labels matter more than the actual relational contexts do. That's an imposition of human mind on the natural scheme of things, which appears to be one of the hallmarks of our species-- for better and for worse (and we do a whole bunch of both, it seems to me!).

Ultimately, I suspect you are asking about how he viewed the nature of relations-- which relations are more impactful than others and why. Am I getting it?

Judith
Web address: http://www.rosen-enterprises.com
BioTheory: An electronic journal of general science based on the Relational (Rosennean) Complexity Paradigm
On Oct 9, 2005, at 12:10 AM, James N Rose wrote:

> Judith,
>
> Did RR generate any specific equations that identified
> specific performace relations - among entailed heirarchies?
>
> Jamie