COMPLEXITY (Accumulative)
| Collection | International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics |
|---|---|
| Year | 2004 |
| Vol. (num.) | 2(1) |
| ID | ◀ 544 ▶ |
| Object type | Human sciences, Methodology or model |
C. HASKINS has observed that complexity in living beings and in insects societies grows out of accumulation (1946). In a way, this was already a basic tenet of E. HAECKEL's views of evolution with his fundamental biogenetic law: “Ontogenesis
recapitulates phylogenesis “. Evolution does not start at any time from scratch: it results from adding new and not contradictory characters to those already in existence. This means that complexity self-constructs from level to level. According to Haskins each higher social level of structures results of a more or less similar pattern . Social forms imply specific types of interactions among reciprocally compatible individuals. And once initiated, they tend necessarily to develop coherently (i.e. in a non-contradictory and functional way)
HASKINS considers that human social world similarly tends toward higher degrees of complexity and that this can be seen specially through the cultural evolution of human societies from simpler forms toward more and more differentiated and coherently organized ones.
See also
Cross-level research, Priority of the simple, Recursivity, Supremacy of the complex, Zero System