CONTROL (Hierarchic)
| Collection | International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics |
|---|---|
| Year | 2004 |
| Vol. (num.) | 2(1) |
| ID | ◀ 686 ▶ |
| Object type | General information, Methodology or model |
The control at each level by a higherlevel control.
P. CORNING writes: “…the principles that control higher levels may serve to restrict, order and ”harness“ lower levels”. He uses an example by POLANYI (1968): “The grammatical rules that govern the structure of various human languages utilize but also subsume the principles of phonetics”.
Thus, without phonemes there is no language.
But phonemes without some superseeding ordering cannot become a language.
This is another example of SABELLI's “priority of the sim ple” and “supremacy of the complex ”(1994).
It also corresponds neatly with van GIGCH's model of control by recursion (1986). At higher levels, it becomes obvious that the relationship between the complex and the elements is bidirectional. A “revolt” of the elements- at time due to abuse of the higher complex can destroy the whole . For example, an alcoholic can destroy his liver…and as a result the liver destroys the alcoholic.
In P. CORNING's words: “…In short, there is both upward and downward causation in nature, and very often a synthesis of the two” (1998b, p. 14)