What is remarkable about the whole architecture is that memory enables the system to operate efficiently in a wide array of different task domains using the same basic equipment that it employs to understand and solve Tea Ceremony problems or simple statics problems in physics. Complexity as hierarchy complexity frequently takes the form of hierarchy and that hierarchic systems have some common properties independent of their specific content. Hierarchy is one of the central structural schemes that the architect of complexity uses. The time required for the evolution of a complex form from simple elements depends critically on the numbers and distribution of potential intermediate stable forms. Near decomposability hierarchies have the property of near decomposability.
Intracomponent linkages are generally stronger than intercomponent linkages.
August 3 1999.