Overview
Complex systems confront us everywhere we look. Atoms form molecules, molecules form cells, cells form organisms, neurons form minds, and minds form cultures and machines. At each step, new patterns appear that cannot be understood from the lower-level description alone.
This book is about how to understand those patterns.
Hierarchy does not propose a new scientific theory or a system of philosophy. Instead, it brings together ideas from physics, biology, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, and the study of complex systems to make the logic of emergence intelligible to a general reader.
What kind of book this is
Rather than asking how every higher-level phenomenon is mechanically produced from lower-level dynamics,
this book asks a different question:
Why do explanations naturally organize themselves into levels, and why does no single level render the others obsolete?
Along the way, the book relies on the idea of levels of description and introduces new conceptual tools, such as mapping complexity, effective infinity, and the distinction between descriptive and constructive emergence, that help clarify long-standing confusions about reduction, explanation, and complexity.
These ideas are not presented as technical results, but as ways of seeing the world.
Who this is for
Hierarchy is written for curious readers who are comfortable with ideas but not interested in equations. No specialized background is assumed. The goal is not to simplify complexity away, but to show why explanation naturally organizes itself into levels.
Scientists, engineers, philosophers, and general readers alike will recognize familiar ideas here, arranged into a framework that reveals how they fit together.
Project Status
The manuscript is complete. It is available online and is currently seeking publication and feedback.
If you would like to offer feedback, please reach out directly to the author at
alyx.dubrow@gmail.com.