year: 1962
paper: https://faculty.sites.iastate.edu/tesfatsi/archive/tesfatsi/ArchitectureOfComplexity.HSimon1962.pdf
website:
code:
connections: complexity theory, hierarchical, modular
Todo
- Near-decomposability: systems are organized into subsystems where interactions within modules are much stronger than interactions between modules
- The famous parable of the two watchmakers (Hora and Tempus) — illustrating why hierarchical/modular organization is basically required for complex systems to evolve or be built at all, because non-modular systems are too fragile to intermediate disruptions
- The idea that each level of the hierarchy can be understood somewhat independently, treating lower levels as reliable “black boxes”