Lenaerts, Tom, Dominique Chu, and Richard Watson. “Dynamical Hierarchies (Guest Editors’ Introduction).” (2005): 403-405.
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The dynamical hierarchy concept refers to a system that consists of multiple levels of organization having dynamics within and between the entities described at each of the different levels. An important aspect of this concept is the fact that entities at different levels can have different functionalities that emerge from the interactions of the lower-level units. In other words, dynamical hierarchies define a system that is structured by partwhole relationships between objects, where each whole can exhibit properties and can interact in ways different from its parts. As a consequence, the complete system needs to be modeled as structures relating different description levels of dynamical systems and their interconnectedness. A typical example in this context is the functional differences between proteins and their building blocks, amino acids. The functionality of proteins is not directly the result of the properties of the individual amino acids. The overall protein structure plays a crucial role here. As a consequence, properties that amino acids do not exhibit in their solitary state can be exhibited collectively. The same observations can be made when moving from solitary proteins to the level of protein-protein interactions. New functionalities emerge as a result of the different complexes produced by these interactions. It is the combination of all these dynamical levels from amino acids to multicellular organisms that makes it a dynamical hierarchy and not merely some simple single-level emergent phenomenon.