202109060904 Heterarchy
A heterarchy is an organizational structure that includes unranked and non-hierarchical elements. It can also be used to define structures that are ranked hierarchically, but have the potential to be ranked in different ways.1
Heterarchies can be disjoint from, a subset of, a superset of, or equivalent to hierarchies. There's no mathematical requirement that expresses one in terms of the other nor are they mutually exclusive.
Any two elements in a heterarchy are capable of being linked together in one or more ways. No one way of dividing a heterarchy can ever be all-encompassing and totally encapsulate all the relationships that might exist. In this way, heterarchies resemble forested graphs that may or may not be directed or cyclic.
The requirement of perspective or choice is how we know that 202109060845 Knowledge is a heterarchy and 202109060835 Knowledge is constructed. Each division of our knowledge is partial. Each perspective on the whole invites new connections and divisions.
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Heterarchy. (2021). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterarchy ↩