202402241722 Hierarchies enable iterative progress

Hierarchies — in particular biological hierarchies — enable iterative progress. They do this by allowing continual development of sub-assemblies that are stable on their own to combine with other sub-assemblies into a higher level assembly. If something is wrong with one sub-assembly, then it can be discarded without discarding the whole high level assembly. For example, molecules combine into biological components, into cells, up into organs, systems, and a whole human. Each cell is dispensable and replaceable without needing to discard the human. Growth proceeds simply one cell at a time iteratively from a single cell into the uncountable complexity of life.¹

Consider also how 202401291458 The purpose of the parts may not be the purpose of the whole and how this 202104291540 Emergence comes about from the parts.

This property is somewhat contrasted with (but maybe is more a subset of) things that are a 202109060904 Heterarchy.