GLOSSARY INQUIRY: NESTEDNESS

Complex forms or systems might be described as nested because they can be, simultaneously, coherent unities, collectives of unities, and parts/subagents within grander unities.

Individual human learners are one example of nested complex forms. They are, all-at-once, autonomous forms, complex collectives (i.e., they arise in the co-activity of bodily subsystems), and parts/subagents in a range of other emergent forms (including, for example, social collectives and culture).

The diagram below is intended to foreground some of these bodies, their nested characters, and the fields of inquiry associated with their study. In each case, the particular form might be described as emerging from
(i.e., embodied through) the interactivities of parts/subagents and as contributing to the emergence of
(i.e., embodied in) a grander agent.

See related terms: Complex System, Learner, Autonomy, Emergence, Parts