"... the devision of nature into a complexity hierarchy of strata is itself a robost hypothesis, attested by several powerful facts that deserve to be repeated. First, the physical, material, biological, mental, and cultural orders of nature exhibit increasing complexity. Second, rational inquiry has found it necessary to develop a series of disciplines, with special methods and concepts, that largely correspond to this series of orders. It is not for no reason that the history of human knowledge has generated multiple sciences. Most remarkably, it is only in the last eighty years that science has come upon strong evidence of the metaphysically compelling fact that our hierarchy of complexity roughly matches the temporal evolution of nature, from the Big Bang to the formation of stars, to the development of heavy elements, geodynamics, life, vertebrates, and minds complex enough to manipulate signs. ...

Together these three considerations imply that a central feature of nature is stratified dependence and emergence."

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