International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics

The regulating or controlling arrangement of main and subordinate goals at different levels.

G. SOMMERHOFF writes: "Frequently, indeed almost invariably, various different forms of goal-directness or directiveness are all present and intimately interrelated in the same biological situation. This is a common source of confusion. In particular, one of the most distinctive characteristics of the living organism is the hierarchical manner in which the goals of various part-activities (or activities of its parts) are interrelated and integrated. In a typical case each part activity has a proximate and transient goal, which is itself subservient to the less transient and less proximate goal of the action as a whole, which in turn is subservient to the goal of the behavior patterns as such, and so on. Or it maybe the goal of one activity to establish or maintain the conditions under which another goal-directed activity can properly take its course while another activity in turn establishes or maintain the prerequisites for the first, etc… all of this involving structures and mechanisms which are themselves the product of directive developments. There is nothing to parallel this co-ordination and integration in the world of machines and automata"(1969, p.150).

As to this last statement, it should be taken into account that it has been pronounced in 1969.

Goal degradation, i.e. the provisional or definitive giving up of higher level goals in systems struggling for survival is a significant aspect of the General Adaptation Syndrome. It seems to correspond to a return to the "basics", as stated by L. SKYTTNER, in relation to the "bottom of pyramid of needs, the reptilian brain" (1992, p.5).

To resume, goals are hierarchized in space and time. This corresponds to the fact that living systems do maintain a transforming coherence in time (by morphogenesis, structuration and a tendency to dynamic stability).

→ Priority of the simple