Three Dimensions for Levels of Organisation

The search for a basic framework for organisation in nature, described in this book, began with a few seemingly simple questions: How do you define a level of organisation? Are levels real in nature? Or are levels merely useful aggregates in our thinking, and therefore instrumental? If any system of levels is relative to its use, how can one favour any particular ranking of objects in nature? The author first encountered these questions in the study of ecology. And the answers were found once organisms were placed at the centre of the analysis.