Recent Errors in Assigning Pressures

A Fertile Conjecture

The observation of similarities between entities with similar formulae and the seeming connection of particular Root Levels with Levels in downstream structures required an explanation. The conjecture that resulted asserted that psychosocial pressures were in play shaping human functioning and its representation in the taxonomy.

The identification and naming of the pressures, after some early experimentation, has been solidified and is no longer viewed as provisional. This conjecture has offered powerful assistance in discovering entities and offered occasional illumination.

Read more: here, here and here.

However, the projection of psychosocial pressures into the various taxonomic structures does remain provisional. In that regard, a likely assignment error has been identified and corrections made.

This topic will explain what provoked the re-assignment, and explain both the old and the new arrangements.

Initial Discovery Process

The investigation into projections that led to conjecturing the existence and importance of psychosocial pressures took place in 2013-2015.

Investigations into Q-arenas took place in 2020-2022 but there was considerable difficulty because very few Q-arenas had been worked out. The most developed were the PH'5Q arenas.

I gave priority to identifying Arena psychosocial pressures and some provisional conceptions were developed, but without conviction. Further effort to clarify Q-arena structures, at least sufficiently to post them in the Taxonomy Notes took place between 2022-2024 and this provided more opportunity to review pressures.

During that period, I concluded that the pressures in PH'5Q aligned 1:1 with the Root Hierarchy i.e. Q1 received RL1 pressure, Q2 received RL2 pressure, Q3 received RL3 pressure and so on. This seemed to suit the Q-complexes in the other primary domains, insofar as they were understood.

The problem was that this conclusion meant that I had to reject some assignments previously believed to be correct. The best example is PH'5Q2-Organisations. The initial assignment was performance (RL1), however the corrected assignment was certainty (RL2).

This disturbing phenomenon was resolved by recognizing that both pressures were in play but in different ways. There was a primary pressure that related to the identity or structure-as-a-whole, and also a secondary pressure that related to the structure's internal operations.

In PH'5Q2, anyone, typically the governing board, focused on the organisation as a whole is pressed by certainty (e.g. certainty of the budget, certainty of staffing, certainty of lawful operation, certainty of legal contracts &c). Boards are well-known to be risk-averse and many regard it important to separate the Board Chairman with a guardian role from the CEO who has a delivery role. The CEO, like everyone else working inside the organisation, is driven by a pressure for performance.

Applying this thinking to the remaining Q5-arenas was not easy. The primary pressure was already assigned using the 1:1 rule that removed discretion. But appreciating the validity of that assignment not always clear.

The secondary pressure needed to be worked out from first principles in each case, and that took more effort and was more uncertain. I tried working with the various Q-complexes and settled on PH'2Q arenas as a guide. I checked those findings with the Q-arenas in the 4 primary domains and was modestly satisfied with the assignations.

However, there was a cause for doubt based on the patterning. Patterning is a feature of THEE, but arguing from patterns is a heuristic. That means it often works but sometimes it may mislead.

The Primary Pressures had the Root Hierarchy pattern and I expected that the Secondary pressures and Primary-Secondary layout would either have no pattern or would have a distinct pattern. Instead there was what felt like an anomaly.

Here is the result from 2022:

As you see the ordering of the 2° pressures shows no pattern, but there is a strange internal pattern (which I identified at the time):

Q3: Acceptability - Selflessness
reverses to
Q7:  Selflessness - Acceptability

Q4: Well-Being - Autonomy
reverses to
Q6: Autonomy - Well-Being

I took this as a warning, but did not know what to do with it except assert that all assignments were provisional, 2° more so than 1°.

There were other warnings of errors. I had been so uncertain in some assignments that I provided alternate possibilities. For example, I had proposed the 2° pressure in PH'5Q3-academic discipline was selflessness (to conform to the pattern) but I also noted that researchers would likely say they felt more pressed by certainty.

There were a few other examples including two more still within PH'5Q, Q4-societal institutions and Q5-philosophy schools, but investigating multiple possibilities across multiple domains is exhausting and quickly becomes confusing. So, perhaps affected by the heat or laziness, I judged it best to leave the assignments as they were and return sometime in the future. Perhaps detailed substantive investigations of particular frameworks might provide unequivocal clarity at some indefinite future time.

That time has now come.

Later Discovery Process

In 2024, I began a re-investigation of prospering that had commenced almost 30 years earlier as interacting-for-benefit, and long before TOP commenced. I now recognized this framework was a small part of the PH'6Q4 complex which deserved articulation.

An important part of this complex is the structural hierarchy (PH'6Q4sH) named «Looking Out for Yourself».

In the initial studies of projections 10 years earlier, a pattern for structural hierarchies had been identified, and I therefore wanted to check its application in this case. Furthermore I asked myself whether 2° pressures might apply as well.

It quickly became evident that the 1° pressures previously identified, related to the Requirements and States, i.e. the groupings as labeled top and bottom in the diagrammatic representations. Click on the thumbnail to see.

However, groupings are operated via the groups within them, and these components appeared to be driven by different pressures, presumably 2° pressures.

This finding should be corroborated via other structural hierarchies and such a check awaits implementation, but intuitively it seems highly likely.

In creating summaries for the Review section, I laid out the findings to do a pattern check, and this is how it looked:

	G1	G2	G3	G4	G5	G6	G7
1°: Identity	Autonomy	Understanding	Performance	Certainty	Acceptability	Well-Being	Selflessness
2°: Operation	Well-Being	Performance	Certainty	Acceptability	Selflessness	Autonomy	Understanding

There is a clear potential pattern which I have identified by using coloured cells: 

	G1	G2	G3	G4	G5	G6	G7
1°: Identity	Autonomy	Understanding	Performance	Certainty	Acceptability	Well-Being	Selflessness
2°: Operation	Well-Being	Performance	Certainty	Acceptability	Selflessness	Autonomy	Understanding

The 2° pressure of one grouping becomes the 1° pressure of the next grouping in 3 cases.

Perhaps this pattern should apply throughout.

The 1° pressures were developed from studies of several structural hierarchies. On reviewing, there is no reason to change any of these.

So if the pattern holds, G1 2° would be expected to be Understanding,
and the G7 2° pressure would then be expected to be Autonomy (following the usual cyclic patterns in the taxonomy).

If that was the case then G6 2° pressure cannot be Autonomy (because by convention duplication is prohibited) and Selflessness, the only other option. By good fortune (?), this accords with the G7 1° pressure as per the expectation.

This assignment then forces the G5 2° pressure to be Well-Being which (happily) fits with the current G6 1° pressure.

And voila, the pattern is now complete as shown below, using colour coding to make it immediately evident.

	G1	G2	G3	G4	G5	G6	G7
1°: Identity	Autonomy	Understanding	Performance	Certainty	Acceptability	Well-Being	Selflessness
2°: Operation	Understanding	Performance	Certainty	Acceptability	Well-Being	Selflessness	Autonomy

The next step must be to consider this new 2° pressure assignment in terms of the many structural hierarchies that have been discovered to date.

This work has been completed for looking out for yourself (PH'6Q4sH) , my current project, and the 4 new assignments (at G1, G5, G6 and G7) seem more satisfactory that the previous assignments. So this pattern is provisionally adopted subject to further testing in other well-understood structural hierarchies.

I believe that I have uncovered a pattern whose nature deserves investigation.

Revising the Q-Arena Assignments

As part this current inquiry, a major review of the 2° pressures assigned to Q-arenas took place helped by the need to scrutinize a hard-to-believe relationship between Q-arena pressures and structural hierarchy pressures as explained in the next section.

Here is the original provisional arrangement:

	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Q5	Q6	Q7
1°: Identity	Performance	Certainty	Acceptability	Well-Being	Understanding	Autonomy	Selflessness
2°: Operation	Understanding	Performance	Selflessness	Autonomy	Certainty	Well-Being	Acceptability

The 3 items in the grey cells (Q3, Q4 and Q5) were determined to be probably incorrect. Careful examination suggested that the correct assignment should be:

	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Q5	Q6	Q7
1°: Identity	Performance	Certainty	Acceptability	Well-Being	Understanding	Autonomy	Selflessness
2°: Operation	Understanding	Performance	Certainty	Selflessness	Autonomy	Well-Being	Acceptability

The relevant sections of the Q-arenas in the 5 primary domains examined previously have now been edited to incorporate this change.

There are two more domains, Change and Willingness, where this assignment of pressures can be further checked.

A Pattern proves Illusory

It seemed important to consider whether the pattern of 2° pressures in the structural hierarchy relates to the pattern in the Q-arenas where they were first discovered..

In the Review of Looking Out for Yourself, it appeared that the pairings of pressures (1°+2°) found in the structural hierarchy was reversed in the Q-arenas. This was utterly unexpected and seemed extraordinary, if true.

Here is the Table that was originally developed (but now removed from the Review).

sH-G	1° Identity-sH 2° Operating-Q	2° Operating-sH 1° Identity-Q	Arena
G7	Selflessness	Acceptability	Q3
G6	Well-Being	Autonomy	Q6
G5	Acceptability	Selflessness	Q7
G4	Certainty	Understanding	Q5
G3	Performance	Certainty	Q2
G2	Understanding	Performance	Q1
G1	Autonomy	Well-Being	Q4

It modifications to the structural hierarchy 2° pressures and Q-arena 2° pressures (as explained in previous sections) are valid, then this bizarre finding recedes.

In this comparison, I assume that the 1° pressures, which have been around a long time, are taken to be correct (provisionally) in all cases.

On that basis, the results of comparing has been tabulated to show that there are 3 reversed items (blue), 1 identical item (green), 3 unrelated sH groupings (orange) and 3 unrelated Q-arenas (violet).

sH-G	1° Structural-G 2° Operating-Q	2° Operating-G 1° Identity-Q	Arena
G7	Selflessness	Autonomy
	Acceptability	Selflessness	Q7
	Well-Being	Autonomy	Q6
	Autonomy	Understanding	Q5
G6	Well-Being	Selflessness
	Selflessness	Well-Being	Q4
G5	Acceptability	Well-Being
G4	Certainty	Acceptability	Q3
G3	Performance	Certainty	Q2
G2	Understanding	Performance	Q1
G1	Autonomy	Well-Being

This relationship does not show a definitive pattern and, while interesting, it no longer seems so special or extraordinary.

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Originally posted:  5-Apr-2026