First Degree Groups

The older vocabulary for composition: a group of groups is second degree, a group of those is third, and so on upward.

Before the body had the words it now uses, the corpus counted degrees. A first degree group is people; a second degree group is first degree groups federated; higher degrees continue the same way. It is the same move the field now names Cell of Cells and Supercell, expressed as an ordinal rather than as a living thing (Community of Communities).

The counting has one real virtue: it makes the arbitrariness of any particular rung obvious. Degrees keep going in both directions, which is exactly what the ladder says — no true bottom, no true top, only one Body (Levels Of Scale, Holofractal Scaling). Its weakness is that a degree tells you nothing about what a body is: a second degree group could be a federation of sovereign Cells or a holding company, and the words do not distinguish them.

That is why the field carries this as a historical also-called rather than as live vocabulary. Where a page still counts degrees, read supercell and its subcells, and check that what is described actually holds the five functions rather than merely sitting one level up (Cell, Agency, not ownership).

Also called: Second Degree Groups · Higher Degrees Stands on: Cell · Levels Of Scale Opens onto: Supercell · Cell of Cells · Community of Communities · Ring · Holofractal Omnifederation In play: beyond the table Sources: The LIØNSBERG Lexicon, Tribe of Tribes (draft; flagged slop-risk in the concept field) · The Twelve Words 11 (canon-grade, the current word) · lionsberg.wiki: The LIØNSBERG Lexicon Open: Superseded in practice by supercell and by the scale ladder; retained only so older pages remain readable.