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High level and low level are terms used in classifying levels of description and goals in many fields where systems could be described from different perspectives. A high level description is one that describes "top level" goals, overall systemic features, is more abstracted, and is typically more concerned with the system as a whole, and its goals. A low level description is one that describes individual components, detail rather than overview, rudimentary functions rather than complex overall ones, and is typically more concerned with individual components within the system and how they operate. Low and high level are relative; for example computer games are high level compared to graphics engines, which themselves are high level compared to vertex detection. Due to the nature of complex systems, the high level description will often be completely different to the low level one. For example, there are features to an ant colony that are not features of any individual ant; features of the human mind that are not known to be descriptive of individual neurones in the brain, features of oceans which are not features of any individual water molecule, and features to a human personality that are not features of any cell in a body. The descriptions of these differ depending at what level they are studied. Features which emerge only at a high level of description are known as epiphenomenae. Common places where high and low level descriptions occur are in social groups, computer science, cognitive science and neuroscience, documentation, business, strategy, and human behavior.
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