What is nested structures?

Nested structures is a concept in personal epistemology: Any concept can contain sub-concepts and belong to a super-concept. Nesting is not a feature of special data structures -- it is a universal property of how meaning organizes itself at every scale.

Example: Take the concept 'communication.' It contains sub-concepts: verbal communication, nonverbal communication, written communication. Verbal communication itself contains sub-concepts: tone, word choice, pacing. Meanwhile, 'communication' belongs to a super-concept: 'human interaction,' which belongs to 'social behavior,' which belongs to 'adaptive systems.' You can zoom in or out at any point, and at every level you find the same structural pattern -- things inside things inside things.

This concept is part of Phase 14 (Hierarchy and Nesting) in the How to Think curriculum, which builds the epistemic infrastructure for hierarchy and nesting.