 Outside of purely mathematical considerations, perhaps the greatest value of functional decomposition is the insight it provides into the structure of the world.When a functional decomposition can be achieved, this provides ontological information about what structures actually exist in the world, and how they can be predicted and manipulated.For example, in the illustration above, if it is learned that formula_36 depends directly only on formula_39, this means that for purposes of prediction of formula_36, it suffices to know only formula_39.