complexity

Knitting Hands

Complexity

The science of complexity conveys a view of the world as dynamic, richly interdependent and full of variety.
A world – organic and emergent, shaped by history and context – naturally patterned, yet always in process.

Ilya Prigogine asked why classical physics and evolutionary biology seem to contradict each other. The word that brought these two sciences together was ‘open’.

Situations that are open to their environments display emerging order in the form of patterns. For evolutionary processes at every level – from galaxies to amoeba – this ability to suck fuel from their surroundings is the source of complexification.

Ode 'ear

The Yorkshire folks were in a dither
Because of Heraclitus’ river
They knew they could not cross it twice
But were not clear – would once suffice?

And then at last a quite astute ’un
Remembered dear old Isaac Newton
Who was a marvel in his season.
And never was he contradicted,
He said that all could be predicted
And we could all rely on Reason.

And so, they dropped all their ferment
And settled on Enlightenment.
And all would have continued charmin’
Apart from that annoying Darwin
And his ideas of Evolution –
For which, it seems there’s no solution.

This led to quite a sense of urgenc-
Y – and focus on Emergence;
The physicists tried to ignore it
Those rich economists deplored it,
And Management was not too keen …

But then into this sorry scene
Came Russian Belgian Prigogine
Who said ‘Don’t fear, science isn’t broken
‘Cos things thought closed are in truth open;
There is a theory quite supreme
Which fits experience like a dream.’

The Yorkshire folk who’d felt at sea
Poured yet another cup of tea
And marvelled at Complexity.

Jean Boulton, 2009
Avon Ripples - Jean Boulton

Process complexity

My current focus is to articulate process complexity, which moves us from an image of concretely objective ‘things which interact’ towards an image of entities that are more akin to ripples on a river. It emphasises the processual nature of the complex world.

Embracing this perspective can seem obvious or subtle, exciting or irritating, rich or overwhelming, depending on your point of view. But in that embracing is offered the promise of an understanding that can lead to discernment and judicious action.

Miles Davies

Complexity raw and complexity cooked

To talk of complexity theory or complexity science is a complex thing in itself. Edgar Morin makes a distinction between a framing of complexity that sits within the ontology of classical science, which he calls ‘restricted complexity’; he contrasts this with the raw ‘general complexity’ of the ‘real world’.

Restricted complexity emanates from the world of models, maps and mathematics. The aim is to find ways to represent the complexity of the real world and find a good map.

General complexity, by contrast, starts further back into the primordial mud, and champions the attainment of knowledge through wandering the ‘territory’. General complexity is more paradoxical, more integrating, more challenging, ambiguous and uncertain – but also more ripe with potential. It is complexity that is beyond (or before) mathematics. It often starts with experiment and observation – of forests, cells, swirls in chemical systems, galaxies, social groups or societies – rather than with conceptual abstractions.

Instead of trying to analyse complex phenomena in terms of single or essential principles, [complexity] approaches acknowledge it is not possible to tell a single or exclusive story about something that is really complex. The acknowledgement of complexity, however, certainly does not lead to the conclusion that anything goes.
Paul Cilliers
The Dao of Complexity

Subjectivity

The complex world does not present itself as objectively existent entities interacting in measurable ways. There is a subjectivity as to what we perceive and how we interpret what we perceive.

I suggest that there are three aspects to subjectivity: one centred in the person who is perceiving, one centred in the nature of what is perceived and the third embedded in a rather different view of the nature of ‘reality’ that emerges from quantum physics.

We experience more than quantities; we also experience qualities such as colour, texture, pain, health, beauty, coherence. Science tends to dismiss these as ‘subjective’... Subjectivity is getting squeezed out by science... I believe there is a whole scientific methodology that needs to be developed on the basis of what is called the intuitive way of knowing.
Brian Goodwin
In general, in order to engage fully with the complex, open, inter-relational social and natural world, we need to ensure we do not exclude that which is indefinite, qualitative, contextual, local and emerging. There is a difference between knowing smoking causes cancer and exploring what are the wider determinants that cause a particular group of people to continue to smoke nevertheless, or that makes them more vulnerable to the disease. We need to resist the desire only to give phenomena salience when they become more settled, fixed and statistically significant. It is through engaging with things in flux, with things in patterns, that we have a chance to explore the nature of change and becoming, and indeed the nature of relative stability. We need to be curious and open both in our perceiving, and in our thought processes and in our sense-making; we need both to respond to what seems concrete and not in dispute and pay attention to that which is more imprecise.
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Process Complexity In Flow - Jean Boulton
Complexity theory suggests that organisations and markets and ecologies and communities are:
    Organic: They have more in common with ecosystems, with evolving organisms than with machines; they are not in general predictable or controllable.
    Self-organising and comprised of temporary patterns of relationships: They often display patterns of relationships (such as ways of working in organisations or buying patterns in markets) which can be relatively stable but still display some variation and fluctuation and may indeed evolve, eventually, into new patterns.
    Contingent on history and context: The future depends on the detail of what happens, does not smoothly follow from the past.
    Affected by multiple causes: In general there are no simple cause-and-effect chains; outcomes are influenced by several factors acting together, together with the effects of chance, history and the wider environment.
    Co-evolutionary: Organisations are shaped by their environments and vice versa; there is interaction and reflexive change between scales, between actors.
    Episodic, non-linear change: Sometimes current patterns are resilient but flexible, sometimes locked-in and rigid, sometimes change can be fast and radical.
    Emergent: Change can lead to the emergence of features qualitatively different from the past.