complexity
Complexity
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.
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.
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.
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.
