Quotes About Complexity

Ah, it is the fault of our science that it wants to explain all, and if it explain not, then it says there is nothing to explain. But

it is the fault of our science that it wants to explain all; and if it explain not, then it says there is nothing to explain.

And then he cried, till he laughed again, and laughed and cried together, just as a woman does. I

Ah, a falha da nossa ciência é querer explicar tudo, e quando não consegue, diz que não há nada que explicar

However, if application A is opaque and application B provides a rich set of observability tools, it's very likely that application B will be the better choice in the long run.

You're all trying to figure out what went wrong inside my head. Fucking idiots. You'll never crack the code that's inside my head. You'll never get into my castle. You'll never even get past the gate.

No one will ever know anyone. We just have to deal with each other. You're not ever gonna know me.

she is searching for a rational analysis of who I am, which is, of course, an impossibility: there … is … no … key.

For those who regress, the fear of what lies beyond Complexity feels so terrifying, or the sense of belonging that is often found in strict Stage One communities feels so alluring, that they willingly resubmit to Stage One authority, or even authoritarianism.

and metaphorical message that required me to face life's paradoxes squarely and be humbled by them.

Messy arrangements far outweigh orderly ones.

A mecânica quântica é implacavelmente eficiente; explica aquilo que vemos, mas impede-vos de ver a explicação.

so, with only finitely many different particle arrangements, the arrangements of particles within patches must be duplicated an infinite number of times. That's the result we've been after.

it is likely that even if string theory is right, no one ever will. Strings are so small that a direct observation would be tantamount to reading the text on this page from a distance of 100 light-years: it would require resolving power nearly a billion billion times finer than our current technology allows. Some scientists argue vociferously that a theory so removed from direct empirical testing lies in the realm of philosophy or theology, but not physics.

But when we examine the universe, there seem to be numerous lost opportunities, since there are many things that are more ordered than they have to be.

Notice that the value of the entropy and the amount of hidden information are equal. That's no accident. The number of possible heads-tails rearrangements is the number of possible answers to the 1,000 questions-(yes,yes,no,no,yes,...) or (yes,no,yes,yes,no,...) or (no,yes,no,no,no,...), and so on-namely, 2^1000. With entropy defined as the logarithm of the number of such rearrangements-1,000 in this case-entropy is the number of yes-no questions any one such sequence answers.

However, the molasses metaphor has three misleading features that you should be aware of.

Nature does weird things. It lives on the edge. But it is careful to bob and weave from the fatal punch of logical paradox.

Es ist ungeheuer viel wahrscheinlicher, dass alles, was wir jetzt im Universum erblicken, aus einer seltenen, aber gelegentlich zu erwartenden Abweichung der totalen Unordnung erwuchs, als dass es sich langsam aus dem noch unwahrscheinlicheren, unglaublich stärker geordneten, erstaunlich niederentropischen Ausgangspunkt entwickelte, den der Urknall voraussetzt.

My intent here is to use that insight to grasp how a universe with ever-increasing entropy, destined for ever-greater disorder, creates a wealth of order along the way.

The sheer number of ways that twenty distinct amino acids can be linked in a long chain makes this evident: for a chain with one hundred and fifty amino acids (a small protein), there are about 10195 different arrangements, far larger than the number of particles in the observable universe.

Politics is a tangled web, an intricate labyrinth, an ever-shifting kaleidoscopic pattern. And it is not pretty.

What is this Love that so many speak of with such apparent familiarity? Do they truly comprehend how unattainable it is? Are there not as many definitions of Love as there are stars in the universe?

The tapestry of the universe is vast and complex, with infinite patterns. While threads of tragedy may form the primary weave, humanity with its undaunted optimism still manages to embroider small designs of happiness and love.