Quotes About Complexity

science isn't about the things but about the relationships among the things.

Reductionism describes the scheme, and it has a long history of successes.

Electrons and photons are still worse. In graduate school I roomed for a time with a particle physicist. He ended one attempt to explain the essence of an exciting lecture by admitting, with uncommon candor, that he could think of no explanation, not even an analogy, that wasn't unacceptably misleading.

Maybe nature is fundamentally ugly, chaotic and complicated. But if it's like that, then I want out.

Nothing about the practice of modern science is obvious to someone who has never seen it done.

What is surely impossible is that a theoretical physicist, given unlimited computing power, should deduce from the laws of physics that a certain complex structure is aware of its own existence.

much of the writing of physicists barely reaches the level of prose.

Is it possible to be totally partial?

So what are they about? Oh people, said the young man. People? said the countess-ah, they are very difficult.

It's a very complex scenario, and certainly Dave was, and is, not the only person in Pearl Jam with personality flaws. Everybody in this band exhibits some form of neurotic behavior. And we couldn't find a balance, a mutual respect for each other.

Part of him was beautiful, a creative, sensitive soul. But there was another part, a part perhaps hinted at, which I had not yet truly seen.

You can't bear to think that Valraven is like the rest of us-a mixture of attributes, both good and bad.

She saw his face properly for the first time. It wasn't cruel, but it wasn't kind either. It was dark and terrible and beautiful.

He couldn't understand the woman. She twisted and turned like an eel.

Sofia, Lily decided, was a person-eater. Not just a man-eater, although she'd undoubtedly gnawed a few masculine bones in her time. She was also a liar. Lily was intrigued by her, but also wary and a little frightened.

I want to hate you, yet I can't. There is something more to you than what you show, something I don't know.

Pharinet, despite what I know of Val and whatever I might of you, I will always love you both. You are strange creatures, and always have been. That is no doubt part of the attraction.

As I said, he danced on both sides of the coin; master on intrigue and cunning and devoted lover to a damaged man.

They comprehended no divinity that was not plated and segmented.

It was as if she needed and wanted something from Ays, but would not speak plainly about it, or even off signals of a definite nature. He was sure it wasn't simply love or protection she was after, but something more profound, which she was perhaps unable to define herself.

She was wary of her father, for she had seen him kill, but for her mother she reserved a quiet terror, blended with awe and a sliver of love. Although Amytis had never raised a hand against her, and rarely spoke sharply, the girl appreciated that, given the opportunity, Amytis was capable of being far more deadly than her husband.

Will we ever get a taste for that? It is like sugar and spice mixed with bile.

Her feelings about Taropat and Shan confused her. She was not in love with Shan, but delighted in his body and his friendship. With Taropat, it was another, darker matter. It would be so easy to give in and let the feelings spill out, in all their awful intensity. No matter how much she tried to reason with herself, every day the feelings deepened.

There are schemes within schemes within schemes.