Quotes About Complexity

The problem with data is that it says a lot, but it also says nothing. 'Big data' is terrific, but it's usually thin. To understand why something is happening, we have to engage in both forensics and guess work.

You learn that not all things fall into a certain kind of pattern that can be predictable and that can be understandable and that's going to be easy, you know.

Gravitation is, so far, not understandable in terms of other phenomena.

To reasoned people, almost everything is understandable, but evil is forever incomprehensible.

The speakers I value don't just sound intelligent but can boil down complex issues in a clear, understandable way that encourages the public to think about the solutions.

The role of anxiety in the development of human personality is central, and it is intricate beyond our understanding.

The subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of the senses and understanding.

Neuroscience is a baby science, a mere century old, and our scientific understanding of the brain is nowhere near where we'd like it to be. We know more about the moons of Jupiter than what is inside of our skulls.

Understanding of natural language is what sometimes is called 'AI complete,' meaning if you can really do that, you can probably solve artificial intelligence.

Understanding reduces the greatest to simplicity, and lack of its causes the least to take on the magnitude.

The prince in 'The Leopard' was a very complex character - at times autocratic, rude, strong - at times romantic, good, understanding - and sometimes even stupid, and above all, mysterious.

Our understanding of history goes awry when we only tell one part of the story.

I do think sometimes people get morally superior without understanding situations.

The thing that got me started on the science that I've been building now for about 20 years or so was the question of okay, if mathematical equations can't make progress in understanding complex phenomena in the natural world, how might we make progress?

Although combat operations unseated the Taliban and the Saddam Hussein regime, a poor understanding of the recent histories of the Afghan and Iraqi peoples undermined efforts to consolidate early battlefield gains into lasting security.

What we call 'evil' doesn't necessarily deserve any kind of respect or understanding, by any means; it just deserves an acknowledgement of its complexity so we can better understand it - so we can help prevent it.

The current understanding was that it was impossible to predict how something would evolve because it was a very turbulent environment full of things interacting with each other.

Arriving at a simple piece of music is a very difficult balance because, in being simple, you could easily be banal, so maybe it's more difficult to write a simple piece of music than a 12-tone piece where no one understands exactly what it is about.

The thing about Buffy and Spike is they understand each other on a level that nobody else understands her.

Physics is becoming so unbelievably complex that it is taking longer and longer to train a physicist. It is taking so long, in fact, to train a physicist to the place where he understands the nature of physical problems that he is already too old to solve them.

As much as a man would like to believe that he understands women, there is simply that much that he can write from their point of view or really understand them.

I love it when you like a character, and then she does something you don't like, and you hate her for a while - then you love her again. I'd like to see her have unlikable moments that the audience understands and sympathizes with.

Out of fifty mathematical papers presented in brief at such a meeting, it is a rare mathematician indeed who really understands what more than half a dozen are about.

I'd like to write some songs that are so good that nobody understands them. Not even myself.