Quotes About Complexity

The most complicated letters in English, like E and W, have four strokes. Many Japanese characters have more than 15 strokes

Topology allows the possibility of making qualitative predictions when quantitative ones are impossible.

differential equations that can be solved in "closed form," that is, by means of a formula for the unknown function f, are the exception rather than the rule

we do not have anything directly comparable to continued-fraction expansions for a complex quadratic irrationality. In fact, the simple, but true, answer to the problem of how to find an infinite number of rational numbers that converge to such an irrationality is that you cannot! Correspondingly, the analogue of the Pell equation has only finitely many solutions.

In the information-communication civilization of the 21st Century, creativity and mental excellence will become the ethical norm. The world will be too dynamic, complex, and diversified, too cross-linked by the global immediacies of modern (quantum) communication, for stability of thought or dependability of behaviour to be successful.

Cuanto más sabes acerca de algo, tanto más extraño se vuelve.

But I came to see that Las Vegas is not a freak but is, instead, deeply integrated with the rest of the country, and the world beyond. It is symptom, mirror, metaphor.

Usually, in romantic comedies, you end up sacrificing a great deal of the complexity - you know, just two attractive people and a good soundtrack.

This is pluralism: not a synonym of relativism, but rather an antonym. Pluralism accepts the moral reality of different kinds of truth, but rejects the idea that they can all be placed on a single scale, measured by a single value.

What to read? Any good novel enlivens our ability to think about ambiguous situations and judge the intentions of others.

They put a face on globalization, arguing that its complex challenges were the result of a conspiracy against the nation.

Admiration is the emotion furthest from understanding. ~Sosuke Aizen

Those who do not know what love is likens it to beauty Those who claim to know what love is likens it to ugliness -Gin Ichimaru

To blow and swallow at the same moment is not easy.

When we fail to harmonize and integrate, living systems, from individuals to families and countries, tend to move toward either chaos or rigidity.

Indeed, you become what you eat. In which case I am an onion. Layered, slightly sour and guaranteed to bring tears to the eyes.

there are rarely any truly big problems, only collections of little problems that pile up.

The radicality of the universal lies in its imperceptibility.

The job of the artist is not to resolve or beautify, but to hold complexities, to see and make clear.

Neuroscientist V. S. Ramachandran's work with phantom limbs seems to confirm the brain's remarkable ability to create a sense of cognitive unity even if the reality (of many selves, and of many layers of consciousness) is more complex.

we still have a long way to go in terms of creating a rock-solid science that could match the certainty of, say, physics and biology. In the meantime, we all need a personal theory of what makes people tick.

Ilya Prigogine, chemist; John

Csikszentmihalyi suggests that the common idea of a creative individual coming up with great insights, discoveries, works, or inventions in isolation is wrong. Creativity results from a complex interaction between a person and their environment or culture, and also depends on timing.

It is a myth that there is one "creative personality." Something all creative people seem to share is complexity—they "tend to bring the entire range of human possibilities within themselves.