Quotes About Complexity

Yes, world history is indeed such an onion!

Those who study just one country end up understanding no country.

That is, natural selection promoting genes for intelligence has probably been far more ruthless in New Guinea than in more densely populated, politically complex societies, where natural selection for body chemistry was instead more potent. Besides

small changes at a lower level of organization can lead to emergent changes at a higher level. A typical example is the effect of that one truck driver's braking response, in Hitler's nearly fatal traffic accident of 1930, on the lives of a hundred million people who were killed or wounded in World War II.

If we find people virtuous or admirable in one respect, it troubles us to find them no so in another respect. It is difficult for us to acknowledge that people are not consistent, but are instead mosaics of traits formed by different sets of experiences that often do not correlate with each other.

natural selection promoting genes for intelligence has probably been far more ruthless in New Guinea than in more densely populated, politically complex societies, where natural selection for body chemistry was instead more potent.

A horizontal arrow indicates that the attribute varies between less and more complex societies of that type.

One reason why technology tends to catalyze itself is that advances depend upon previous mastery of simpler problems.

IN SHORT, SOME COUNTRIES are much richer than are other countries. The reasons why are multiple and complicated. If you insist on a simple answer to this important question, you'll have to find some place in the universe to inhabit other than our planet Earth, where life is really complicated.

We tend to seek easy, single-factor explanations of success. For most important things, though, success actually requires avoiding many separate possible causes of failure.

WEIRD: from Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic societies.

Maybe those sorts of yes-or-no life-and-death decisions are easier to make because they are so black and white. I can cope with them because it's easier. Human emotions, well. . .they're just a fathomless collection of grays and I don't do so well on the midtones.

Humans are the most gloriously bizarre creatures.

I am by turns a petulant adolescent and a mature man, a melancholy loner and a wit telling actors their trade. I cannot decide whether I'm a philosopher or a moping teenager, a poet or a murderer, a procrastinator or a man of action. I might be truly mad or sane pretending to be mad or even mad pretending to be sane.

There is much unexplained in the world. It behoves one to be wary at all times. Just when you think you've got the hang of it, along comes string theory, collateralised debt obligations or Björk's new album, and bam! You're as confused as you were when you first started.

If you want your fridge-freezer and your car and a nice house and asphalt on the roads and a health service, then thank the weapons business. Thank the war economy that drives us to this.

Are you married? Yes, I mumbled, that is to say - no. Come, come, said Havisham angrily. It is a simple enough question. I was married, I answered. Died? No, I mumbled, that is to say - yes. I'll try harder questions in future, announced Havisham, for you are obviously not adept at the easy ones.

Though his death would not fill me with any sense of sadness, I would probably feel the loss. Even enemies are part of one.

Most people thought you just waved your hands and sim-sallah-bim, but it was a lot more complex than that. Sorcery was not so much doing what you wanted to do but doing what you could do—or ingeniously finding a way around the physical limitations of the craft.

Take the first had had and that that in the book by way of example, explained Lady Cavendish. You would have thought that that first had had had had good occasion to be seen as had , had you not? Had had had approval but had had had not; equally it is true to say that that that that had had approval but that that other that that had not.

Maybe those sorts of yes or no life-and-death decisions are easier to make because they are so black and white. I can cope with them because it's easier. Human emotions, well … they're just a fathomless collection of greys and I don't do so well on the mid-tones.

Well, you're AWOL at best and a cheese smuggler at worst. So we've concocted a cover story of such bizarre complexity and outrageous daring that it can only be true. Here it is: in a parallel universe ruled entirely by lobsters, you—

Until you get into the swing of it, play her subtly different on alternate readings. Hamlet's been doing it for years. Of course, he has twenty-six different ways of playing himself, but then he's had a lot of practice. In fact, I don't think even he knows his motivation any more- unless you count confusing readers and giving useful employment to Shakespearean scholars.

fiction always surpasses reality but reality is always richer than fiction.