Quotes About Complexity

the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.

Lo que consideramos nuestras acciones «libres» no son las aleatorias o indeterminadas, sino las que están ampliamente «determinadas» por quienes somos, cómo pensamos y qué está en juego. (Si bien están ampliamente determinadas, pueden ser muy impredecibles por razones de complejidad.)

No somos únicamente «escoria química» pues que, por ejemplo, el comportamiento general de nuestro planeta, nuestra estrella y nuestra galaxia depende de una magnitud física emergente, pero fundamental: el conocimiento que hay en dicha escoria.

discovering good explanations is hard, but the harder they are to find, the harder they are to vary once found.

Not only is there constant backtracking, but the many subproblems all remain simultaneously active and are addressed opportunistically.

inventing falsehoods is easy, and therefore they are easy to vary once found; discovering good explanations is hard, but the harder they are to find, the harder they are to vary once found.

Good/bad explanation An explanation that is hard/easy to vary while still accounting for what it purports to account for.

The reason why higher-level subjects can be studied at all is that under special circumstances the stupendously complex behaviour of vast numbers of particles resolves itself into a measure of simplicity and comprehensibility. This is called emergence: high-level simplicity 'emerges' from low-level complexity.

The purpose of high-level sciences is to enable us to understand emergent phenomena, of which the most important are, as we shall see, life, thought and computation.

Logic wasn't the governing factor here. It rarely is in human affairs.

There's nothing wrong with acknowledging the panoply of life's rich experience.

Indeed, there are some mysteries that must exist without answer. In the end we must accept them for what they are: complex and many-sided, ornamented with clues and theories, yet ultimately unknowable—like life itself.

in almost no instance can artificial-rational systems be built and left alone. They require continued attention, rebuilding, and repair. Eternal vigilance is the price of artificial complexity." He noted too, that in a technological age we should ask not who governs, but what governs: `government becomes the business of recognising what is necessary and efficient for the continued functioning and elaboration of large-scale systems and the rational implementation of their manifest requirements.

Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia and China depended on constant vigilance over, and maintenance and repair of, complex irrigation systems. It was argued that this required a huge all-powerful state: these ancient 'hydraulic societies' were necessarily not democratic.

But I have learned that life is more complex, that the door between this world and the next is sometimes left ajar, and that each of us is more, far more, than we are told we are.

I think intelligence is totally subjective it's like sexiness.

Le sentiment amoureux est le sentiment le plus culpabilisant.

Et il est compliqué de vivre avec un coeur qui ne bat que de temps à autre.

Durant toutes ces années, les femmes se reposaient dans l'arrière-chambre de son excitation . Il les regardait, les admirait, mais ne les désirait pas. Enfin, soyons francs, quand Hector pensait ne pas désirer les femmes, il pensait surtout qu'il ne pouvait susciter le désir en elles.

How odd I can have all this inside me and to you it's just words.

Fiction's about what it is to be a fucking human being.

As we see how deeply loved we are by God—in our depths, complexity, totality and sinfulness—we dare to allow God more complete access to the dark parts of our soul that most need transformation. And God precedes us on this journey, waiting to meet us in the depths of our self.

We as a human community need to develop a new competency. We need to move from a single-cell social organism to a multicellular social organism. While making this evolutionary leap is no easy task, staring into the abyss is a strong motivator.

The trouble with people is they don't understand people.