Quotes About Complexity

Extended discourse, whether in the form of novels or expository treatises, presents the mind with a category of stimuli that can guide thinking though a long, complex, and coherent line of reasoning. Books structure ideas almost uniquely: The vocabulary and thought forms that are commonplace in book-length texts are rare in daily conversations. Books present a much wider range of vocabulary, concepts, and inferences than can be found in our daily banter with friends and family members.

In everyday speech, the word intelligence has two distinct meanings. The most familiar meaning is the ability to think and reason. An intelligent person can manage complex information quickly and accurately, as well as generate interesting ideas, effective strategies, and warranted conclusions. A second meaning of the word intelligence is a body of knowledge.

Human passions have mysterious ways, in children as well as grown-ups. Those affected by them can't explain them, and those who haven't known them have no understanding of them at all.

And the same rapper who revels in a woman's finely proportioned behind may also speak against racism and on behalf of the poor, even as he encourages them not to look at hip-hop as their salvation.

He pilfered a copy of Ulysses, but it was possibly the one book he did not finish. 'What's the point of it? I suspect it was a bit of a joke by Joyce. He just kept his mouth shut as people read into it more then there was. Pseudo-intellectuals love to drop the name Ulysses as their favorite book. I refused to be intellectually bullied into finishing it.

Any fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius—and a lot of courage— to move in the opposite direction.

No field of knowledge is so transparently simple as another's

Since everything is connected to everything else, in order to understand anything it is necessary to understand everything.

We gaan er altijd van uit dat lezen gemakkelijk is omdat we de techniek die we zo lang geleden hebben geleerd, vergeten zijn en het nu voortdurend zonder nadenken doen. Als een boek dus moeilijk lijkt, moet dat eerder de schuld van het boek zijn dan van de lezer.

The brain is like a massive LEGO set, where each of the individual pieces is quite simple (like a single LEGO piece), and all the power comes from the nearly infinite ways that these simple pieces can be recombined to do different things.

That was the last and greatest demand that Heisenberg made on his friendship with you. To be understood when he couldn't understand himself. And that was the last and greatest act of friendship for Heisenberg that you performed in return. To leave him misunderstood." Excerpt From: Michael Frayn. "Copenhagen

Physics, yes? Physics. This is physics. It's also politics. The two are sometimes painfully difficult to keep apart. Excerpt From: Michael Frayn. "Copenhagen".

Not your view, I know—you'd be happy to describe what you were up to purely in differential equations if you could—" Excerpt From: Michael Frayn. "Copenhagen".

Films that are entertainments give simple answers but I think that's ultimately more cynical, as it denies the viewer room to think. If there are more answers at the end, then surely it is a richer experience.

Anyone who pretends to "understand" Latin America is a fool.

He is intrigued by complex minds.

In the abstract, it might be tempting to imagine that irreducible complexity simply requires multiple simultaneous mutations - that evolution might be far chancier than we thought, but still possible. Such an appeal to brute luck can never be refuted... Luck is metaphysical speculation; scientific explanations invoke causes.

When one starts to treat Darwinism as a hypothesis about the biochemical level of life rather than as an assumption, it takes about ten minutes to conclude it's radically inadequate.

The king of Siam once asked his wise men for a proverb that would be appropriate for any occasion. They suggested "This, too, shall pass". Well, in biochemistry an equally appropriate saying for all occasions is "Things are more complicated than they seem".

Questioning helps people gain perspective and understand the perspectives of others. As they see issues and problems from different points of view, they gain an appreciation for their complexity—and also expand the range of possible solutions.

However, once you realize the answer to most questions is, "It depends," you are ready to embark on the quest to figure out what it depends on.

When competing one-on-one, follow two simple rules: If you are the favorite, simplify the game. If you are the underdog, make it more complicated.

If you are the stronger player, simplify the interaction to emphasize your skill. If you are the underdog, complicate the game to introduce more luck into the outcome.

If you are the stronger player, simplify the interaction to emphasize your skill. If you are the underdog, complicate the game to introduce more luck into the outcome. Underdogs that successfully increase the influence of luck will also increase their chance of winning.