Most things that are interesting are simultaneously complex. Cities are complex. Living organisms are complex.
Complexity covers a vast territory that lies between order and chaos- something that is neither total disorder nor total order, non-trivial, complicated but non-chaotic- complex.
Complexity is that which is not trivial. That which is not dull. That which we all intuitive sense but are incapable of adequately expressing.
Complexity could, in some instances, be measured as logical depth- the meaning and value of a message not by its length but by the amount of work put into it. E = mc^2 is simple, yet complex. So are the works of Shakespeare. There is a lot of depth to it.
Making things look easy is hard, clarity requires depth.
A mess has no depth and is not complex, because a mess cannot be described more concisely than the way it describes itself by being a mess. The more concisely something can be expressed, the more depth it has- the value of a poker hand corresponds directly to the succinctness with which it could be described- the most valuable hand reproduced perfectly with Ā “Royal Flush (Spades)”, which is more concise than “Four Of A Kind Jacks and Ace (Diamond)”, which is more concise than “House Of Jacks (sans Spades) to Kings (Clubs and Hearts). We value depth, because it makes life a lot easier.
Thermodynamic depth is the idea of defining complexity as the amount of information that is discarded during the process that brings a physical object into being- a historical rather than logical notion.
The more an organism survives, the more it experiences, and the more valuable its genes become. The interesting thing is not how many genes it has, or how long its DNA is- the interesting thing is the wealth of experience deposited in its genes.
It took billions of years for the earth to evolve one bull, but one bull and a few compliant cows will produce seven bulls relatively speedily. The distance from equilibrium is what matters. Anything wholly ordered or disordered is stable by definition, while what is complex is interesting because it appears to be unstable- consider any complex piece of music, an complex dance routine- the beauty of the complexity lies in its disequilibrium, we appreciate it because we realise intuitively how easily everything might fall apart.
The Depth Of Complexity
Most things that are interesting are simultaneously complex. Cities are complex. Living organisms are complex.
Complexity covers a vast territory that lies between order and chaos- something that is neither total disorder nor total order, non-trivial, complicated but non-chaotic- complex.
Complexity is that which is not trivial. That which is not dull. That which we all intuitive sense but are incapable of adequately expressing.
Complexity could, in some instances, be measured as logical depth- the meaning and value of a message not by its length but by the amount of work put into it. E = mc^2 is simple, yet complex. So are the works of Shakespeare. There is a lot of depth to it.
Making things look easy is hard, clarity requires depth.
A mess has no depth and is not complex, because a mess cannot be described more concisely than the way it describes itself by being a mess. The more concisely something can be expressed, the more depth it has- the value of a poker hand corresponds directly to the succinctness with which it could be described- the most valuable hand reproduced perfectly with Ā “Royal Flush (Spades)”, which is more concise than “Four Of A Kind Jacks and Ace (Diamond)”, which is more concise than “House Of Jacks (sans Spades) to Kings (Clubs and Hearts). We value depth, because it makes life a lot easier.
Thermodynamic depth is the idea of defining complexity as the amount of information that is discarded during the process that brings a physical object into being- a historical rather than logical notion.
The more an organism survives, the more it experiences, and the more valuable its genes become. The interesting thing is not how many genes it has, or how long its DNA is- the interesting thing is the wealth of experience deposited in its genes.
It took billions of years for the earth to evolve one bull, but one bull and a few compliant cows will produce seven bulls relatively speedily. The distance from equilibrium is what matters. Anything wholly ordered or disordered is stable by definition, while what is complex is interesting because it appears to be unstable- consider any complex piece of music, an complex dance routine- the beauty of the complexity lies in its disequilibrium, we appreciate it because we realise intuitively how easily everything might fall apart.