Complexity Quotes - page 13

Because of the complexity of the problem, environmental skepticism was once tenable. No longer. It is time to flip from skepticism to activism. (Michael Shermer)
The order and harmony of the Western world, its most famous achievement, and a laboratory in which structures of a complexity as yet unknown are being fashioned, demand the elimination of a prodigious mass of noxious by-products which now contaminate the globe. The first thing we see as we travel round the world is our own filth, thrown into the face of mankind. View quote
Claude Lévi-Strauss
Epifanio de los Santos was a genius, with all the great spontaneity and fire, and all the almost analyzable complexity of such a spirit. ... His scholarship was profound. ... Yet he was no mere pedant. He was never solemn. He was too wise to take life too seriously. He was always jovial and good company. He was something of a sensualist and liked good food and drink. But he had moments of sadness, and there were times when he drank not for pleasure, but for surcease. View quote
Epifanio de los Santos
A main problem in the study of organizational change is that the environmental contexts in which organizations exist are themselves changing, at an increasing rate and towards increasing complexity. This point, in itself, scarcely needs laboring. Nevertheless, characteristics of organizational environments demand consideration for their own sake if there is to be an advancement of understanding in the behavioral sciences of a great deal that is taking place under the impact of technological change, especially at the present time. View quote
Eric Trist
The interesting thing about fiction from a writer's standpoint is that the characters come to life within you. And yet who are they and where are they? They seem to have as much or more vitality and complexity as the people around you. View quote
Whitley Strieber
English, as a subject, never really got over its upstart nature. It tries to bulk itself up with hopeless jargon and specious complexity, tries to imitate subjects it can never be. View quote
Zadie Smith
[Director Christopher] Nolan ... gives us enough multilayered subplots to at least fool us into thinking this is a work of intellectual and moral complexity. But as a piece of visual storytelling, from shot to shot, The Dark Knight is a mess. Characters disappear from one locale and show up inexplicably in another, thanks to the magic of editing. At one point, we learn two characters have been abducted, but Nolan doesn't bother to show us who did it or how. (Later, he explains the "who did it" with dialogue -- the lazy way.) At the end, a major character is left hanging, literally, as we are figuratively. If this is genius, give me hackery. View quote
Stephanie Zacharek
In complexity economics one is not searching out the truth; one is simply searching for a statistical fit that can be temporarily useful in our understanding of the economy. View quote
David Colander
The acknowledgement of complexity, however, certainly does not lead to the conclusion that anything goes. View quote
Paul Cilliers
There is no over-arching theory of complexity that allows us to ignore the contingent aspects of complex systems. If something really is complex, it cannot by adequately described by means of a simple theory. Engaging with complexity entails engaging with specific complex systems. Despite this we can, at a very basic level, make general remarks concerning the conditions for complex behaviour and the dynamics of complex systems. Furthermore, I suggest that complex systems can be modelled. View quote
Paul Cilliers
Each element in the system is ignorant of the behaviour of the system as a whole, it responds only to information that is available to it locally... If each element 'knew' what was happening to the system as a whole, all of the complexity would have to be present in that element. (Paul Cilliers)
It bears repetition that an argument against representation is not anti-scientific at all. It is merely an argument against a particular scientific strategy that assumes complexity can be reduced to specific features and then represented in a machine. Instead it is an argument for the appreciation of the nature of complexity, something that can perhaps be 'repeated' in a machine, should the machine itself be complex enough to cope with the distributed character of complexity. View quote
Paul Cilliers
Paul Cilliers was a remarkable Renaissance man and one of the most important academics and Afrikaner intellectuals that this country has produced. I had the privilege of knowing him for close on thirty years as friend, colleague and soul mate with a shared love of ideas, music, food, social interaction and a burning interest in complexity and complex systems. View quote
Paul Cilliers
The view from complexity claims that we cannot know complex things completely... modest positions are inescapable... We can increase the knowledge we have of a certain [complex] system, but this knowledge is limited... The fact that our knowledge is limited is not a disaster, it is a condition for knowledge. Limits enable knowledge. View quote
Paul Cilliers
The profit motive and the competitive struggle are more productive and less destructive on the frontier than in the city. Maldistribution of income becomes more devastating with increasing complexity and interdependence. View quote
Kirby Page
Once in place as control perspectives, they are widely shared ways of reducing complexity of the world. They come into the existence in a piecemeal fashion and are articulated by representatives of the largest, most successful firms. They are propagated by the business press and informal links between organizations and then are supported by those organizations and organizational fields. View quote
Neil Fligstein
I think diversity can also be a resource, an asset, especially in a world that is becoming globalized, to deal with difference, to deal with variety, to deal with complexity. View quote
Jose Manuel Barroso
I feel that it's lovely when, as a user, you're not aware of the complexity. View quote
Jonathan Ive
It wasn't so long ago that complexity thinking was synonymous with bottom-up computer simulation. However, in the past 5-10 years we have seen other threads emerge from this mathematically focused starting point that acknowledge the profound philosophical implications of complexity. View quote
Gerald Midgley
With genetic engineering, we will be able to increase the complexity of our DNA, and improve the human race. But it will be a slow process, because one will have to wait about 18 years to see the effect of changes to the genetic code. View quote
Stephen Hawking
In complexity, it is only simplicity that can be interesting. (Steven Weinberg)
A main problem in the study of organizational change is that the environmental contexts in which organizations exist are themselves changing, at an increasing rate and towards increasing complexity. This point, in itself, scarcely needs laboring. Nevertheless, characteristics of organizational environments demand consideration for their own sake if there is to be an advancement of understanding in the behavioral sciences of a great deal that is taking place under the impact of technological change, especially at the present time. View quote
Fred Emery
When you work on anything, you want to find the range of impulses - which ones get portrayed is another question, but you want to have that complexity and that fullness, even if you're playing a cartoon character. View quote
Willem Dafoe
We only have to look around us to see how complexity and psychic temperature are still rising: and rising no longer on the scale of the individual but now on that of the planet. View quote
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
We only have to look around us to see how complexity and psychic 'temperature' are still rising: and rising no longer on the scale of the individual but now on that of the planet. This indication is so familiar to us that we cannot but recognize the objective, experiential, reality of a transformation of the planet 'as a whole.' View quote
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin