We've lost our respect for complexity
60 comments
·January 21, 2025openrisk
bluetomcat
Political action is fuelled by beliefs and ideals for the future. As a subjective observer, no one can attain a complete image of reality, or "the thing in itself". All we observe are appearances (phenomena) from our subjective point of view. In the process of a wider societal dialogue, we can exchange these points of view and eventually come to a rough approximation of the objective state of things.
openrisk
> we can exchange these points of view
the quality of that exchange is indeed the key catalyst of whether a "convergence" happens. For matters concerning the physical world we have (largely) learned not to let subjectivity stand in the way, even when it concerns very complex phenomena. For anything more directly related to the human condition we are in far more primitive state.
gchamonlive
> One can think of the emergent scientific method as effectively learning to respect complexity.
Which I'm reading like it's the ONLY way we know of how to "respect complexity".
> The tangible result of this new trait (respecting complexity) was pretty amazing. But only for a precious few domains. Our default mode, being 100% sure about things we have little clue about (who needs hallucinating AI when you've got humans), continues to be the prevalent one.
Which means if only everybody in other areas learned to respect complexity as we enlightened scientist do, everything would be great in these other areas too.
And so on...
This is classical enlightenment scientific positivism that is fuelled by technical prowess of the contemporary society.
It's only natural to assume that all these wonders in science can be replicated if we only applied the scientific method for everything, and if it's not working we need to just work harder and eventually find the right set of hypothesis and reductions to prove the necessary theories that will render break through in other areas. What's wrong with this thought?
Well first in philosophy, science is a set of assumptions and simplifications that limit the scope of search to what's measurable and ignores qualia. This is the first simplification. [1]
The second is reduction, which is responsible for the wonders in physics. You break things down, you study the components of reality in an isolated and reproducible way in hopes to understand the larger picture by means of decomposition. It's just that science isn't direct about how to put things together after reduction. In most areas it's ok, things are simple enough we can make do. But it's being catastrophic in areas like quantum physics. In fact the calculations start to skyrocket in complexity so fast that reductionism itself is put in question, specially when geometric objects like the amplituhedron are known to exist that simplify the calculation quite substantially but isn't prone to investigation by reduction. [2]
Which puts in question the assumption that science as you put in your comment is the correct way to manage complexity in all areas. This positivist approach to science is put in question by many other philosophers, including Karl Popper [3].
[1] https://platosmirror.com/galileo-galilei-measure-what-is-mea...
[2] Donald Hoffman, The Case Against Reality: Why Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes ISBN-13: 978-0393254693, ISBN-10: 0393254690
[3] https://www.sobider.net/FileUpload/ep842424/File/12.two_crit...
openrisk
> Which puts in question the assumption that science as you put in your comment is the correct way to manage complexity in all areas.
One important aspect of the scientific method is that the outcome "we don't know" is perfectly acceptable. Not sure there are other approaches that have this humility built-in but happy to be enlightened (pun :-)
gchamonlive
Why are you so sure everybody else's don't accept "we don't know" as an acceptable answer? What makes you think only scientists are humble enough to accept such outcomes.
I believe you are romanticising science. It's done by humans it's prone human error just as much (reputation and money comes to mind). And even if it wasn't, if was done 100% correctly all the time, there are fundamental assumptions and simplifications needed to make the current scientific method work that's known to be incompatible with some domains of study, as I mentioned before.
And to answer your question, philosophers are the other kind of category of thinkers that would fit that description.
So by all means try to apply science to everything. It's been great so far. Just don't put too much expectation on it. It's disrespectful and unfair to science.
MichaelZuo
In other words, this suggests nearly all the population are posers/pretenders some of the time…?
TeMPOraL
Humans are social creatures, and social dynamics are as important to us as laws of physics. For better or worse, in every-day life, being right is usually less important than being liked. The basics of survival in the real world enter common knowledge, so that e.g. you know you shouldn't eat random mushrooms, or foul-smelling stuff, nor should you swim in pools of funny-colored liquids should you encounter one outside. Beyond that, you're more likely to die from being a contrarian than from common beliefs being wrong.
As people experience it, the truth about objective reality matters only if being wrong can bite you in the ass. It matters when you're working with physical stuff, where being wrong could be dangerous (perhaps indirectly by ruining your boss's profits). There's a reason science and engineering leap forward during times of war - all the social and political games, all the fraud, all the weird beliefs about the world, suddenly stop being important when the enemy is at your gates, and your survival depends on whether your soldiers' rifles can shoot straight, and the missiles they fire can hit their designated targets. At those times, being wrong about complex aspects of reality is deadly, so it's okay to defy preexisting social dynamics and get these things right.
War isn't the only situation like this, of course. The economy sometimes produces such states, however briefly. A new invention delivering real value requires being right to develop and improve... until the point improvements get more expensive than marketing, at which point truth stops mattering again.
Not everyone considers truth as a terminal value. For those of us that do, living in a world where social dynamics are more important than being right, becomes extra challenging.
openrisk
Its all us, most of the time lol. From the blog post:
> All I can do is continue looking for those people who have that respect for complexity. Some find them boring, or indecisive, or just wrong for not buying into some extreme.
Ignoring complexity and still making decisions is a key survival trait. The trick in modern society is imho to know when complexity really matters.
roenxi
Not really, that would imply they are pretending. There aren't enough people with a genuine respect for truth for that to be a factor. It is more that any signal of knowledge will be copied mercilessly if it affords any respect. If people with bookshelves get more respect, then everyone will have a bookshelf and nonetheless be confused if they meet someone who reads a lot of books.
The default assumption is that a person has no idea what they are talking about because the base rate success of that stance is rather high.
verisimi
> We experienced two cultural revolutions, first in the world of ancient Greece, subsequently in the modern era of scientific enlightenment.
Oh yeah, I remember them well!
BwackNinja
Complexity has always been less respected the more it is separated from the experiences of the average person; or more personally, your own experiences. Unfortunately, that's the very nature of complexity itself. Dependencies increase instead of decrease in the hopes of scaling, saving time and money, or even providing a slightly better product. As positive as those efforts sound, they also make the failure cases worse.
The only people to respect with regards to complexity are those dealing with inherent complexity -- especially when they're building more digestible abstractions, and those working to reduce complexity due to having a substantial understand of it. It can be rather difficult to distinguish between inherent complexity and incidental complexity though.
xnx
Seems like this might be the same as the current popular disdain for experts and being educated.
rob74
I largely agree with this post except for the reference to "juvenoia". Case in point: the new US administration doesn't contain a lot of terribly young people, but they have also thoroughly lost the respect for complexity. All those "deep state" bureaucrats who at best don't seem to do anything useful and at worst dare to contradict you? Fire them all!
dmpk2k
There is a balance though, because large organisations tend to ossify, yet the environment continues to change.
gunian
tangential but doesn't deep state mean a secret group of leadership? does it apply if one is a known public servant
boticello
'Deep state' could also be called 'permanent state' and means those unelected entities which hold power through changes of government.
Victoria Nuland is an example. She worked for six presidents and ten secretaries of state over 30+ years, always promoting the same war agenda. She has worked in concert with her husband Robert Kagan, who has worked as an adviser to several governments and think tanks. These people and organisations are all part of the deep state, aka security state, aka military industrial complex, as forewarned by President Eisenhower on his departure from office.
gunian
that sounds so cool better that than be starved out and slowly die like me while watching someone else use your SSN
so it's like lobbyists? or does rit have to be a specific industry
zmgsabst
No — “deep state” can refer to the permanent bureaucracy operating according to their own agenda, in coordination with NGOs, etc.
That’s the “unauthorized networks of power” which run independently of democratic control, eg by coordinating non-prosecution of crime despite citizen demands for more criminal prosecutions.
> A deep state is a type of government made up of […] unauthorized networks of power operating independently of a state's political leadership in pursuit of their own agenda and goals.
gunian
does this assume democracy is real? as in the people have a say in the policies so anything to the contrary is a deep state?
i've never had a say over my life let alone politics so it's a very foreign concept like having agency
zmgsabst
You’re making a straw man of their argument.
They understand what the bureaucrats purported to do, but don’t believe that government bureaucrats can manage a complex system and that better outcomes are obtained by allowing individuals to optimize in a complex system than attempt to centrally manage complexity.
I’d go so far as to say you have it exactly backwards:
It’s people who advocate for government bureaucratic management that don’t respect complexity by hanging onto the belief a complex system (eg, an economy) can be managed by a handful of credentialed experts.
cjfd
This is a very extreme stance. It also is a false dichtomy. A government bureaucracy (a needlessly pejorative term, btw....) can do things and individuals also can do things. One does not exclude the other. It gets interesting when asking what things are best done by government and what things by individuals. The non-respecting of complexity is happening when one thinks that it is one or the other. And the government is involved in any contract anyway because if one side does not do what it obligates, the judicial system can be used to enforce it.
robertlagrant
> This is a very extreme stance
It doesn't seem extreme at all. If you've ever worked on a technical project and been given a deadline by someone not in the project who also isn't technical, you'll know the problem with central planning.
> The non-respecting of complexity is happening when one thinks that it is one or the other
This isn't to do with complexity, except that generally the government (or any centrally managed thing) is worse at managing complexity than the government. The government managing something isn't because it's too complex for the private sector. It's because the private sector would have adverse incentives with society-level bad outcomes if it attempted it. E.g. private prisons without sufficient enforced regulation.
1GZ0
I feel like "Complexity" is the wrong word here.
Although I agree with the notion that deep knowledge of complex systems has decreased over the years, I'd argue that the problem isn't the lack of interest in gaining deeper knowledge that's the problem, nor a perceived lack of respect for expertise.
I'd argue its more to do with the nature of how large codebases morph over time as they're retrofitted to do more usercases. Its a lot easy in the short term to just hack in the functionality you need into an existing codebase, instead of rewriting the entire thing from scratch every time. This comes at the cost of maintainability and leads to a lot of headaches in the long term, as systems that where never designed to work together clash in unexpected ways.
I don't begrudge anyone for not wanted to dive into codebases like that.
diggan
> I feel like "Complexity" is the wrong word here. [...] I'd argue its more to do with the nature of how large codebases morph over time as they're retrofitted to do more usercases. Its a lot easy in the short term to just hack in the functionality you need into an existing codebase, instead of rewriting the entire thing from scratch every time. This comes at the cost of maintainability and leads to a lot of headaches in the long term, as systems that where never designed to work together clash in unexpected ways.
Rich Hickey separates complexity into two parts[0], accidental and intentional (IIRC). Intentional complexity is complexity that stems from the domain of your problem, there isn't much you can do to manage it, DNA splicing will be complex no matter what you do, for example.
The other part is accidental complexity, which is complexity you could deal with, but for whatever reason choose not to right now, as you touch on in your comment. This eventually snowballs into a huge spaghetti monster as you pile hacks on top of hacks.
There is a (famous at this point) talk from Hickey where he dives much deeper into how he sees complexity, which happens to be a really good pitch for Clojure, but I first saw it before I knew Clojure, and the perspective applies to software in general, so no Clojure knowledge needed.
[0] - "Simple Made Easy" - Rich Hickey (2011) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxdOUGdseq4
somethingsome
Complexity is important when a subject at is core is complex, I'm mostly against complexity for the sake of complexity. Too many subjects are getting complex for the sake of it, or due to organic development.
There is an even greater beauty than complexity when very complex subjects can be reduced to simpler ones without losing their power, it requires a greater understanding of complexity than what is usually seen.
As an illustrative example : QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter, Feynman
DaveMcMartin
In academia, respect for complexity still exists, but industries prioritize simplicity to enable mass production, reduce costs, and make things easier for people to understand, remember, and use. That’s why logos are becoming flat, with simple shapes and colors, buildings are often bland rectangular boxes, and apps have fewer texts and buttons on each screen.
As with almost everything, we need to find a balance between simplicity and complexity.
Gigachad
I feel like the reason for the change in design trends was that for most of human history, ornate details and complexity required immense labour and signified wealth.
Then with modern technology, we could print or weave any pattern you want on fabric effortlessly. Instead of a stone mason chiseling away all day, you can pour plaster in a mould and have all that same detail.
Now that detail is cheap, simplicity is on trend.
robertlagrant
You're right, although once something isn't impressive to do it converts to a fashion-related trend. Fashion doesn't often have a practical benefit, so a lot of it is just "I want my stuff to look different to my parents' stuff, and that makes fashion cycles, where people's fashionable floral wallpaper now isn't too different from what their grandparents had.
null
EncomLab
Folding Ideas is one of the best channels on YouTube- glad to see it brought up here!
amelius
In academia, people had respect for complexity.
In industry, nobody seems to use big-O notation.
donatj
A gentleman knows is someone who how to use big-O notation and doesn't.
The only times I have used big-O in my career has been job interviews. It is my belief that it's mostly used to weed out people who didn't take computer science classes, and make them feel bad regardless of their real world skills.
It's the same thing with database normalization. It has come up twice in my twenty year career. Once in an interview, and once during an acquisition when someone from the purchasing company was I believe trying to "Gotcha!" me. 3NF just doesn't come up in normal day to day work.
alecco
> In industry, nobody seems to use big-O notation.
Ironically, it's because big-O notation is too theoretical and doesn't respect real-world complexity. Big-O is used to see when the operations are of sizes out of normal use and big-O doesn't represent hardware complexity (like latency differences, size limitations, or caching).
bob1029
N is usually small in practice.
Analyzing how expensive it is to do something often costs more than just doing the thing.
Matthyze
I'm sure there's a sampling bias here. Many intractable methods are never adopted by the developer community exactly because they're intractable, which means such methods won't be encountered often. Like an ant line avoiding obstacles. Only pioneers/people developing new methods encounter them.
Painsawman123
>That’s not been entirely without good reason, many things were promised then that have failed to materialize. From flying cars to world peace
i mean, Flying cars has been a reality for quite some time now, they just go by another name, "helicopters".
robertlagrant
I don't think we were promised those things.
vbezhenar
I do not respect complexity. 99% of complexity is not necessary. I respect simplicity. Complexity appears naturally, there's nothing respectable about it, it's just the way world evolves. Simplicity takes lots of effort to achieve and even more effort to maintain.
Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
GuB-42
Complexity may be your enemy, but you should respect your enemy, or it will defeat you.
Disrespecting complexity usually goes "that complex thing is a mess, let's make something simple instead", which usually results in the "simple" thing being useless, and often not that simple. Respect complexity, especially if your goal is to remove it.
passwordoops
So you don't respect semicon, airplanes, electricity transmission and distribution, running water... What do you respect then?
Dalewyn
Rather than accuse you, I'll just refute you thusly:
In order to achieve perfection, you must understand what should be removed. To understand what should be removed, you must respect the complexity.
Respect is not acceptance, even though it's very easy to confuse the two.
Matthyze
Did you read the article? The author's and your points are entirely tangential.
The thing is, historically we never really had much respect for complexity.
> We talk about complex subjects all the time. Medicine, politics, economics, sociology, morality and more
For our entire history we have being talking about complex subjects we barely understood and, like proud primates, we were always very vocal and cocksure about our view points.
We experienced two cultural revolutions, first in the world of ancient Greece, subsequently in the modern era of scientific enlightenment. One can think of the emergent scientific method as effectively learning to respect complexity. Being humble about assertions that cannot be validated again and again, in different conditions, by different parties etc.
The tangible result of this new trait (respecting complexity) was pretty amazing. But only for a precious few domains. Our default mode, being 100% sure about things we have little clue about (who needs hallucinating AI when you've got humans), continues to be the prevalent one.
Whats worse, we now have what has been called "the pretence of knowledge" [1]. We know that real knowledge is powerful, so why not pretend we have it when we actually don't? This leads to a random mix of (typically self-serving) opinions coupled to the superficial use of scientific tools. A pathology most visible precisely in the above list of really complex topics.
The risk is that as the challenges of our own complex societies mount, we will undo also what we have achieved, and effectively go back to become stochastic parrots, unhinged from complex reality.
[1] https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/1974/hay...