Understanding Complexity can simplify your life
“Understanding Complexity can simplify your life”. Is that true? Not entirely, but there is some truth it. That is the main point I want you to take away from this blog. Looking at Complex systems, expect to see some aspects of the system that don’t have a simple explanation. For those aspects, there is no one simple story that is the One Truth; the story that makes all other stories false.
Knowing that makes complex systems much easier to deal with. The futile search for the one true simplification is, in my experience, what makes complex systems frustrating to deal with and difficult to predict. That does not mean that there is nothing useful to be said about the complex aspects of a system. Don’t just shrug and say “its too complex”. This blog will explore many examples of stories that are not the whole truth about a system, but do have some truth to them.
Once you get over the expectation that complex systems have a have a simple truth that you are missing, dealing with them can become much more engaging and productive. Delightfully, they have many stories which all have some truth to them. Sometimes quite opposite stories. Any complex system can have contradictory descriptions, both with some truth in them. For example any fellow human can be both good person or a bad person depending on the angle you are looking from.
For me, seeing the full spectrum of stories that can be told about a complex system is seeing the world in full color. Restricting your stories to true or false is seeing the world in black and white, not even shades of grey. Of course, when decision time comes, yes or no may be the only choices. Till then, enjoy the color.
The term “complex system” is itself with complex, with many differing stories about it. The story I am using for this blog is fairly technical: a Complex System is one with feedback loops. In a straightforward system, A causes B, B causes C and D, D causes E and F and so on. Such systems are highly predictable, even when complicated.
My laptop is a good example of a straightforward though complicated system. I press the power button, and a billion operations later, the expected screen appears on the display. Despite being complicated it is amazingly predictable. A flock of birds is complex. Hard to predict what it will look like from one moment to the next. But that does not mean all possible stories about it are equally true. Some have much more truth to them than others.
My intention in this blog is to explore those stories in many different contexts. I’ll ask you to consider that maybe your favorite story about a complex situation is not the only true story. My daily news is full of assertions that one group have the one true story about the world that makes all others false. I believe that acknowledging that even the opposite story can have some truth in it is both closer to reality, and a much better starting point for understanding and agreement.
See the home page for previous posts in this series. For more about the author, see the About page. Some Truth In It is free today. Once established, I may give you the opportunity to support my writing with money. For now, if you enjoyed this post, tell any friends you think may enjoy it.