#complexity

The Schleswig-Holstein question is so complicated, only three men in Europe have ever understood it. One was Prince Albert, who is dead. The second was a German professor who became mad. I am the third and I have forgotten all about it. ↗

— Lord Palmerston

#politics #men

I promise nothing complete; because any human thing supposed to be complete, must not for that very reason infallibly be faulty. ↗

— Herman Melville

#human-nature #humanity #infallibility #nature

Sufficiently simple natural structures are predictable but uncontrollable, whereas sufficiently complex symbolic descriptions are controllable but unpredictable. ↗

— Howard Pattee

#philosophy #science #systems #nature

Government succeeds by failing. ↗

— L.K. Samuels

#complexity-science #economics #politics #science

The theory of evolution by cumulative natural selection is the only theory we know of that is in principle capable of explaining the existence of organized complexity. ↗

— Richard Dawkins

#complexity #cumulative #evolution #existence #explaining

A graphic representation of data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human system. Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding. ↗

— William Gibson

#city #clusters #complexity #computer #constellations

The art of simplicity is a puzzle of complexity. ↗

— Douglas Horton

#complexity #puzzle #simplicity

My father taught me Basic and rudimentary C, I learned everything else on my own, including studying computational complexity on my own. That's more a function of my age than anything else though - back when I was in school there were hardly any programming classes. ↗

— Bram Cohen

#any #anything #back #basic #classes

The purpose of narrative is to present us with complexity and ambiguity. ↗

— Scott Turow

#complexity #narrative #present #purpose #us

We have a picture for how complexity arises, because if the universe is computationally capable, maybe we shouldn't be so surprised that things are so entirely out of control. ↗

— Seth Lloyd

#because #capable #complexity #control #entirely