TERMS STARTING WITH
complexity ::: (algorithm) The level in difficulty in solving mathematically posed problems as measured by the time, number of steps or arithmetic operations, or memory space required (called time complexity, computational complexity, and space complexity, respectively).The interesting aspect is usually how complexity scales with the size of the input (the scalability), where the size of the input is described by some doubles in size, the computation will take four times as many steps. The ideal is a constant time algorithm (O(1)) or failing that, O(N).See also NP-complete. (1994-10-20)
complexity "algorithm" The level in difficulty in solving mathematically posed problems as measured by the time, number of steps or arithmetic operations, or memory space required (called time complexity, computational complexity, and space complexity, respectively). The interesting aspect is usually how complexity scales with the size of the input (the "{scalability}"), where the size of the input is described by some number N. Thus an {algorithm} may have computational complexity O(N^2) (of the order of the square of the size of the input), in which case if the input doubles in size, the computation will take four times as many steps. The ideal is a constant time algorithm (O(1)) or failing that, O(N). See also {NP-complete}. (1994-10-20)
complexity analysis ::: In sructured program design, a quality-control operation that counts the number of compares in the logic implementing a function; a value of less than 10 is considered acceptable.
complexity analysis In sructured program design, a quality-control operation that counts the number of "compares" in the logic implementing a function; a value of less than 10 is considered acceptable.
complexity class "algorithm" A collection of {algorithms} or {computable functions} with the same {complexity}. (1996-04-24)
complexity class ::: (algorithm) A collection of algorithms or computable functions with the same complexity. (1996-04-24)
complexity measure "algorithm" A quantity describing the {complexity} of a computation. (1996-04-24)
complexity measure ::: (algorithm) A quantity describing the complexity of a computation. (1996-04-24)
complexity ::: n. --> The state of being complex; intricacy; entanglement.
That which is complex; intricacy; complication.
TERMS ANYWHERE
" . . . a compromise is not a solution; it only salves over the difficulty and in the end increases the complexity of the problem and multiplies its issues.” The Synthesis of Yoga
“ . . . a compromise is not a solution; it only salves over the difficulty and in the end increases the complexity of the problem and multiplies its issues.” The Synthesis of Yoga
Ada "language" (After {Ada Lovelace}) A {Pascal}-descended language, designed by Jean Ichbiah's team at {CII Honeywell} in 1979, made mandatory for Department of Defense software projects by the Pentagon. The original language was standardised as "Ada 83", the latest is "{Ada 95}". Ada is a large, complex, {block-structured} language aimed primarily at {embedded} applications. It has facilities for {real-time} response, {concurrency}, hardware access and reliable run-time error handling. In support of large-scale {software engineering}, it emphasises {strong typing}, {data abstraction} and {encapsulation}. The type system uses {name equivalence} and includes both {subtypes} and {derived types}. Both fixed and {floating-point} numerical types are supported. {Control flow} is fully bracketed: if-then-elsif-end if, case-is-when-end case, loop-exit-end loop, goto. Subprogram parameters are in, out, or inout. Variables imported from other packages may be hidden or directly visible. Operators may be {overloaded} and so may {enumeration} literals. There are user-defined {exceptions} and {exception handlers}. An Ada program consists of a set of packages encapsulating data objects and their related operations. A package has a separately compilable body and interface. Ada permits {generic packages} and subroutines, possibly parametrised. Ada support {single inheritance}, using "tagged types" which are types that can be extended via {inheritance}. Ada programming places a heavy emphasis on {multitasking}. Tasks are synchronised by the {rendezvous}, in which a task waits for one of its subroutines to be executed by another. The conditional entry makes it possible for a task to test whether an entry is ready. The selective wait waits for either of two entries or waits for a limited time. Ada is often criticised, especially for its size and complexity, and this is attributed to its having been designed by committee. In fact, both Ada 83 and Ada 95 were designed by small design teams to be internally consistent and tightly integrated. By contrast, two possible competitors, {Fortran 90} and {C++} have both become products designed by large and disparate volunteer committees. See also {Ada/Ed}, {Toy/Ada}. {Home of the Brave Ada Programmers (http://lglwww.epfl.ch/Ada/)}. {Ada FAQs (http://lglwww.epfl.ch/Ada/FAQ/)} (hypertext), {text only (ftp://lglftp.epfl.ch/pub/Ada/FAQ)}. {(http://wuarchive.wustl.edu/languages/ada/)}, {(ftp://ajpo.sei.cmu.edu/)}, {(ftp://stars.rosslyn.unisys.com/pub/ACE_8.0)}. E-mail: "adainfo@ajpo.sei.cmu.edu". {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.lang.ada}. {An Ada grammar (ftp://primost.cs.wisc.edu/)} including a lex scanner and yacc parser is available. E-mail: "masticol@dumas.rutgers.edu". {Another yacc grammar and parser for Ada by Herman Fischer (ftp://wsmr-simtel20.army.mil/PD2:"ADA.EXTERNAL-TOOLS"GRAM2.SRC)}. An {LR parser} and {pretty-printer} for {Ada} from NASA is available from the {Ada Software Repository}. {Adamakegen} generates {makefiles} for {Ada} programs. ["Reference Manual for the Ada Programming Language", ANSI/MIL STD 1815A, US DoD (Jan 1983)]. Earlier draft versions appeared in July 1980 and July 1982. ISO 1987. [{Jargon File}] (2000-08-12)
Ada ::: (language) (After Ada Lovelace) A Pascal-descended language, designed by Jean Ichbiah's team at CII Honeywell in 1979, made mandatory for Department of Defense software projects by the Pentagon. The original language was standardised as Ada 83, the latest is Ada 95.Ada is a large, complex, block-structured language aimed primarily at embedded applications. It has facilities for real-time response, concurrency, hardware The type system uses name equivalence and includes both subtypes and derived types. Both fixed and floating-point numerical types are supported.Control flow is fully bracketed: if-then-elsif-end if, case-is-when-end case, loop-exit-end loop, goto. Subprogram parameters are in, out, or inout. Variables overloaded and so may enumeration literals. There are user-defined exceptions and exception handlers.An Ada program consists of a set of packages encapsulating data objects and their related operations. A package has a separately compilable body and interface. Ada permits generic packages and subroutines, possibly parametrised.Ada support single inheritance, using tagged types which are types that can be extended via inheritance.Ada programming places a heavy emphasis on multitasking. Tasks are synchronised by the rendezvous, in which a task waits for one of its subroutines to be whether an entry is ready. The selective wait waits for either of two entries or waits for a limited time.Ada is often criticised, especially for its size and complexity, and this is attributed to its having been designed by committee. In fact, both Ada 83 and tightly integrated. By contrast, two possible competitors, Fortran 90 and C++ have both become products designed by large and disparate volunteer committees.See also Ada/Ed, Toy/Ada. . , , .E-mail: .Usenet newsgroup: comp.lang.ada. including a lex scanner and yacc parser is available. E-mail: . .An LR parser and pretty-printer for Ada from NASA is available from the Ada Software Repository.Adamakegen generates makefiles for Ada programs.[Reference Manual for the Ada Programming Language, ANSI/MIL STD 1815A, US DoD (Jan 1983)]. Earlier draft versions appeared in July 1980 and July 1982. ISO 1987.[Jargon File](2000-08-12)
aeroplane rule ::: (convention) Complexity increases the possibility of failure; a twin-engine aeroplane has twice as many engine problems as a single-engine aeroplane.By analogy, in both software and electronics, the implication is that simplicity increases robustness and that the right way to build reliable systems is to put all your eggs in one basket, after making sure that you've built a really *good* basket.While simplicity is a useful design goal, and twin-engine aeroplanes do have twice as many engine problems, the analogy is almost entirely bogus. Commercial Albert Einstein said, Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.See also KISS Principle. (1999-03-22)
aeroplane rule "convention" "Complexity increases the possibility of failure; a twin-engine aeroplane has twice as many engine problems as a single-engine aeroplane." By analogy, in both software and electronics, the implication is that simplicity increases robustness and that the right way to build reliable systems is to put all your eggs in one basket, after making sure that you've built a really *good* basket. While simplicity is a useful design goal, and twin-engine aeroplanes do have twice as many engine problems, the analogy is almost entirely bogus. Commercial passenger aircraft are required to have at least two engines (on different wings or nacelles) so that the aeroplane can land safely if one engine fails. As Albert Einstein said, "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler". See also {KISS Principle}. (1999-03-22)
Also non-deterministic polynomial-time hardness. ::: In computational complexity theory, the defining property of a class of problems that are, informally, "at least as hard as the hardest problems in NP". A simple example of an NP-hard problem is the subset sum problem.
altitude ::: A general degree of development (i.e., degree of consciousness or degree of complexity), applicable to any given line.
analysis of algorithms ::: The determination of the computational complexity of algorithms, that is the amount of time, storage and/or other resources necessary to execute them. Usually, this involves determining a function that relates the length of an algorithm's input to the number of steps it takes (its time complexity) or the number of storage locations it uses (its space complexity).
Apprehension span: The extent or complexity of material which an individual is able to apprehend through a single, very brief act of attention. Also called attention span. -- A.C.B.
ARRESTS IN SADHANA. ::: A difficulty comes or an arrest in some movement which you have begun or have been carrying on for some time. Such arrests are inevitably frequent enough; one might almost say that every step forward is followed by an arrest. It is to be dealt with by becoming always more quiet, more firm in the will to go through, by opening oneself more and more so that any obstructing non-receptivity in the nature may diminish or disappear, by an affirmation of faith even in the midst of obscurity, faith in the presence of a Power that is working behind the cloud and the veil, in the guidance of the Guru, by an observation of oneself to find any cause of the arrest, not in a spirit of depression or discouragement but with the will to find out and remove it. This is the only right attitude and, if one is persistent in taking it, the periods of arrest are not abolished, - for that cannot be at this stage, - but greatly shortened and lightened in their incidence. Sometimes these arrests are periods, long or short, of assimilation or unseen preparation, their appearance of sterile immobility is deceptive ::: in that case, with the right attitude, one can after a time, by opening, by observation, by accumulated experience, begin to feel, to get some inkling of what is being prepared or done. Sometimes it is a period of true obstruction in which the Power at work has to deal with the obstacles in the way, obstacles in oneself, obstacles of the opposing cosmic forces or any other or of all together, and this kind of arrest may be long or short according to the magnitude or obstinacy or complexity of the impediments that are met. But here, too, the right attitude can alleviate or shorten and, if persistently taken, help to a more radical removal of the difficulties and greatly diminish the necessity of complete arrests hereafter.
On the contrary, an attitude of depression or unfaith in the help or the guidance or in the certitude of the victory of the guiding Power, a shutting up of yourself in the sense of the difficulties, helps the obstructions to recur with force instead of progressively diminishing in their incidence.
Artificial Life ::: (algorithm, application) (a-life) The study of synthetic systems which behave like natural living systems in some way. Artificial Life complements the applications in environmental and financial modelling and network communications.There are some interesting implementations of artificial life using strangely shaped blocks. A video, probably by the company Artificial Creatures who build insect-like robots in Cambridge, MA (USA), has several mechanical implementations of artificial life forms.See also evolutionary computing, Life.[Christopher G. Langton (Ed.), Artificial Life, Proceedings Volume VI, Santa Fe Institute Studies in the Sciences of Complexity. Addison-Wesley, 1989]. . . . (1995-02-21)
Artificial Life "algorithm, application" (a-life) The study of synthetic systems which behave like natural living systems in some way. Artificial Life complements the traditional biological sciences concerned with the analysis of living organisms by attempting to create lifelike behaviours within computers and other artificial media. Artificial Life can contribute to theoretical biology by modelling forms of life other than those which exist in nature. It has applications in environmental and financial modelling and network communications. There are some interesting implementations of artificial life using strangely shaped blocks. A video, probably by the company Artificial Creatures who build insect-like robots in Cambridge, MA (USA), has several mechanical implementations of artificial life forms. See also {evolutionary computing}, {Life}. [Christopher G. Langton (Ed.), "Artificial Life", Proceedings Volume VI, Santa Fe Institute Studies in the Sciences of Complexity. Addison-Wesley, 1989]. {Yahoo! (http://yahoo.com/Science/Artificial_Life/)}. {Santa Fe Institute (http://alife.santafe.edu/)}. {The Avida Group (http://krl.caltech.edu/avida/Avida.html)}. (1995-02-21)
aspect-oriented programming "programming" (AOP) A style of programming that attempts to abstract out features common to many parts of the code beyond simple functional modules and thereby improve the {quality} of software. Mechanisms for defining and composing {abstractions} are essential elements of programming languages. The design style supported by the abstraction mechanisms of most current languages is one of breaking a system down into parameterised components that can be called upon to perform a function. But many systems have properties that don't necessarily align with the system's functional components, such as failure handling, {persistence}, communication, replication, coordination, {memory management}, or {real-time} constraints, and tend to cut across groups of functional components. While they can be thought about and analysed relatively separately from the basic functionality, programming them using current {component-oriented languages} tends to result in these aspects being spread throughout the code. The {source code} becomes a tangled mess of instructions for different purposes. This "tangling" phenomenon is at the heart of much needless complexity in existing software systems. A number of researchers have begun working on approaches to this problem that allow programmers to express each of a system's aspects of concern in a separate and natural form, and then automatically combine those separate descriptions into a final executable form. These approaches have been called aspect-oriented programming. {Xerox AOP homepage (http://parc.xerox.com/csl/projects/aop/)}. {AspectJ (http://AspectJ.org/)}. {ECOOPP'99 AOP workshop (http://wwwtrese.cs.utwente.nl/aop-ecoop99/)}. (1999-11-21)
aspect-oriented programming ::: (programming) (AOP) A style of programming that attempts to abstract out features common to many parts of the code beyond simple functional modules and thereby improve the quality of software.Mechanisms for defining and composing abstractions are essential elements of programming languages. The design style supported by the abstraction mechanisms of most current languages is one of breaking a system down into parameterised components that can be called upon to perform a function.But many systems have properties that don't necessarily align with the system's functional components, such as failure handling, persistence, communication, replication, coordination, memory management, or real-time constraints, and tend to cut across groups of functional components.While they can be thought about and analysed relatively separately from the basic functionality, programming them using current component-oriented languages tends to result in these aspects being spread throughout the code. The source code becomes a tangled mess of instructions for different purposes.This tangling phenomenon is at the heart of much needless complexity in existing software systems. A number of researchers have begun working on combine those separate descriptions into a final executable form. These approaches have been called aspect-oriented programming. . . . (1999-11-21)
asymptotic computational complexity ::: In computational complexity theory, asymptotic computational complexity is the usage of asymptotic analysis for the estimation of computational complexity of algorithms and computational problems, commonly associated with the usage of the big O notation.
autonomic computing (AC) ::: The self-managing characteristics of distributed computing resources, adapting to unpredictable changes while hiding intrinsic complexity to operators and users. Initiated by IBM in 2001, this initiative ultimately aimed to develop computer systems capable of self-management, to overcome the rapidly growing complexity of computing systems management, and to reduce the barrier that complexity poses to further growth.[33]
complexity ::: (algorithm) The level in difficulty in solving mathematically posed problems as measured by the time, number of steps or arithmetic operations, or memory space required (called time complexity, computational complexity, and space complexity, respectively).The interesting aspect is usually how complexity scales with the size of the input (the scalability), where the size of the input is described by some doubles in size, the computation will take four times as many steps. The ideal is a constant time algorithm (O(1)) or failing that, O(N).See also NP-complete. (1994-10-20)
complexity "algorithm" The level in difficulty in solving mathematically posed problems as measured by the time, number of steps or arithmetic operations, or memory space required (called time complexity, computational complexity, and space complexity, respectively). The interesting aspect is usually how complexity scales with the size of the input (the "{scalability}"), where the size of the input is described by some number N. Thus an {algorithm} may have computational complexity O(N^2) (of the order of the square of the size of the input), in which case if the input doubles in size, the computation will take four times as many steps. The ideal is a constant time algorithm (O(1)) or failing that, O(N). See also {NP-complete}. (1994-10-20)
complexity analysis ::: In sructured program design, a quality-control operation that counts the number of compares in the logic implementing a function; a value of less than 10 is considered acceptable.
complexity analysis In sructured program design, a quality-control operation that counts the number of "compares" in the logic implementing a function; a value of less than 10 is considered acceptable.
complexity class "algorithm" A collection of {algorithms} or {computable functions} with the same {complexity}. (1996-04-24)
complexity class ::: (algorithm) A collection of algorithms or computable functions with the same complexity. (1996-04-24)
complexity measure "algorithm" A quantity describing the {complexity} of a computation. (1996-04-24)
complexity measure ::: (algorithm) A quantity describing the complexity of a computation. (1996-04-24)
complexity ::: n. --> The state of being complex; intricacy; entanglement.
That which is complex; intricacy; complication.
big data ::: A term used to refer to data sets that are too large or complex for traditional data-processing application software to adequately deal with. Data with many cases (rows) offer greater statistical power, while data with higher complexity (more attributes or columns) may lead to a higher false discovery rate.[59]
Brooks's Law "programming" "Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later" - a result of the fact that the expected advantage from splitting work among N programmers is O(N) (that is, proportional to N), but the complexity and communications cost associated with coordinating and then merging their work is O(N^2) (that is, proportional to the square of N). The quote is from Fred Brooks, a manager of {IBM}'s {OS/360} project and author of "{The Mythical Man-Month}". The myth in question has been most tersely expressed as "Programmer time is fungible" and Brooks established conclusively that it is not. Hackers have never forgotten his advice; too often, {management} still does. See also {creationism}, {second-system effect}, {optimism}. [{Jargon File}] (1996-09-17)
brute force ::: (programming) A primitive programming style in which the programmer relies on the computer's processing power instead of using his own intelligence heavy-handed, tedious way, full of repetition and devoid of any elegance or useful abstraction (see also brute force and ignorance).The canonical example of a brute-force algorithm is associated with the travelling salesman problem (TSP), a classical NP-hard problem:Suppose a person is in, say, Boston, and wishes to drive to N other cities. In what order should the cities be visited in order to minimise the distance travelled?The brute-force method is to simply generate all possible routes and compare the distances; while guaranteed to work and simple to implement, this algorithm is consider, and for N = 1000 - well, see bignum). Sometimes, unfortunately, there is no better general solution than brute force. See also NP-complete.A more simple-minded example of brute-force programming is finding the smallest number in a large list by first using an existing program to sort the list in ascending order, and then picking the first number off the front.Whether brute-force programming should actually be considered stupid or not depends on the context; if the problem is not terribly big, the extra CPU time algorithm may imply more long-term complexity cost and bug-chasing than are justified by the speed improvement.When applied to cryptography, it is usually known as brute force attack.Ken Thompson, co-inventor of Unix, is reported to have uttered the epigram When in doubt, use brute force. He probably intended this as a ha ha only serious, cleverness is often a difficult one that requires both engineering savvy and delicate aesthetic judgment.[Jargon File] (1995-02-14)
brute force "programming" A primitive programming style in which the programmer relies on the computer's processing power instead of using his own intelligence to simplify the problem, often ignoring problems of scale and applying naive methods suited to small problems directly to large ones. The term can also be used in reference to programming style: brute-force programs are written in a heavy-handed, tedious way, full of repetition and devoid of any elegance or useful abstraction (see also {brute force and ignorance}). The {canonical} example of a brute-force algorithm is associated with the "{travelling salesman problem}" (TSP), a classical {NP-hard} problem: Suppose a person is in, say, Boston, and wishes to drive to N other cities. In what order should the cities be visited in order to minimise the distance travelled? The brute-force method is to simply generate all possible routes and compare the distances; while guaranteed to work and simple to implement, this algorithm is clearly very stupid in that it considers even obviously absurd routes (like going from Boston to Houston via San Francisco and New York, in that order). For very small N it works well, but it rapidly becomes absurdly inefficient when N increases (for N = 15, there are already 1,307,674,368,000 possible routes to consider, and for N = 1000 - well, see {bignum}). Sometimes, unfortunately, there is no better general solution than brute force. See also {NP-complete}. A more simple-minded example of brute-force programming is finding the smallest number in a large list by first using an existing program to sort the list in ascending order, and then picking the first number off the front. Whether brute-force programming should actually be considered stupid or not depends on the context; if the problem is not terribly big, the extra CPU time spent on a brute-force solution may cost less than the programmer time it would take to develop a more "intelligent" algorithm. Additionally, a more intelligent algorithm may imply more long-term complexity cost and bug-chasing than are justified by the speed improvement. When applied to {cryptography}, it is usually known as {brute force attack}. {Ken Thompson}, co-inventor of {Unix}, is reported to have uttered the epigram "When in doubt, use brute force". He probably intended this as a {ha ha only serious}, but the original {Unix} {kernel}'s preference for simple, robust and portable {algorithms} over {brittle} "smart" ones does seem to have been a significant factor in the success of that {operating system}. Like so many other tradeoffs in software design, the choice between brute force and complex, finely-tuned cleverness is often a difficult one that requires both engineering savvy and delicate aesthetic judgment. [{Jargon File}] (1995-02-14)
B. The Probability-Relation. Considering the general grounds of probability, it is pertinent to analyze the proper characteristics of this concept and the valid conditions of its use in inferential processes. Probability presents itself as a special relation between the premisses and the conclusion of an argument, namely when the premisses are true but not completely sufficient to condition the truth of the conclusion. A probable inference must however be logical, even though its result is not certain, for its premisses must be a true sign of its conclusion. The probability-relation may take three aspects: it is inductive, probable or presumptive. In strict induction, there is an essential connection between the facts expressed in the premisses and in the conclusion, which almost forces a factual result from the circumstances of the predication. This type of probability-relation is prominent in induction proper and in statistics. In strict probability, there is a logical connection between the premisses and the conclusion which does not entail a definite factual value for the latter. This type of probability-relation is prominent in mathematical probability and circumstantial evidence. In strict presumption, there is a similarity of characteristics between the fact expressed in the conclusion and the real event if it does or did exist. This type of probability-relation is prominent in analogy and testimony. A presumptive conclusion should be accepted provisionally, and it should have definite consequences capable of being tested. The results of an inductive inference and of a probable inference may often be brought closer together when covering the same field, as the relations involved are fundamental enough for the purpose. This may be done by a qualitative analysis of their implications, or by a quantitative comparison of their elements, as it is done for example in the methods of correlation. But a presumptive inference cannot be reduced to either of the other two forms without losing its identity, because the connection between its elements is of an indefinite character. It may be said that inductive and probable inferences have an intrinsic reasonableness, while presumptive inferences have an extrinsic reasonableness. The former involve determinism within certain limits, while the latter display indeterminacy more prominently. That is why very poor, misleading or wrong conclusions are obtained when mathematical methods are applied to moral acts, judiciary decisions or indirect testimony The activity of the human will has an intricate complexity and variability not easily subjected to calculation. Hence the degree of probability of a presumptive inference can be estimated only by the character and circumstances of its suggested explanation. In moral cases, the discussion and application of the probability-relation leads to the consideration of the doctrines of Probabilism and Probabiliorism which are qualitative. The probability-relation as such has the following general implications which are compatible with its three different aspects, and which may serve as general inferential principle: Any generalization must be probable upon propositions entailing its exemplification in particular cases; Any generalization or system of generalizations forming a theory, must be probable upon propositions following from it by implication; The probability of a given proposition on the basis of other propositions constituting its evidence, is the degree of logical conclusiveness of this evidence with respect to the given proposition; The empirical probability (p = S/E) of a statement S increases as verifications accrue to the evidence E, provided the evidence is taken as a whole; and Numerical probabilities may be assigned to facts or statements only when the evidence includes statistical data or other numerical information which can be treated by the methods of mathematical probability. C. Mathematical Probability. The mathematical theory of probability, which is also called the theory of chances or the theory of relative possibilities, is concerned with the application of mathematical methods to the determination of the likelihood of any event, when there are not sufficient data to determine with certainty its occurrence or failure. As Laplace remarked, it is nothing more than common sense reduced to calculation. But its range goes far beyond that of common sense for it has not only conditioned the growth of various branches of mathematics, such as the theory of errors, the calculus of variations and mathematical statistics, but it has also made possible the establishment of a number of theories in the natural and social sciences, by its actual applications to concrete problems. A distinction is usually made between direct and inverse probability. The determination of a direct or a priori probability involves an inference from given situations or sets of possibilities numerically characterized, to future events related with them. By definition, the direct probability of the occurrence of any particular form of an event, is the ratio of the number of ways in which that form might occur, to the whole number of ways in which the event may occur, all these forms being equiprobable or equally likely. The basic principles referring to a priori probabilities are derived from the analysis of the various logical alternatives involved in any hypothetical questions such as the following: (a) To determine whether a cause, whose exact nature is or is not known, will prove operative or not in certain circumstances; (b) To determine how often an event happens or fails. The comparison of the number of occurrences with that of the failures of an event, considered in simple or complex circumstances, affords a baisis for several cases of probable inference. Thus, theorems may be established to deal with the probability of success and the probability of failure of an event, with the probability of the joint occurrence of several events, with the probability of the alternative occurrence of several events, with the different conditions of frequency of occurrence of an event; with mathematical expectation, and with similar questions. The determination of an a posteriori or inverse probability involves an inference from given situations or events, to past conditions or causes which rnay have contributed to their occurrence. By definition, an inverse probability is the numerical value assigned to each one of a number of possible causes of an actual event that has already occurred; or more generally, it is the numerical value assigned to hypotheses which attempt to explain actual events or circumstances. If an event has occurred as a result of any one of n several causes, the probability that C was the actual cause is Pp/E (Pnpn), when P is the probability that the event could be produced by C if present, and p the probability that C was present before the occurrence of that event. Inverse probability is based on general and special assumptions which cannot always be properly stated, and as there are many different sets of such assumptions, there cannot be a coercive reason for making a definite choice. In particular, the condition of the equiprobability of causes is seldom if ever fulfilled. The distinction between the two kinds of probability, which has led to some confusion in interpreting their grounds and their relations, can be technically ignored now as a result of the adoption of a statistical basis for measuring probabilities. In particular, it is the statistical treatment of correlation which led to the study of probabilities of concurrent phenomena irrespective of their direction in time. This distinction may be retained, howe\er, for the purpose of a general exposition of the subject. Thus, a number of probability theorems are obtained by using various cases of direct and inverse probability involving permutations and combinations, the binomial theorem, the theory of series, and the methods of integration. In turn, these theurems can be applied to concrete cases of the various sciences.
CFL ::: "Causal Feedback Loop". The mechanism through which consciousness came into being from non-experience, evolved in complexity and diverged in form, and filtered back to the cusp of non-experience to ensure its own evolution. This mirrors the evolution and lifecycle of the Universe and is likely intricately related to cosmology. Jason Miller coined this abbrevation from the concept of a "Creation Feedback Loop". I have mistakenly called it a "Causal Feedback Loop", but honestly prefer that term over the original as it highlights the importance of causality in the creation of reality.
complementary nondeterministic polynomial ::: (complexity) (Co-NP) The set (or property) of problems with a yes/no answer where the complementary no/yes problem is in the set NP.[Example?] (1995-04-27)
complementary nondeterministic polynomial "complexity" (Co-NP) The set (or property) of problems with a yes/no answer where the complementary no/yes problem takes {nondeterministic polynomial time} ({NP}). For example, "Is n prime" is Co-NP and "Is n not prime" is NP, since it is only necessary to find one {factor} to prove that n is not {prime} whereas to prove that it is prime all possible factors must be eliminated. (2009-05-21)
complexion ::: n. --> The state of being complex; complexity.
A combination; a complex.
The bodily constitution; the temperament; habitude, or natural disposition; character; nature.
The color or hue of the skin, esp. of the face.
The general appearance or aspect; as, the complexion of the sky; the complexion of the news.
complexities ::: pl. --> of Complexity
complexness ::: n. --> The state of being complex; complexity.
complicateness ::: n. --> Complexity.
complication ::: n. --> The act or process of complicating; the state of being complicated; intricate or confused relation of parts; entanglement; complexity.
A disease or diseases, or adventitious circumstances or conditions, coexistent with and modifying a primary disease, but not necessarily connected with it.
computational complexity "algorithm" The number of steps or arithmetic operations required to solve a computational problem. One of the three kinds of {complexity}. (1996-04-24)
computational complexity ::: (algorithm) The number of steps or arithmetic operations required to solve a computational problem. One of the three kinds of complexity. (1996-04-24)
computational complexity theory ::: Focuses on classifying computational problems according to their inherent difficulty, and relating these classes to each other. A computational problem is a task solved by a computer. A computation problem is solvable by mechanical application of mathematical steps, such as an algorithm.
condensation ::: n. --> The act or process of condensing or of being condensed; the state of being condensed.
The act or process of reducing, by depression of temperature or increase of pressure, etc., to another and denser form, as gas to the condition of a liquid or steam to water.
A rearrangement or concentration of the different constituents of one or more substances into a distinct and definite compound of greater complexity and molecular weight, often resulting in
Conway's Game of Life "simulation" The first popular {cellular automata} based {artificial life} simulation. Life was invented by British mathematician {John Horton Conway} in 1970 and was first introduced publicly in "Scientific American" later that year. Conway first devised what he called "The Game of Life" and "ran" it using plates placed on floor tiles in his house. Because of he ran out of floor space and kept stepping on the plates, he later moved to doing it on paper or on a checkerboard and then moved to running Life as a computer program on a {PDP-7}. That first implementation of Life as a computer program was written by M. J. T. Guy and {S. R. Bourne} (the author of {Unix}'s {Bourne shell}). Life uses a rectangular grid of binary (live or dead) cells each of which is updated at each step according to the previous state of its eight neighbours as follows: a live cell with less than two, or more than three, live neighbours dies. A dead cell with exactly three neighbours becomes alive. Other cells do not change. While the rules are fairly simple, the patterns that can arise are of a complexity resembling that of organic systems -- hence the name "Life". Many hackers pass through a stage of fascination with Life, and hackers at various places contributed heavily to the mathematical analysis of this game (most notably {Bill Gosper} at {MIT}, who even implemented Life in {TECO}!; see {Gosperism}). When a hacker mentions "life", he is more likely to mean this game than the magazine, the breakfast cereal, the 1950s-era board game or the human state of existence. {On-line implementation (http://pmav.eu/stuff/javascript-game-of-life-v3.1.1/)}. ["Scientific American" 223, October 1970, p120-123, 224; February 1971 p121-117, Martin Gardner]. ["The Garden in The Machine: the Emerging Science of Artificial Life", Claus Emmeche, 1994]. ["Winning Ways, For Your Mathematical Plays", Elwyn R. Berlekamp, John Horton Conway and Richard K. Guy, 1982]. ["The Recursive Universe: Cosmic Complexity and the Limits of Scientific Knowledge", William Poundstone, 1985]. [{Jargon File}] (1997-09-07)
cookie monster ::: (recreation) (From the children's TV program Sesame Street) Any of a family of early (1970s) hacks reported on TOPS-10, ITS, Multics and elsewhere required responses ranged in complexity from COOKIE through HAVE A COOKIE and upward.See also wabbit.[Jargon File] (1997-02-12)
cookie monster "recreation" (From the children's TV program "Sesame Street") Any of a family of early (1970s) hacks reported on {TOPS-10}, {ITS}, {Multics} and elsewhere that would lock up either the victim's terminal (on a {time-sharing} machine) or the {console} (on a batch {mainframe}), repeatedly demanding "I WANT A COOKIE". The required responses ranged in complexity from "COOKIE" through "HAVE A COOKIE" and upward. See also {wabbit}. [{Jargon File}] (1997-02-12)
C-Refine ::: A preprocessor for C and languages with similar syntax by Lutz Prechelt . C-Refine allows symbolic naming of code fragments so as to redistribute complexity and provide running commentary.Version 3.0 is available from comp.sources.reviewed archives. It is highly portable and has been ported to Unix, MS-DOS, Atari, Amiga. . (1992-07-16)
C-Refine A {preprocessor} for {C} and languages with similar syntax by Lutz Prechelt "prechelt@ira.uka.de". C-Refine allows symbolic naming of code fragments so as to redistribute complexity and provide running commentary. Version 3.0 is available from comp.sources.reviewed archives. It is highly portable and has been ported to {Unix}, {MS-DOS}, {Atari}, {Amiga}. {(ftp://ftp.uu.net/usenet/comp.sources.reviewed/volume02/crefine)}. (1992-07-16)
cybernetics "robotics" /si:`b*-net'iks/ The study of control and communication in living and man-made systems. The term was first proposed by {Norbert Wiener} in the book referenced below. Originally, cybernetics drew upon electrical engineering, mathematics, biology, neurophysiology, anthropology, and psychology to study and describe actions, feedback, and response in systems of all kinds. It aims to understand the similarities and differences in internal workings of organic and machine processes and, by formulating abstract concepts common to all systems, to understand their behaviour. Modern "second-order cybernetics" places emphasis on how the process of constructing models of the systems is influenced by those very systems, hence an elegant definition - "applied epistemology". Related recent developments (often referred to as {sciences of complexity}) that are distinguished as separate disciplines are {artificial intelligence}, {neural networks}, {systems theory}, and {chaos theory}, but the boundaries between those and cybernetics proper are not precise. See also {robot}. {The Cybernetics Society (http://cybsoc.org)} of the UK. {American Society for Cybernetics (http://asc-cybernetics.org/)}. {IEEE Systems, Man and Cybernetics Society (http://isye.gatech.edu/ieee-smc/)}. {International project "Principia Cybernetica" (http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/DEFAULT.html)}. ["Cybernetics, or control and communication in the animal and the machine", N. Wiener, New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1948] (2002-01-01)
cybernetics ::: (robotics) /si:`b*-net'iks/ The study of control and communication in living and man-made systems.The term was first proposed by Norbert Wiener in the book referenced below. Originally, cybernetics drew upon electrical engineering, mathematics, biology, processes and, by formulating abstract concepts common to all systems, to understand their behaviour.Modern second-order cybernetics places emphasis on how the process of constructing models of the systems is influenced by those very systems, hence an elegant definition - applied epistemology.Related recent developments (often referred to as sciences of complexity) that are distinguished as separate disciplines are artificial intelligence, neural networks, systems theory, and chaos theory, but the boundaries between those and cybernetics proper are not precise.See also robot. of the UK. . . .Usenet newsgroup: .[Cybernetics, or control and communication in the animal and the machine, N. Wiener, New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1948](2002-01-01)
Cycles [from Greek kyklos circle, wheel] The law of cycles arises out of the ever-unceasing alternations of the Great Breath of spirit in the universe. Abstract absolute motion, as the worlds evolve, assumes an ever-growing tendency to circular movement. Hence arise the wheels and globes of cosmic evolution and the rounds of the evolutionary life-waves. Motion is repetitive, ever returning to similar, but not identical, points. The geometrical symbol is the helix, which combines the cyclic with the progressive motion; if the axis of the helix is itself a circle, a vortex results, and thus wheels within wheels as the process advances to further degrees of complexity.
cyclomatic complexity "programming, testing" A measure of the number of linearly independent paths through a program {module}. Cyclomatic complexity is a measure for the complexity of code related to the number of ways there are to traverse a piece of code. This determines the minimum number of inputs you need to test all ways to execute the program. (1998-03-17)
cyclomatic complexity ::: (programming, testing) A measure of the number of linearly independent paths through a program module. Cyclomatic complexity is a measure for the of code. This determines the minimum number of inputs you need to test all ways to execute the program. (1998-03-17)
Cyclo "programming, tool" (Cyclomatic complexity tool) A {C} and {C++} code analysis tool by Roger D. Binns. It measures {cyclomatic complexity}, shows function calls, and can draw {flowgraphs} of {ANSI C} and {C++} code. It requires {Lex} and {C++}. Posted to {alt.sources}, 1993-06-28. (1993-06-28)
Cyclo ::: (programming, tool) (Cyclomatic complexity tool) A C and C++ code analysis tool by Roger D. Binns. It measures cyclomatic complexity, shows function calls, and can draw flowgraphs of ANSI C and C++ code. It requires Lex and C++.Posted to alt.sources, 1993-06-28. (1993-06-28)
data hierarchy ::: The system of data objects which provide the methods for information storage and retrieval. Broadly, a data hierarchy may be considered to be either natural, information is expressed, or machine, which reflects the facilities of the computer, both hardware and software.A natural data hierarchy might consist of bits, characters, words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs, and chapters. One might use components bound to an etc. On the other hand, a machine or software system might use bit, byte, word, block, partition, channel, and port.Programming languages often provide types or objects which can create data hierarchies of arbitrary complexity, thus allowing software system designers to model language structures described by the linguist to greater or lesser degree.The distinction between the natural form of data and the facilities provided by the machine may be obscure, because users force their needs into the molds data type character and the machine type byte are often used interchangably, because the latter has evolved to meet the need of representing the former. (1995-11-03)
data hierarchy The system of data objects which provide the {methods} for {information} storage and retrieval. Broadly, a data hierarchy may be considered to be either natural, which arises from the alphabet or syntax of the language in which the information is expressed, or machine, which reflects the facilities of the computer, both hardware and software. A natural data hierarchy might consist of {bits}, {characters}, words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs, and chapters. One might use components bound to an application, such as field, record, and file, and these would ordinarily be further specified by having {data descriptors} such as name field, address field, etc. On the other hand, a machine or software system might use {bit}, {byte}, {word}, {block}, {partition}, {channel}, and {port}. Programming languages often provide {types} or {objects} which can create data hierarchies of arbitrary complexity, thus allowing software system designers to model language structures described by the linguist to greater or lesser degree. The distinction between the natural form of data and the facilities provided by the machine may be obscure, because users force their needs into the molds provided, and programmers change machine designs. As an example, the natural data type "character" and the machine type "byte" are often used interchangeably, because the latter has evolved to meet the need of representing the former. (1995-11-03)
depth ::: 1. The quality of a state of consciousness. 2. Beyond one"s knowledge or capability. 3. Emotional intensity, profundity. 4. The quality of being deep; deepness. 5. Complexity or profundity. 6. The extent, measurement, or distance downwards, backwards, or inwards. depths, depths", spirit-depths, wave-depths.
depth ::: The degree of development. In the Upper-Left quadrant, depth refers to degree of consciousness, and in the Upper-Right quadrant, it refers to degree of complexity. However, generally speaking, all four quadrants exhibit depth of increasing complexity.
description logic (DL) ::: A family of formal knowledge representation languages. Many DLs are more expressive than propositional logic but less expressive than first-order logic. In contrast to the latter, the core reasoning problems for DLs are (usually) decidable, and efficient decision procedures have been designed and implemented for these problems. There are general, spatial, temporal, spatiotemporal, and fuzzy descriptions logics, and each description logic features a different balance between DL expressivity and reasoning complexity by supporting different sets of mathematical constructors.[154]
dharmacakrapravartana. (P. dhammacakkappavattana; T. chos 'khor bskor ba; C. zhuan falun; J. tenborin; K. chon pomnyun 轉法輪). In Sanskrit, "turning the wheel of the DHARMA"; a term used generally to describe the Buddha's teaching; specifically, it refers the Buddha's first sermon, delivered at the Deer Park (S. MṚGADĀVA) in ṚsIPATANA, the modern SĀRNĀTH, as described in the Pāli DHAMMACAKKAPPAVATTANASUTTA (S. Dharmacakrapravartanasutra), when he first declared the FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS (catvāry āryasatyāni) and the noble eightfold path (ĀRYĀstĀnGAMĀRGA). As Buddhist doctrine expanded exponentially in size and complexity, Buddhists were hard put to explain the apparent divergences in the teachings found in various recensions of the sutras. In order to account for the critical differences in these sutra explications of the Buddhist teachings, different traditions began to suggest that the Buddha had actually "turned the wheel of the dharma" more than one time. Certain perfection of wisdom (PRAJNĀPĀRAMITĀ) sutras refer to the Buddha's teaching of the perfection of wisdom as the second turning of the wheel of dharma. The SAMDHINIRMOCANASuTRA posits that the Buddha actually turned the wheel of the dharma three separate times, a description that came to figure prominently in MAHĀYĀNA scholastic literature: the first, called CATUḤSATYADHARMACAKRA, when he taught the four noble truths of the HĪNAYĀNA traditions; the second, called the ALAKsAnADHARMACAKRA ("dharma-wheel of signlessness"), when he taught the emptiness (suNYATĀ) doctrine as understood by the MADHYAMAKA school; and a third, the *SUVIBHAKTADHARMACAKRA ("dharma-wheel possessed of good differentiation"), when he taught the Yogācāra TRISVABHĀVA doctrine. The SaMdhinirmocanasutra claims that the teachings of the first two dharma-wheels were provisional (NEYĀRTHA), while the third was definitive (NĪTĀRTHA). This threefold taxonomy of the Buddhist teachings was one of the most influential hermeneutical schema (see JIAOXIANG PANSHI) created in the Mahāyāna and elicited extensive commentary in India, Tibet, and East Asia. Proponents of the Madhyamaka, who identified the second wheel with the PRAJNĀPĀRAMITĀSuTRAs, claimed to the contrary that the second wheel was definitive and the first and third were provisional.
dike To remove or disable a portion of something, as a wire from a computer or a subroutine from a program. A standard slogan is "When in doubt, dike it out". (The implication is that it is usually more effective to attack software problems by reducing complexity than by increasing it.) The word "dikes" is widely used among mechanics and engineers to mean "diagonal cutters", especially the heavy-duty metal-cutting version, but may also refer to a kind of wire-cutters used by electronics technicians. To "dike something out" means to use such cutters to remove something. Indeed, the TMRC Dictionary defined dike as "to attack with dikes". Among hackers this term has been metaphorically extended to informational objects such as sections of code. [{Jargon File}]
directory service "database, networking" A structured repository of information on people and resources within an organisation, facilitating management and communication. On a {LAN} or {WAN} the directory service identifies all aspects of the {network} including users, software, hardware, and the various rights and policies assigned to each. As a result applications can access information without knowing where a particular resource is physically located, and users interact oblivious to the network {topology} and {protocols}. To allow {heterogeneous networks} to share directory information the {ITU} proposed a common structure called {X.500}. However, its complexity and lack of seamless {Internet} support led to the development of {Lightweight Directory Access Protocol} (LDAP) which has continued to evolve under the aegis of the {IETF}. Despite its name {LDAP} is too closely linked to {X.500} to be "lightweight". {LDAP} was adopted by several companies such as {Netscape Communications Corporation} (Netscape Directory Server) and has become a {de facto standard} for directory services. Other LDAP compatible offerings include {Novell, Inc.}'s {Novell Directory Services} (NDS) and {Microsoft Corporation}'s {Active Directory}. The Netscape and Novell products are available for {Windows NT} and {Unix} {platforms}. {Novell Directory Services} also run on Novell platforms. {Microsoft Corporation}'s {Active Directory} is an integral part of {Microsoft's Windows 2000} and although it can interface with directory services running on other systems it is not available for other platforms. (2001-01-02)
directory service ::: (database, networking) A structured repository of information on people and resources within an organisation, facilitating management and communication.On a LAN or WAN the directory service identifies all aspects of the network including users, software, hardware, and the various rights and policies knowing where a particular resource is physically located, and users interact oblivious to the network topology and protocols.To allow heterogeneous networks to share directory information the ITU proposed a common structure called X.500. However, its complexity and lack of seamless (LDAP) which has continued to evolve under the aegis of the IETF. Despite its name LDAP is too closely linked to X.500 to be lightweight.LDAP was adopted by several companies such as Netscape Communications Corporation (Netscape Directory Server) and has become a de facto standard for and although it can interface with directory services running on other systems it is not available for other platforms.(2001-01-02)
discrete system ::: Any system with a countable number of states. Discrete systems may be contrasted with continuous systems, which may also be called analog systems. A final discrete system is often modeled with a directed graph and is analyzed for correctness and complexity according to computational theory. Because discrete systems have a countable number of states, they may be described in precise mathematical models. A computer is a finite state machine that may be viewed as a discrete system. Because computers are often used to model not only other discrete systems but continuous systems as well, methods have been developed to represent real-world continuous systems as discrete systems. One such method involves sampling a continuous signal at discrete time intervals.
Dragon Book "publication" The classic text "Compilers: Principles, Techniques and Tools", by Alfred V. Aho, Ravi Sethi, and Jeffrey D. Ullman (Addison-Wesley 1986; ISBN 0-201-10088-6). So called because of the cover design featuring a dragon labelled "complexity of compiler design" and a knight bearing the lance "LALR parser generator" among his other trappings. This one is more specifically known as the "Red Dragon Book" (1986); an earlier edition, sans Sethi and titled "Principles Of Compiler Design" (Alfred V. Aho and Jeffrey D. Ullman; Addison-Wesley, 1977; ISBN 0-201-00022-9), was the "Green Dragon Book" (1977). (Also "New Dragon Book", "Old Dragon Book".) The horsed knight and the Green Dragon were warily eying each other at a distance; now the knight is typing (wearing gauntlets!) at a terminal showing a video-game representation of the Red Dragon's head while the rest of the beast extends back in normal space. See also {book titles}. (1996-12-03)
egrep ::: (tool) An extended version of the Unix grep command. Egrep accepts extended regular expressions (REs) including * following multi-character REs; matches either. REs may be bracketed with (). Despite its additional complexity, egrep is usually faster than fgrep or grep.(2004-07-20)
egrep "tool" An extended version of the {Unix} {grep} command. Egrep accepts extended {regular expressions} (REs) including "*" following multi-character REs; "+" (one or more matches); "?" (zero or one matches); "|" separating two REs matches either. REs may be bracketed with (). Despite its additional complexity, egrep is usually faster than {fgrep} or {grep}. (2004-07-20)
Emergent Evolution: Generalization of emergent mentalism (q.v.) due to S. Alexander (q.v.), Space, Time and Deity. See Bergson's variation in L'evolution creatrice. See Holism. Emergent Mentalism: (Lat. emergere, to rise out) The theory of emergent evolutionism considered as an explanation of the genesis of mind or consciousness in the world. Mind is a novel quality emerging from the non-mental when the latter attains a certain complexity of organization. Cf. C. Lloyd Morgan, Emergent Evolution, Lect. I, II, Life, Mind, Spirit, Ch. V. -- L.W.
Entropy ::: The procession of reality and consciousness toward maximum randomness (stochasticity) and ultimate equilibrium. There are some deep mysteries and truths underlying this topic and it is an active area of research, but the connection between consciousness complexity and stochasticity is extremely important in both the creation (anabolism) and recycling (catabolism) of form. Newton's Second Law of Thermodynamics is all about entropy. This is an extremely complex topic scientifically, mathematically, and philosophically and is only slightly broached here. Apologies to actual experts on entropy for any misunderstandings or miscommunications.
essential complexity "programming" A measure of the "structuredness" of a program. (1996-05-13)
essential complexity ::: (programming) A measure of the structuredness of a program. (1996-05-13)
evolution ::: The unfolding of greater and greater consciousness and complexity, with each higher dimension transcending and including its juniors.
Experimental Psychology: (1) Experimental psychology in the widest sense is the application to psychology of the experimental methods evolved by the natural sciences. In this sense virtually the whole of contemporary psychology is experimental. The experimental method consists essentially in the prearrangement and control of conditions in such a way as to isolate specific variables. In psychology, the complexity of subject matter is such that direct isolation of variables is impossible and various indirect methods are resorted to. Thus an experiment will be repeated on the same subjects with all conditions remaining constant except the one variable whose influence is being tested and which is varied systematically by the experimenter. This procedure yields control data within a single group of subjects. If repetition of the experiment with the same group introduces additional uncontrolled variables, an equated control group is employed. Systematic rotation of variables among several groups of subjects may also be resorted to. In general, however, psychologists have designed their experiments in accordance with what has frequently been called the "principle of the one variable."
exponential ::: 1. (mathematics) A function which raises some given constant (the base) to the power of its argument. I.e. f x = b^x If no base is specified, e, the base of natural logarthims, is assumed.2. (complexity) exponential-time algorithm. (1995-04-27)
exponential 1. "mathematics" A function which raises some given constant (the "base") to the power of its argument. I.e. f x = b^x If no base is specified, {e}, the base of {natural logarthims}, is assumed. 2. "complexity" {exponential-time algorithm}. (1995-04-27)
exponential-time algorithm "complexity" An {algorithm} (or {Turing Machine}) that is guaranteed to terminate within a number of steps which is a {exponential} function of the size of the problem. For example, if you have to check every number of n digits to find a solution, the {complexity} is O(10^n), and if you add an extra digit, you must check ten times as many numbers. Even if such an algorithm is practical for some given value of n, it is likely to become impractical for larger values. This is in contrast to a {polynomial-time algorithm} which grows more slowly. See also {computational complexity}, {polynomial-time}, {NP-complete}. (1995-04-27)
exponential-time algorithm ::: (complexity) An algorithm (or Turing Machine) that is guaranteed to terminate within a number of steps which is a exponential function of the size of the problem.For example, if you have to check every number of n digits to find a solution, the complexity is O(10^n), and if you add an extra digit, you must check ten times as many numbers.Even if such an algorithm is practical for some given value of n, it is likely to become impractical for larger values. This is in contrast to a polynomial-time algorithm which grows more slowly.See also computational complexity, polynomial-time, NP-complete. (1995-04-27)
exponential-time "complexity" The set or property of problems which can be solved by an {exponential-time algorithm} but for which no {polynomial-time algorithm} is known. (1995-04-27)
exponential-time ::: (complexity) The set or property of problems which can be solved by an exponential-time algorithm but for which no polynomial-time algorithm is known. (1995-04-27)
Function Point Analysis "programming" (FPA) A standard metric for the relative size and complexity of a software system, originally developed by Alan Albrecht of {IBM} in the late 1970s. Functon points (FPs) can be used to estimate the relative size and complexity of software in the early stages of development - analysis and design. The size is determined by identifying the components of the system as seen by the end-user: the inputs, outputs, inquiries, interfaces to other systems, and logical internal files. The components are classified as simple, average, or complex. All of these values are then scored and the total is expressed in Unadjusted FPs (UFPs). Complexity factors described by 14 general systems characteristics, such as reusability, performance, and complexity of processing can be used to weight the UFP. Factors are also weighted on a scale of 0 - not present, 1 - minor influence, to 5 - strong influence. The result of these computations is a number that correlates to system size. Although the FP metric doesn't correspond to any actual physical attribute of a software system (such as {lines of code} or the number of subroutines) it is useful as a relative measure for comparing projects, measuring productivity, and estimating the amount a development effort and time needed for a project. See also {International Function Point Users Group}. (1996-05-16)
Function Point Analysis ::: (programming) (FPA) A standard metric for the relative size and complexity of a software system, originally developed by Alan Albrecht of IBM in the late 1970s.Functon points (FPs) can be used to estimate the relative size and complexity of software in the early stages of development - analysis and design. The size is influence, to 5 - strong influence. The result of these computations is a number that correlates to system size.Although the FP metric doesn't correspond to any actual physical attribute of a software system (such as lines of code or the number of subroutines) it is useful as a relative measure for comparing projects, measuring productivity, and estimating the amount a development effort and time needed for a project.See also International Function Point Users Group. (1996-05-16)
Geburah ::: Translated as "Strength" in Hebrew. The fifth Sephirah of the Kabbalah. It is representative of the first emanation of dualistic form: the constraining, tempering, yin energy that characterizes phenomenal reality and which forges and disciplines the lower Sephiroth on the Pillar of Severity. Along with Chesed and Tiphereth, Geburah is associated with the Ethical Triad and the Mental Plane (i.e the Second World) and is associated with the harsher lessons and laws of dualistic reality that emerged from the Causal; it is representative of those experiences that are necessary to forge a greater complexity of consciousness and a greater understanding of condition and causality. Associated with the sphere of Mars in the planetary magic paradigm.
Gravity ::: A fundamental phenomenon of the Universe. Scientifically there is still much to this that is a mystery and spiritually it is also profoundly intriguing and an active area of research. The idea, in terms of the occult sciences, is that there is a scaling effect as consciousness recursively subsets and that this tethers Spirit to matter. At distinct stages there is cohesion and stability and these are perceived as planes of reality. Divergent forms at the levels of these planes stay within that plane and once the Physical Plane is encountered in order for the complexity nodes that are our brains to emerge, a world was needed that was only formed through a scaling of masses downward through galaxy supercluster to galaxy to solar system to planet to body. The lensing effect of consciousness seems to relate to some of this orbital mathematics, especially in terms of the "shape" and "feel" of the sphere of awareness. Additionally, spacetime is warped by mass and vice-versa, so there are many interesting aspects to gravity, the perception of spacetime, and the evolution of consciousness.
Great Runes Uppercase-only text or display messages. Some archaic {operating systems} still emit these. See also {runes}, {smash case}, {fold case}. Back in the days when it was the sole supplier of long-distance hardcopy transmision devices, the {Teletype Corporation} was faced with a major design choice. To shorten code lengths and cut complexity in the printing mechanism, it had been decided that {teletypes} would use a {monocase} {font}, either ALL UPPER or all lower. The Question Of The Day was therefore, which one to choose. A study was conducted on readability under various conditions of bad ribbon, worn print hammers, etc. Lowercase won; it is less dense and has more distinctive letterforms, and is thus much easier to read both under ideal conditions and when the letters are mangled or partly obscured. The results were filtered up through {management}. The chairman of Teletype killed the proposal because it failed one incredibly important criterion: "It would be impossible to spell the name of the Deity correctly." In this way (or so, at least, hacker folklore has it) superstition triumphed over utility. Teletypes were the major input devices on most early computers, and terminal manufacturers looking for corners to cut naturally followed suit until well into the 1970s. Thus, that one bad call stuck us with Great Runes for thirty years. (1994-12-02)
gross reductionism ::: One of two major versions of reductionism, along with subtle reductionism. Gross reductionism, in effect, reduces all quadrants to the Upper-Right quadrant, or the exterior of an individual, and then reduces all higher-order complexity in the Upper Right to atomic and subatomic particles. Also known as “atomism.” See subtle reductionism and flatland.
H.323 ::: (communications, standard) The ITU-T standard for sending voice (audio) and video using IP on a LAN without QoS.H.323 includes Q.931 for call setup, H.225 for call signalling, H.245 for exchanging terminal capabilities, RTP/RTCP for packet streaming, G.711/G.712 for CODECs, and several other protcols, many of which need to be negotiated to setup a simple voice call.The complexity of H.323 has lead to the IETF proposing the simpler alternatives SIP and MGCP/Megaco.(2003-11-30)
H.323 "communications, standard" The {ITU-T standard} for sending {voice} ({audio}) and {video} using {IP} on a {LAN} without {QoS}. H.323 includes {Q.931} for call setup, {H.225} for call signalling, {H.245} for exchanging terminal capabilities, {RTP}/{RTCP} for packet streaming, {G.711}/{G.712} for {CODECs}, and several other {protcols}, many of which need to be negotiated to setup a simple voice call. The complexity of H.323 has lead to the {IETF} proposing the simpler alternatives {SIP} and {MGCP}/{Megaco}. (2003-11-30)
hair [back-formation from {hairy}] The complications that make something hairy. "Decoding {TECO} commands requires a certain amount of hair." Often seen in the phrase "infinite hair", which connotes extreme complexity. Also in "hairiferous" (tending to promote hair growth): "GNUMACS elisp encourages {lusers} to write complex editing modes." "Yeah, it's pretty hairiferous all right." (Or just: "Hair squared!")
Hathayogic ^-stem its devices of mana and pran^-amz, but reduces their multiple and elaborate forms in each case to one simplest and most directly effective process suffidcnl for its own imme- diate object. Thus it gets rid of the Hathayogic complexity and cumbrousness while it utilises the swift and powerful eOicacy of its methods for the control of the body and the sital functions and for the awakening of that interual dynamism, full of a latent supernormal faculty’, typified in Yogic lenninologj’ by the kuru^alini, the coiled and sleeping serpent of Bnergy within.
Hermes "language" An experimental, very high level, integrated language and system from the {IBM} {Watson Research Centre}, produced in June 1990. It is designed for implementation of large systems and distributed applications, as well as for general-purpose programming. It is an {imperative language}, {strongly typed} and is a {process-oriented} successor to {NIL}. Hermes hides distribution and heterogeneity from the programmer. The programmer sees a single {abstract machine} containing processes that communicate using calls or sends. The {compiler}, not the programmer, deals with the complexity of data structure layout, local and remote communication, and interaction with the {operating system}. As a result, Hermes programs are portable and easy to write. Because the programming paradigm is simple and high level, there are many opportunities for optimisation which are not present in languages which give the programmer more direct control over the machine. Hermes features {threads}, {relational tables}Hermes is, {typestate} checking, {capability}-based access and {dynamic configuration}. Version 0.8alpha patchlevel 01 runs on {RS/6000}, {Sun-4}, {NeXT}, {IBM-RT}/{BSD4.3} and includes a {bytecode compiler}, a bytecode-"C compiler and {run-time support}. {0.7alpha for Unix (ftp://software.watson.ibm.com/pub/hermes)}. E-mail: "hermes-request@watson.ibm.com", Andy Lowry "lowry@watson.ibm.com". {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.lang.hermes}. ["Hermes: A Language for Distributed Computing". Strom, Bacon, Goldberg, Lowry, Yellin, Yemini. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ. 1991. ISBN: O-13-389537-8]. (1992-03-22)
I: Change (often spelled yi), a fundamental principle of the universe, arising out of the interaction of the two cosmic forces of yin and yang, or passive and active principles, and manifested in natural phenomena, human affairs, and ideas. According to Confucian and Nco-Confucian cosmology, "In the system of Change, there is the Great Ultimate (T'ai Chi) which engenders the Two Modes (i). The Two Modes engender the Four Secondary Modes (hsiang), which in turn give rise to the Eight Trigirams (pa kua). These Eight Trigrams (or Elements) determine all good and evil and the great complexity of life." Thus it involves in the first place, the meaning of i, or simplicity from which complexity is evolved, in the second place, the meaning of hsiang, that is, phenomenon, image, form, and in the third place, the idea of "production and reproduction." -- W.T.C.
intricacy ::: n. --> The state or quality of being intricate or entangled; perplexity; involution; complication; complexity; that which is intricate or involved; as, the intricacy of a knot; the intricacy of accounts; the intricacy of a cause in controversy; the intricacy of a plot.
i: The Great Unit. See t'ai i. T'ai Chi: The Great Ultimate or Terminus, which, in the beginning of time, "engenders the Two Primary Modes (i), which in turn engender the Four Secondary Modes or Forms (hsiang), which in their turn give rise to the Eight Elements (pa kua) and the Eight Elements determine all good and evil and the great complexity of life." (Ancient Chinese philosophy). The Great Ultimate which comes from, but is originally one with, the Non-Ultimate (wu chi). Its movement and tranquillity engender the active principle, yang, and the passive principle, yin, respectively (the Two Primary Modes), the transformation and the union of which give rise to the Five Agents (wu hsing) of Water, Fire, Wood, Metal, and Earth, and thereby the determinate things (Chou Lien-hsi, 1017-1073). The Great Ultimate which is One and unmoved, and which, when moved, becomes the Omnipotent Creative Principle (shen) which engenders Number, then Form, and finally corporeality. Being such, the Great Ultimate is identical with the Mind, it is identical with the Moral Law (tao). (Shao K'ang-chieh, 1011-1077) The Great Ultimate which is identical with the One (1), or the Grand Harmony (T'ai Ho). (Chang Heng-ch'u, 1020-1077). The Great Ultimate which is identical with the Reason (li) of the universe, of the two (yin and yang) vital forces (ch'i), and of the Five Elements (wu hsing). It is the Reason of ultimate goodness. ''Collectively there is only one Great Ultimate, but there is a Great Ultimate in each thing" (Chu Hsi, 1130-1200).
It is in his biology that the distinctive concepts of Aristotle show to best advantage. The conception of process as the actualization of determinate potentiality is well adapted to the comprehension of biological phenomena, where the immanent teleology of structure and function is almost a part of the observed facts. It is here also that the persistence of the form, or species, through a succession of individuals is most strikingly evident. His psychology is scarcely separable from his biology, since for Aristotle (as for Greek thought generally) the soul is the principle of life; it is "the primary actualization of a natural organic body." But souls differ from one another in the variety and complexity of the functions they exercise, and this difference in turn corresponds to differences in the organic structures involved. Fundamental to all other physical activities are the functions of nutrition, growth and reproduction, which are possessed by all living beings, plants as well as animals. Next come sensation, desire, and locomotion, exhibited in animals in varying degrees. Above all are deliberative choice and theoretical inquiry, the exercise of which makes the rational soul, peculiar to man among the animals. Aristotle devotes special attention to the various activities of the rational soul. Sense perception is the faculty of receiving the sensible form of outward objects without their matter. Besides the five senses Aristotle posits a "common sense," which enables the rational soul to unite the data of the separate senses into a single object, and which also accounts for the soul's awareness of these very activities of perception and of its other states. Reason is the faculty of apprehending the universals and first principles involved in all knowledge, and while helpless without sense perception it is not limited to the concrete and sensuous, but can grasp the universal and the ideal. The reason thus described as apprehending the intelligible world is in one difficult passage characterized as passive reason, requiring for its actualization a higher informing reason as the source of all intelligibility in things and of realized intelligence in man.
It might be said that the universe is infilled with chiliocosms, each one corresponding more or less to a hierarchy with its own integral system of worlds, regions, or divisions, each division again being subdivided to form the vast complexity of universal nature we see around us. Further, each such hierarchy from another standpoint consists of divine, spiritual, intellectual, astral, or astral-physical divisions running from the higher downwards to the lowest; and the three lowest of each such chiliocosm bear the names kama-loka (or kama-dhatu), rupa-loka (or rupa-dhatu), and arupa-loka (or arupa-dhatu), these three commonly spoken of as the trailokya, the name applying to whatever universe, hierarchy, or chiliocosm they may be in or belong to.
kasina. (S. *kṛtsna/*kṛtsnāyatana; T. zad par gyi skye mched; C. bianchu; J. hensho; K. p'yonch'o 遍處). In Pāli, lit. "totality" or "universal" [alt. kasināyatana], a "visualization device" that serves as the meditative foundation for the "totality" of the mind's attention to an object of concentration. Ten kasina are generally enumerated: visualization devices that are constructed from the physical elements (MAHĀBHuTA) of earth, water, fire, and air; the colors blue, yellow, red, and white; and light and empty space. The earth device, for example, might be constructed from a circle of clay of even texture, the water device from a tub of water, and the red device from a piece of red cloth or a painted red disc. The meditation begins by looking at the physical object; the perception of the device is called the "beginning sign" or "preparatory sign" (P. PARIKAMMANIMITTA). Once the object is clearly perceived, the meditator then memorizes the object so that it is seen as clearly in his mind as with his eyes. This perfect mental image of the device is called the "eidetic sign," or "learning sign" (P. UGGAHANIMITTA) and serves subsequently as the object of concentration. As the internal visualization of this eidetic sign deepens and the five hindrances (NĪVARAnA) to mental absorption (P. JHĀNA; S. DHYĀNA) are temporarily allayed, a "representational sign" or "counterpart sign" (P. PAtIBHĀGANIMITTA) will emerge from out of the eidetic image, as if, the texts say, a sword is being drawn from its scabbard or the moon is emerging from behind clouds. The representational sign is a mental representation of the visualized image, which does not duplicate what was seen with the eyes but represents its abstracted, essentialized quality. The earth disc may now appear like the moon, the water device like a mirror suspended in the sky, or the red device like a bright jewel. Whereas the eidetic sign was an exact mental copy of the visualized beginning sign, the representational sign has no fixed form but may be manipulated at will by the meditator. Continued attention to the representational sign will lead to all four of the meditative absorptions associated with the realm of subtle materiality. Perhaps because of the complexity of preparing the kasina devices, this type of meditation was superseded by techniques such as mindfulness of breathing (P. ānāpānasati; S. ĀNĀPĀNASMṚTI) and is rarely practiced in the THERAVĀDA world today. But its notion of a purely mental object being somehow a purer "representation" of the external sense object viewed by the eyes has compelling connections to later YOGĀCĀRA notions of the world being a projection of mind.
katabolic ::: a. --> Of or pertaining to katabolism; as, katabolic processes, which give rise to substances (katastates) of decreasing complexity and increasing stability.
KISS Principle /kis' prin'si-pl/ Keep It Simple, Stupid. A maxim often invoked when discussing design to fend off {creeping featurism} and control complexity of development. Possibly related to the {marketroid} maxim on sales presentations, "Keep It Short and Simple". See also {Occam's Razor}. [{Jargon File}] (1994-11-18)
KISS Principle ::: /kis' prin'si-pl/ Keep It Simple, Stupid.A maxim often invoked when discussing design to fend off creeping featurism and control complexity of development. Possibly related to the marketroid maxim on sales presentations, Keep It Short and Simple.See also Occam's Razor.[Jargon File] (1994-11-18)
Knowledge ::: The ability of consciousness to form, cohere, and persist associations. The human brain is a complexity node capable of meta-analysis and self-introspection and hence is capable of knowledge acquisition that other species are incapable of. Contrast with Wisdom and Gnosis.
labyrinthine ::: resembling a labyrinth in complexity.
legalese Dense, pedantic verbiage in a language description, product specification, or interface standard; text that seems designed to obfuscate and requires a {language lawyer} to {parse} it. Though hackers are not afraid of high information density and complexity in language (indeed, they rather enjoy both), they share a deep and abiding loathing for legalese; they associate it with deception, {suits}, and situations in which hackers generally get the short end of the stick.
Liana "language" A {C}-like, interpretive, {object-oriented programming} language, {class} library, and integrated development environment designed specifically for development of {application programs} for {Microsoft Windows} and {Windows NT}. Designed by Jack Krupansky "Jack@BaseTechnology.com" of {Base Technology}, Liana was first released as a commercial product in August 1991. The language is designed to be as easy to use as {BASIC}, as concise as {C}, and as flexible as {Smalltalk}. The {OOP} {syntax} of {C++} was chosen over the less familiar syntax of {Smalltalk} and {Objective-C} to appeal to {C} programmers and in recognition of C++ being the leading OOP language. The syntax is a simplified subset of {C/C++}. The {semantics} are also a simplified subset of C/C++, but extended to achieve the flexibility of Smalltalk. Liana is a typeless language (like {Lisp}, {Snobol} and {Smalltalk}), which means that the datatypes of variables, function parameters, and function return values are not needed since values carry the type information. Hence, variables are simply containers for values and function parameters are simply pipes through which any type of value can flow. {Single inheritance}, but not {multiple inheritance}, is supported. {Memory management} is automatic using {reference counting}. The library includes over 150 {classes}, for {dynamic arrays}, {associative lookup} tables, windows, menus, dialogs, controls, bitmaps, cursors, icons, mouse movement, keyboard input, fonts, text and graphics display, {DDE}, and {MDI}. Liana provides flexible OOP support for Windows programming. For example, a {list box} automatically fills itself from an associated {object}. That object is not some sort of special object, but is merely any object that "behaves like" an array (i.e., has a "size" member function that returns the number of elements, a "get" function that returns the ith element, and the text for each element is returned by calling the "text" member function for the element). A related product, C-odeScript, is an embeddable application scripting language. It is an implementation of Liana which can be called from C/C++ applications to dynamically evaluate expressions and statement sequences. This can be used to offer the end-user a macro/scripting capability or to allow the C/C++ application to be customized without changing the C/C++ source code. Here's a complete Liana program which illustrates the flexibility of the language semantics and the power of the class library: main { // Prompt user for a string. // No declaration needed for "x" (becomes a global variable.) x = ask ("Enter a String"); // Use "+" operator to concatenate strings. Memory // management for string temporaries is automatic. The // "message" function displays a Windows message box. message ("You entered: " + x); // Now x will take on a different type. The "ask_number" // function will return a "real" if the user's input // contains a decimal point or an "int" if no decimal // point. x = ask_number ("Enter a Number"); // The "+" operator with a string operand will // automatically convert the other operand to a string. message ("You entered: " + x); // Prompt user for a Liana expression. Store it in a // local variable (the type, string, is merely for // documentation.) string expr = ask ("Enter an Expression"); // Evaluate the expression. The return value of "eval" // could be any type. The "source_format" member function // converts any value to its source format (e.g., add // quotes for a string.) The "class_name" member function // return the name of the class of an object/value. // Empty parens can be left off for member function calls. x = eval (expr); message ("The value of " + expr + " is " + x.source_format + " its type is " + x.class_name); } The author explained that the "Li" of Liana stands for "Language interpreter" and liana are vines that grow up trees in tropical forests, which seemed quite appropriate for a tool to deal with the complexity of MS Windows! It is also a woman's name. ["Liana for Windows", Aitken, P., PC TECHNIQUES, Dec/Jan 1993]. ["Liana: A Language For Writing Windows Programs", Burk, R., Tech Specialist (R&D Publications), Sep 1991]. ["Liana v. 1.0." Hildebrand, J.D., Computer Language, Dec 1992]. ["Liana: A Windows Programming Language Based on C and C++", Krupansky, J., The C Users Journal, Jul 1992]. ["Writing a Multimedia App in Liana", Krupansky, J., Dr. Dobb's Journal, Winter Multimedia Sourcebook 1994]. ["The Liana Programming Language", R. Valdes, Dr Dobbs J Oct 1993, pp.50-52]. (1999-06-29)
Liana ::: (language) A C-like, interpretive, object-oriented programming language, class library, and integrated development environment designed specifically for language is designed to be as easy to use as BASIC, as concise as C, and as flexible as Smalltalk.The OOP syntax of C++ was chosen over the less familiar syntax of Smalltalk and Objective-C to appeal to C programmers and in recognition of C++ being the are also a simplified subset of C/C++, but extended to achieve the flexibility of Smalltalk.Liana is a typeless language (like Lisp, Snobol and Smalltalk), which means that the datatypes of variables, function parameters, and function return values are type of value can flow. Single inheritance, but not multiple inheritance, is supported. Memory management is automatic using reference counting.The library includes over 150 classes, for dynamic arrays, associative lookup tables, windows, menus, dialogs, controls, bitmaps, cursors, icons, mouse movement, keyboard input, fonts, text and graphics display, DDE, and MDI.Liana provides flexible OOP support for Windows programming. For example, a list box automatically fills itself from an associated object. That object is not get function that returns the ith element, and the text for each element is returned by calling the text member function for the element).A related product, C-odeScript, is an embeddable application scripting language. It is an implementation of Liana which can be called from C/C++ applications to offer the end-user a macro/scripting capability or to allow the C/C++ application to be customized without changing the C/C++ source code.Here's a complete Liana program which illustrates the flexibility of the language semantics and the power of the class library: main{ for a tool to deal with the complexity of MS Windows! It is also a woman's name.[Liana for Windows, Aitken, P., PC TECHNIQUES, Dec/Jan 1993].[Liana: A Language For Writing Windows Programs, Burk, R., Tech Specialist (R&D Publications), Sep 1991].[Liana v. 1.0. Hildebrand, J.D., Computer Language, Dec 1992].[Liana: A Windows Programming Language Based on C and C++, Krupansky, J., The C Users Journal, Jul 1992].[Writing a Multimedia App in Liana, Krupansky, J., Dr. Dobb's Journal, Winter Multimedia Sourcebook 1994].[The Liana Programming Language, R. Valdes, Dr Dobbs J Oct 1993, pp.50-52]. (1999-06-29)
Life ::: (games) The first popular cellular automata based artificial life game. Life was invented by British mathematician John Horton Conway in 1970 and was first introduced publicly in Scientific American later that year.Conway first devised what he called The Game of Life and ran it using plates placed on floor tiles in his house. Because of he ran out of floor space and That first implementation of Life as a computer program was written by M. J. T. Guy and S. R. Bourne (the author of Unix's Bourne shell).Life uses a rectangular grid of binary (live or dead) cells each of which is updated at each step according to the previous state of its eight neighbours as dies. A dead cell with exactly three neighbours becomes alive. Other cells do not change.While the rules are fairly simple, the patterns that can arise are of a complexity resembling that of organic systems -- hence the name Life.Many hackers pass through a stage of fascination with Life, and hackers at various places contributed heavily to the mathematical analysis of this game than the magazine, the breakfast cereal, the 1950s-era board game or the human state of existence. . .[Scientific American 223, October 1970, p120-123, 224; February 1971 p121-117, Martin Gardner].[The Garden in The Machine: the Emerging Science of Artificial Life, Claus Emmeche, 1994].[Winning Ways, For Your Mathematical Plays, Elwyn R. Berlekamp, John Horton Conway and Richard K. Guy, 1982].[The Recursive Universe: Cosmic Complexity and the Limits of Scientific Knowledge, William Poundstone, 1985].[Jargon File] (1997-09-07)
metaheuristic "algorithm, complexity, computability" A top-level general strategy which guides other {heuristics} to search for feasible solutions in domains where the task is hard. Metaheuristics have been most generally applied to problems classified as {NP-Hard} or {NP-Complete} by the theory of {computational complexity}. However, metaheuristics would also be applied to other {combinatorial} {optimisation} problems for which it is known that a {polynomial-time} solution exists but is not practical. Examples of metaheuristics are {Tabu Search}, {simulated annealing}, {genetic algorithms} and {memetic algorithms}. (1997-10-30)
metaheuristic ::: (algorithm, complexity, computability) A top-level general strategy which guides other heuristics to search for feasible solutions in domains where the task is hard.Metaheuristics have been most generally applied to problems classified as NP-Hard or NP-Complete by the theory of computational complexity. However, problems for which it is known that a polynomial-time solution exists but is not practical.Examples of metaheuristics are Tabu Search, simulated annealing, genetic algorithms and memetic algorithms. (1997-10-30)
Moore's Law "architecture" /morz law/ The observation, made in 1965 by {Intel} co-founder {Gordon Moore} while preparing a speech, that each new memory {integrated circuit} contained roughly twice as much capacity as its predecessor, and each chip was released within 18-24 months of the previous chip. If this trend continued, he reasoned, computing power would rise exponentially with time. Moore's observation still holds in 1997 and is the basis for many performance forecasts. In 24 years the number of {transistors} on processor chips has increased by a factor of almost 2400, from 2300 on the {Intel 4004} in 1971 to 5.5 million on the {Pentium Pro} in 1995 (doubling roughly every two years). Date Chip Transistors MIPS clock/MHz ----------------------------------------------- Nov 1971 4004 2300 0.06 0.108 Apr 1974 8080 6000 0.64 2 Jun 1978 8086 29000 0.75 10 Feb 1982 80286 134000 2.66 12 Oct 1985 386DX 275000 5 16 Apr 1989 80486 1200000 20 25 Mar 1993 Pentium 3100000 112 66 Nov 1995 Pentium Pro 5500000 428 200 ----------------------------------------------- Moore's Law has been (mis)interpreted to mean many things over the years. In particular, {microprocessor} performance has increased faster than the number of transistors per chip. The number of {MIPS} has, on average, doubled every 1.8 years for the past 25 years, or every 1.6 years for the last 10 years. While more recent processors have had wider {data paths}, which would correspond to an increase in transistor count, their performance has also increased due to increased {clock rates}. Chip density in transistors per unit area has increased less quickly - a factor of only 146 between the 4004 (12 mm^2) and the Pentium Pro (196 mm^2) (doubling every 3.3 years). {Feature size} has decreased from 10 to 0.35 microns which would give over 800 times as many transistors per unit. However, the automatic layout required to cope with the increased complexity is less efficient than the hand layout used for early processors. {(http://intel.com/intel/museum/25anniv/html/hof/moore.htm)}. {Intel Microprocessor Quick Reference Guide (http://intel.com/pressroom/no_frame/quickref.htm)}. {"Birth of a Chip", Linley Gwennap, Byte, Dec 1996 (http://byte.com/art/9612/sec6/art2.htm)}. See also March 1997 "inbox". {Chronology of Events in the History of Microcomputers (http://islandnet.com/~kpolsson/comphist.htm)}, Ken Polsson. See also {Parkinson's Law of Data}. [{Jargon File}] (1997-03-04)
Moore's Law ::: (architecture) /morz law/ The observation, made in 1965 by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore while preparing a speech, that each new memory trend continued, he reasoned, computing power would rise exponentially with time.Moore's observation still holds in 1997 and is the basis for many performance forecasts. In 24 years the number of transistors on processor chips has increased by a factor of almost 2400, from 2300 on the Intel 4004 in 1971 to 5.5 million on the Pentium Pro in 1995 (doubling roughly every two years). Date Chip Transistors MIPS clock/MHz----------------------------------------------- performance has also increased due to increased clock rates.Chip density in transistors per unit area has increased less quickly - a factor of only 146 between the 4004 (12 mm^2) and the Pentium Pro (196 mm^2) (doubling required to cope with the increased complexity is less efficient than the hand layout used for early processors. . . . See also March 1997 inbox. , Ken Polsson.See also Parkinson's Law of Data.[Jargon File] (1997-03-04)
natural language ::: (application) A language spoken or written by humans, as opposed to a language use to program or communicate with computers. Natural language the complexity, irregularity and diversity of human language and the philosophical problems of meaning.See also Pleuk grammar development system, proof. . . (1995-04-24)
natural language "application" A language spoken or written by humans, as opposed to a language use to program or communicate with computers. Natural language understanding is one of the hardest problems of {artificial intelligence} due to the complexity, irregularity and diversity of human language and the philosophical problems of meaning. See also {Pleuk grammar development system}, {proof}, {MIT "Start" Project (http://start.csail.mit.edu/)}, {New York U (http://nyu.edu/pages/linguistics/ling.html)}. (2011-01-30)
nondeterministic polynomial time ::: (complexity) (NP) A set or property of computational decision problems solvable by a nondeterministic Turing Machine in a number of steps that is a nondeterminism or trial and error. This may take exponential time as long as a potential solution can be verified in polynomial time.NP is obviously a superset of P (polynomial time problems solvable by a deterministic Turing Machine in polynomial time) since a deterministic algorithm solved in polynomial time? Everyone's first guess is no, but no one has managed to prove this; and some very clever people think the answer is yes.If a problem A is in NP and a polynomial time algorithm for A could also be used to solve problem B in polynomial time, then B is also in NP.See also Co-NP, NP-complete.[Examples?] (1995-04-10)
nondeterministic polynomial time "complexity" (NP) A set or property of computational {decision problems} solvable by a {nondeterministic Turing Machine} in a number of steps that is a {polynomial} function of the size of the input. The word "nondeterministic" suggests a method of generating potential solutions using some form of {nondeterminism} or "trial and error". This may take {exponential time} as long as a potential solution can be verified in {polynomial time}. NP is obviously a superset of P ({polynomial time} problems solvable by a deterministic {Turing Machine} in {polynomial time}) since a deterministic algorithm can be considered as a degenerate form of nondeterministic algorithm. The question then arises: is NP equal to P? I.e. can every problem in NP actually be solved in polynomial time? Everyone's first guess is "no", but no one has managed to prove this; and some very clever people think the answer is "yes". If a problem A is in NP and a polynomial time algorithm for A could also be used to solve problem B in polynomial time, then B is also in NP. See also {Co-NP}, {NP-complete}. [Examples?] (1995-04-10)
Nondeterministic Turing Machine "complexity" A normal (deterministic) {Turing Machine} that has a "guessing head" - a write-only head that writes a guess at a solution on the tape first, based on some arbitrary internal {algorithm}. The regular {Turing Machine} then runs and returns "yes" or "no" to indicate whether the solution is correct. A {nondeterministic Turing Machine} can solve {nondeterministic polynomial time} computational {decision problems} in a number of steps that is a {polynomial} function of the size of the input (1995-04-27)
Nondeterministic Turing Machine ::: (complexity) A normal (deterministic) Turing Machine that has a guessing head - a write-only head that writes a guess at a solution on the tape first, based on some arbitrary internal algorithm. The regular Turing Machine then runs and returns yes or no to indicate whether the solution is correct.A nondeterministic Turing Machine can solve nondeterministic polynomial time computational decision problems in a number of steps that is a polynomial function of the size of the input (1995-04-27)
non-polynomial "complexity" The set or property of problems for which no {polynomial-time algorithm} is known. This includes problems for which the only known {algorithms} require a number of steps which increases exponentially with the size of the problem, and those for which no {algorithm} at all is known. Within these two there are problems which are "{provably difficult}" and "{provably unsolvable}". (1995-04-10)
non-polynomial ::: (complexity) The set or property of problems for which no polynomial-time algorithm is known.This includes problems for which the only known algorithms require a number of steps which increases exponentially with the size of the problem, and those for which no algorithm at all is known. Within these two there are problems which are provably difficult and provably unsolvable. (1995-04-10)
NP "complexity" {nondeterministic polynomial time}. [{Jargon File}]
NP ::: (complexity) nondeterministic polynomial time.[Jargon File]
NPC ::: 1. (complexity) NP-complete.2. (architecture) Next Program Counter.(2000-07-12)
NPC 1. "complexity" {NP-complete}. 2. "architecture" {Next Program Counter}. (2000-07-12)
NP-complete ::: (complexity) (NPC, Nondeterministic Polynomial time complete) A set or property of computational decision problems which is a subset of NP (i.e. can be problem would solve all problems in NP. Many (but not all) naturally arising problems in class NP are in fact NP-complete.There is always a polynomial-time algorithm for transforming an instance of any NP-complete problem into an instance of any other NP-complete problem. So if you could solve one you could solve any other by transforming it to the solved one.The first problem ever shown to be NP-complete was the satisfiability problem. Another example is Hamilton's problem.See also computational complexity, halting problem, Co-NP, NP-hard. .[Other examples?] (1995-04-10)
NP-complete "complexity" (NPC, Nondeterministic Polynomial time complete) A set or property of computational {decision problems} which is a subset of {NP} (i.e. can be solved by a {nondeterministic} {Turing Machine} in {polynomial} time), with the additional property that it is also {NP-hard}. Thus a solution for one NP-complete problem would solve all problems in NP. Many (but not all) naturally arising problems in class NP are in fact NP-complete. There is always a {polynomial-time algorithm} for transforming an instance of any NP-complete problem into an instance of any other NP-complete problem. So if you could solve one you could solve any other by transforming it to the solved one. The first problem ever shown to be NP-complete was the {satisfiability problem}. Another example is {Hamilton's problem}. See also {computational complexity}, {halting problem}, {Co-NP}, {NP-hard}. {(http://fi-www.arc.nasa.gov/fia/projects/bayes-group/group/NP/)}. [Other examples?] (1995-04-10)
NP-completeness ::: In computational complexity theory, a problem is NP-complete when it can be solved by a restricted class of brute force search algorithms and it can be used to simulate any other problem with a similar algorithm. More precisely, each input to the problem should be associated with a set of solutions of polynomial length, whose validity can be tested quickly (in polynomial time[241]), such that the output for any input is "yes" if the solution set is non-empty and "no" if it is empty.
NP-hard "complexity" A set or property of computational {search problems}. A problem is NP-hard if solving it in {polynomial time} would make it possible to solve all problems in class {NP} in polynomial time. Some NP-hard problems are also in {NP} (these are called "{NP-complete}"), some are not. If you could reduce an {NP} problem to an NP-hard problem and then solve it in polynomial time, you could solve all NP problems. See also {computational complexity}. [Examples?] (1995-04-10)
NP-hard ::: (complexity) A set or property of computational search problems. A problem is NP-hard if solving it in polynomial time would make it possible to solve all problems in class NP in polynomial time.Some NP-hard problems are also in NP (these are called NP-complete), some are not. If you could reduce an NP problem to an NP-hard problem and then solve it in polynomial time, you could solve all NP problems.See also computational complexity.[Examples?] (1995-04-10)
NP-hilarious "humour" An {algorithm} whose complexity is a joke, either literally, as in {BogoSort}, or metaphorically. [{Dodgy Coder (http://www.dodgycoder.net/2011/11/yoda-conditions-pokemon-exception.html)}]. (2014-06-28)
NP ::: In computational complexity theory, NP (nondeterministic polynomial time) is a complexity class used to classify decision problems. NP is the set of decision problems for which the problem instances, where the answer is "yes", have proofs verifiable in polynomial time.[240][Note 1]
occurs check "programming" A feature of some implementations of {unification} which causes unification of a {logic variable} V and a structure S to fail if S contains V. Binding a variable to a structure containing that variable results in a cyclic structure which may subsequently cause unification to loop forever. Some implementations use extra pointer comparisons to avoid this. Most implementations of {Prolog} do not perform the occurs check for reasons of efficiency. Without occurs check the {complexity} of {unification} is O(min(size(term1), size(term2))) with occurs check it's O(max(size(term1), size(term2))) In {theorem proving} unification without the occurs check can lead to unsound inference. For example, in {Prolog} it is quite valid to write X = f(X). which will succeed, binding X to a cyclic structure. Clearly however, if f is taken to stand for a function rather than a {constructor}, then the above equality is only valid if f is the {identity function}. Weijland calls unification without occur check, "complete unification". The reference below describes a complete unification algorithm in terms of Colmerauer's consistency algorithm. ["Semantics for Logic Programs without Occur Check", W.P. Weijland, Theoretical Computer Science 71 (1990) pp 155-174]. (1996-01-11)
occurs check ::: (programming) A feature of some implementations of unification which causes unification of a logic variable V and a structure S to fail if S contains V.Binding a variable to a structure containing that variable results in a cyclic structure which may subsequently cause unification to loop forever. Some implementations use extra pointer comparisons to avoid this.Most implementations of Prolog do not perform the occurs check for reasons of efficiency. Without occurs check the complexity of unification is O(min(size(term1), size(term2))) with occurs check it's O(max(size(term1), size(term2))) unsound inference. For example, in Prolog it is quite valid to write X = f(X). constructor, then the above equality is only valid if f is the identity function.Weijland calls unification without occur check, complete unification. The reference below describes a complete unification algorithm in terms of Colmerauer's consistency algorithm.[Semantics for Logic Programs without Occur Check, W.P. Weijland, Theoretical Computer Science 71 (1990) pp 155-174]. (1996-01-11)
Ousterhout's dichotomy "language" {John Ousterhout}'s division of {high-level languages} into "system programming languages" and "scripting languages". This distinction underlies the design of his language {Tcl}. System programming languages (or "applications languages") are {strongly typed}, allow arbitrarily complex {data structures}, and programs in them are {compiled}, and are meant to operate largely independently of other programs. Prototypical system programming languages are {C} and {Modula-2}. By contrast, scripting languages (or "glue languages") are weakly typed or untyped, have little or no provision for complex data structures, and programs in them ("{scripts}") are {interpreted}. Scripts need to interact either with other programs (often as {glue}) or with a set of functions provided by the interpreter, as with the {file system} functions provided in a {UNIX shell} and with {Tcl}'s {GUI} functions. Prototypical scripting languages are {AppleScript}, {C Shell}, {MS-DOS} {batch files} and {Tcl}. Many believe that this is a highly arbitrary dichotomy, and refer to it as "Ousterhout's fallacy" or "Ousterhout's false dichotomy". While strong-versus-weak typing, data structure complexity, and independent versus stand-alone might be said to be unrelated features, the usual critique of Ousterhout's dichotomy is of its distinction of compilation versus interpretation, since neither {semantics} nor {syntax} depend significantly on whether code is compiled into {machine-language}, interpreted, {tokenized}, or {byte-compiled} at the start of each run, or any mixture of these. Many languages fall between being interpreted or compiled (e.g. {Lisp}, {Forth}, {UCSD Pascal}, {Perl}, and {Java}). This makes compilation versus interpretation a dubious parameter in a taxonomy of programming languages. (2002-05-28)
Panpsychism ::: The philosophical view that holds consciousness as a fundamental unit of reality: both in terms of mind and matter. Although there are different flavors of panpsychism, it is at its core a philosophical doctrine that treats consciousness as a fundamental property of the Universe and not as an emergent property of the brain or nervous system (although those structures can affect the manifestation of complexity). On Lux Saturni, Consciousness is not just a fundamental property of reality, it is the quantum from which reality, physical and experiential, is built.
Pascal "language" (After the French mathematician {Blaise Pascal} (1623-1662)) A programming language designed by {Niklaus Wirth} around 1970. Pascal was designed for simplicity and for teaching programming, in reaction to the complexity of {ALGOL 68}. It emphasises {structured programming} constructs, data structures and {strong typing}. Innovations included {enumeration types}, {subranges}, sets, {variant records}, and the {case statement}. Pascal has been extremely influential in programming language design and has a great number of variants and descendants. ANSI/IEEE770X3.97-1993 is very similar to {ISO Pascal} but does not include {conformant arrays}. ISO 7185-1983(E). Level 0 and Level 1. Changes from Jensen & Wirth's Pascal include name equivalence; names must be bound before they are used; loop index must be local to the procedure; formal procedure parameters must include their arguments; {conformant array schemas}. An ALGOL-descended language designed by Niklaus Wirth on the CDC 6600 around 1967--68 as an instructional tool for elementary programming. This language, designed primarily to keep students from shooting themselves in the foot and thus extremely restrictive from a general-purpose-programming point of view, was later promoted as a general-purpose tool and, in fact, became the ancestor of a large family of languages including Modula-2 and {Ada} (see also {bondage-and-discipline language}). The hackish point of view on Pascal was probably best summed up by a devastating (and, in its deadpan way, screamingly funny) 1981 paper by Brian Kernighan (of {K&R} fame) entitled "Why Pascal is Not My Favourite Programming Language", which was turned down by the technical journals but circulated widely via photocopies. It was eventually published in "Comparing and Assessing Programming Languages", edited by Alan Feuer and Narain Gehani (Prentice-Hall, 1984). Part of his discussion is worth repeating here, because its criticisms are still apposite to Pascal itself after ten years of improvement and could also stand as an indictment of many other bondage-and-discipline languages. At the end of a summary of the case against Pascal, Kernighan wrote: 9. There is no escape This last point is perhaps the most important. The language is inadequate but circumscribed, because there is no way to escape its limitations. There are no casts to disable the type-checking when necessary. There is no way to replace the defective run-time environment with a sensible one, unless one controls the compiler that defines the "standard procedures". The language is closed. People who use Pascal for serious programming fall into a fatal trap. Because the language is impotent, it must be extended. But each group extends Pascal in its own direction, to make it look like whatever language they really want. Extensions for {separate compilation}, Fortran-like COMMON, string data types, internal static variables, initialisation, {octal} numbers, bit operators, etc., all add to the utility of the language for one group but destroy its portability to others. I feel that it is a mistake to use Pascal for anything much beyond its original target. In its pure form, Pascal is a toy language, suitable for teaching but not for real programming. Pascal has since been almost entirely displaced (by {C}) from the niches it had acquired in serious applications and systems programming, but retains some popularity as a hobbyist language in the {MS-DOS} and {Macintosh} worlds. See also {Kamin's interpreters}, {p2c}. ["The Programming Language Pascal", N. Wirth, Acta Informatica 1:35-63, 1971]. ["PASCAL User Manual and Report", K. Jensen & N. Wirth, Springer 1975] made significant revisions to the language. [BS 6192, "Specification for Computer Programming Language Pascal", {British Standards Institute} 1982]. [{Jargon File}] (1996-06-12)
Perl ::: (language, tool) A high-level programming language, started by Larry Wall in 1987 and developed as an open source project. It has an eclectic heritage, and languages. Originally developed for Unix, it is now available for many platforms.Perl's elaborate support for regular expression matching and substitution has made it the language of choice for tasks involving string manipulation, whether for text or binary data. It is particularly popular for writing CGI scripts.The language's highly flexible syntax and concise regular expression operators, make densely written Perl code indecipherable to the uninitiated. The syntax is, however, really quite simple and powerful and, once the basics have been mastered, a joy to write.Perl's only primitive data type is the scalar, which can hold a number, a string, the undefined value, or a typed reference. Perl's aggregate data types Strings in Perl are eight-bit clean, including nulls, and so can contain binary data.Unlike C but like most Lisp dialects, Perl internally and dynamically handles all memory allocation, garbage collection, and type coercion.Perl supports closures, recursive functions, symbols with either lexical scope or dynamic scope, nested data structures of arbitrary content and complexity (as contain embedded documentation in POD (Plain Old Documentation), a simple markup language.The normal Perl distribution contains documentation for the language, as well as over a hundred modules (program libraries). Hundreds more are available from The Perl, but can be implemented as interfaces to code in other languages, typically compiled C.The free availability of modules for almost any conceivable task, as well as the fact that Perl offers direct access to almost all system calls and places no Perl, in a parody of a famous remark about lex, as the Swiss Army chainsaw of programming.The use of Perl has grown significantly since its adoption as the language of choice of many World-Wide Web developers. CGI interfaces and libraries for Perl exist for several platforms and Perl's speed and flexibility make it well suited for form processing and on-the-fly web page creation.Perl programs are generally stored as text source files, which are compiled into virtual machine code at run time; this, in combination with its rich variety of Ousterhout's dichotomy. Perl programs are usually called Perl scripts, if only for historical reasons.Version 5 was a major rewrite and enhancement of version 4, released sometime before November 1993. It added real data structures by way of references, un-adorned subroutine calls, and method inheritance.The spelling Perl is preferred over the older PERL (even though some explain the language's name as originating in the acronym for Practical Extraction and Report Language). The program that interprets/compiles Perl code is called perl, typically /usr/local/bin/perl or /usr/bin/perl.Current version: 5.005_03 stable, 5.005_62 in development, as of 1999-12-04. .Usenet newsgroups: comp.lang.perl.announce, comp.lang.perl.misc.[Programming Perl, Larry Wall and Randal L. Schwartz, O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. Sebastopol, CA. ISBN 0-93715-64-1].[Learning Perl by Randal L. Schwartz, O'Reilly & Associates, Inc., Sebastopol, CA].[Jargon File] (1999-12-04)
Perl "language, tool" A {high-level} programming language, started by {Larry Wall} in 1987 and developed as an {open source} project. It has an eclectic heritage, deriving from the ubiquitous {C} programming language and to a lesser extent from {sed}, {awk}, various {Unix} {shell} languages, {Lisp}, and at least a dozen other tools and languages. Originally developed for {Unix}, it is now available for many {platforms}. Perl's elaborate support for {regular expression} matching and substitution has made it the {language of choice} for tasks involving {string manipulation}, whether for text or binary data. It is particularly popular for writing {CGI scripts}. The language's highly flexible syntax and concise regular expression operators, make densely written Perl code indecipherable to the uninitiated. The syntax is, however, really quite simple and powerful and, once the basics have been mastered, a joy to write. Perl's only {primitive} data type is the "scalar", which can hold a number, a string, the undefined value, or a typed reference. Perl's {aggregate} data types are {arrays}, which are ordered lists of {scalars} indexed by {natural numbers}, and hashes (or "{associative arrays}") which are unordered lists of scalars indexed by strings. A reference can point to a scalar, array, hash, {function}, or {filehandle}. {Objects} are implemented as references "{blessed}" with a {class} name. Strings in Perl are {eight-bit clean}, including {nulls}, and so can contain {binary data}. Unlike C but like most Lisp dialects, Perl internally and dynamically handles all memory allocation, {garbage collection}, and type {coercion}. Perl supports {closures}, {recursive functions}, {symbols} with either {lexical scope} or {dynamic scope}, nested {data structures} of arbitrary content and complexity (as lists or hashes of references), and packages (which can serve as classes, optionally inheriting {methods} from one or more other classes). There is ongoing work on {threads}, {Unicode}, {exceptions}, and {backtracking}. Perl program files can contain embedded documentation in {POD} (Plain Old Documentation), a simple markup language. The normal Perl distribution contains documentation for the language, as well as over a hundred modules (program libraries). Hundreds more are available from The {Comprehensive Perl Archive Network}. Modules are themselves generally written in Perl, but can be implemented as interfaces to code in other languages, typically compiled C. The free availability of modules for almost any conceivable task, as well as the fact that Perl offers direct access to almost all {system calls} and places no arbitrary limits on data structure size or complexity, has led some to describe Perl, in a parody of a famous remark about {lex}, as the "Swiss Army chainsaw" of programming. The use of Perl has grown significantly since its adoption as the language of choice of many {web} developers. {CGI} interfaces and libraries for Perl exist for several {platforms} and Perl's speed and flexibility make it well suited for form processing and on-the-fly {web page} creation. Perl programs are generally stored as {text} {source} files, which are compiled into {virtual machine} code at run time; this, in combination with its rich variety of data types and its common use as a glue language, makes Perl somewhat hard to classify as either a "{scripting language}" or an "{applications language}" -- see {Ousterhout's dichotomy}. Perl programs are usually called "Perl scripts", if only for historical reasons. Version 5 was a major rewrite and enhancement of version 4, released sometime before November 1993. It added real {data structures} by way of "references", un-adorned {subroutine} calls, and {method} {inheritance}. The spelling "Perl" is preferred over the older "PERL" (even though some explain the language's name as originating in the acronym for "Practical Extraction and Report Language"). The program that interprets/compiles Perl code is called "perl", typically "/usr/local/bin/perl" or "/usr/bin/perl". {(http://perl.com/)}. {Usenet} newsgroups: {news:comp.lang.perl.announce}, {news:comp.lang.perl.misc}. ["Programming Perl", Larry Wall and Randal L. Schwartz, O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. Sebastopol, CA. ISBN 0-93715-64-1]. ["Learning Perl" by Randal L. Schwartz, O'Reilly & Associates, Inc., Sebastopol, CA]. [{Jargon File}] (1999-12-04)
Physicality ::: The property of reality that imparts a physical presence upon the mind; a stability of form that allows for greater expression and introspection to occur. This is a tremendously complicated illusion formed by the mind on its journey from noumenal reality through increasingly complex dualistic layers of Itself. One system that models the causal journey of Consciousness toward greater complexity is the Kabbalah. See also Maya.
pipeline ::: (architecture) A sequence of functional units (stages) which performs a task in several steps, like an assembly line in a factory. Each functional unit all the stages to work in parallel thus giving greater throughput than if each input had to pass through the whole pipeline before the next input could enter.The costs are greater latency and complexity due to the need to synchronise the stages in some way so that different inputs do not interfere. The pipeline will only work at full efficiency if it can be filled and emptied at the same rate that it can process.Pipelines may be synchronous or asynchronous. A synchronous pipeline has a master clock and each stage must complete its work within one cycle. The minimum requires handshaking between stages so that a new output is not written to the interstage buffer before the previous one has been used.Many CPUs are arranged as one or more pipelines, with different stages performing tasks such as fetch instruction, decode instruction, fetch arguments, Pipelining is often combined with instruction prefetch in an attempt to keep the pipeline busy.When a branch is taken, the contents of early stages will contain instructions from locations after the branch which should not be executed. The pipeline then has to be flushed and reloaded. This is known as a pipeline break. (1996-10-13)
pipeline "architecture" A sequence of {functional units} ("stages") which performs a task in several steps, like an assembly line in a factory. Each functional unit takes inputs and produces outputs which are stored in its output {buffer}. One stage's output buffer is the next stage's input buffer. This arrangement allows all the stages to work in parallel thus giving greater throughput than if each input had to pass through the whole pipeline before the next input could enter. The costs are greater latency and complexity due to the need to synchronise the stages in some way so that different inputs do not interfere. The pipeline will only work at full efficiency if it can be filled and emptied at the same rate that it can process. Pipelines may be synchronous or asynchronous. A synchronous pipeline has a master clock and each stage must complete its work within one cycle. The minimum clock period is thus determined by the slowest stage. An asynchronous pipeline requires {handshaking} between stages so that a new output is not written to the interstage buffer before the previous one has been used. Many {CPUs} are arranged as one or more pipelines, with different stages performing tasks such as fetch instruction, decode instruction, fetch arguments, arithmetic operations, store results. For maximum performance, these rely on a continuous stream of instructions fetched from sequential locations in memory. Pipelining is often combined with {instruction prefetch} in an attempt to keep the pipeline busy. When a {branch} is taken, the contents of early stages will contain instructions from locations after the branch which should not be executed. The pipeline then has to be flushed and reloaded. This is known as a {pipeline break}. (1996-10-13)
pnambic "jargon" /p*-nam'bik/ (From the scene in the film, "The Wizard of Oz" in which the true nature of the wizard is first discovered: "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain"). A term coined by Daniel Klein "dvk@lonewolf.com" for a stage of development of a process or function that, owing to incomplete implementation or to the complexity of the system, requires human interaction to simulate or replace some or all of its actions, inputs or outputs. The term may also be applied to a process or function whose apparent operations are wholly or partially falsified or one requiring {prestidigitization}. The ultimate pnambic product was "Dan Bricklin's Demo", a program which supported flashy user-interface design prototyping. There is a related maxim among hackers: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo." See {magic} for illumination of this point. ["Open Channel", IEEE "Computer", November 1981]. [{Jargon File}] (1994-11-01)
polynomial ::: 1. (mathematics) An arithmetic expression composed by summing multiples of powers of some variable. P(x) = sum a_i x^i for i = 0 .. N constant, if N=1, P(x) is linear in x. N=2 gives a quadratic and N=3, a cubic.2. (complexity) polynomial-time.
polynomial 1. "mathematics" An arithmetic expression composed by summing multiples of powers of some variable. P(x) = sum a_i x^i for i = 0 .. N The multipliers, a_i, are known as "{coefficients}" and N, the highest power of x with a non-zero coefficient, is known as the "degree" of the polynomial. If N=0 then P(x) is constant, if N=1, P(x) is linear in x. N=2 gives a "{quadratic}" and N=3, a "cubic". 2. "complexity" {polynomial-time}.
polynomial-time algorithm "complexity" A known {algorithm} (or {Turing Machine}) that is guaranteed to terminate within a number of steps which is a {polynomial} function of the size of the problem. See also {computational complexity}, {exponential time}, {nondeterministic polynomial-time} (NP), {NP-complete}. (1995-04-13)
polynomial-time algorithm ::: (complexity) A known algorithm (or Turing Machine) that is guaranteed to terminate within a number of steps which is a polynomial function of the size of the problem.See also computational complexity, exponential time, nondeterministic polynomial-time (NP), NP-complete. (1995-04-13)
polynomial-time "complexity" (P) The set or property of problems which can be solved by a known {polynomial-time algorithm}. (1995-04-10)
polynomial-time ::: (complexity) (P) The set or property of problems which can be solved by a known polynomial-time algorithm. (1995-04-10)
Process and Experiment Automation Real-Time Language "language" (PEARL) A {real-time} language for programming {process control} systems, widely used in Europe. Size and complexity exceeds {Ada}. Defined in {DIN} 66253 Teil 2. ["Programmiersprache PEARL", Beuth-Verlag, Nov 1980]. (2000-08-16)
Process and Experiment Automation Real-Time Language ::: (language) (PEARL) A real-time language for programming process control systems, widely used in Europe. Size and complexity exceeds Ada. Defined in DIN 66253 Teil 2.[Programmiersprache PEARL, Beuth-Verlag, Nov 1980].(2000-08-16)
progress ::: n. 1. An advance towards a higher or better stage; steady improvement. v. 2. To grow or develop, as in complexity, scope, etc.; advance. progresses.
Quicksort ::: A sorting algorithm with O(n log n) average time complexity.One element, x of the list to be sorted is chosen and the other elements are split into those elements less than x and those greater than or equal to x. is only one element in each list, at which point the sublists are recursively recombined in order yielding the sorted list.This can be written in Haskell: qsort :: Ord a => [a] -> [a]qsort [] = [] [Mark Jones, Gofer prelude.]
Quicksort A sorting {algorithm} with O(n log n) average time {complexity}. One element, x of the list to be sorted is chosen and the other elements are split into those elements less than x and those greater than or equal to x. These two lists are then sorted {recursive}ly using the same algorithm until there is only one element in each list, at which point the sublists are recursively recombined in order yielding the sorted list. This can be written in {Haskell}: qsort :: Ord a =" [a] -" [a] qsort [] = [] qsort (x:xs) = qsort [ u | u"-xs, u"x ] ++ [ x ] ++ qsort [ u | u"-xs, u"=x ] [Mark Jones, Gofer prelude.]
radiosity ::: (graphics) A method for rendering a view of a three-dimensional scene that provides realistic lighting effects, such as interobject reflections and color bleeding. Radiosity methods are computationally intense, due to the use of linear systems of equations and the spatial complexity of large scenes.Usenet newsgroup: comp.graphics.[Is radiosity more accurate than ray tracing? Does it take more computing power? How does compute time scale with scene complexity?](2003-06-01)
radiosity "graphics" A method for rendering a view of a three-dimensional scene that provides realistic lighting effects, such as interobject reflections and {color bleeding}. Radiosity methods are computationally intense, due to the use of linear systems of equations and the spatial complexity of large scenes. {Usenet} newsgroup: {news:comp.graphics}. [Is radiosity more accurate than {ray tracing}? Does it take more computing power? How does compute time scale with scene complexity?] (2003-06-01)
Raja yoga ::: This is the first step only. Afterwards, the ordinary activities of the mind and sense must be entirely quieted in order that the soul may be free to ascend to higher states of consciousness and acquire the foundation for a perfect freedom and self-mastery. But Rajayoga does not forget that the disabilities of the ordinary mind proceed largely from its subjection to the reactions of the nervous system and the body. It adopts th
refore from the Hathayogic system its devices of asana and pranayama, but reduces their multiple and elaborate forms in each case to one simplest and most directly effective process sufficient for its own immediate object. Thus it gets rid of the Hathayogic complexity and cumbrousness while it utilises the swift and powerful efficacy of its methods for the control of the body and the vital functions and for the awakening of that internal dynamism, full of a latent supernormal faculty, typified in Yogic terminology by the kundalinı, the coiled and sleeping serpent of Energy within. This done, the system proceeds to the perfect quieting of the restless mind and its elevation to a higher plane through concentration of mental force by the successive stages which lead to the utmost inner concentration or ingathered state of the consciousness which is called Samadhi. By Samadhi, in which the mind acquires the capacity of withdrawing from its limited waking activities into freer and higher states of consciousness, Rajayoga serves a double purpose. It compasses a pure mental action liberated from the confusions of the outer consciousness and passes thence to the higher supra-mental planes on which the individual soul enters into its true spiritual existence. But also it acquires the capacity of that free and concentrated energising of consciousness on its object which our philosophy asserts as the primary cosmic energy and the method of divine action upon the world. By this capacity the Yogin, already possessed of the highest supracosmic knowledge and experience in the state of trance, is able in the waking state to acquire directly whatever knowledge and exercise whatever mastery may be useful or necessary to his activities in the objective world. For the ancient system of Rajayoga aimed not only at Swarajya, self-rule or subjective empire, the entire control by the subjective consciousness of all the states and activities proper to its own domain, but included Samrajya as well, outward empire, the control by the subjective consciousness of its outer activities and environment.
Ref: CWSA Vol. 23-24, Page: 36-37
Rate monotonic scheduling "algorithm" A means of {scheduling} the time allocated to periodic {hard-deadline} {real-time} users of a resource. The users are assigned priorities such that a shorter fixed period between deadlines is associated with a higher priority. Rate monotonic scheduling provides a low-overhead, reasonably resource-efficient means of guaranteeing that all users will meet their deadlines provided that certain analytical equations are satisfied during the system design. It avoids the design complexity of {time-line scheduling} and the overhead of dynamic approaches such as {earliest-deadline scheduling}. [D. R. Wilcox, Naval Ocean Systems Center Technical Report 1310, August 1989, "Periodic Phase Adjustment Distributed Clock Synchronization in the Hard Realtime Environment", p. 9]. (1996-03-23)
Rate monotonic scheduling ::: (algorithm) A means of scheduling the time allocated to periodic hard-deadline real-time users of a resource. The users are assigned priorities such that a shorter fixed period between deadlines is associated with a higher priority.Rate monotonic scheduling provides a low-overhead, reasonably resource-efficient means of guaranteeing that all users will meet their deadlines provided that the design complexity of time-line scheduling and the overhead of dynamic approaches such as earliest-deadline scheduling.[D. R. Wilcox, Naval Ocean Systems Center Technical Report 1310, August 1989, Periodic Phase Adjustment Distributed Clock Synchronization in the Hard Realtime Environment, p. 9]. (1996-03-23)
Real Programmer "job, humour" (From the book "Real Men Don't Eat Quiche") A variety of hacker possessed of a flippant attitude toward complexity that is arrogant even when justified by experience. The archetypal "Real Programmer" likes to program on the {bare metal} and is very good at it, remembers the binary {op codes} for every machine he has ever programmed, thinks that {high-level languages} are sissy, and uses a {debugger} to edit his code because full-screen editors are for wimps. Real Programmers aren't satisfied with code that hasn't been {bum}med into a state of {tense}ness just short of rupture. Real Programmers never use {comments} or write {documentation}: "If it was hard to write", says the Real Programmer, "it should be hard to understand." Real Programmers can make machines do things that were never in their spec sheets; in fact, they are seldom really happy unless doing so. A Real Programmer's code can awe with its fiendish brilliance, even as its crockishness appals. Real Programmers live on junk food and coffee, hang line-printer art on their walls, and terrify the crap out of other programmers - because someday, somebody else might have to try to understand their code in order to change it. Their successors generally consider it a {Good Thing} that there aren't many Real Programmers around any more. For a famous (and somewhat more positive) portrait of a Real Programmer, see "{The Story of Mel}". The term itself was popularised by a 1983 Datamation article "{Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal}" by Ed Post, still circulating on {Usenet} and Internet in on-line form. [{Jargon File}] (1997-08-29)
Real Programmer ::: (job, humour) (From the book Real Men Don't Eat Quiche) A variety of hacker possessed of a flippant attitude toward complexity that is arrogant even wimps. Real Programmers aren't satisfied with code that hasn't been bummed into a state of tenseness just short of rupture.Real Programmers never use comments or write documentation: If it was hard to write, says the Real Programmer, it should be hard to understand. Real fact, they are seldom really happy unless doing so. A Real Programmer's code can awe with its fiendish brilliance, even as its crockishness appals.Real Programmers live on junk food and coffee, hang line-printer art on their walls, and terrify the crap out of other programmers - because someday, somebody successors generally consider it a Good Thing that there aren't many Real Programmers around any more.For a famous (and somewhat more positive) portrait of a Real Programmer, see The Story of Mel. The term itself was popularised by a 1983 Datamation article Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal by Ed Post, still circulating on Usenet and Internet in on-line form.[Jargon File] (1997-08-29)
satisfiability problem A problem used as an example in {complexity theory}. It can be stated thus: Given a Boolean expression E, decide if there is some assignment to the variables in E such that E is true. A {Boolean} expression is composed of Boolean variables, (logical) negation (NOT), (logical) {conjunction} (AND) and parentheses for grouping. The satisfiability problem was the first problem to be proved to be {NP-complete} (by Cook). ["Introduction to Automata Theory, Languages, and Computation" by Hopcroft and Ullman, pub. Addison-Wesley]. (1994-11-11)
satisfiability problem ::: A problem used as an example in complexity theory. It can be stated thus: Given a Boolean expression E, decide if there is someassignment to the variables in E such that E is true. first problem to be proved to be NP-complete (by Cook).[Introduction to Automata Theory, Languages, and Computation by Hopcroft and Ullman, pub. Addison-Wesley]. (1994-11-11)
scalability How well a solution to some problem will work when the size of the problem increases. For example, a central {server} of some kind with ten {clients} may perform adequately but with a thousand clients it might fail to meet response time requirements. In this case, the average response time probably scales linearly with the number of clients, we say it has a {complexity} of O(N) ("order N") but there are problems with other complexities. E.g. if we want N nodes in a network to be able to communicate with each other, we could connect each one to a central exchange, requiring O(N) wires or we could provide a direct connection between each pair, requiring O(N^2) wires (the exact number or formula is not usually so important as the highest power of N involved). (1995-03-29)
screen saver ::: (tool) A program which displays either a completely black image or a constantly changing image on a computer monitor to prevent a stationary image automatically after the computer has had no user input for a preset time. Some screen savers come with many different modules, each giving a different effect.Approximately pre-1990, many cathode ray tubes, in TVs, computer monitors or elsewhere, were prone to burn-in; that is, if the same pattern (e.g., the phosphor on the screen would fatigue and that part of the screen would seem greyed out, even when the CRT was off.Eventually CRTs were developed which were resistant to burn-in (and which sometimes went into sleep mode after a period of inactivity); but in the Atari 2600s) would, when not being played, change the screen every few seconds, to avoid burn-in; and computer screen saver programs were developed.The first screen savers were simple screen blankers - they just set the screen to all black, but, in the best case of creeping featurism ever recorded, these almost-black screen) were added. Later, more complex effects appeared, including animations (often with sound effects!) of arbitrary length and complexity.Along the way, avoiding repetitive patterns and burn-in was completely forgotten and screen savers such as Pointcast were developed, which make no claim to save your monitor, but are simply bloated browsers for push media which self-start after the machine has been inactive for a few minutes. (1997-11-23)
screen saver "tool" A program which displays either a completely black image or a constantly changing image on a computer monitor to prevent a stationary image from "burning" into the phosphor of the screen. Screen savers usually start automatically after the computer has had no user input for a preset time. Some screen savers come with many different modules, each giving a different effect. Approximately pre-1990, many {cathode ray tubes}, in TVs, computer {monitors} or elsewhere, were prone to "burn-in"; that is, if the same pattern (e.g., the {WordPerfect} status line; the {Pong} score readout; or a TV channel-number display) were shown at the same position on the screen for very long periods of time, the phosphor on the screen would "fatigue" and that part of the screen would seem greyed out, even when the CRT was off. Eventually CRTs were developed which were resistant to burn-in (and which sometimes went into {sleep} mode after a period of inactivity); but in the meantime, solutions were developed: home video game systems of the era (e.g., Atari 2600s) would, when not being played, change the screen every few seconds, to avoid burn-in; and computer screen saver programs were developed. The first screen savers were simple screen blankers - they just set the screen to all black, but, in the best case of {creeping featurism} ever recorded, these tiny (often under 1K long) programs grew without regard to efficiency or even basic usefulness. At first, small, innocuous {display hacks} (generally on an almost-black screen) were added. Later, more complex effects appeared, including {animations} (often with sound effects!) of arbitrary length and complexity. Along the way, avoiding repetitive patterns and burn-in was completely forgotten and "screen savers" such as {Pointcast} were developed, which make no claim to save your monitor, but are simply bloated {browsers} for {push media} which self-start after the machine has been inactive for a few minutes. (1997-11-23)
SCSI-3 "hardware" An ongoing standardisation effort to extend the capabilities of {SCSI-2}. SCSI-3's goals are more devices on a bus (up to 32); faster data transfer; greater distances between devices (longer cables); more device classes and command sets; structured documentation; and a structured {protocol} model. In SCSI-2, data transmission is parallel (8, 16 or 32 bit wide). This gets increasingly difficult with higher data rates and longer cables because of varying signal delays on different wires. Furthermore, wiring cost and drive power increases with wider data words and higher speed. This has triggered the move to serial interfacing in SCSI-3. By embedding clock information into a serial data stream signal delay problems are eliminated. Driving a single signal also consumes less driving power and reduces connector cost and size. To allow for backward compatibility and for added flexibility SCSI-3 allows the use of several different transport mechanisms, some serial and some parallel. The software {protocol} and command set is the same for each transport. This leads to a layered protocol definition similar to definitions found in networking. SCSI-3 is therefore in fact the sum of a number of separate standards which are defined by separate groups. These standards and groups are currently: X3T9.2/91-13R2 SCSI-3 Generic Packetized Protocol X3T9.2/92-141 SCSI-3 Queuing Model X3T9.2/92-079 SCSI-3 Architecture Model IEEE P1394 High Performance Serial Bus X3T9.2/92-106 SCSI-3 Block Commands X3T9.2/91-189 SCSI-3 Serial Bus Protocol X3T9.2/92-105 SCSI-3 SCSI-3 Core Commands SCSI-3 Common Command Set X3T9.2/92-108 SCSI-3 Graphic Commands X3T9.2/92-109 SCSI-3 Medium Changer Commands X3T9.2/91-11 SCSI-3 Interlocked Protocol X3T9.2/91-10 SCSI-3 Parallel Interface X3T9.2/92-107 SCSI-3 Stream Commands SCSI-3 Scanner Commands Additional Documents for the Fibre Channel are also meant to be included in the SCSI-3 framework, i.e.: Fibre Channel SCSI Mapping Fibre Channel Fabric Requirements Fibre Channel Low Cost Topologies X3T9.3/92-007 Fibre Channel Physical and Signalling Interface Fibre Channel Single Byte Commands Fibre Channel Cross Point Switch Topology X3T9.2/92-103 SCSI-3 Fibre Channel Protocol (GPP & SBP) As all of this is an ongoing effort of considerable complexity, document structure and workgroups may change. No final standard is issued yet. In the meantime a group of manufacturers have proposed an extension of {SCSI-2} called {Ultra-SCSI} which doubles the transfer speed of {Fast-SCSI} to give 20MByte/s on an 8 bit connection and 40MByte/s on a 16-bit connection. [Hermann Strass: "SCSI-Bus erfolgreich anwenden", Franzis-Verlag Muenchen 1993]. (1995-04-19)
SMOP ::: /S-M-O-P/ [Simple (or Small) Matter of Programming] 1. A piece of code, not yet written, whose anticipated length is significantly greater than its complexity. made which seems easy to the suggester, but is obviously (to the victim) a lot of work.[Jargon File]
SMOP /S-M-O-P/ [Simple (or Small) Matter of Programming] 1. A piece of code, not yet written, whose anticipated length is significantly greater than its complexity. Used to refer to a program that could obviously be written, but is not worth the trouble. Also used ironically to imply that a difficult problem can be easily solved because a program can be written to do it; the irony is that it is very clear that writing such a program will be a great deal of work. "It's easy to enhance a Fortran compiler to compile COBOL as well; it's just an SMOP." 2. Often used ironically by the intended victim when a suggestion for a program is made which seems easy to the suggester, but is obviously (to the victim) a lot of work. [{Jargon File}]
software bloat "jargon, abuse" The result of adding new features to a program or system to the point where the benefit of the new features is outweighed by the extra resources consumed ({RAM}, disk space or performance) and complexity of use. Software bloat is an instance of Parkinson's Law: resource requirements expand to consume the resources available. Causes of software bloat include {second-system effect} and {creeping featuritis}. Commonly cited examples include Unix's "{ls}(1)" command, the {X Window System}, {BSD}, {Missed'em-five}, {OS/2} and any {Microsoft} product. [{Jargon File}] (1995-10-16)
software metric "programming" A measure of software quality which indicates the complexity, understandability, testability, description and intricacy of code. (1994-11-16)
software metric ::: (programming) A measure of software quality which indicates the complexity, understandability, testability, description and intricacy of code. (1994-11-16)
sort 1. "application, algorithm" To arrange a collection of items in some specified order. The items - {records} in a file or data structures in memory - consist of one or more {fields} or members. One of these fields is designated as the "sort key" which means the records will be ordered according to the value of that field. Sometimes a sequence of key fields is specified such that if all earlier keys are equal then the later keys will be compared. Within each field some ordering is imposed, e.g. ascending or descending numerical, {lexical ordering}, or date. Sorting is the subject of a great deal of study since it is a common operation which can consume a lot of computer time. There are many well-known sorting {algorithms} with different time and space behaviour and programming {complexity}. Examples are {quicksort}, {insertion sort}, {bubble sort}, {heap sort}, and {tree sort}. These employ many different data structures to store sorted data, such as {arrays}, {linked lists}, and {binary trees}. 2. "tool" The {Unix} utility program for sorting lines of files. {Unix manual page}: sort(1). (1997-02-12)
sort ::: 1. (application, algorithm) To arrange a collection of items in some specified order. The items - records in a file or data structures in memory - some ordering is imposed, e.g. ascending or descending numerical, lexical ordering, or date.Sorting is the subject of a great deal of study since it is a common operation which can consume a lot of computer time. There are many well-known sorting algorithms with different time and space behaviour and programming complexity.Examples are quicksort, insertion sort, bubble sort, heap sort, and tree sort. These employ many different data structures to store sorted data, such as arrays, linked lists, and binary trees.2. (tool) The Unix utility program for sorting lines of files.Unix manual page: sort(1). (1997-02-12)
space complexity "complexity" The way in which the amount of storage space required by an {algorithm} varies with the size of the problem it is solving. Space complexity is normally expressed as an order of magnitude, e.g. O(N^2) means that if the size of the problem (N) doubles then four times as much working storage will be needed. See also {computational complexity}, {time complexity}. (1996-05-08)
space complexity ::: (complexity) The way in which the amount of storage space required by an algorithm varies with the size of the problem it is solving. Space complexity is of the problem (N) doubles then four times as much working storage will be needed.See also computational complexity, time complexity. (1996-05-08)
studly ::: Impressive; powerful. Said of code and designs which exhibit both complexity and a virtuoso flair. Has connotations similar to hairy but is more positive in tone. Often in the emphatic most studly or as noun-form studliness. Smail 3.0's configuration parser is most studly.[Jargon File]
studly Impressive; powerful. Said of code and designs which exhibit both complexity and a virtuoso flair. Has connotations similar to {hairy} but is more positive in tone. Often in the emphatic "most studly" or as noun-form "studliness". "Smail 3.0's configuration parser is most studly." [{Jargon File}]
surface structures ::: Typically a Chomskyan notion. In Integral Theory, however, it refers to the local, cultural, or individually specific features, patterns, or contents on a given level of consciousness or complexity.
sysape /sys'ayp/ A rather derogatory term for a computer operator; a play on {sysop} common at sites that use the banana hierarchy of problem complexity (see {one-banana problem}). [{Jargon File}]
sysape ::: /sys'ayp/ A rather derogatory term for a computer operator; a play on sysop common at sites that use the banana hierarchy of problem complexity (see one-banana problem).[Jargon File]
theory of computation ::: In theoretical computer science and mathematics, the theory of computation is the branch that deals with how efficiently problems can be solved on a model of computation, using an algorithm. The field is divided into three major branches: automata theory and languages, computability theory, and computational complexity theory, which are linked by the question: "What are the fundamental capabilities and limitations of computers?".[309]
"Thus it [Rajayoga] gets rid of the Hathayogic complexity and cumbrousness while it utilises the swift and powerful efficacy of its methods for the control of the body and the vital functions and for the awakening of that internal dynamism, full of a latent supernormal faculty, typified in Yogic terminology by the kundalinî, the coiled and sleeping serpent of Energy within.” *The Synthesis of Yoga
“Thus it [Rajayoga] gets rid of the Hathayogic complexity and cumbrousness while it utilises the swift and powerful efficacy of its methods for the control of the body and the vital functions and for the awakening of that internal dynamism, full of a latent supernormal faculty, typified in Yogic terminology by the kundalinî, the coiled and sleeping serpent of Energy within.” The Synthesis of Yoga
time complexity "complexity" The way in which the number of steps required by an {algorithm} varies with the size of the problem it is solving. Time complexity is normally expressed as an order of magnitude, e.g. O(N^2) means that if the size of the problem (N) doubles then the algorithm will take four times as many steps to complete. See also {computational complexity}, {space complexity}. (1996-05-08)
time complexity ::: (complexity) The way in which the number of steps required by an algorithm varies with the size of the problem it is solving. Time complexity is of the problem (N) doubles then the algorithm will take four times as many steps to complete.See also computational complexity, space complexity. (1996-05-08)
time complexity ::: The computational complexity that describes the amount of time it takes to run an algorithm. Time complexity is commonly estimated by counting the number of elementary operations performed by the algorithm, supposing that each elementary operation takes a fixed amount of time to perform. Thus, the amount of time taken and the number of elementary operations performed by the algorithm are taken to differ by at most a constant factor.
TMRC /tmerk'/ The Tech Model Railroad Club at {MIT}, one of the wellsprings of {hacker} culture. The 1959 "Dictionary of the TMRC Language" compiled by Peter Samson included several terms that became basics of the hackish vocabulary (see especially {foo}, {mung}, and {frob}). By 1962, TMRC's legendary layout was already a marvel of complexity (and has grown in the thirty years since; all the features described here are still present). The control system alone featured about 1200 relays. There were {scram switch}es located at numerous places around the room that could be thwacked if something undesirable was about to occur, such as a train going full-bore at an obstruction. Another feature of the system was a digital clock on the dispatch board, which was itself something of a wonder in those bygone days before cheap LEDS and seven-segment displays. When someone hit a scram switch the clock stopped and the display was replaced with the word "FOO"; at TMRC the scram switches are therefore called "foo switches". Steven Levy, in his book "Hackers", gives a stimulating account of those early years. TMRC's Power and Signals group included most of the early {PDP-1} hackers and the people who later bacame the core of the {MIT} {AI Lab} staff. This dictionary accordingly includes a number of entries from the TMRC dictionary (via the Hacker Jargon File). [{Jargon File}] (2008-06-30)
TMRC ::: /tmerk'/ The Tech Model Railroad Club at MIT, one of the wellsprings of hacker culture. The 1959 Dictionary of the TMRC Language compiled by Peter Samson included several terms that became basics of the hackish vocabulary (see especially foo, mung, and frob).By 1962, TMRC's legendary layout was already a marvel of complexity (and has grown in the thirty years since; all the features described here are still stopped and the display was replaced with the word FOO; at TMRC the scram switches are therefore called foo switches.Steven Levy, in his book Hackers, gives a stimulating account of those early years. TMRC's Power and Signals group included most of the early PDP-1 hackers includes a number of entries from a recent revision of the TMRC dictionary (via the Hacker Jargon File).[Jargon File]
travelling salesman problem ::: (algorithm, complexity) (TSP or shortest path, US: traveling) Given a set of towns and the distances between them, determine the shortest path starting from a given town, passing through all the other towns and returning to the first town.This is a famous problem with a variety of solutions of varying complexity and efficiency. The simplest solution (the brute force approach) generates all frontier of reachable towns along with the shortest route to each. It then expands this frontier by one hop each time. . . (1998-03-24)
travelling salesman problem "algorithm, complexity" (TSP or "shortest path", US: "traveling") Given a set of towns and the distances between them, determine the shortest path starting from a given town, passing through all the other towns and returning to the first town. This is a famous problem with a variety of solutions of varying complexity and efficiency. The simplest solution (the {brute force} approach) generates all possible routes and takes the shortest. This becomes impractical as the number of towns, N, increases since the number of possible routes is !(N-1). A more intelligent {algorithm} (similar to {iterative deepening}) considers the shortest path to each town which can be reached in one hop, then two hops, and so on until all towns have been visited. At each stage the algorithm maintains a "frontier" of reachable towns along with the shortest route to each. It then expands this frontier by one hop each time. {Pablo Moscato's TSP bibliography (http://densis.fee.unicamp.br/~moscato/TSPBIB_home.html)}. {Fractals and the TSP (http://ing.unlp.edu.ar/cetad/mos/FRACTAL_TSP_home.html)}. (1998-03-24)
true quantified Boolean formula ::: In computational complexity theory, the language TQBF is a formal language consisting of the true quantified Boolean formulas. A (fully) quantified Boolean formula is a formula in quantified propositional logic where every variable is quantified (or bound), using either existential or universal quantifiers, at the beginning of the sentence. Such a formula is equivalent to either true or false (since there are no free variables). If such a formula evaluates to true, then that formula is in the language TQBF. It is also known as QSAT (Quantified SAT).
twos complement ::: (data) A system used in some computers to represent negative numbers in binary. Each bit of the number is inverted (zeros are replaced with ones and (ignoring overflow). This avoids the two representations for zero found in ones complement by using all ones to represent -1. ...000...00011 = +3 subtraction, at the expense of a little extra complexity for negation. (1994-10-31)
twos complement "data" A system used in some computers to represent negative numbers in {binary}. Each {bit} of the number is inverted (zeros are replaced with ones and vice versa), as for {ones complement}, but then one (000...0001) is added (ignoring overflow). This avoids the two representations for zero found in ones complement by using all ones to represent -1. ... 000...00011 = +3 000...00010 = +2 000...00001 = +1 000...00000 = 0 111...11111 = -1 111...11110 = -2 111...11101 = -3 ... This representation simplifies the logic required for addition and subtraction, at the expense of a little extra complexity for negation. (1994-10-31)
Unix weenie "jargon" ({ITS}) 1. A derogatory play on "{Unix wizard}", common among hackers who use {Unix} by necessity but would prefer alternatives. The implication is that although the person in question may consider mastery of Unix arcana to be a wizardly skill, the only real skill involved is the ability to tolerate (and the bad taste to wallow in) the incoherence and needless complexity that is alleged to infest many Unix programs. "This shell script tries to parse its arguments in 69 bletcherous ways. It must have been written by a real Unix weenie." 2. A derogatory term for anyone who engages in uncritical praise of {Unix}. Often appearing in the context "stupid Unix weenie". See {Weenix}, {Unix conspiracy}, {weenie}. [{Jargon File}] (1995-02-27)
With these principles of matter and form, and the parallel distinction between potential and actual existence, Aristotle claims to have solved the difficulties that earlier thinkers had found in the fact of change. The changes in nature are to be interpreted not as the passage from non-being to being, which would make them unintelligible, but as the process by which what is merely potential being passes over, through form, into actual being, or entelechy. The philosophy of nature which results from these basic concepts views nature as a dynamic realm in which change is real, spontaneous, continuous, and in the main directed. Matter, though indeed capable of form, possesses a residual inertia which on occasion produces accidental effects; so that alongside the teological causation of the forms Aristotle recognizes what he calls "necessity" in nature; but the products of the latter, since they are aberrations from form, cannot be made the object of scientific knowledge. Furthermore, the system of nature as developed by Aristotle is a graded series of existences, in which the simpler beings, though in themselves formed matter, function also as matter for higher forms. At the base of the series is prime matter, which as wholly unformed is mere potentiality, not actual being. The simplest formed matter is the so-called primary bodies -- earth, water, air and fire. From these as matter arise by the intervention of successively more complex forms the composite inorganic bodies, organic tissues, and the world of organisms, characterized by varying degrees of complexity in structure and function. In this realization of form in matter Aristotle distinguishes three sorts of change: qualitative change, or alteration; quantitative change, or growth and diminution; and change, of place, or locomotion, the last being primary, since it is presupposed in all the others. But Aristotle is far from suggesting a mechanical explanation of change, for not even locomotion can be explained by impact alone. The motion of the primary bodies is due to the fact that each has its natural place to which it moves when not opposed; earth to the center, then water, air, and fire to successive spheres about the center. The ceaseless motion of these primary bodies results from their ceaseless transformation into one another through the interaction of the forms of hot and cold, wet and dry. Thus qualitative differences of form underlie even the most elemental changes in the world of nature.
KEYS (10k)
6 Sri Aurobindo
3 Essential Integral
2 Sri Aurobindo
2 Marijn Haverbeke
2 The Mother
1 William Gibson
1 Robert Anton Wilson
1 Nikola Tesla
1 ken-wilber
1 Ken Wilber
1 Joseph Weizenbaum
1 Israel Regardie
1 Cheryl Strayed
1 Carl Jung
1 Alfred North Whitehead
1 Aleister Crowley
NEW FULL DB (2.4M)
36 Anonymous
21 Atul Gawande
19 Malcolm Gladwell
18 Steve McConnell
15 Richard Dawkins
15 Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
14 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
10 Leo Tolstoy
10 Jordan Peterson
10 Jordan B Peterson
9 William Gibson
9 Cheryl Strayed
9 Anne Rice
9 Alan W Watts
8 Terence McKenna
8 Stephen Jay Gould
8 Matthew Syed
8 James Gleick
8 Erich Jantsch
8 Alain de Botton
1:Increasing consciousness = increasing complexity. ~ ken-wilber, #KEYS
2:The art of programming is the skill of controlling complexity.
~ Marijn Haverbeke, Eloquent JavaScript,#KEYS
3:...the only simplicity to be trusted is the simplicity to be found on the far side of complexity.
~ Alfred North Whitehead,#KEYS
4:Very many theories are needed before we can get even a rough picture of the psyche's complexity, ~ Carl Jung, (CW 16, ¶198), #KEYS
5:All action is surrounded by a complexity of forces. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, Occult Knowledge, #KEYS
6:In each life man has to figure a certain sum of its complexity and put that into some kind of order. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Renaissance in India, A Rationalistic Critic on Indian Culture - V, #KEYS
7:The computer programmer is a creator of universes for which he alone is responsible. Universes of virtually unlimited complexity can be created in the form of computer programs.
~ Joseph Weizenbaum, Computer Power and Human Reason,#KEYS
8:Programming, it turns out, is hard. The fundamental rules are typically simple and cleaR But programs built on top of these rules tend to become complex enough to introduce their own rules and complexity. You're building your own maze, in a way, and you might just get lost in it.
~ Marijn Haverbeke,#KEYS
9:Death makes me realize how deeply I have internalized the agnosticism I preach in all my books. I consider dogmatic belief and dogmatic denial very childish forms of conceit in a world of infinitely whirling complexity. None of us can see enough from one corner of space-time to know "all" about the rest of space-time. ~ Robert Anton Wilson, #KEYS
10:I was a terrible believer in things,but I was also a terrible nonbeliever in things. I was as searching as I was skeptical. I didn't know where to put my faith,or if there was such a place,or even what the word faith meant, in all of it's complexity. Everything seemed to be possibly potent and possibly fake. ~ Cheryl Strayed, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, #KEYS
11:Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts... A graphic representation of data abstracted from 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, #KEYS
12:An integral intuition into the nature of conscious being shows us that it is indeed one in essence, but also that it is capable of an infinite potential complexity and multiplicity in self-experience. The working of this potential complexity and multiplicity in the One is what we call from our point of view manifestation or creation or world or becoming - (bhuvana, bhava). Without it no world-existence is possible. The agent of this becoming is always the self-conscience of the Being. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Isha Upanishad, #KEYS
13:one gradually equilibrizes the whole of one's mental structure and obtains a simple view of the incalculably vast complexity of the universe. For it is written: "Equilibrium is the basis of the work." Serious students will need to make a careful study of the attributions detailed in this work and commit them to memory. When, by persistent application to his own mental apparatus, the numerical system with its correspondences is partly understood-as opposed to being merely memorized-the student will be amazed to find fresh light breaking in on him at every turn as he continues to refer every item in experience and consciousness to this standard.
~ Israel Regardie, A Garden Of Pomegranates: Skrying On the Tree Of Life,#KEYS
14:The art of using it consists principally in referring all our ideas to it, discovering thus the common nature of certain things and the essential differences between others, so that ultimately one obtains a simple view of the incalculably vast complexity of the Universe.
The whole subject must be studied in the Book 777, and the main attributions committed to memory: then when by constant use the system is at last understood—as opposed to being merely memorised—the student will find fresh light break in on him at every turn as he continues to measure every item of new knowledge that he attains by this Standard. For to him the Universe will then begin to appear as a coherent and a necessary Whole. ~ Aleister Crowley, Little Essays Towards Truth, "Man",#KEYS
15:Nature may reach the same result in many ways. Like a wave in the physical world, in the infinite ocean of the medium which pervades all, so in the world of organisms, in life, an impulse started proceeds onward, at times, may be, with the speed of light, at times, again, so slowly that for ages and ages it seems to stay, passing through processes of a complexity inconceivable to men, but in all its forms, in all its stages, its energy ever and ever integrally present.
A single ray of light from a distant star falling upon the eye of a tyrant in bygone times may have altered the course of his life, may have changed the destiny of nations, may have transformed the surface of the globe, so intricate, so inconceivably complex are the processes in Nature. In no way can we get such an overwhelming idea of the grandeur of Nature than when we consider, that in accordance with the law of the conservation of energy, throughout the Infinite, the forces are in a perfect balance, and hence the energy of a single thought may determine the motion of a universe. ~ Nikola Tesla,#KEYS
16:The Twenty Tenets of Holons
1. Reality as a whole is not composed of things, or processes, but of holons.
2. Holons display four fundamental capacities:
a. self-preservation,
b. self-adaptation,
c. self-transcendence.
d. self-dissolution.
3. Holons emerge.
4. Holons emerge holarchically.
5. Each emergent holon transcends but includes its predecessor.
6. The lower sets the possibilities of the higer; the higher sets the probabilities of the lower.
7. "The number of levels which a hierarchy comprises determines whether it is 'shallow' or 'deep'; and the number of holons on any given level we shall call its 'span'" (A. Koestler).
8. Each successive level of evolution produces greater depth and less span.
9. Destroy any type of holon, and you will destroy all of the holons above it and none of the holons below it.
10. Holarchies coevolve.
11. The micro is in relational exchange with the macro at all levels of its depth.
12. Evolution has directionality:
a. Increasing complexity.
b. Increasing differentiation/integration.
c. Increasing organisation/structuration.
d. Increasing relative autonomy.
e. Increasing telos.
~ Ken Wilber, Sex Ecology Spirituality, 1995, p. 35-78.,#KEYS
17:middle vision logic or paradigmatic ::: (1:25) Cognition is described as middle-vision logic, or paradigmatic in that it is capable of co-ordinating the relations between systems of systems, unifying them into principled frameworks or paradigms. This is an operation on meta-systems and allows for the view described above, a view of human development itself. Self-sense at teal is called Autonomous or Strategist and is characterized by the emergent capacity to acknowledge and cope with inner conflicts in needs, ... and values. All of which are part of a multifacted and complex world. Teal sees our need for autonomy and autonomy itself as limited because emotional interdependence is inevitable. The contradictory aspects of self are weaved into an identity that is whole, integrated and commited to generating a fulfilling life.
Additionally, Teal allows individuals to link theory and practice, perceive dynamic systems interactions, recognize and strive for higher principles, understand the social construction of reality, handle paradox and complexity, create positive-sum games and seek feedback from others as a vital source for growth. Values embrace magnificence of existence, flexibility, spontaneioty, functionality, the integration of differences into interdependent systems and complimenting natural egalitarianism with natural ranking. Needs shift to self-actualization, and morality is in both terms of universal ethical principles and recognition of the developmental relativity of those universals. Teal is the first wave that is truly able to see the limitations of orange and green morality, it is able to uphold the paradox of universalism and relativism. Teal in its decision making process is able to see ... deep and surface features of morality and is able to take into consideration both those values when engaging in moral action. Currently Teal is quite rare, embraced by 2-5% of the north american and european population according to sociological research. ~ Essential Integral, L4.1-53, Middle Vision Logic,#KEYS
18:The most disconcerting discovery is to find that every part of us -- intellect, will, sense-mind, nervous or desire self, the heart, the body-has each, as it were, its own complex individuality and natural formation independent of the rest; it neither agrees with itself nor with the others nor with the representative ego which is the shadow cast by some central and centralising self on our superficial ignorance. We find that we are composed not of one but many personalities and each has its own demands and differing nature. Our being is a roughly constituted chaos into which we have to introduce the principle of a divine order. Moreover, we find that inwardly too, no less than outwardly, we are not alone in the world; the sharp separateness of our ego was no more than a strong imposition and delusion; we do not exist in ourselves, we do not really live apart in an inner privacy or solitude. Our mind is a receiving, developing and modifying machine into which there is being constantly passed from moment to moment a ceaseless foreign flux, a streaming mass of disparate materials from above, from below, from outside. Much more than half our thoughts and feelings are not our own in the sense that they take form out of ourselves; of hardly anything can it be said that it is truly original to our nature. A large part comes to us from others or from the environment, whether as raw material or as manufactured imports; but still more largely they come from universal Nature here or from other worlds and planes and their beings and powers and influences; for we are overtopped and environed by other planes of consciousness, mind planes, life planes, subtle matter planes, from which our life and action here are fed, or fed on, pressed, dominated, made use offer the manifestation of their forms and forces. The difficulty of our separate salvation is immensely increased by this complexity and manifold openness and subjection to tile in-streaming energies of the universe. Of all this we have to take account, to deal with it, to know what is the secret stuff of our nature and its constituent and resultant motions and to create in it all a divine centre and a true harmony and luminous order. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, 1.02, #KEYS
19:higher mind or late vision logic ::: Even more rare, found stably in less than 1% of the population and even more emergent is the turquoise altitude.
Cognition at Turquoise is called late vision-logic or cross-paradigmatic and features the ability to connect meta-systems or paradigms, with other meta-systems. This is the realm of coordinating principles. Which are unified systems of systems of abstraction to other principles. ... Aurobindo indian sage and philosopher offers a more first-person account of turquoise which he called higher-mind, a unitarian sense of being with a powerful multiple dynamism capable of formation of a multitude of aspects of knowledge, ways of action, forms and significances of becoming of all of which a spontaneous inherient knowledge.
Self-sense at turquoise is called Construct-aware and is the first stage of Cook-Greuter's extension of Loveigers work on ego-development. The Construct-aware stage sees individuals for the first time as exploring more and more complex thought-structures with awareness of the automatic nature of human map making and absurdities which unbridaled complexity and logical argumentation can lead. Individuals at this stage begin to see their ego as a central point of reference and therefore a limit to growth. They also struggle to balance unique self-expressions and their concurrent sense of importance, the imperical and intuitive knowledge that there is no fundamental subject-object separation and the budding awareness of self-identity as temporary which leads to a decreased ego-desire to create a stable self-identity. Turquoise individuals are keenly aware of the interplay between awareness, thought, action and effects. They seek personal and spiritual transformation and hold a complex matrix of self-identifications, the adequecy of which they increasingly call into question. Much of this already points to Turquoise values which embrace holistic and intuitive thinking and alignment to universal order in a conscious fashion.
Faith at Turquoise is called Universalising and can generate faith compositions in which conceptions of Ultimate Reality start to include all beings. Individuals at Turquoise faith dedicate themselves to transformation of present reality in the direction of transcendent actuality. Both of these are preludes to the coming of Third Tier. ~ Essential Integral, L4.1-54, Higher Mind,#KEYS
20:complexity of the human constitution :::
There is another direction in which the ordinary practice of Yoga arrives at a helpful but narrowing simplification which is denied to the Sadhaka of the integral aim. The practice of Yoga brings us face to face with the extraordinary complexity of our own being, the stimulating but also embarrassing multiplicity of our personality, the rich endless confusion of Nature. To the ordinary man who lives upon his own waking surface, ignorant of the self's depths and vastnesses behind the veil, his psychological existence is fairly simple. A small but clamorous company of desires, some imperative intellectual and aesthetic cravings, some tastes, a few ruling or prominent ideas amid a great current of unconnected or ill-connected and mostly trivial thoughts, a number of more or less imperative vital needs, alternations of physical health and disease, a scattered and inconsequent succession of joys and griefs, frequent minor disturbances and vicissitudes and rarer strong searchings and upheavals of mind or body, and through it all Nature, partly with the aid of his thought and will, partly without or in spite of it, arranging these things in some rough practical fashion, some tolerable disorderly order, -- this is the material of his existence. The average human being even now is in his inward existence as crude and undeveloped as was the bygone primitive man in his outward life. But as soon as we go deep within ourselves, -- and Yoga means a plunge into all the multiple profundities of' the soul, -- we find ourselves subjectively, as man in his growth has found himself objectively, surrounded by a whole complex world which we have to know and to conquer.
The most disconcerting discovery is to find that every part of us -- intellect, will, sense-mind, nervous or desire self, the heart, the body-has each, as it were, its own complex individuality and natural formation independent of the rest; it neither agrees with itself nor with the others nor with the representative ego which is the shadow cast by some central and centralising self on our superficial ignorance. We find that we are composed not of one but many personalities and each has its own demands and differing nature. Our being is a roughly constituted chaos into which we have to introduce the principle of a divine order.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, Self-Consecration, 74-75,#KEYS
21:meta-systemic operations ::: As the 1950's and 60s begin to roll around the last stage of first tier emerged as a cultural force. With the Green Altitude we see the emergence of Pluralistic, Multicultural, Post-Modern world-views.
Cognition is starting to move beyond formal-operations into the realm of co-ordinating systems of abstractions, in what is called Meta-systemic Cognition. While formal-operations acted upon the classes and relations between members of classes. Meta-systemic operations start at the level of relating systems to systems. The focus of these investigations is placed upon comparing, contrasting, transforming and synthesizing entire systems, rather than components of one system. This emergent faculty allows self-sense to focus around a heightened sense of individuality and an increased ability for emotional resonance. The recognition of individual differences, the ability to tolerate paradox and contradiction, and greater conceptual complexity all provide for an understanding of conflict as being both internally and externally caused. Context plays a major role in the creation of truth and individual perspective. With each being context dependent and open to subjective interpretation, meaning each perspective and truth are rendered relative and are not able to be judged as better or more true than any other. This fuels a value set that centers on softness over cold rationality. Sensitivity and preference over objectivity.
Along with a focus on community harmony and equality which drives the valuing of sensitivity to others, reconcilation, consensus, dialogue, relationship, human development, bonding, and a seeking of a peace with the inner-self. Moral decisions are based on rights, values, or principles that are agreeable to all individuals composing a society based on fair and beneficial practices. All of this leads to the Equality movements and multiculturalism. And to the extreme form of relativitism which we saw earlier as context dependant nature of all truth including objective facts.
Faith at the green altitude is called Conjunctive, and allows the self to integrate what was unrecognized by the previous stages self-certainty and cognitive and affective adaptation to reality. New features at this level of faith include the unification of symbolic power with conceptual meaning, an awareness of ones social unconscious, a reworking of ones past, and an opening to ones deeper self. ~ Essential Integral, 4.1-52, Meta-systemic Operations,#KEYS
22:A difficulty comes or an arrest in some movement which you have begun or have been carrying on for some time. How is it to be dealt with?—for such arrests are inevitably frequent enough, not only for you, but for everyone who is a seeker; one might almost say that every step forward is followed by an arrest—at least, that is a very common, if not a universal experience. It is to be dealt with by becoming always more quiet, more firm in the will to go through, by opening oneself more and more so that any obstructing non-receptivity in the nature may diminish or disappear, by an affirmation of faith even in the midst of the obscurity, faith in the presence of a Power that is working behind the cloud and the veil, in the guidance of the Guru, by an observation of oneself to find any cause of the arrest, not in a spirit of depression or discouragement but with the will to find out and remove it. This is the only right attitude and, if one is persistent in taking it, the periods of arrest are not abolished,—for that cannot be at this stage,—but greatly shortened and lightened in their incidence. Sometimes these arrests are periods, long or short, of assimilation or unseen preparation, their appearance of sterile immobility is deceptive: in that case, with the right attitude, one can after a time, by opening, by observation, by accumulated experience, begin to feel, to get some inkling of what is being prepared or done. Sometimes it is a period of true obstruction in which the Power at work has to deal with the obstacles in the way, obstacles in oneself, obstacles of the opposing cosmic forces or any other or of all together, and this kind of arrest may be long or short according to the magnitude or obstinacy or complexity of the impediments that are met. But here too the right attitude can alleviate or shorten and, if persistently taken, help to a more radical removal of the difficulties and greatly diminish the necessity of complete arrests hereafter.
On the contrary, an attitude of depression or unfaith in the help or the guidance or in the certitude of the victory of the guiding Power, a shutting up of yourself in the sense of the difficulties impedes the recovery, prolongs the difficulties, helps the obstructions to recur with force instead of progressively diminishing in their incidence. It is an attitude whose persistence or recurrence you must resolutely throw aside if you want to get over the obstruction which you feel so much—which the depressed attitude only makes, while it lasts, more acute. ~ Sri Aurobindo, LOY4, Imperfections and Periods of Arrest,#KEYS
23:The Godhead, the spirit manifested in Nature appears in a sea of infinite quality, Ananta-guna. But the executive or mechanical prakriti is of the threefold Guna, Sattwa, Rajas, Tamas, and the Ananta-guna, the spiritual play of infinite quality, modifies itself in this mechanical nature into the type of these three gunas. And in the soul-force in man this Godhead in Nature represents itself as a fourfold effective Power, caturvyuha , a Power for knowledge, a Power for strength, a Power for mutuality and active and productive relation and interchange, a Power for works and labour and service, and its presence casts all human life into a nexus and inner and outer operation of these four things. The ancient thought of India conscious of this fourfold type of active human personality and nature, built out of it the four types of the Brahmana, Kshatriya, Vaishya and Sudra, each with its spiritual turn, ethical ideal, suitable upbringing, fixed function in society and place in the evolutionary scale of the spirit. As always tends to be the case when we too much externalise and mechanise the more subtle truths of our nature, this became a hard and fast system inconsistent with the freedom and variability and complexity of the finer developing spirit in man. Nevertheless the truth behind it exists and is one of some considerable importance in the perfection of our power of nature; but we have to take it in its inner aspects, first, personality, character, temperament, soul-type, then the soul-force which lies behind them and wears these forms, and lastly the play of the free spiritual shakti in which they find their culmination and unity beyond all modes. For the crude external idea that a man is born as a Brahmana, Kshatriya, Vaishya or Sudra and that alone, is not a psychological truth of our being. The psychological fact is that there are these four active powers and tendencies of the Spirit and its executive shakti within us and the predominance of one or the other in the more well-formed part of our personality gives us our main tendencies, dominant qualities and capacities, effective turn in action and life. But they are more or less present in an men, here manifest, there latent, here developed, there subdued and depressed or subordinate, and in the perfect man will be raised up to a fullness and harmony which in the spiritual freedom will burst out into the free play of the infinite quality of the spirit in the inner and outer life and in the self-enjoying creative play of the Purusha with his and the world's Nature-Power. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, 4:15 - Soul-Force and the Fourfold Personality, #KEYS
24:The preliminary movement of Rajayoga is careful self-discipline by which good habits of mind are substituted for the lawless movements that indulge the lower nervous being. By the practice of truth, by renunciation of all forms of egoistic seeking, by abstention from injury to others, by purity, by constant meditation and inclination to the divine Purusha who is the true lord of the mental kingdom, a pure, clear state of mind and heart is established.
This is the first step only. Afterwards, the ordinary activities of the mind and sense must be entirely quieted in order that the soul may be free to ascend to higher states of consciousness and acquire the foundation for a perfect freedom and self-mastery. But Rajayoga does not forget that the disabilities of the ordinary mind proceed largely from its subjection to the reactions of the nervous system and the body. It adopts therefore from the Hathayogic system its devices of asana and pranayama, but reduces their multiple and elaborate forms in each case to one simplest and most directly effective process sufficient for its own immediate object. Thus it gets rid of the Hathayogic complexity and cumbrousness while it utilises the swift and powerful efficacy of its methods for the control of the body and the vital functions and for the awakening of that internal dynamism, full of a latent supernormal faculty, typified in Yogic terminology by the kundalini, the coiled and sleeping serpent of Energy within. This done, the system proceeds to the perfect quieting of the restless mind and its elevation to a higher plane through concentration of mental force by the successive stages which lead to the utmost inner concentration or ingathered state of the consciousness which is called Samadhi.
By Samadhi, in which the mind acquires the capacity of withdrawing from its limited waking activities into freer and higher states of consciousness, Rajayoga serves a double purpose. It compasses a pure mental action liberated from the confusions of the outer consciousness and passes thence to the higher supra-mental planes on which the individual soul enters into its true spiritual existence. But also it acquires the capacity of that free and concentrated energising of consciousness on its object which our philosophy asserts as the primary cosmic energy and the method of divine action upon the world. By this capacity the Yogin, already possessed of the highest supracosmic knowledge and experience in the state of trance, is able in the waking state to acquire directly whatever knowledge and exercise whatever mastery may be useful or necessary to his activities in the objective world.
~ Sri Aurobindo, The Synthesis Of Yoga, The Conditions of the Synthesis, The Systems of Yoga, 36,#KEYS
25:Sweet Mother, here it is written: "It is part of the foundation of Yoga to become conscious of the great complexity of our nature, see the different forces that move it and get over it a control of directing knowledge." Are these forces different for each person?
Yes. The composition is completely different, otherwise everybody would be the same. There are not two beings with an identical combination; between the different parts of the being and the composition of these parts the proportion is different in each individual. There are people, primitive men, people like the yet undeveloped races or the degenerated ones whose combinations are fairly simple; they are still complicated, but comparatively simple. And there are people absolutely at the top of the human ladder, the e ́lite of humanity; their combinations become so complicated that a very special discernment is needed to find the relations between all these things.
There are beings who carry in themselves thousands of different personalities, and then each one has its own rhythm and alternation, and there is a kind of combination; sometimes there are inner conflicts, and there is a play of activities which are rhythmic and with alternations of certain parts which come to the front and then go back and again come to the front. But when one takes all that, it makes such complicated combinations that some people truly find it difficult to understand what is going on in themselves; and yet these are the ones most capable of a complete, coordinated, conscious, organised action; but their organisation is infinitely more complicated than that of primitive or undeveloped men who have two or three impulses and four or five ideas, and who can arrange all this very easily in themselves and seem to be very co-ordinated and logical because there is not very much to organise. But there are people truly like a multitude, and so that gives them a plasticity, a fluidity of action and an extraordinary complexity of perception, and these people are capable of understanding a considerable number of things, as though they had at their disposal a veritable army which they move according to circumstance and need; and all this is inside them. So when these people, with the help of yoga, the discipline of yoga, succeed in centralising all these beings around the central light of the divine Presence, they become powerful entities, precisely because of their complexity. So long as this is not organised they often give the impression of an incoherence, they are almost incomprehensible, one can't manage to understand why they are like that, they are so complex. But when they have organised all these beings, that is, put each one in its place around the divine centre, then truly they are terrific, for they have the capacity of understanding almost everything and doing almost everything because of the multitude of entities they contain, of which they are constituted. And the nearer one is to the top of the ladder, the more it is like that, and consequently the more difficult it is to organise one's being; because when you have about a dozen elements, you can quickly compass and organise them, but when you have thousands of them, it is difficult. ~ The Mother, Questions And Answers 1955, 215-216,#KEYS
26:Mental Education
OF ALL lines of education, mental education is the most widely known and practised, yet except in a few rare cases there are gaps which make it something very incomplete and in the end quite insufficient.
Generally speaking, schooling is considered to be all the mental education that is necessary. And when a child has been made to undergo, for a number of years, a methodical training which is more like cramming than true schooling, it is considered that whatever is necessary for his mental development has been done. Nothing of the kind. Even conceding that the training is given with due measure and discrimination and does not permanently damage the brain, it cannot impart to the human mind the faculties it needs to become a good and useful instrument. The schooling that is usually given can, at the most, serve as a system of gymnastics to increase the suppleness of the brain. From this standpoint, each branch of human learning represents a special kind of mental gymnastics, and the verbal formulations given to these various branches each constitute a special and well-defined language.
A true mental education, which will prepare man for a higher life, has five principal phases. Normally these phases follow one after another, but in exceptional individuals they may alternate or even proceed simultaneously. These five phases, in brief, are:
(1) Development of the power of concentration, the capacity of attention.
(2) Development of the capacities of expansion, widening, complexity and richness.
(3) Organisation of one's ideas around a central idea, a higher ideal or a supremely luminous idea that will serve as a guide in life.
(4) Thought-control, rejection of undesirable thoughts, to become able to think only what one wants and when one wants.
(5) Development of mental silence, perfect calm and a more and more total receptivity to inspirations coming from the higher regions of the being.
It is not possible to give here all the details concerning the methods to be employed in the application of these five phases of education to different individuals. Still, a few explanations on points of detail can be given.
Undeniably, what most impedes mental progress in children is the constant dispersion of their thoughts. Their thoughts flutter hither and thither like butterflies and they have to make a great effort to fix them. Yet this capacity is latent in them, for when you succeed in arousing their interest, they are capable of a good deal of attention. By his ingenuity, therefore, the educator will gradually help the child to become capable of a sustained effort of attention and a faculty of more and more complete absorption in the work in hand. All methods that can develop this faculty of attention from games to rewards are good and can all be utilised according to the need and the circumstances. But it is the psychological action that is most important and the sovereign method is to arouse in the child an interest in what you want to teach him, a liking for work, a will to progress. To love to learn is the most precious gift that one can give to a child: to love to learn always and everywhere, so that all circumstances, all happenings in life may be constantly renewed opportunities for learning more and always more.
For that, to attention and concentration should be added observation, precise recording and faithfulness of memory. This faculty of observation can be developed by varied and spontaneous exercises, making use of every opportunity that presents itself to keep the child's thought wakeful, alert and prompt. The growth of the understanding should be stressed much more than that of memory. One knows well only what one has understood. Things learnt by heart, mechanically, fade away little by little and finally disappear; what is understood is never forgotten. Moreover, you must never refuse to explain to a child the how and the why of things. If you cannot do it yourself, you must direct the child to those who are qualified to answer or point out to him some books that deal with the question. In this way you will progressively awaken in the child the taste for true study and the habit of making a persistent effort to know.
This will bring us quite naturally to the second phase of development in which the mind should be widened and enriched.
You will gradually show the child that everything can become an interesting subject for study if it is approached in the right way. The life of every day, of every moment, is the best school of all, varied, complex, full of unexpected experiences, problems to be solved, clear and striking examples and obvious consequences. It is so easy to arouse healthy curiosity in children, if you answer with intelligence and clarity the numerous questions they ask. An interesting reply to one readily brings others in its train and so the attentive child learns without effort much more than he usually does in the classroom. By a choice made with care and insight, you should also teach him to enjoy good reading-matter which is both instructive and attractive. Do not be afraid of anything that awakens and pleases his imagination; imagination develops the creative mental faculty and through it study becomes living and the mind develops in joy.
In order to increase the suppleness and comprehensiveness of his mind, one should see not only that he studies many varied topics, but above all that a single subject is approached in various ways, so that the child understands in a practical manner that there are many ways of facing the same intellectual problem, of considering it and solving it. This will remove all rigidity from his brain and at the same time it will make his thinking richer and more supple and prepare it for a more complex and comprehensive synthesis. In this way also the child will be imbued with the sense of the extreme relativity of mental learning and, little by little, an aspiration for a truer source of knowledge will awaken in him.
Indeed, as the child grows older and progresses in his studies, his mind too ripens and becomes more and more capable of forming general ideas, and with them almost always comes a need for certitude, for a knowledge that is stable enough to form the basis of a mental construction which will permit all the diverse and scattered and often contradictory ideas accumulated in his brain to be organised and put in order. This ordering is indeed very necessary if one is to avoid chaos in one's thoughts. All contradictions can be transformed into complements, but for that one must discover the higher idea that will have the power to bring them harmoniously together. It is always good to consider every problem from all possible standpoints so as to avoid partiality and exclusiveness; but if the thought is to be active and creative, it must, in every case, be the natural and logical synthesis of all the points of view adopted. And if you want to make the totality of your thoughts into a dynamic and constructive force, you must also take great care as to the choice of the central idea of your mental synthesis; for upon that will depend the value of this synthesis. The higher and larger the central idea and the more universal it is, rising above time and space, the more numerous and the more complex will be the ideas, notions and thoughts which it will be able to organise and harmonise.
It goes without saying that this work of organisation cannot be done once and for all. The mind, if it is to keep its vigour and youth, must progress constantly, revise its notions in the light of new knowledge, enlarge its frame-work to include fresh notions and constantly reclassify and reorganise its thoughts, so that each of them may find its true place in relation to the others and the whole remain harmonious and orderly.
All that has just been said concerns the speculative mind, the mind that learns. But learning is only one aspect of mental activity; the other, which is at least equally important, is the constructive faculty, the capacity to form and thus prepare action. This very important part of mental activity has rarely been the subject of any special study or discipline. Only those who want, for some reason, to exercise a strict control over their mental activities think of observing and disciplining this faculty of formation; and as soon as they try it, they have to face difficulties so great that they appear almost insurmountable.
And yet control over this formative activity of the mind is one of the most important aspects of self-education; one can say that without it no mental mastery is possible. As far as study is concerned, all ideas are acceptable and should be included in the synthesis, whose very function is to become more and more rich and complex; but where action is concerned, it is just the opposite. The ideas that are accepted for translation into action should be strictly controlled and only those that agree with the general trend of the central idea forming the basis of the mental synthesis should be permitted to express themselves in action. This means that every thought entering the mental consciousness should be set before the central idea; if it finds a logical place among the thoughts already grouped, it will be admitted into the synthesis; if not, it will be rejected so that it can have no influence on the action. This work of mental purification should be done very regularly in order to secure a complete control over one's actions.
For this purpose, it is good to set apart some time every day when one can quietly go over one's thoughts and put one's synthesis in order. Once the habit is acquired, you can maintain control over your thoughts even during work and action, allowing only those which are useful for what you are doing to come to the surface. Particularly, if you have continued to cultivate the power of concentration and attention, only the thoughts that are needed will be allowed to enter the active external consciousness and they then become all the more dynamic and effective. And if, in the intensity of concentration, it becomes necessary not to think at all, all mental vibration can be stilled and an almost total silence secured. In this silence one can gradually open to the higher regions of the mind and learn to record the inspirations that come from there.
But even before reaching this point, silence in itself is supremely useful, because in most people who have a somewhat developed and active mind, the mind is never at rest. During the day, its activity is kept under a certain control, but at night, during the sleep of the body, the control of the waking state is almost completely removed and the mind indulges in activities which are sometimes excessive and often incoherent. This creates a great stress which leads to fatigue and the diminution of the intellectual faculties.
The fact is that like all the other parts of the human being, the mind too needs rest and it will not have this rest unless we know how to provide it. The art of resting one's mind is something to be acquired. Changing one's mental activity is certainly one way of resting; but the greatest possible rest is silence. And as far as the mental faculties are concerned a few minutes passed in the calm of silence are a more effective rest than hours of sleep.
When one has learned to silence the mind at will and to concentrate it in receptive silence, then there will be no problem that cannot be solved, no mental difficulty whose solution cannot be found. When it is agitated, thought becomes confused and impotent; in an attentive tranquillity, the light can manifest itself and open up new horizons to man's capacity. Bulletin, November 1951
~ The Mother, On Education,#KEYS
*** WISDOM TROVE ***
1:Increasing consciousness = increasing complexity. ~ ken-wilber, @wisdomtrove 2:Simplicity of expression rather than complexity of form. ~ bruce-lee, @wisdomtrove 3:I feel that it's lovely when, as a user, you're not aware of the complexity. ~ jony-ive, @wisdomtrove 4:Complexity and intelligence grow from simplicity, not from greater complexity. ~ brian-eno, @wisdomtrove 5:There is a point of complexity beyond which a business is no longer manageable. ~ peter-drucker, @wisdomtrove 6:Mastery comes via a monomaniacal focus on simplicity versus an addiction to complexity. ~ robin-sharma, @wisdomtrove 7:The practice of Yoga brings us face to face with the extraordinary complexity of our own being. ~ sri-aurobindo, @wisdomtrove 8:If I do not understand myself, the whole complexity of myself, I have no basis for thinking. ~ jiddu-krishnamurti, @wisdomtrove 9:Complexity is your enemy. Any fool can make something complicated. It is hard to keep things simple. ~ richard-branson, @wisdomtrove 10:Doing nothing is not only a waste of energy—it often promotes decay and unnecessary complexity and stress. ~ david-allen, @wisdomtrove 11:One of the greatest fictions of all is to deny the complexity of the world and think in absolute terms: ~ yuval-noah-harari, @wisdomtrove 12:The world is a thing of utter inordinate complexity and richness and strangeness that is absolutely awesome. ~ douglas-adams, @wisdomtrove 13:One of the great breakthroughs of evolution theory is that you start with simple things and they will grow into complexity. ~ brian-eno, @wisdomtrove 14:Self-exposure is commendable in art only when it is of a quality and complexity that allows other people to learn about themselves from it. ~ susan-sontag, @wisdomtrove 15:When you're first thinking through an idea, it's important not to get bogged down in complexity. Thinking simply and clearly is hard to do. ~ richard-branson, @wisdomtrove 16:Racial segregation must be seen for what it is, and that is an evil system, a new form of slavery covered up with certain niceties of complexity. ~ martin-luther-king, @wisdomtrove 17:For the simplicity on this side of complexity, I wouldn't give you a fig. But for the simplicity on the other side of complexity, for that I would give you anything I have. ~ oliver-wendell-holmes-sr, @wisdomtrove 18:The complexity and efficiency of the physicist’s technical apparatus is matched, if not surpassed, by that of the mystic’s consciousness—both physical and spiritual—in deep meditation. ~ fritjof-capra, @wisdomtrove 19:Look at yourself as someone who is reaching for healing, and at the complexity of what needs to be healed. Do not think that you exist alone without other human beings of equal complexity. ~ gary-zukav, @wisdomtrove 20:There are some people, who I'll charitably call snobs, who are dismissive of any conversation that doesn't begin with the full level of complexity. That's just not how the world works. ~ malcolm-gladwell, @wisdomtrove 21:Those three things - autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward - are, most people will agree, the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying. ~ malcolm-gladwell, @wisdomtrove 22:Toleration of people who differ in convictions and habits requires a residual awareness of the complexity of truth and the possibility of opposing view having some light on one or the other facet of a many-sided truth. ~ reinhold-niebuhr, @wisdomtrove 23:I think there is a profound and enduring beauty in simplicity; in clarity, in efficiency. True simplicity is derived from so much more than just the absence of clutter and ornamentation. It's about bringing order to complexity. ~ jony-ive, @wisdomtrove 24:Our model of the cosmos must be as inexhaustible as the cosmos. A complexity that includes not only duration but creation, not only being but becoming, not only geometry but ethics. It is not the answer we are after, but only how to ask the question. ~ ursula-k-le-guin, @wisdomtrove 25:I have tried (I am not sure how successfully) to write plain tales. I dare not say they are simple; there is not a simple page, a simple word, on earth - for all pages, all words, predicate the universe, whose most notorious attribute is its complexity. ~ jorge-luis-borges, @wisdomtrove 26:to design means forcing ourselves to unlearn what we believe we already know, patiently to take apart the mechanisms behind our reflexes and to acknowledge the mystery and stupefying complexity of everyday gestures like switching off a light of turning on a tap ~ alain-de-botton, @wisdomtrove 27:What is the singularity? We could say it’s the primal oneness that has evolved into the multifarious variety of life. The fundamental simplicity which is the source of the astonishing complexity of the universe. The nothing which contained the potential for everything. ~ tim-freke, @wisdomtrove 28:We are in an age of religious complexity. The simplicity which is in Christ is rarely found among us. In its stead are programs, methods, organizations, and a world of nervous activities which occupy time and attention but can never satisfy the longing of the heart. ~ aiden-wilson-tozer, @wisdomtrove 29:Most research into life's murky origin has been carried out by chemists. They've tried a variety of approaches in their attempts to recreate the first steps on the road to life, but little progress has been made. Perhaps that is no surprise, given life's stupendous complexity. ~ paul-davies, @wisdomtrove 30:Even in the obscure vast history of a planet the time it takes to make a forest counts. It takes a while. And not every planet can do it; it is no common effect, that tangling of the sun's first cool light in the shadow and complexity of innumberable wind-stirred branches. ~ ursula-k-le-guin, @wisdomtrove 31:I've done a number of films. I've been around this. I think the biggest challenge is just getting the script right, the way that you want the script to be. It's really about capturing the complexity of emotions and creating the kind of characters that people will want to watch every week. ~ nicholas-sparks, @wisdomtrove 32:The whole process of nature is an integrated process of immense complexity and it is really impossible to tell whether something that happens in it is good or bad. Because you never know what will be the consequences of the misfortune. Or, you never know what will be the consequences of good fortune. ~ alan-watts, @wisdomtrove 33:Those three things - autonomy, complexity and a connection between effort and reward - are, most people agree, the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying. It is not how much money we make that ultimately makes us happy between nine and five. It's whether our work fulfills us. ~ malcolm-gladwell, @wisdomtrove 34:No matter how exotic human civilization becomes, no matter the developments of life and society nor the complexity of the machine/human interface, there always come interludes of lonely power when the course of humankind, the very future of humankind, depends upon the relatively simple actions of single individual. ~ frank-herbert, @wisdomtrove 35:Another way to be awakened by the beauty and complexity of the word is to get a dog. Small Things like a plant that I had passed a thousand time and never given a second thought to. But the dog is curious. And the dog stops and wants to smell this and smell that. And the dog makes you look and focus and take the time. ~ dean-koontz, @wisdomtrove 36:We cannot fathom the marvelous complexity of an organic being; but on the hypothesis here advanced this complexity is much increased. Each living creature must be looked at as a microcosm& 37:He had a deep respect for life, a special compassion for animals, and great awe and reverence for nature’s complexity and abundance. While a brilliant inventor and designer himself, he always thought that nature’s ingenuity was vastly superior to human design. He felt that we would be wise to respect nature and learn from her. ~ fritjof-capra, @wisdomtrove 38:As we grow older we become more conscious of the complexity, incoherence, and unreasonableness of human beings; this indeed is the only excuse that offers for the middle-aged or elderly writer whose thoughts should more properly be turned to graver matters, occupying himself with the trivial concerns of imaginary people. ~ william-somerset-maugham, @wisdomtrove 39:By "essence" I understand a universal, of any degree of complexity and definition, which may be given immediately, whether to sense or to thought... . This object of pure sense or pure thought, with no belief superadded, an object inwardly complete and individual, but without external relations or physical status, is what I call an essence. ~ george-santayana, @wisdomtrove 40:The point, which can hardly be repeated too often, is that differentiation is not separation. The head and the feet are different, but not separate, and though man is not connected to the universe by exactly the same physical relation as branch to tree or feet to head, he is nonetheless connected - and by physical relations of fascinating complexity. ~ alan-watts, @wisdomtrove 41:It {Darwin's theory of evolution] was a concept of such stunning simplicity, but it gave rise, naturally, to all of the infinite and baffling complexity of life. The awe it inspired in me made the awe that people talk about in respect of religious experience seem, frankly, silly beside it. I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day. ~ douglas-adams, @wisdomtrove 42:I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives. ~ leo-tolstoy, @wisdomtrove 43:Finally one should add that in spite of the great complexity of protein synthesis and in spite of the considerable technical difficulties in synthesizing polynucleotides with defined sequences it is not unreasonable to hope that all these points will be clarified in the near future, and that the genetic code will be completely established on a sound experimental basis within a few years. ~ francis-crick, @wisdomtrove 44:Leonardo did not pursue science and engineering in order to dominate nature, as Francis Bacon would advocate a century later, but always tried to learn as much as possible from nature. He was in awe of the beauty he saw in the complexity of natural forms, patterns, and processes, and aware that nature’s ingenuity was far superior to human design. Accordingly, he often used natural processes and structures as models for his own designs. ~ fritjof-capra, @wisdomtrove 45:Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. It takes a lot of hard work to make something simple, to truly understand the underlying challenges and come up with elegant solutions. [... ] It's not just minimalism or the absence of clutter. It involves digging through the depth of complexity. To be truly simple, you have to go really deep. [... ] You have to deeply understand the essence of a product in order to be able to get rid of the parts that are not essential. ~ steve-jobs, @wisdomtrove 46:There are thousands of proteins in the cells, some of them very large chains of molecules. And the cell doesn't function if one of those chains of molecules isn't there, and you start looking at the complexity of life and the mystery of life, and then start thinking about things like the twenty universal constants, that if any one of them from Plank's minimum to the mass of a proton, if one of them is the tiniest bit off, there would be no life or possibility of it in the universe. ~ dean-koontz, @wisdomtrove 47:The world is a thing of utter inordinate complexity and richness and strangeness that is absolutely awesome. I mean the idea that such complexity can arise not only out of such simplicity, but probably absolutely out of nothing, is the most fabulous extraordinary idea. And once you get some kind of inkling of how that might have happened & 48:Rosemary bubbled with delight at the trunks. Her naivete responded whole-heartedly to the expensive simplicity of the Divers, unaware of its complexity and its lack of innocence, unaware that it was all a selection of quality rather than quantity from the run of the world's bazaar; and that the simplicity of behavior also, the nursery-like peace and good will, the emphasis on the simpler virtues, was part of a desperate bargain with the gods and had been attained through struggles she could not have guessed at. ~ f-scott-fitzgerald, @wisdomtrove 49:People want their reason for living to be a singular thing, like a career or a relationship, because this makes an individual feel secure in the physical world. We don't fare well in the realm of the invisible - so telling someone that their purpose is multilayered and includes the arduous journey of discovering who they really are is not always the answer they want to hear. But consider the complexity of the question: What is my reason for living? How can that question not include a journey into the depths of your own life? ~ caroline-myss, @wisdomtrove 50:People want their reason for living to be a singular thing, like a career or a relationship, because this makes an individual feel secure in the physical world. We don't fare well in the realm of the invisible - so telling someone that their purpose is multilayered and includes the arduous journey of discovering who they really are is not always the answer they want to hear. But consider the complexity of the question: What is my reason for living? How can that question not include a journey into the depths of your own life? ~ norman-vincent-peale, @wisdomtrove 51:I am someone who proudly and humbly affirms that love is the mystery-of-mysteries, and that nothing measurable matters & 52:Truth is always stranger than fiction. We craft fiction to match our sense of how things ought to be, but truth cannot be crafted. Truth is, and truth has a way of astonishing us to our knees. Reminding us, that the universe does not exist to fulfill our expectations. Because we are imperfect beings who are self-blinded to the truth of the world’s stunning complexity, we shave reality to paper thin theories and ideologies that we can easily grasp and we call them truths. But the truth of a sea in all it’s immensity cannot be embodied in one tidewashed pebble. ~ dean-koontz, @wisdomtrove 53:We live in strange times. We also live in strange places: each in a universe of our own. The people with whom we populate our universes are the shadows of whole other universes intersecting with our own. Being able to glance out into this bewildering complexity of infinite recursion and say things like, & 54:I would call the attention of the reader to the difference between "reason" and "reasoning." Reason is a light, reasoning a process. Reason is a faculty, reasoning an exercise of that faculty. Reasoning proceeds from one truth to another by means of argumentation. This generally involves the whole mind in labor and complexity. But reason does not exist merely in order to engage in reasoning. The process is a means to an end. The true fulfillment of reason as a faculty is found when it can embrace the truth simply and without labor in the light of single intuition. ~ thomas-merton, @wisdomtrove *** NEWFULLDB 2.4M ***
1:Don't let complexity stop you. ~ Bill Gates, #NFDB
2:My goal is to simplify complexity. ~ Jack Dorsey, #NFDB
3:My journey is technical complexity. ~ Peter Wolf, #NFDB
4:Avoiding complexity reduces bugs. ~ Linus Torvalds, #NFDB
5:Complexity is the enemy of execution! ~ Tony Robbins, #NFDB
6:The enemy of execution is complexity. ~ Tony Robbins, #NFDB
7:Don't accept the excuse of complexity. ~ Keith Rabois, #NFDB
8:Out of complexity, find simplicity! ~ Albert Einstein, #NFDB
9:Simplicity and complexity need each other. ~ John Maeda, #NFDB
10:Simplicity is complexity resolved ~ Constantin Brancusi, #NFDB
11:You need simplicity to create complexity ~ Tarryn Fisher, #NFDB
12:Life is simple; WE create the complexity. ~ Steve Maraboli, #NFDB
13:If complexity doesn't beat you, paradox will. ~ Tom Robbins, #NFDB
14:I love to work. I love to have complexity. ~ Mary McDonnell, #NFDB
15:Complexity should be your excuse for inaction. ~ Claire North, #NFDB
16:We Ignore the Complexity of Human Motivations ~ Douglas Stone, #NFDB
17:You have got to welcome and embrace complexity. ~ Paul Singer, #NFDB
18:Everyone is a lonely victim of life's complexity. ~ Ted Dekker, #NFDB
19:Increasing consciousness = increasing complexity. ~ Ken Wilber, #NFDB
20:You argue complexity as an excuse for inaction? ~ Claire North, #NFDB
21:Without complexity, there's no intensity. ~ Alexandra Adornetto, #NFDB
22:Complexity creates confusion, simplicity focus. ~ Edward de Bono, #NFDB
23:Religion leaves no room for human complexity. ~ Daniel Radcliffe, #NFDB
24:the complexity of society does not imply a planner. ~ Matt Ridley, #NFDB
25:Complexity implies meaning. We're afraid of meaning. ~ Dean Koontz, #NFDB
26:simplicity piled upon simplicity creates complexity. ~ Matt Ridley, #NFDB
27:Profundity is not complexity; it is simplicity. ~ Bruce H Wilkinson, #NFDB
28:Beauty is the ultimate defense against complexity. ~ David Gelernter, #NFDB
29:Simplicity of expression rather than complexity of form. ~ Bruce Lee, #NFDB
30:Complexity of thought is no measure of originality. ~ Arthur Koestler, #NFDB
31:Duality is not a story. Duality is just a complexity. ~ Edward Norton, #NFDB
32:Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it. ~ Alan Perlis, #NFDB
33:The beauty of simplicity is the complexity it attracts. ~ Tom Robbins, #NFDB
34:People are complex. I'm just showing my complexity. ~ Juliana Hatfield, #NFDB
35:Stop trying to change reality by eliminating complexity. ~ David Whyte, #NFDB
36:The essence of tyranny is the denial of complexity. ~ Jacob Burckhardt, #NFDB
37:Growth creates complexity, which requires simplicity. ~ Mike Krzyzewski, #NFDB
38:I am profoundly enchanted by the flowing complexity in you. ~ John Keats, #NFDB
39:Our role as humans is to recognize the complexity of others. ~ John Green, #NFDB
40:Complexity assertions have to be part of the interface ~ Alexander Stepanov, #NFDB
41:The price we pay for the complexity of life is too high. ~ Jean Baudrillard, #NFDB
42:Complexity is not a cause of confusion. It is a result of it. ~ Jeff Hawkins, #NFDB
43:Men rush toward complexity; but yearn for simplicity. ~ Gilbert K Chesterton, #NFDB
44:Principles are the simplicity on the far side of complexity. ~ Stephen Covey, #NFDB
45:I don’t concern myself with complexity when I have guests. ~ Stephanie Danler, #NFDB
46:I think the next century will be the century of complexity. ~ Stephen Hawking, #NFDB
47:The art of programming is the art of organizing complexity. ~ Edsger Dijkstra, #NFDB
48:What's lost in translation is the complexity of loss itself. ~ Alison Bechdel, #NFDB
49:Principles are the simplicity on the far side of complexity. ~ Stephen R Covey, #NFDB
50:In complexity, it is only simplicity that can be interesting. ~ Steven Weinberg, #NFDB
51:Living organisms are distinguished by their specified complexity ~ Leslie Orgel, #NFDB
52:Controlling complexity is the essence of computer programming. ~ Brian Kernighan, #NFDB
53:Design simply today, knowing you can add complexity needed tomorrow. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
54:The aim of science is always to reduce complexity to simplicity. ~ William James, #NFDB
55:The evolution of knowledge is toward simplicity, not complexity. ~ L Ron Hubbard, #NFDB
56:Human nature has a tendency to admire complexity but reward simplicity. ~ Ben Huh, #NFDB
57:The art of programming is the skill of controlling complexity. ~ Marijn Haverbeke, #NFDB
58:Everything has complexity. Everything has simplicity. You just grab it. ~ Yoko Ono, #NFDB
59:Complexity has nothing to do with intelligence, simplicity does. ~ Lawrence Bossidy, #NFDB
60:What is the alternative to understanding the complexity of the world? ~ Atul Gawande, #NFDB
61:AS SYSTEMS GROW IN SIZE AND COMPLEXITY, THEY TEND TO LOSE BASIC FUNCTIONS ~ John Gall, #NFDB
62:Complexity means distracted effort. Simplicity means focused effort. ~ Edward de Bono, #NFDB
63:Perhaps grown women are beings of a good deal more complexity than cats ~ Jude Morgan, #NFDB
64:The Mozilla project is big in terms of lines of code and complexity. ~ Mitchell Baker, #NFDB
65:The barrier to change is not too little caring; it is too much complexity. ~ Bill Gates, #NFDB
66:The complexity of the world is so overwhelming and so present to everyone. ~ Susan Choi, #NFDB
67:Complexity is one of the great problems in environmental design. ~ Christopher Alexander, #NFDB
68:Truth itself is always simple. Complexity is due to man's ignorance. ~ Swami Vivekananda, #NFDB
69:Why, then, do so many mistakes happen? One of the problems is complexity. ~ Matthew Syed, #NFDB
70:I don't really have preferred roles except those with some complexity. ~ Richard Roxburgh, #NFDB
71:In my piano concerto I developed this polyphony to much higher complexity ~ Gyorgy Ligeti, #NFDB
72:Storing information means increasing the complexity of the mechanism. ~ Donella H Meadows, #NFDB
73:The orthogonal features, when combined, can explode into complexity. ~ Yukihiro Matsumoto, #NFDB
74:As technology advances in complexity and scope, fear becomes more primitive. ~ Don DeLillo, #NFDB
75:Complexity and intelligence grow from simplicity, not from greater complexity. ~ Brian Eno, #NFDB
76:Complexity is not good. People don't understand the elegance of simplicity. ~ Gordon Willis, #NFDB
77:I will resist the urge to underestimate the complexity of knitting. ~ Stephanie Pearl McPhee, #NFDB
78:Meeting complexity with complexity can create more confusion than it resolves. ~ Donald Sull, #NFDB
79:The complexity of the emotional life of the play is what you live to work on. ~ Marsha Mason, #NFDB
80:that he lived in a universe whose complexity defied algorithmic simulation. ~ Neal Stephenson, #NFDB
81:Ambiguity is something that I really respond to. I like the complexity of it. ~ Robert Redford, #NFDB
82:Forget the complaints against complexity; instead, complain about confusion. ~ Donald A Norman, #NFDB
83:...I'd become aware of human complexity--that's a kinder word than "deceit. ~ Abraham Verghese, #NFDB
84:Neutralizing each other’s complexity affords us a kind of manageable otherness. ~ Esther Perel, #NFDB
85:The opposite of simplicity is not complexity, but fragmentation and alienation. ~ Mark Sheppard, #NFDB
86:The purpose of software engineering is to control complexity, not to create it. ~ Jon L Bentley, #NFDB
87:There is a point of complexity beyond which a business is no longer manageable. ~ Peter Drucker, #NFDB
88:Truth reduces the terrible complexity of a man to the simplicity of his word, ~ Jordan Peterson, #NFDB
89:Beauty comes from tension: between order and disorder, simplicity and complexity. ~ Stefan Klein, #NFDB
90:Because complexity inhibits flexibility, early choices are especially crucial. ~ Henry Kissinger, #NFDB
91:Complexity is a useful and lucrative method of legal extortion for politicians ~ Peter Schweizer, #NFDB
92:There's nothing more inspiring than the complexity and beauty of the human heart. ~ Cynthia Hand, #NFDB
93:When the complexity of social patterning is reduced, so is individual freedom. ~ L E Modesitt Jr, #NFDB
94:A formula can be very simple, and create a universe of bottomless complexity. ~ Benoit Mandelbrot, #NFDB
95:It is easy to get seduced by complexity; but there is virtue in simplicity too. ~ Steven D Levitt, #NFDB
96:The suburban mind cannot comprehend the emergent complexity of a New York sidewalk. ~ Robin Sloan, #NFDB
97:Truth reduces the terrible complexity of a man to the simplicity of his word, ~ Jordan B Peterson, #NFDB
98:As artists we are here to make you uncomfortable with the complexity of your reality. ~ Junot Diaz, #NFDB
99:There is no complexity in what is, but only in the many escapes that we seek. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti, #NFDB
100:All of life in its complexity and beauty is forever minted in the gold of words. ~ Yevgeny Zamyatin, #NFDB
101:Most people don’t like complexity. They would prefer the world to be simple. ~ Catherynne M Valente, #NFDB
102:Failing to grapple with complexity actually turns out to be a pretty bad life strategy. ~ John Green, #NFDB
103:Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it. ~ Alan Perlis, #NFDB
104:If you lose yourself to rage in the complexity of battle, you are going to be lost. ~ George Friedman, #NFDB
105:Inequality is not only natural and inborn, it grows with the complexity of civilization. ~ Will Durant, #NFDB
106:Mastery comes via a monomaniacal focus on simplicity versus an addiction to complexity. ~ Robin Sharma, #NFDB
107:VUCA World—an environment of nonstop volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. ~ Chris Ertel, #NFDB
108:Our complexity is much more likely to lead us astray than any simplicity we may follow. ~ Roger Kimball, #NFDB
109:31: Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it. ~ Alan Perlis, Epigrams on Programming, 1982, #NFDB
110:Technical skill is mastery of complexity, while creativity is mastery of simplicity. ~ Christopher Zeeman, #NFDB
111:The art of programming is the skill of controlling complexity.
~ Marijn Haverbeke, Eloquent JavaScript,#NFDB
112:Conspiracy theories are an irresistible labor-saving device in the face of complexity. ~ Henry Louis Gates, #NFDB
113:All action is surrounded by a complexity of forces. ~ Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga - I, Occult Knowledge, #NFDB
114:I wanted to write about the complexity and hilarity in the everyday business of being human. ~ Kate De Goldi, #NFDB
115:Compared to the complexity of the universe, this world of ours is like the brain of a worm. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
116:Conspiracy theories are an irresistible labor-saving device in the face of complexity. ~ Henry Louis Gates Jr, #NFDB
117:The detailed geometry of the coenzyme molecule as a whole is fascinating in its complexity. ~ Dorothy Hodgkin, #NFDB
118:...the truth of the maxim that beauty lies between the extremities of order and complexity. ~ Alain de Botton, #NFDB
119:under conditions of complexity, not only are checklists a help, they are required for success. ~ Atul Gawande, #NFDB
120:What I love about design is the artistic and scientific complexity that also becomes useful. ~ Michelle Obama, #NFDB
121:After the sureties of youth there sets in a period of intense and intolerable complexity. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald, #NFDB
122:I love character roles. I'm happier in them. I look for roles that have some kind of complexity. ~ Emily Blunt, #NFDB
123:The grotesque remains of incomplete lives, the embodied complexity of desires eternally denied ~ Anne Michaels, #NFDB
124:intelligence seems to be correlated with the complexity with which we can simulate future events, ~ Michio Kaku, #NFDB
125:Suddenly it was clear to me that all the beautiful complexity of life had simplicity at its core. ~ Eric Lander, #NFDB
126:The practice of Yoga brings us face to face with the extraordinary complexity of our own being. ~ Sri Aurobindo, #NFDB
127:If I do not understand myself, the whole complexity of myself, I have no basis for thinking. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti, #NFDB
128:We find ourselves in a thicket of strategic complexity, surrounded by a dense mist of uncertainty. ~ Nick Bostrom, #NFDB
129:Wintermute was a simple cube of white light, that very simplicity suggesting extreme complexity. ~ William Gibson, #NFDB
130:Complexity is the worst enemy of security, and our systems are getting more complex all the time. ~ Bruce Schneier, #NFDB
131:It’s classic: Congress decides to reduce the complexity of our tax code by making it even more complex. ~ T R Reid, #NFDB
132:There's something in this country that is so opposed to understanding the complexity of children. ~ Maurice Sendak, #NFDB
133:To increase complexity of a simple idea, that is knowledge; to simplify a complex idea, that is wisdom. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
134:뷰카(VUCA)는 군사 용어다. 변동성(Vlatility), 불확실성(Uncertainty), 복잡성(Complexity), 모호성(Ambiguity)으로 가득한 환경을 뜻하는 약어다. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
135:Complexity serves nothing but our ego. Be able to say what you do in a way that people can understand. ~ Chris Brogan, #NFDB
136:The complexity of the system comes from the aggregation of many simple parts, not from any complex parts. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
137:Complexity is your enemy. Any fool can make something complicated. It is hard to keep things simple. ~ Richard Branson, #NFDB
138:Intelligence augmentation decreases the need for specialization and increases participatory complexity. ~ Jamais Cascio, #NFDB
139:let’s instead define life very broadly, simply as a process that can retain its complexity and replicate. ~ Max Tegmark, #NFDB
140:You need to bring your awakening into city life. Bring it into fast-paced complexity where it thrives. ~ John de Ruiter, #NFDB
141:Doing nothing is not only a waste of energy—it often promotes decay and unnecessary complexity and stress. ~ David Allen, #NFDB
142:Now he had learned that a machine, simple in its design, could produce results of infinite complexity. ~ Neal Stephenson, #NFDB
143:We incline to see history through the lives of great men. That inclination blinds us to the real complexity … ~ John Kay, #NFDB
144:Few of us are equipped to cope with the complexity and dazzling variety of twenty-first-century existence. ~ John Brunner, #NFDB
145:The complexity for minimum component costs has increased at a rate of roughly a factor of two per year, ~ Walter Isaacson, #NFDB
146:the number one most serious problem facing American taxpayers. That problem is the complexity of the tax code. ~ T R Reid, #NFDB
147:there is a world of difference between complexity and anarchy. The weather is complex, it is not anarchic. ~ Oliver Sacks, #NFDB
148:When scientists underestimate complexity, they fall prey to the perils of unintended consequences. ~ Siddhartha Mukherjee, #NFDB
149:He who despises simplicity will shout for a simple lifebuoy when drowning in the ocean of complexity! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan, #NFDB
150:...the only simplicity to be trusted is the simplicity to be found on the far side of complexity. ~ Alfred North Whitehead, #NFDB
151:complexity introduced the possibility of greater error and because no working tool needed greater errors. ~ L E Modesitt Jr, #NFDB
152:God uses the tension, complexity, and challenge of doing His kingdom work to transform us into champions. ~ Christine Caine, #NFDB
153:Macroeconomics people...are often wrong because of extreme complexity in the system they wish to understand ~ Peter Bevelin, #NFDB
154:No marketer is ever going to push something with the stink of reasonableness, complexity, or mixed emotions. ~ Ryan Holiday, #NFDB
155:The love of complexity without reductionism makes art; the love of complexity with reductionism makes science. ~ E O Wilson, #NFDB
156:The world is a thing of utter inordinate complexity and richness and strangeness that is absolutely awesome. ~ Douglas Adams, #NFDB
157:This was jazz music. It was full of the complexity and contradictions that I would soon learn made humans human. ~ Matt Haig, #NFDB
158:Very many theories are needed before we can get even a rough picture of the psyche’s complexity, ~ Carl Jung, (CW 16, ¶198), #NFDB
159:I have been interested in phenomena involving complexity, diversity and evolution since I was a young boy. ~ Murray Gell Mann, #NFDB
160:I truly think any preparation you do only helps and adds dimension and complexity to the work [as an actor]. ~ Tom Hiddleston, #NFDB
161:...the only simplicity to be trusted is the simplicity to be found on the far side of complexity.
~ Alfred North Whitehead,#NFDB
162:The politicians in Washington just had no idea about the complexity of the situation in South Vietnam. ~ William Westmoreland, #NFDB
163:There is no 'the truth,' 'a truth'--truth is not one thing, or even a system. It is an increasing complexity. ~ Adrienne Rich, #NFDB
164:because there is complexity, autonomy, and a relationship between effort and reward in doing creative work, ~ Malcolm Gladwell, #NFDB
165:In every system of sufficient complexity there are periods of inexplicable, and usually meaningless, disruption. ~ Ben Dolnick, #NFDB
166:My goal is to simplify complexity. I just want to build stuff that really simplifies our base human interaction. ~ Jack Dorsey, #NFDB
167:In the end, it’s not the obviousness or the complexity of the matters that’s deluding mankind. It’s man himself. ~ Pawan Mishra, #NFDB
168:The sheer complexity of writing a play always had dazzled me. In an effort to understand it, I became a critic. ~ Kenneth Tynan, #NFDB
169:Embrace your complexity, stretch your creativity, and live up to your potential, you are what makes the world great. ~ Dan Wells, #NFDB
170:Power, for the writer….lies in his ability to reveal if only a little bit more about the complexity of humanity. ~ Ralph Ellison, #NFDB
171:The love of complexity without reductionism makes art; the love of complexity with reductionism makes science. ~ Edward O Wilson, #NFDB
172:The Phoenix Project is a must read for business and IT executives struggling with the growing complexity of IT. ~ Jim Whitehurst, #NFDB
173:A system tends to grow in complexity instead of simplicity, until the resulting unreliability becomes intolerable. ~ Paul Dickson, #NFDB
174:I'm a minimalist. I see things in simple ways...It's human nature to define complexity as better. Well, it's not. ~ Gordon Willis, #NFDB
175:I think that electronic music mirrors the complexity of "information landscapes." You carry the terrain in your mind. ~ DJ Spooky, #NFDB
176:I think complexity is mostly sort of crummy stuff that is there because it's too expensive to change the interface. ~ Jaron Lanier, #NFDB
177:I think I'm drawn to characters with complexity or who are under duress in some way and have some conflict going on. ~ Emily Blunt, #NFDB
178:Power, for the writer....lies in his ability to reveal if only a little bit more about the complexity of humanity. ~ Ralph Ellison, #NFDB
179:Does anything show the complexity of the miraculous brain more than that weird curiosity, the sleep-protection dream? ~ Dick Cavett, #NFDB
180:Her book was filled with centaurs because she had not fully grasped the complexity of actual people, actual horses. ~ Alasdair Gray, #NFDB
181:I can no more understand the totality of God than the pancake I made for breakfast understands the complexity of me ~ Donald Miller, #NFDB
182:In this sense, an object is of the highest degree of complexity if it can do very difficult and involved things. ~ John von Neumann, #NFDB
183:I think one of the big things that's come out of ghostwriting for me is real compassion for the complexity of fame. ~ Hilary Liftin, #NFDB
184:Nature is capable of building complex structures by processes of self-organization; simplicity begets complexity. ~ Victor J Stenger, #NFDB
185:We are, none of us, 'either' mothers or daughters; to our amazement, confusion, and greater complexity, we are both. ~ Adrienne Rich, #NFDB
186:We're all complex human beings, and if some of that complexity shows through, I think it's advantageous for the movie. ~ Jan de Bont, #NFDB
187:All idealisation makes life poorer. To beautify it is to take away its character of complexity — it is to destroy it. ~ Joseph Conrad, #NFDB
188:Customers want new functionality, but they don't want the traditional complexity that has marred products in the past. ~ Marc Benioff, #NFDB
189:Life is real, in all its complexity. And though it can be painfully difficult, it can also be unspeakably wonderful. ~ Susan Meissner, #NFDB
190:Complexity, therefore, results in flexibility. Increasing complexity always increases capability and adaptability. ~ Jacob Lund Fisker, #NFDB
191:Making peace is not a simple endeavor. It is a constant struggle. But its complexity should not overshadow its purpose. ~ Shimon Peres, #NFDB
192:58: Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Some can avoid it. Geniuses remove it. ~ Alan Perlis, Epigrams on Programming, 1982, #NFDB
193:One of the great breakthroughs of evolution theory is that you start with simple things and they will grow into complexity. ~ Brian Eno, #NFDB
194:The complexity of language, he thought to himself, lies not in its subject matter but in our knotted understanding. ~ Alexander Theroux, #NFDB
195:I am not just a lesbian. I am not just a poet. I am not just a mother. Honor the complexity of your vision and yourselves. ~ Audre Lorde, #NFDB
196:I'm looking for richness, complexity, and characters that have different layers and that you don't really get bored of. ~ Julian Jarrold, #NFDB
197:People tend to romanticise consciousness, as if it’s something spiritual. It’s just a word we use to describe complexity. ~ David Walton, #NFDB
198:Religious interpretations invariably reduce complexity to uniformity while elevating matter-of-factness to holiness. ~ Stephen Batchelor, #NFDB
199:The complexity of things - the things within things - just seems to be endless. I mean nothing is easy, nothing is simple. ~ Alice Munro, #NFDB
200:The novelist is the person who spends a lot of his or her day thinking about the human drama and emotional complexity. ~ Thane Rosenbaum, #NFDB
201:Dostoevsky was the first to reveal to us this teeming multiplicity of emotions, this complexity of our spiritual universe. ~ Stefan Zweig, #NFDB
202:fucking Judas Coyne on the boom box, a guy whose idea of musical complexity is a song with four power chords instead of three. ~ Joe Hill, #NFDB
203:If you do anything well, it becomes enjoyable. To keep enjoying something, you need to increase its complexity. ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, #NFDB
204:Mix a quart of uncertainty, a quart of complexity, a quart of mystery, and a quart of adventure and you have a gallon of life. ~ Dee Hock, #NFDB
205:The black well of sky and stars went out and out and out forever; her body and her complexity seemed to disappear. ~ Maxine Hong Kingston, #NFDB
206:Ecstasy is not simply joy. Ecstasy is an emotion of great complexity that hovers almost on the edge of terror sometimes. ~ Terence McKenna, #NFDB
207:resisting the temptation to build complexity when (as in the case of financial regulation) simplicity is a better option. ~ Niall Ferguson, #NFDB
208:To understand cancer as a whole, he reasoned, you needed to start at the bottom of its complexity, in its basement. ~ Siddhartha Mukherjee, #NFDB
209:Being actors we are dealing with the beauty and complexity of human confusion, no? And we are always trying to get answers. ~ Penelope Cruz, #NFDB
210:Don't let complexity stop you. Be activists. Take on the big inequities. It will be one of the great experiences of your lives. ~ Bill Gates, #NFDB
211:Rather than edit our lives, i.e., start to make decisions, we cloud our path and pretend there’s a fog of complexity in the way. ~ Jon Acuff, #NFDB
212:The complexity of your problems are indicative of your complexity as an individual. [horribly liberal paraphrase by josh] ~ Melissa Belisle, #NFDB
213:We all have to expand our capabilities to encompass the changing world, its growing diversity and, indeed, its complexity. ~ Lachlan Murdoch, #NFDB
214:I believe not only in "special providences," but in the whole universe as one infinite complexity of "special providences. ~ Charles Kingsley, #NFDB
215:Life loves to know itself, out to its furthest limits; to embrace complexity is its delight. Our difference is our beauty. ~ Ursula K Le Guin, #NFDB
216:But let’s consider replacing complexity with the notion of replicated complexity (which can be shortened to “replexity”), or ~ George M Church, #NFDB
217:Compared to the complexity of understanding grief, reading Foucault or Blanchot is like perusing a children's picture book. ~ Rabih Alameddine, #NFDB
218:Compared to the complexity of understanding grief, reading Foucault or Blanchot is like perusing a children’s picture book. ~ Rabih Alameddine, #NFDB
219:From time immemorial, man has desired to comprehend the complexity of nature in terms of as few elementary concepts as possible. ~ Abdus Salam, #NFDB
220:Men rush towards complexity, but they yearn towards simplicity. They try to be kings; but they dream of being shepherds. ~ Gilbert K Chesterton, #NFDB
221:The complexity of human relationships is never simple to follow; it is like intricate lacework, but lacework made of steel. ~ Mignon G Eberhart, #NFDB
222:The novel remains for me one of the few forms where we can record man's complexity and the strength and decency of his longings. ~ John Cheever, #NFDB
223:New recruits coming into the project (like myself) were stunned by the complexity and unable to get to grips with what was going on. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
224:I think we've got to understand the complexity of the world that we are facing and no place is more so than in the Middle East. ~ Hillary Clinton, #NFDB
225:Organizational progress parallels that in science and technology, permitting ultimate simplicity through intermediate complexity. ~ Thomas Sowell, #NFDB
226:Simplicity is hard to build, easy to use, and hard to charge for. Complexity is easy to build, hard to use, and easy to charge for. ~ Chris Sacca, #NFDB
227:The neocortex allows for the subtlety and complexity of emotional life, such as the ability to have feelings about our feelings. ~ Daniel Goleman, #NFDB
228:I am passionate about informing the world about our ocean - its complexity and beauty, its value to us, and the perils that it faces. ~ Jim Toomey, #NFDB
229:I have a theory that kitchens, once they reach a certain level of complexity, attract new gadgets into their orbit, like planets. ~ Kerry Greenwood, #NFDB
230:Any information system of sufficient complexity will inevitably become infected with viruses—viruses generated from within itself. ~ Neal Stephenson, #NFDB
231:Poetry needs to be alive, unabashedly, and, for me, that entails seeing its complexity, the grit and grimness and jubilance and beauty. ~ Alex Lemon, #NFDB
232:the volume and complexity of what we know has exceeded our individual ability to deliver its benefits correctly, safely, or reliably. ~ Atul Gawande, #NFDB
233:Do not be alarmed by simplification, complexity is often a device for claiming sophistication, or for evading simple truths. ~ John Kenneth Galbraith, #NFDB
234:I am most interested in people. I try to capture their complexity and contradiction and beauty. It does not matter where they are from. ~ Kwame Dawes, #NFDB
235:include false information within their discourse, when mapped upon increases in situational complexity, should be a curvilinear function. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
236:He was a man possessed. I was a woman lost. Together, we were two halves of something fragile and delicate, beautiful in its complexity. ~ Callie Hart, #NFDB
237:Medicine has become the art of managing extreme complexity—and a test of whether such complexity can, in fact, be humanly mastered. The ~ Atul Gawande, #NFDB
238:My take is that the kind of complexity which says we can always generate complexity from simple interactions following for example rules. ~ David Byrne, #NFDB
239:Bacon identified in relation to the natural sciences: the mismatch between the complexity of the world and our capacity to understand it. ~ Matthew Syed, #NFDB
240:Less is more. Happiness is found close to the necessities of life, not in needless complexity and meaningless multiplicity of choice. ~ Peter Dale Scott, #NFDB
241:On account of its scale and complexity, the world will always outstrip the capacity of any single body to ask fertile questions of it. ~ Alain de Botton, #NFDB
242:You render the small vast and few many,
use integrity to repay hatred,
see the complexity in simplicity,
find the vast in the minute. ~ Lao Tzu,#NFDB
243:Historical novels, in particular, allow us to relive the past without the neatness of history, and with all the complexity of the present. ~ Laila Lalami, #NFDB
244:Our culture thrives on black-and-white narratives, clearly defined emotions, easy endings, and so, this thrust into complexity exhausts. ~ Caroline Knapp, #NFDB
245:Redford builds a riveting, resonant political thriller that values the complexity of its characters and the intelligence of its audience. ~ Peter Travers, #NFDB
246:The outstanding scientific discovery of the twentieth century is not television, or radio, but rather the complexity of the land organism. ~ Aldo Leopold, #NFDB
247:There is a complexity to life that I often overlook. There is a depth of thinking, there is a richness. I am skating on the surface. ~ Augusten Burroughs, #NFDB
248:Being a reactionary is not about believing in certain solutions, but about having an acute sense of the complexity of the problems. ~ Nicol s G mez D vila, #NFDB
249:Literature is the human activity that make the fullest and most precise account of variousness, possibility, complexity, and difficulty. ~ Lionel Trilling, #NFDB
250:Reasoned, caring conversations that considered the complexity of other perspectives didn’t get views. Rants did. Outrage did. Simplicity did. ~ Hank Green, #NFDB
251:Self-exposure is commendable in art only when it is of a quality and complexity that allows other people to learn about themselves from it. ~ Susan Sontag, #NFDB
252:Literature is the human activity that takes the fullest and most precise account of variousness, possibility, complexity, and difficulty. ~ Lionel Trilling, #NFDB
253:Participatory complexity may well be the key descriptor of the 21st century - in our economies, in our politics, and in our everyday lives. ~ Jamais Cascio, #NFDB
254:The complexity of the society we have created for ourselves envelops us so completely that, instead of being dizzied, we take it for granted. ~ Tim Harford, #NFDB
255:If you want to gain market share at your competitor's expense - look for a customer that's suffering from too much complexity and simplify it. ~ Peter Cohan, #NFDB
256:Judaism to me, as badly as I practiced it, what I've always loved about it was its total embrace of complexity, its admission of unknowability. ~ Ben Marcus, #NFDB
257:Leadership meant knowing how to distill complexity into a comprehensible message to reach the hearts as well as the minds of the larger world. ~ Jon Meacham, #NFDB
258:The march of science and technology does not imply growing intellectual complexity in the lives of most people. It often means the opposite. ~ Thomas Sowell, #NFDB
259:For a child, it is in the simplicity of play that the complexity of life is sorted like puzzle pieces joined together to make sense of the world. ~ L R Knost, #NFDB
260:The physicist's problem is the problem of ultimate origins and ultimate natural laws. The biologist's problem is the problem of complexity. ~ Richard Dawkins, #NFDB
261:The physicist’s problem is the problem of ultimate origins and ultimate natural laws. The biologist’s problem is the problem of complexity. ~ Richard Dawkins, #NFDB
262:When you're first thinking through an idea, it's important not to get bogged down in complexity. Thinking simply and clearly is hard to do. ~ Richard Branson, #NFDB
263:You cannot reduce the complexity of a given task beyond a certain point. Once you've reached that point, you can only shift the burden around. ~ Larry Tesler, #NFDB
264:Most people are reluctant to see themselves as being creative because they associate creativity with complexity. But creativity is simplicity. ~ Steve Chandler, #NFDB
265:Much of what sophisticates loftily refer to as the “complexity” of the real world is in fact the inconsistency in their own minds. —Thomas Sowell ~ David Allen, #NFDB
266:Parkinson’s Law dictates that a task will swell in (perceived) importance and complexity in relation to the time allotted for its completion. ~ Timothy Ferriss, #NFDB
267:The complexity embedded in the different levels of meaning that go along with the words "I love you" ought to be a whole mindfuck of a video game ~ Rachel Cohn, #NFDB
268:The superimposition of two systems: thought and metre,' wrote Proust, 'is a primary element of ordered complexity, that is to say, of beauty. ~ Arthur Koestler, #NFDB
269:It is difficult to appreciate the complexity of the brain because the numbers are so huge. The average brain consists of 100 billion neurons. ~ Daniel J Levitin, #NFDB
270:The implied methods would permit construction of entirely new computers reduced in size and basic complexity by a factor of at least a thousand. ~ Frank Herbert, #NFDB
271:Artistic simplicity is more complex than artistic complexity for it arises via the simplification of the latter and against its backdrop or system. ~ Yuri Lotman, #NFDB
272: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, #NFDB
273:Complexity begets ambiguity, which yields in all ways to prejudice and avarice. Complication does not so much defeat Men as arm them with fancy. ~ R Scott Bakker, #NFDB
274:Implementation inheritance is a very good example for adding much conceptual complexity without giving us the full power of the ideas it builds upon. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
275:Optimization hinders evolution. Everything should be built top-down, except the first time. Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it. ~ Alan Perlis, #NFDB
276:Second law: The complexity barrier. Software complexity (and therefore that of bugs) grows to the limits of our ability to manage that complexity. ~ Boris Beizer, #NFDB
277:The complexity of the situation of having a war going on around you and what that delivers to you is that you have to figure out which side to take. ~ Jamie Bell, #NFDB
278:We need a self because the complexity of the chemical processes that make up our individual humanities exceeds the processing power of our brains. ~ Mohsin Hamid, #NFDB
279:I think that the Democrats can be successful nationally in the future if we are able to capture some of the complexity of people's lives right now. ~ Barack Obama, #NFDB
280:Parkinson’s Law dictates that a task will swell in (perceived) importance and complexity in relation to the time allotted for its completion. It ~ Timothy Ferriss, #NFDB
281:Science has explored the microcosmos and the macrocosmos; we have a good sense of the lay of the land. The great unexplored frontier is complexity. ~ Heinz Pagels, #NFDB
282:The depth of any story is proportionate to the protagonist's commitment to their goal, the complexity of the problem, and the grace of the solution. ~ Steve House, #NFDB
283:The most fundamental problem in software development is complexity. There is only one basic way of dealing with complexity: divide and conquer ~ Bjarne Stroustrup, #NFDB
284:Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding. . . . ~ William Gibson, #NFDB
285:Anarchy is a function, not of a society's simplicity and lack of social organization, but of it's complexity and multiplicity of social organizations. ~ Colin Ward, #NFDB
286:Even a brief reflection on the complexity, diversity, and beauty in creation should cause us to praise God for his power, wisdom, and understanding. ~ Wayne Grudem, #NFDB
287:Duplication is the primary enemy of a well-designed system. It represents additional work, additional risk, and additional unnecessary complexity. ~ Robert C Martin, #NFDB
288:I think the extreme complexity of medicine has become more than an individual clinician can handle. But not more than teams of clinicians can handle. ~ Atul Gawande, #NFDB
289:The emoji still doesn't really speak to the complexity that actually - or the subtext that goes on between when people actually speak face-to-face. ~ Cate Blanchett, #NFDB
290:The smell of subjectivity clings to the mechanical definition of complexity as stubbornly as it sticks to the definition of information. ~ Hans Christian von Baeyer, #NFDB
291:As youth and innocence give way to experience, doubt clouds the mind. Those who find renewed purpose in the complexity will thrive instead of falter. — ~ Jon Skovron, #NFDB
292:Being ambivalent doesn't mean that you're a relevatist, that anything goes; it just means that you show the complexity of life. Life is always complex. ~ Etgar Keret, #NFDB
293:Compassionate leaders honor the complexity of human relationships, nurture authenticity and create common grounds for blooming great ideas of individuals. ~ Amit Ray, #NFDB
294:Complexity and exchange with the environment enhance the individuality and therefore also the consciousness of systems. ~ Erich Jantsch, The Self-Organizing Universe, #NFDB
295:Having worked my way from the bottom of the ladder to the top [of the UN] certainly helped me navigate that complexity, both political and bureaucratic. ~ Kofi Annan, #NFDB
296:complexity, and a connection between effort and reward—are, most people agree, the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying. ~ Malcolm Gladwell, #NFDB
297:Complexity kills. It sucks the life out of developers, it makes products difficult to plan, build, and test.” —Ray Ozzie, CTO, Microsoft Corporation ~ Robert C Martin, #NFDB
298:He stared up at the stars: and it seemed to him then that they were dancers, stately and graceful, performing a dance almost infinite in its complexity. ~ Neil Gaiman, #NFDB
299:Irreducible complexity is a problem for Darwinian evolution. Whenever we see these complex functional systems we realise that they have to be designed. ~ Michael Behe, #NFDB
300:Life, in all its evolutionary wisdom, manages ecosystems of unfathomable beauty, ever evolving toward more wholeness, complexity, and consciousness. ~ Frederic Laloux, #NFDB
301:Life shows no trend to complexity in the usual sense-only an asymmetrical expansion of diversity around a starting point constrained to be simple. ~ Stephen Jay Gould, #NFDB
302:Over time, I started becoming more and more aware of the vastness and complexity of the universe, which led me away from any sort of conventional Christianity. ~ Moby, #NFDB
303:Tens of billions ... are going into the pockets of tens of thousands of tax preparers who ... love complexity as much as the rest of us hate it ~ Nicholas von Hoffman, #NFDB
304:there is complexity, autonomy, and a relationship between effort and reward in doing creative work, and that’s worth more to most of us than money. ~ Malcolm Gladwell, #NFDB
305:But what do we do when the level of complexity actually does require a “very high degree of education”? Can democracy still function effectively? ~ Shawn Lawrence Otto, #NFDB
306:He wants to believe. He has exchanged Occam's razor for Occam's kaleidoscope, complicating simple facts into explanations of impossible complexity. ~ John Joseph Adams, #NFDB
307:Scientists working with relativity, or quantum theory, or modern mathematics, or systems theory, or chaos, or complexity are at the top of their fields. ~ Richard Koch, #NFDB
308:Some people perceive Skinner to be complex. I just basically was trying to remember my lines, so I guess that's what they perceive as being complexity. ~ Mitch Pileggi, #NFDB
309:I am interested not in individual readings, but in constructing networks of images and meanings capable of reflecting the complexity of the subject. ~ Wolfgang Tillmans, #NFDB
310:It is the last lesson of modern science, that the highest simplicity of structure is produced, not by few elements, but by the highest complexity. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, #NFDB
311:Afghan society is very complex, and Afghanistan has a very complex culture. Part of the reason it has remained unknown is because of this complexity. ~ Mohsen Makhmalbaf, #NFDB
312:As self-report may be biased by response tendencies, most other studies used indirect measures to assess the cognitive complexity of lying and truth telling. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
313:It's Twitter's combination of simplicity and complexity that is astonishing in the same way that minimalist sculpture was inspiring and enlightening. ~ Kenneth Goldsmith, #NFDB
314:Movie SF is, by definition, dumbed down - there have only been three or four SF movies in the history of film that aspire to the complexity of literary SF. ~ Dan Simmons, #NFDB
315:Racial segregation must be seen for what it is, and that is an evil system, a new form of slavery covered up with certain niceties of complexity. ~ Martin Luther King Jr, #NFDB
316:What I loved were books that heightened the sense of life’s wonders without denying the complexity and horror that sometimes accompanied those wonders. ~ Dorothy Allison, #NFDB
317:I replaced emotional complexity with visual and intellectual complexity. I questioned everything and looked to logic, science, and intellect for answers. ~ Temple Grandin, #NFDB
318:Simplicity is a great virtue but it requires hard work to achieve it and education to appreciate it. And to make matters worse: complexity sells better. ~ Edsger Dijkstra, #NFDB
319:The evolutionary vision is agnostic in regard to systems in the universe of greater complexity than those of which human beings have clear knowledge. ~ Kenneth E Boulding, #NFDB
320:It comes from natural selection: the process which, as far as we know, is the only process ultimately capable of generating complexity out of simplicity. ~ Richard Dawkins, #NFDB
321:(U)derneath all the complexity of human life that uneasy stare at an alien nature is still haunting us, and the problem of surmounting it is still with us. ~ Northrop Frye, #NFDB
322:But considering that I walked in expecting no complexity at all, let alone the visual wonderments, "Snow White and the Huntsman" is a considerable experience. ~ Roger Ebert, #NFDB
323:Much time and money has gone into computer chess programs, and so far, no one's figured out how to crack the game, which I think speaks to chess's complexity. ~ Wells Tower, #NFDB
324:Simplicity is a great virtue but it requires hard work to achieve it and education to appreciate it. And to make matters worse: complexity sells better. ~ Edsger W Dijkstra, #NFDB
325:No mature style of art in any culture has ever been simple. In certain cultures, an overall symmetry may conceal the complexity of the work at first glance. ~ Rudolf Arnheim, #NFDB
326:Sometimes idiosyncrasies which used to be irritating become endearing, part of the complexity of a partner who has become woven deep into our own selves. ~ Madeleine L Engle, #NFDB
327:Is to bring about for them such a complexity of relations—unless indeed we call it a simplicity!—that the situation has to wind itself up. They want to go back. ~ Henry James, #NFDB
328:The intellectual evolution of the race consists in an increase in the number, delicacy, complexity, permanence and speed of formation of such associations. ~ Edward Thorndike, #NFDB
329:Beauty is more important in computing than anywhere else in technology because software is so complicated. Beauty is the ultimate defense against complexity. ~ David Gelernter, #NFDB
330:Classes and routines are first and foremost intellectual tools for reducing complexity. If they're not making your job simpler, they're not doing their jobs. ~ Steve McConnell, #NFDB
331:Ideologies are simple ideas, disguised as science or philosophy, that purport to explain the complexity of the world and offer remedies that will perfect it. ~ Jordan Peterson, #NFDB
332:Rather, my perceptions about how we solve problems in health care or education span across a whole range of areas. And I want to try to capture that complexity. ~ Barack Obama, #NFDB
333:It is in the nature of things to be drawn to the very experiences that will spoil our innocence, transform our lives, and give us necessary complexity and depth. ~ Thomas Moore, #NFDB
334:name-calling is fear’s first line of defense, and with the name comes the sealed box that reduces human complexity to a checklist of prejudice and convenience. As ~ Tom Shadyac, #NFDB
335:Everything was intertwined, with the complexity of a three-dimensional puzzle, a puzzle in which truth was not necessarily fact and fact not necessarily truth. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
336:Ideologies are simple ideas, disguised as science or philosophy, that purport to explain the complexity of the world and offer remedies that will perfect it. ~ Jordan B Peterson, #NFDB
337:These are the advantages of travel, that one meets so many men whom one would otherwise never meet, and that one feeds as it were upon the complexity of mankind ~ Hilaire Belloc, #NFDB
338:This growth in the number, speed of formation, permanence, delicacy and complexity of associations possible for an animal reaches its acme in the case of man. ~ Edward Thorndike, #NFDB
339:The techniques have galloped ahead of the concepts. We have moved away from studying the complexity of the organism; from processes and organisation to composition. ~ James Black, #NFDB
340:Any creative intelligence, of sufficient complexity to design anything, comes into existence only as the end product of an extended process of gradual evolution. ~ Richard Dawkins, #NFDB
341:Intelligence doesn't just mean tracking down terrorists; It means finding out what is in people's hearts and minds and discovering the complexity of most issues. ~ Karen Armstrong, #NFDB
342:One connection I see between the work I did on philosophy and my work on technology is that both communities tend to mystify and create an atmosphere of complexity. ~ Astra Taylor, #NFDB
343:[One] worldview envisions evolution as heading somewhere, but then, where? Toward increased complexity? Perhaps progress? ~ Tyler Volk, Metapatterns - Across Space, Time, and Mind, #NFDB
344:The fathers greatest folly is that he believes he can be a much more simple person than he is; he is not really able to deal with his own complexity as a human being. ~ Atom Egoyan, #NFDB
345:There is one purpose to life and one only: to bear witness to and understand as much as possible of the complexity of the world- its beauty, its mysteries, its riddles. ~ Anne Rice, #NFDB
346:It means the universe itself, in all its mind-boggling vastness and complexity, could simply have popped into existence without violating the known laws of nature. ~ Stephen Hawking, #NFDB
347:Leadership, Jefferson was learning, meant knowing how to distill complexity into a comprehensible message to reach the hearts as well as the minds of the larger world. ~ Jon Meacham, #NFDB
348:Because she does not express herself in theoretical language, no one expects too much from her and she is used to tripping out on layers of complexity in total silence. ~ Chris Kraus, #NFDB
349:The complexity of the connection between the world of perception and the world of physics does not preclude that such a connection can be shown to exist at any time. ~ Max Horkheimer, #NFDB
350:Armageddon is not around the corner. This is only what the people of violence want us to believe. The complexity and diversity of the world is the hope for the future. ~ Michael Palin, #NFDB
351:I would not give a fig for the simplicity on this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity. —Oliver Wendell Holmes ~ David Allen, #NFDB
352:The reality is that there is an enormous value to gut-check instinctive decision-making in the world that is not hampered by reams and reams of research and complexity. ~ John Hodgman, #NFDB
353:The complexity of Third Wave society is too great for any centrally planned bureaucracy to manage. ~ Esther Dyson, Cyberspace and the American Dream: A Magna Carta for the Knowledge Age, #NFDB
354: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, #NFDB
355:Doing a straight-forward, clear-cut task that has a beginning and an end balances out the complexity-without-end that often vexes the rest of my life. Sacred simplicity. ~ Robert Fulghum, #NFDB
356:Every application has an inherent amount of irreducible complexity. The only question is who will have to deal with it, the user or the developer (programmer or engineer). ~ Larry Tesler, #NFDB
357:He was aware that the essence of proper intelligence was the embrace of contradiction. And the recognition of complexity was to be balanced against the need for simplicity ~ Colum McCann, #NFDB
358:Ironically, the study of animal cognition not only raises the esteem in which we hold other species, but also teaches us not to overestimate our own mental complexity. We ~ Frans de Waal, #NFDB
359:Its very variety, subtlety, and utterly irrational, idiomatic complexity makes it possible to say things in English which simply cannot be said in any other language. ~ Robert A Heinlein, #NFDB
360:There is a simplicity that exists on the far side of complexity, and there is a communication of sentiment and attitude not to be discovered by careful exegesis of a text. ~ Pat Buchanan, #NFDB
361:And once again Mr. Sherlock Holmes is free to devote his life to examining those interesting little problems which the complexity of human life so pletifuly presents. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle, #NFDB
362:Because it's a poor tradeoff to add complexity for dubious performance gains, a good approach to deep vs. shallow copies is to prefer deep copies until proven otherwise. ~ Steve McConnell, #NFDB
363:IRS Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998, a voluminous and hugely complex new law, which included the laughable “anti-complexity clause”—that is, Section 7803(c)(2)(B)(ii)(IX). ~ T R Reid, #NFDB
364:sexuality, like any other aspect of life, can be made enjoyable if we are willing to take control of it, and cultivate it in the direction of greater complexity. ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, #NFDB
365:We need to shift the paradigm from reactive technologies to more integrative solutions that deal with the variety and complexity of the threats that are out there today. ~ John W Thompson, #NFDB
366:Theatre is simply what cannot be expressed by any other means; a complexity of words, movements, gestures that convey a vision of the world inexpressible in any other way. ~ Eugene Ionesco, #NFDB
367:Those three things—autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward—are, most people agree, the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
368:In each life man has to figure a certain sum of its complexity and put that into some kind of order. ~ Sri Aurobindo, The Renaissance in India, A Rationalistic Critic on Indian Culture - V, #NFDB
369:Skeptics often treat size, regulation, perceived complexity, legacy technology, or some other special characteristic of the domain in which they operate as a barrier to change. ~ Jez Humble, #NFDB
370:You have to get something down, and then find ways of working in complexity and different layers of meaning... My first drafts are usually the ravings of a delusional fantasist. ~ Peter Wolf, #NFDB
371:A person with friends need never be bored. There is always more to fathom and enjoy in the complexity of others, and always the possibility of finding a way to delight them. ~ Stephanie Mills, #NFDB
372:The complexity of economics can be calculated mathematically. Write out the algebraic equation that is the human heart and multiply each unknown by the population of the world. ~ P J O Rourke, #NFDB
373:There are specific identifiers that are entirely recognizable during the bubble’s inflation. One hallmark of mania is the rapid rise in the incidence and complexity of fraud…. ~ Michael Lewis, #NFDB
374:Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy by Bertrand Russell Complexity and Chaos by Dr. Roger White The Lily: Evolution, Play, and the Power of a Free Society by Daniel Cloud ~ Timothy Ferriss, #NFDB
375:By ignoring the apparent contradictions of scripture, fundamentalism ignores its questions, reducing its complexity to implicit equations. Hate equals love; obedience is freedom. ~ Jeff Sharlet, #NFDB
376:It is only by understanding the cultural complexity and largeness of the concept of agriculture that we can see the threatening diminishments implied by the term 'agribusiness.' ~ Wendell Berry, #NFDB
377:Personalities are like impressionistic paintings. At a distance, each person is 'all of a piece'; up close, each is a bewildering complexity of moods, cognitions, and motives. ~ Theodore Millon, #NFDB
378:The understanding of complexity and the use of the creativity of nature, the continuation of the work of nature are the grand challenges for the scientists of the 21st century. ~ Ilya Prigogine, #NFDB
379:a great deal of complexity arises because it’s easier to build on top of the things that we’ve already established than to blow up what exists and replace it with something simple. ~ Lisa Bodell, #NFDB
380:Programming is about managing complexity: the complexity of the problem, laid upon the complexity of the machine. Because of this complexity, most of our programming projects fail. ~ Bruce Eckel, #NFDB
381:the self does not grow as a consequence of pleasurable experiences. Complexity requires investing psychic energy in goals that are new, that are relatively challenging. ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, #NFDB
382:The “Tax Complexity Lobby,” as Forbes magazine called it, includes tax-preparation firms like H&R Block and Jackson Hewitt, as well as companies that make tax-preparation software ~ T R Reid, #NFDB
383:The 21st century is the age of complexity. It is the century where managers realize that, to manage social complexity, they need to understand how things grow. Not how they are built. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
384:Those three things—autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward—are, most people agree, the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying. ~ Malcolm Gladwell, #NFDB
385:Chess problems demand from the composer the same virtues that characterize all worthwhile art: originality, invention, conciseness, harmony, complexity, and splendid insincerity ~ Vladimir Nabokov, #NFDB
386: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. ~ Jose Manuel Barroso, #NFDB
387:…there’s no reason why something should lose its power simply because it turns out to have layers of complexity that were not initially available to us, which we slowly attain. ~ Robert M Sapolsky, #NFDB
388:The theme of competition of victims has found fertile ground in the complexity, the double aspect, of relations between black and Jewish minorities in recent American history. ~ Bernard Henri L vy, #NFDB
389:When you think about the complexity of our natural world - plants using quantum mechanics for photosynthesis, for example - a smartphone begins to look like a pretty dumb object. ~ Jeff VanderMeer, #NFDB
390:Create or arouse such unbridled forces and you built carnal fantasies of enormous complexity. You could lead whole populations around by their desires, by their fantasy projections. ~ Frank Herbert, #NFDB
391:If we look at the complexity of the challenges facing western societies today, we see that the problems are not really about outsiders, but have their roots much closer to home. ~ Mariana Mazzucato, #NFDB
392:Rome is a broken mirror, the falling straps of a dress, a puzzle of astonishing complexity. It is an iceberg floating below our terrace, all its ballasts hidden beneath the surface. ~ Anthony Doerr, #NFDB
393:The blue of distance comes with time, with the discovery of melancholy, of loss, the texture of longing, of the complexity of the terrain we traverse, and with the years of travel. ~ Rebecca Solnit, #NFDB
394:The computer programmer is a creator of universes for which he alone is responsible. Universes of virtually unlimited complexity can be created in the form of computer programs. ~ Joseph Weizenbaum, #NFDB
395:Those three things— autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward— are, most people agree, the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying. ~ Malcolm Gladwell, #NFDB
396:We can see that the complexity we witness inside the African-American community today has always been there. Black people were just as noble and just as ignoble as anybody else. ~ Henry Louis Gates, #NFDB
397:A Congress that produces something like Section 7803(c)(2)(B)(ii)(IX) in the name of reducing complexity hardly seems likely to agree on any serious changes that would improve the system. ~ T R Reid, #NFDB
398:The complexity of software is an essential property, not an accidental one. Hence, descriptions of a software entity that abstract away its complexity often abstracts away its essence. ~ Fred Brooks, #NFDB
399:There’s a neat correlation between the complexity of the hardware and the lack of genuine attachments. Devices make everyone pliant. There’s a general sponginess, a lack of conviction. ~ Don DeLillo, #NFDB
400:the volume and complexity of what we know has exceeded our individual ability to deliver its benefits correctly, safely, or reliably. Knowledge has both saved us and burdened us. That ~ Atul Gawande, #NFDB
401:Those three things—autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward—are, most people agree, the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying. It ~ Malcolm Gladwell, #NFDB
402:Flew concluded that research into DNA had 'shown, by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce life, that intelligence must have been involved'. ~ Antony Flew, #NFDB
403:For the simplicity on this side of complexity, I wouldn't give you a fig. But for the simplicity on the other side of complexity, for that I would give you anything I have. ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr, #NFDB
404:Humour is the only domain of creative activity where a stimulus on a high level of complexity produces a massive and sharply defined response on the level of physiological reflexes. ~ Arthur Koestler, #NFDB
405:I may say that the only differences I expect to see revealed between the behavior of the rat and man (aside from enormous differences of complexity) lie in the field of verbal behavior. ~ B F Skinner, #NFDB
406:Those three things — autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward — are, most people agree, the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying. ~ Malcolm Gladwell, #NFDB
407:The acts of life we repeat every day need to be automatized. They must be turned into stable and reliable habits, so they lose their complexity and gain predictability and simplicity ~ Jordan Peterson, #NFDB
408:The complexity and efficiency of the physicist’s technical apparatus is matched, if not surpassed, by that of the mystic’s consciousness—both physical and spiritual—in deep meditation. ~ Fritjof Capra, #NFDB
409:under conditions of complexity, not only are checklists a help, they are required for success. There must always be room for judgment, but judgment aided—and even enhanced—by procedure. ~ Atul Gawande, #NFDB
410:Look at yourself as someone who is reaching for healing, and at the complexity of what needs to be healed. Do not think that you exist alone without other human beings of equal complexity. ~ Gary Zukav, #NFDB
411:Simplistic arguments that “Carbs make you fat!” or “Calories make you fat!” or “Red meat makes you fat!” or “Sugar makes you fat!” do not fully capture the complexity of human obesity. The ~ Jason Fung, #NFDB
412:The acts of life we repeat every day need to be automatized. They must be turned into stable and reliable habits, so they lose their complexity and gain predictability and simplicity. ~ Jordan Peterson, #NFDB
413:We need a President who is not afraid of complexity, who believes in an open and tolerant society, and who knows that the world can be made new again - and that President is Al Gore. ~ Caroline Kennedy, #NFDB
414:When I got better I realized what a rat he was, but then I had to understand the impossible complexity of his life, how he had to leave me there, sick, to get on with his wives and woes. ~ Jack Kerouac, #NFDB
415:Why, then, do so many mistakes happen? One of the problems is complexity. The World Health Organization lists 12,420 diseases and disorders, each of which requires different protocols.15 ~ Matthew Syed, #NFDB
416:Poverty is too complex to be answered with a one-size-fits-all approach, and if there is any place that illustrates that complexity, as well as a better way forward, it is Rwanda. ~ Jacqueline Novogratz, #NFDB
417:The acts of life we repeat every day need to be automatized. They must be turned into stable and reliable habits, so they lose their complexity and gain predictability and simplicity ~ Jordan B Peterson, #NFDB
418:The Letters to a young poet illustrate perfectly the kindliness, the complexity, and at the same time the impersonality and remoteness of Rilke’s manner with unknown correspondents. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke, #NFDB
419:Dealing with complexity is an inefficient and unnecessary waste of time, attention and mental energy. There is never any justification for things being complex when they could be simple. ~ Edward de Bono, #NFDB
420:The acts of life we repeat every day need to be automatized. They must be turned into stable and reliable habits, so they lose their complexity and gain predictability and simplicity. ~ Jordan B Peterson, #NFDB
421:There are some people, who I'll charitably call snobs, who are dismissive of any conversation that doesn't begin with the full level of complexity. That's just not how the world works. ~ Malcolm Gladwell, #NFDB
422:This maintenance of individuality and partial autonomy in a multilevel semantics is characteristic for the organization and management of complexity in life. ~ Erich Jantsch, The Self-Organizing Universe, #NFDB
423:What I've observed, and I think it's fair to give credit to the psychedelic experience for this, what I've observed is that nature builds on previously established levels of complexity. ~ Terence McKenna, #NFDB
424:For the book to succeed, it has to have equal parts ugliness and beauty, counterpoints adding up to emotional complexity. To me, there's a dignity in letting your art be emotionally complex. ~ Joshua Mohr, #NFDB
425:Perhaps the most indispensable thing we can do as
human beings, every day of our lives, is remind ourselves and others
of our complexity, fragility, finiteness, and uniqueness. ~ Ant nio R Dam sio,#NFDB
426:...she still found no words in which she could express the complexity of her feelings; indeed, she could not even find thoughts in which she could clearly think out all that was in her soul. ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
427:the values of the constants of Nature are rather bio-friendly. If they are changed by even a small amount the world becomes lifeless and barren instead of a home for interesting complexity ~ John D Barrow, #NFDB
428:Those three things - autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward - are, most people will agree, the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying. ~ Malcolm Gladwell, #NFDB
429:Reduce complexity. The single most important reason to create a routine is to reduce a program's complexity. Create a routine to hide information so that you won't need to think about it. ~ Steve McConnell, #NFDB
430:So much of language is unspoken. So much of language is compromised of looks and gestures and sounds that are not words. People are ignorant of the vast complexity of their own communication. ~ Garth Stein, #NFDB
431:The general problem with ambitious systems is complexity. [...] it is important to emphasize the value of simplicity and elegance, for complexity has a way of compounding difficulties. ~ Fernando J Corbato, #NFDB
432:When East meets West, amazing design happens. L'Alahambra rug is a marriage of the clean line and simplicity of Western graphic design meets the complexity and beauty of Eastern pattern. ~ Genevieve Gorder, #NFDB
433:Even in the deepest love relationship - when lovers say 'I love you' to each other - we don't really know what we're saying, because language isn't equal to the complexity of human emotions. ~ Duane Michals, #NFDB
434:In knowing the world we humanize it, and if, as we discover it, we are astonished at its dimensions and its complexity, we should be just as astonished that we have the brains to perceive it. ~ Alan W Watts, #NFDB
435:We get lost in doing, thinking, remembering, anticipating - lost in a maze of complexity and a world of problems. Nature can show us the way home, the way out of the prison of our own minds. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
436:By any objective standard, the theory of computational complexity ranks as one of the greatest intellectual achievements of humankind -- along with fire, the wheel, and computability theory. ~ Scott Aaronson, #NFDB
437:I regularly read Internet user groups filled with messages from people trying to solve software incompatibility problems that, in terms of complexity, make the U.S. Tax Code look like Dr. Seuss. ~ Dave Barry, #NFDB
438:Many of our attempts to understand Christian faith have only cheapened it. I can no more understand the totality of God than the pancake I made for breakfast understands the complexity of me. ~ Donald Miller, #NFDB
439:Modern technology can be complex, but complexity by itself is neither good nor bad: it is confusion that is bad. Forget the complaints against complexity; instead, complain about confusion. ~ Donald A Norman, #NFDB
440:People who pride themselves on their "complexity" and deride others for being "simplistic" should realize that the truth is often not very complicated. What gets complex is evading the truth. ~ Thomas Sowell, #NFDB
441:Three reasons problems are inevitable; first, we live in a world of growing complexity and diversity; second, we interact with people; and third, we cannot control all the situation we face. ~ John C Maxwell, #NFDB
442:A goal of education is. to assist growth toward greater complexity and integration and to assist in the process of self-organization - to modify individuals capacity to modify themselves. ~ Reuven Feuerstein, #NFDB
443:Complexity kills. It sucks the life out of developers, it makes products difficult to plan, build and test, it introduces security challenges, and it causes end-user and administrator frustration. ~ Ray Ozzie, #NFDB
444:For complexity does not inevitably heighten a story's verisimilitude, or its power to convince; sometimes simplicity and economy make for a more vigorous exposition, propelling the drama forward. ~ Yan Lianke, #NFDB
445:In such an ultracycle, the evolution of higher complexity does not result from competition, as in the hypercycle, but from interdependence within a larger system. ~ Erich Jantsch, The Self-Organizing Universe, #NFDB
446:…what matters is not complexity or decoration but rather intelligibility, grace, and the fact that the sentence should strike us as the perfect vehicle for expressing what it aims to express… ~ Francine Prose, #NFDB
447:Evolution is a formidable process that brings forth unfathomable beauty and complexity not through a grand design, but by means of relentless, small-scale, parallel experimentation. Evolution ~ Frederic Laloux, #NFDB
448:Fate loves to invent patterns and designs. Its difficulty lies in complexity. But life itself is difficult because of its simplicity. It has only a few things of a grandeur not fit for us. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke, #NFDB
449:The linear, mechanistic view of the world which pervades orthodox economics is simply not capable of capturing the richness and complexity of the rhythms and fluctuations of developed economies. ~ Paul Ormerod, #NFDB
450:The world is based on power. Power is simple. It is the ability to get others to do one’s will. Nothing more, nothing less—but its complexity lies in how one obtains the compliance of others. ~ L E Modesitt Jr, #NFDB
451:In your twenties, if you have any amount of complexity in your childhood, or any trauma that you haven't dealt with, it comes out. That's why you have a lot of artists that don't make it through. ~ Jeremy Sisto, #NFDB
452:It is a myth that there is one “creative personality.” Something all creative people seem to share is complexity—they “tend to bring the entire range of human possibilities within themselves. ~ Tom Butler Bowdon, #NFDB
453:Simplicity Make it easy for new engineers to understand the system, by removing as much complexity as possible from the system. (Note this is not the same as simplicity of the user interface.) ~ Martin Kleppmann, #NFDB
454:Those swirls in the cream mixing into the coffee? That’s us. Ephemeral patterns of complexity, riding a wave of increasing entropy from simple beginnings to a simple end. We should enjoy the ride. ~ Sean Carroll, #NFDB
455:Igbo sayings and proverbs are far more valuable to me as a human being in understanding the complexity of the world than the doctrinaire, self-righteous strain of the Christian faith I was taught. ~ Chinua Achebe, #NFDB
456:I have a theory that kitchens, once they reach a certain level of complexity, attract new gadgets into their orbit, like planets. Only this can account for the fact that I own two melon ballers. ~ Kerry Greenwood, #NFDB
457:I'm glad that we have a history at all and that we can talk about feminist history. But I do think that it doesn't really pay attention to the complexity and the nuance that is feminist thought. ~ Jessica Valenti, #NFDB
458:Life as it unfolds in front of the camera is full of so much complexity, wonder and surprise that I find it unnecessary to create new realities. There is more pleasure, for me, in things as-they-are. ~ David Hurn, #NFDB
459:Simplicity isn’t just a visual style. It’s not just minimalism or the absence of clutter. It involves digging through the depth of the complexity. To be truly simple, you have to go really deep. ~ Walter Isaacson, #NFDB
460:the depth and complexity and ugliness and danger of sin in professing Christians is either minimized—since we are already justified—or psychologized as a symptom of woundedness rather than corruption. ~ John Owen, #NFDB
461:The fault of the courage culture, therefore, is not its underlying message that courage is good, but its severe underestimation of the complexity involved in deploying this boldness in a useful way. ~ Cal Newport, #NFDB
462:this another example of Federation hypocrisy? These people reduced all political complexity to pious platitudes, while they constructed the greatest empire in the history of the Alpha Quadrant. ~ Andrew J Robinson, #NFDB
463:We must categorize and simplify in order to comprehend. But the reduction of complexity entails a great danger, since the line between enlightening epitome and vulgarized distortion is so fine. ~ Stephen Jay Gould, #NFDB
464:A designer God cannot be used to explain organized complexity because any God capable of designing anything would have to be complex enough to demand the same kind of explanation in his own right. ~ Richard Dawkins, #NFDB
465:In debugging, errors are seen not as false but as fixable. This is a state of mind that makes it easy to learn from .6 Multiple passes also brought a new feel for the complexity of design decisions. ~ Sherry Turkle, #NFDB
466:Human beings, viewed as behaving systems, are quite simple. The apparent complexity of our behavior over time is largely a reflection of the complexity of the environment in which we find ourselves. ~ Herbert Simon, #NFDB
467:Our archives are treasure troves - a testament to many lives lived and the complexity of the way we move forward. They contain clues to the real concerns of day-to-day life that bring the past alive. ~ Sara Sheridan, #NFDB
468:Sudden falls can come to societies that know too little history or that have furnished their minds with easy one-note propaganda in place of the true complexity and terrible beauty of the storied past. ~ Dean Koontz, #NFDB
469:Wizened and white, with brown blotched on her face the size and complexity of unshelled peanuts, Midge had a jitter in her head that made her pew like a chicken trying to make up its mind what to peck. ~ John Irving, #NFDB
470:Christian theology, in other words, always has a certain ineradicable complexity, which has serious implications for the modern evangelical predilection for simple and very brief statements of faith. ~ Carl R Trueman, #NFDB
471:Human beings, viewed as behaving systems, are quite simple. The apparent complexity of our behavior over time is largely a reflection of the complexity of the environment in which we find ourselves. ~ Herbert A Simon, #NFDB
472:The barrier to change is not too little caring; it is too much complexity. To turn caring into action, we need to see a problem, see a solution, and see the impact. But complexity blocks all three steps. ~ Bill Gates, #NFDB
473:The history of life is a story of massive removal followed by differentiation within a few surviving stocks, not the conventional tale of steadily increasing excellence, complexity, and diversity. ~ Stephen Jay Gould, #NFDB
474:Why do i live? In the infinity of space, and infinity of time infinitely small particles mutate with infinite complexity. When you understand the laws of these mutations, you'll understand why you live. ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
475:Ideologies are substitutes for true knowledge, and ideologues are always dangerous when they come to power, because a simple-minded I-know-it-all approach is no match for the complexity of existence. ~ Jordan Peterson, #NFDB
476:She warns me about equating complexity with quality. “All that stuff you read on wine bottles, in wine magazines, where they throw out a dozen descriptors? That’s not sensory evaluation. That’s marketing. ~ Mary Roach, #NFDB
477:There's a certain fear of simplicity. I think that's the thing when you're younger as an artist you get this idea in your head that complexity equals quality. The more notes you're playing, the better. ~ Patrick Stump, #NFDB
478:In private many scientists admit that science has no explanation for the beginning of life... Darwin never imagined the exquisitely profound complexity that exists even at the most basic levels of life. ~ Michael Behe, #NFDB
479:Poetry gives the griever not release from grief but companionship in grief. Poetry embodies the complexity of feelings at their most intense and entangled, and therefore offers . . . the company of tears. ~ Donald Hall, #NFDB
480:Ideologies are substitutes for true knowledge, and ideologues are always dangerous when they come to power, because a simple-minded I-know-it-all approach is no match for the complexity of existence. ~ Jordan B Peterson, #NFDB
481:Pascal meditated upon outer space, but we need only turn our thoughts inward to feel his dread. Inside every one of our skulls lies an organ so vast in its complexity that it might as well be infinite. ~ Sebastian Seung, #NFDB
482:the essence of mastering systems thinking as a management discipline lies in seeing patterns where others see only events and forces to react to. Yet few are trained to see detail and dynamic complexity. ~ Peter M Senge, #NFDB
483:The historian always oversimplifies, and hastily selects a manageable minority of facts and faces out of a crowd of souls and events whose multitudinous complexity he can never quite embrace or comprehend. ~ Will Durant, #NFDB
484:But we try to be very clear about the ideas we wish to materialise. The best way to confront the complexity of things is often not to respond with more complexity, but rather by trying to resolve them simply. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
485:Dwight Swain, the great writing teacher, once said that the secret of excitement is to go deeper into your characters. Create more backstory, more secrets, more complexity, and you'll get excited again. ~ James Scott Bell, #NFDB
486:Plato to Descartes to Dawkins to Rhanda. Souls and zombie agents and qualia. Kolmogorov complexity. Consciousness as Divine Spark. Consciousness as electromagnetic field. Consciousness as functional cluster. ~ Peter Watts, #NFDB
487:Problems are the poetry of chess. They demand from the composer the same virtues that characterize all worthwhile art: originality, invention, harmony, conciseness, complexity, and splendid insincerity. ~ Vladimir Nabokov, #NFDB
488:The manifest property of living matter to form a system in which ‘terms succeed each other experimentally, following constantly increasing degrees of centro-complexity.’ ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man, #NFDB
489:A hallmark of true expertise and insight is making a complex subject understandable. A hallmark of mediocrity and bad strategy is unnecessary complexity—a flurry of fluff masking an absence of substance. ~ Richard P Rumelt, #NFDB
490:Creating simplicity often makes the heart leap; order has been restored, the crooked made straight. But order is understanding that things cannot be made simple, that complexity reigns and must be accepted. ~ Marina Warner, #NFDB
491:The process of thinking itself requires us to view the universe in the direction of entropy, since an abstraction always involves information loss, since symbols 'abstract' complexity from observed objects. ~ John C Wright, #NFDB
492:When Hillary Clinton talks about adding more restrictions and complexity to our financial system, as she did in her economic policy speech, it shows how clueless she is about how the economy actually works. ~ Carly Fiorina, #NFDB
493:As Dostoyevsky writes in The Brothers Karamazov, love in practice is a dreadful thing compared to the love in dreams. In real life, disagreeing about sensitive subjects can reveal pain, sorrow, and complexity. ~ Scott Sauls, #NFDB
494:I couldn’t imagine the complexity of domestic violence, the internalization of the idea that pain is part of love, that love is defined by possession, that return to the scene of the crime is proof of devotion. ~ Glory Edim, #NFDB
495:In short, blame undermines the information vital for meaningful adaptation. It obscures the complexity of our world, deluding us into thinking we understand our environment when we should be learning from it. ~ Matthew Syed, #NFDB
496:I end up liking politicians, both left and right, who talk about political matters as if they are addressing a bunch of adults, as if they are capable of handling both complexity and emotional responsibility. ~ Rachel Maddow, #NFDB
497:Besides the obscurity arising from the complexity of objects, and the imperfection of the human faculties, the medium through which the conceptions of men are conveyed to each other adds a fresh embarrassment. ~ James Madison, #NFDB
498:But how do you teach a child to grasp that complexity? You teach them to grasp the style of thinking. There are no answers, only questions that shape your understanding, and which in turn reveal more questions. ~ Marcus Sakey, #NFDB
499:If Ediacara survivors had been able to evolve internal complexity later on, then the pathways from this radically different starting point would have produced a world worthy of science fiction at its best. ~ Stephen Jay Gould, #NFDB
500:I'm interested in complexity, in the mathematical sense, as well as the idiomatic sense. The idea of emergence - that it's possible for complex patterns to arise out of many simple interactions - is fascinating. ~ Hari Kunzru, #NFDB
501:The complexity of your earthly array is not a guarantee for a truimphant eternity. The fact is that you need a simple life to go to heaven; not an excessively glittering body, shiny lips and charming face. ~ Israelmore Ayivor, #NFDB
502:There is a complexity and layering that goes on with this kind of thing, so the music is slightly repetitive and when I say repetitive it's in the same tradition as people like Steve Reich or Erik Satie or even WC. ~ DJ Spooky, #NFDB
503:As the complexity theorist Stuart Kauffman puts it, “A couple in love walking along the banks of the Seine are, in real fact, a couple in love walking along the banks of the Seine, not mere particles in motion. ~ David Eagleman, #NFDB
504:For the user, it doesn't matter whether he is getting access on Wi-Fi, 3G or 2G networks. What matters is good connectivity, and as a technology provider, our job is to hide the complexity of the technology. ~ Padmasree Warrior, #NFDB
505:I treat the photograph as a work of great complexity in which you can find drama. Add to that a careful composition of landscapes, live photography, the right music and interviews with people, and it becomes a style. ~ Ken Burns, #NFDB
506:This is also why the (auto)biography so poorly encapsulates a person's life. As we saw in the previous step, it is far too linear and individualistic a genre to portray real life in all its dazzling complexity. ~ Svend Brinkmann, #NFDB
507:When asked why they quit, the lapsed dieters cited complexity as the single most important reason for giving up. Simplicity is even more important when people are tired, stressed, or otherwise cognitively impaired. ~ Donald Sull, #NFDB
508: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. ~ Willem Dafoe, #NFDB
509:Complexity fully rendered would take too long and contain too much, thereby entangling judgment. Complexity as what you want or expect would only confirm what you think you know. You need something in between. ~ John Lewis Gaddis, #NFDB
510:That complexity may only have been ‘quiet, loud, quiet, loud again’, but at a time when most rock bands only had two volume settings – painfully loud and really, really painfully loud – this was groundbreaking stuff. ~ Nick Mason, #NFDB
511:When you discard arrogance, complexity, and a few other things that get in the way, sooner or later you will discover that simple, childlike, and mysterious secret known to those of the uncared block: life is fun. ~ Benjamin Hoff, #NFDB
512:A hallmark of true expertise and insight is making a complex subject understandable. A hallmark of mediocrity and bad strategy is unnecessary complexity—a flurry of fluff masking an absence of substance. FAILURE ~ Richard P Rumelt, #NFDB
513:I tend to be much more in the present and my emotions are simpler. I can be happy, I can be sad, I can be depressed, but there's a complexity that I don't have. I don't brood the same way. Fear is my main emotion. ~ Temple Grandin, #NFDB
514:The great unexplored frontier is complexity ... I am convinced that the nations and people that master the new science of Complexity will become the economic, cultural, and political superpowers of the next century. ~ Heinz Pagels, #NFDB
515:When you discard arrogance, complexity, and a few other things that get in the way, sooner or later you will discover that simple, childlike, and mysterious secret known to those of the Uncarved Block: Life is Fun. ~ Benjamin Hoff, #NFDB
516:I was a Spidey fan as a kid. I always liked the complexity and the teenaged angst that Spider-Man, Peter Parker, always had to deal with. It was kind of a deeper, darker storytelling that just good-guy-beats-bad-guy. ~ Jack Coleman, #NFDB
517:When it kind of went to 'Street Fighter', where you had to push 13 buttons with all 13 of your fingers and ripped the spine out of somebody, you know, violent games lost the women. Complexity lost the casual gamer. ~ Nolan Bushnell, #NFDB
518:You don't always have to render the feelings of your characters, but you must know what they are in every scene. That way, the actions and dialogue will have an organic complexity that breathes life into fiction. ~ James Scott Bell, #NFDB
519:If there's one thing that moving beyond a fear-based faith taught me, it was that I wanted to be different, or rather, I began to see myself in my full complexity and realized that I was different--and I liked it. ~ Benjamin L Corey, #NFDB
520:And the reason is increasingly evident: the volume and complexity of what we know has exceeded our individual ability to deliver its benefits correctly, safely, or reliably. Knowledge has both saved us and burdened us. ~ Atul Gawande, #NFDB
521:I didn’t think any biography could do justice to one of the few honest-to-goodness geniuses of our time, a walking paradox who wore a cloak of complexity and elusiveness, but Lisa Rogak has done an exemplary job of it. ~ Otto Penzler, #NFDB
522:The computer programmer is a creator of universes for which he alone is responsible. Universes of virtually unlimited complexity can be created in the form of computer programs.
~ Joseph Weizenbaum, Computer Power and Human Reason,#NFDB
523:There is salvation - happiness and virtue - in beauty. I would define beauty in this context as a kind of richness, complexity, mystery, diversity, otherness, and unexpectedness - something that comes from the outside. ~ Elif Batuman, #NFDB
524:You cannot conceive of the magnitude of this mystery.” He spoke in a confidential whisper. “You cannot conceive of this complexity.” He was saying these words as if he’d just discovered them. He wept. I swear it. He wept. ~ Anne Rice, #NFDB
525:Job’s friends had no room for any complexity in God’s dealings with human beings, no place for the Lord’s sovereign right to allow suffering even for the righteous. By robbing God of His sovereignty, they spoke ill of Him. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
526:Personally, I am always more impressed by simplicity, clarity; it is the mark of a writer who knows his subject well and is secure enough not to 'lay it on' in the telling. Aim for complexity of thought, not expression. ~ Noah Lukeman, #NFDB
527:The failure to appreciate these concepts – recency, implicit memory, myelination, overlearning, automaticity, and task complexity – explains a lot of the misinformation that is heard when human performance is discussed. ~ Massad Ayoob, #NFDB
528:The simplicity of photography lies in the fact that it is very easy to make a picture. The staggering complexity of it lies in the fact that a thousand other pictures of the same subject would have been equally easy. ~ John Szarkowski, #NFDB
529:A relationship is not a death row
pardon. Being alone is not the end.
Your own head is a beautiful place
to visit. The architecture of your
thoughts deserves recognition for
its vast complexity and beauty. ~ Emm Roy,#NFDB
530:Being a food show and being me, I always kicked it up a notch, which means I would always elevate the spice level or the complexity of a particular dish. So, it was always like we're going to kick this up a little bit. ~ Emeril Lagasse, #NFDB
531:This is a general law of the universe, overlooked by science, that out of complexity emerges greater complexity. We could almost say that the universe, nature, is a novelty-conserving, or complexity-conserving engine. ~ Terence McKenna, #NFDB
532:What we call 'evil' doesn't necessarily deserve any kind of respect or understanding, by any means; it just deserves an acknowledgement of its complexity so we can better understand it &#Array; so we can help prevent it. ~ Bryan Singer, #NFDB
533:When we consider reality itself we quickly become aware of its infinite complexity, and we realize that our habitual perception of it is often inadequate. If this were not so, the concept of deception would be meaningless. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
534:Lauding the myths they'd inherited, people cited the mysteries and wisdom of their faith when in reality they'd closed themselves to the true complexity of the planet, to say nothing of the incomprehensibly vast universe. ~ Jeff Carlson, #NFDB
535:Nowhere else you will find a country of India's diversity, of India's complexity, one billion people trying to seek their social and economic salvation in the framework of democracy, in the framework of an open economy. ~ Manmohan Singh, #NFDB
536:She started to wonder if he had been right in the first place, that denying the complexity of the world made you as bad as they are. Even if you do act, you may be guilty of the wrong motive--vanity, or self-righteousness. ~ Dana Spiotta, #NFDB
537:The continuous networks of neural circuitry accomplish their functions using multiple, independently discovered strategies. The brain lends itself well to the complexity of the world, but poorly to clear-cut cartography. ~ David Eagleman, #NFDB
538:There is probably no one, however rigid his virtue, who is not liable to find himself, by the complexity of circumstances, living at close quarters with the very vice which he himself has been most outspoken in condemning ~ Marcel Proust, #NFDB
539:Toleration of people who differ in convictions and habits requires a residual awareness of the complexity of truth and the possibility of opposing view having some light on one or the other facet of a many-sided truth. ~ Reinhold Niebuhr, #NFDB
540:Anything that inhibits, impedes, or prevents this movement toward the Ultimate Complexity is evil. The wonderful thing about this definition of good and evil is that it is both objective and universally acceptable. ~ Gregory David Roberts, #NFDB
541:At the software-architecture level, the complexity of a problem is reduced by dividing the system into subsystems. Humans have an easier time comprehending several simple pieces of information than one complicated piece. ~ Steve McConnell, #NFDB
542:Beware of simple ideas and simple solutions. History is full of visionaries who used simple utopian visions to justify terrible actions. Welcome complexity. Combine ideas. Compromise. Solve problems on a case-by-case basis. ~ Hans Rosling, #NFDB
543:Complexity demands resilience, and that's what panarchy offers. Resilience in the face of complexity is a challenge even when you apply rigorous intelligence and integrity to develop a coherent and flexible strategy. ~ Robert David Steele, #NFDB
544:Delicious... Everything I'd hoped for in a new Wild Cards book. The character interactions and plot twists have exactly the complexity, surprise, and unsentimental realism I'd expect out of a George R. R. Martin project. ~ Austin Grossman, #NFDB
545:Our lives are complex; our emotions are complex; our intellectual desires are complex. I believe that architecture … needs to mirror that complexity in every single space that we have, in every intimacy that we possess. ~ Daniel Libeskind, #NFDB
546:the mysterious complexity of our life is not to be embraced by maxims ... to lace ourselves up in formulas of that sort is to repress all the divine promptings and inspirations that spring from growing insight and sympathy. ~ George Eliot, #NFDB
547:There is probably no one, however rigid his virtue, who is not liable to find himself, by the complexity of circumstances, living at close quarters with the very vice which he himself has been most outspoken in condemning, ~ Marcel Proust, #NFDB
548:When you're younger, it's all theoretical. It's all potential. As you get older, it becomes actual, and your life gets filled with unexpected complexity; some of it asked for, and some of it not. It becomes richer, I find. ~ Nicole Krauss, #NFDB
549:From childhood on, I found many of my angels in favorite authors, writers who created books that enabled me to understand life with greater complexity. These works opened my heart to compassion, forgiveness, and understanding. ~ bell hooks, #NFDB
550:In contrast to the written account-which, depending on its complexity of thought, reference, and vocabulary, is pitched at a larger or smaller readership-a photograph has only one language and is destined potentially for all. ~ Susan Sontag, #NFDB
551:Every democracy is constructed day-to-day. And the electoral process reduces and minimalizes every single aspect of human complexity. We're putting it into pamphlets. We're doing a publicity show. We're becoming symbols. ~ Gael Garcia Bernal, #NFDB
552:Philosophically speaking, from the Buddhist point of view, both human beings and animals possess what in Tibetan is called shepa, which can be roughly translated as “consciousness,” albeit to different degrees of complexity. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
553:Why Time Flies: A Mostly Scientific Investigation (2017) By Alan Burdick A wonderful and witty work of science journalism that captures the complexity, frustration, and exhilaration of trying to understand the nature of time. ~ Daniel H Pink, #NFDB
554:For a large corporation to be effective, it must be simple. For an organization to be simple, its people must have self-confidence and intellectual self-assurance. Insecure managers create complexity, real leaders do not clutter. ~ Jack Welch, #NFDB
555:I think there is a profound and enduring beauty in simplicity; in clarity, in efficiency. True simplicity is derived from so much more than just the absence of clutter and ornamentation. It's about bringing order to complexity. ~ Jonathan Ive, #NFDB
556:Simplicity, clarity, complexity, and ambiguity are not mutually exclusive states in language; the sensitive typographer is one who can manifest these states in the right mix by controlling the elements at his or her disposal. ~ Timothy Samara, #NFDB
557:You are the cutting edge of a thirteen billion year old process of defining novelty. Your acts matter. Your thoughts matter. Your purpose? To add to the complexity. Your enemy? Disorder, entropy, stupidity, and tastelessness. ~ Terence McKenna, #NFDB
558:And this is also what he takes Christian doctrine, in all its complexity, to be centrally about, that is, teaching an attitude rather than a set of propositions. Call it joyous openness to life. What's not relevant about that? ~ George Pattison, #NFDB
559:At one point, Paola expressed a wish and used the subjunctive, and Brunetti felt himself close to tears at the beauty of the intellectual complexity of it: she could speak about what was not, could invent an alternative reality. He ~ Donna Leon, #NFDB
560:It is never possible to understand completely any other human being; and no individual will ever really understand himself - the complexity is too great and there is not the time to constantly take things apart and examine them. ~ Edward T Hall, #NFDB
561:The standard texts are powerful instruments of disorientation; for confusing the mind and preparing it for the acceptance of myths of growing complexity and unreality. —Guy Routh, The Origin of Economic Ideas ========== Culture Jam: ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
562:after all the years of waiting, the interested world could at least see the magnificent complexity of the undertaking, the detail, the filigree work, the sheer intricacies of exactitude that the editors were bent on compiling. ~ Simon Winchester, #NFDB
563:broken souls are the ones with more facets, more complexity, more sides to them. This makes us oddly shaped souls, but it means that only certain souls can fit with us. But when they fit, they fit forever. Like two complete pieces. ~ Hanna Peach, #NFDB
564:I'm not against paying at all. What I'm against is the complexity of paying. And you very often go to a website and you try to click on something and sometimes it will even say it's free, but you have to fill out this form. ~ Nicholas Negroponte, #NFDB
565:Learning to savor the vertigo of doing without answers or making do with fragmentary ones opens up the pleasures of recognizing and playing with patterns, finding coherence within complexity, sharing within multiplicity. ~ Mary Catherine Bateson, #NFDB
566:Don't you sometimes feel bewildered when you think of the millions of things that put life together?' ... 'I;m not bewildered. I'm filled with the deepest awe and wonder. The miracle is that in its complexity it all works. ~ Julie Andrews Edwards, #NFDB
567:Life as we know, and partially understand it, is a classical example of what can occur when a sufficient level of complexity is attained. Consciousness appears to be a manifestation of an even more elaborate level of organization. ~ John D Barrow, #NFDB
568:Our failure to take time in the moment to get down to what really matters sets us on the path to complication. When we opt time and again to add more to what exists, we wind up with a web of complexity we can’t even begin to fathom. ~ Lisa Bodell, #NFDB
569:The study of money, above all other fields in economics, is one in which complexity is used to disguise truth or to evade truth, not to reveal it. The process by which banks create money is so simple the mind is repelled. ~ John Kenneth Galbraith, #NFDB
570:Indeed, we have reached a level of complexity where simplicity itself is suspect. For example, the simple reality is that jobs migrate to less difficult nations. It's the old Rule of Capital: Capital goes where it is treated well. ~ Oliver DeMille, #NFDB
571:Life is simple yet complex, in the complexity we realize everything is simple for we create our own happiness, our own sadness & our own destiny by not making a choice you have chosen so face life with courage and faith in yourself. ~ Bonnie Raitt, #NFDB
572:The cerebral cortex, the outer ‘skin’ of the brain, contains as many as ten billion neurons. This complexity is daunting. Yet it is out of complex interactions between the billions of neurons that consciousness arises. ~ James David Lewis Williams, #NFDB
573:The truly privileged theories are not the ones referring to any particular scale of size or complexity, nor the ones situated at any particular level of the predictive hierarchy - but the ones that contain the deepest explanations. ~ David Deutsch, #NFDB
574:You’ll miss out on some amazing things in life if you can’t look past your nose to see the beauty that’s out there in the most unconventional places. And complexity isn’t ugliness. It’s the complication that makes it worth it, ~ A Meredith Walters, #NFDB
575:I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ” (2 Cor. 11:3). Sin is the move away from simple devotion to Christ. Sin is spiritual complexity. ~ Tony Reinke, #NFDB
576:The computer programmer is a creator of universes for which he alone is responsible. Universes of virtually unlimited complexity can be created in the form of computer programs. — Joseph Weizenbaum, Computer Power and Human Reason ~ Marijn Haverbeke, #NFDB
577:Through fear of resembling one another, through horror of having to submit, through uncertainty as well, through skepticism and complexity, there is a multitude of individual little beliefs for the triumph of strange little individuals. ~ Andre Gide, #NFDB
578:Well, you’re AWOL at best and a cheese smuggler at worst. So we’ve concocted a cover story of such bizarre complexity and outrageous daring that it can only be true. Here it is: in a parallel universe ruled entirely by lobsters, you— ~ Jasper Fforde, #NFDB
579:Because of his capacity for abstract communications and language and his ability to enter in imagination into the lives of others, man is able to build organizations of a size and complexity far beyond those of the lower animals. ~ Kenneth E Boulding, #NFDB
580:We require only a grenade launcher, six pounds of industrial-strength licorice, two spells of Class VIII complexity, a shipping container, a side of bacon, an automobile, several homing snails, a ladder, and two people to act as bait. ~ Jasper Fforde, #NFDB
581:As Will Burton says, “pain has a story, a narrative,” and knowing it reveals human complexity which is an invitation to decency. When we try to understand, we discover causes, origins, and consequences about each other and our selves. ~ Sarah Schulman, #NFDB
582:One indication that a routine needs to be broken out of another routine is deep nesting of an inner loop or a conditional. Reduce the containing routine's complexity by pulling the nested part out and putting it into its own routine. ~ Steve McConnell, #NFDB
583:There is better reason than ever for believing that the structure and complexity of our world is inherent in our physical laws and not in some special, unknowable microstate. The universe is a recursively defined geometric object. ~ William Poundstone, #NFDB
584:The self-organized bacterial membrane that is Gaia has constantly, over very long time lines, increased the complexity of its structure in order to stabilize itself and to more effectively deal with perturbations to the system. ~ Stephen Harrod Buhner, #NFDB
585:What evolves in phylogenetic development to higher complexity, is organization—an organization which, in principle, may be realized independently of time and space, as long as the environment is favorable. ~ Erich Jantsch, The Self-Organizing Universe, #NFDB
586:When forgiveness experts talk in binary language (“You either forgive the wrongdoer or you are a prisoner of your own anger and hate”), they are collapsing the messy complexity of human emotions into a simplistic dichotomous equation. ~ Harriet Lerner, #NFDB
587:We only know a tiny proportion about the complexity of the natural world. Wherever you look, there are still things we don’t know about and don’t understand. [...] There are always new things to find out if you go looking for them. ~ David Attenborough, #NFDB
588: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. ~ Stephen Hawking, #NFDB
589:With the arrival of the new comes the need to overcome fascination with novelty in order to approach substance and sophistication - a sophistication born of subtlety and depth of perception, not complexity and perceived virtuosity. ~ John Paul Caponigro, #NFDB
590: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, #NFDB
591:Darwinian natural selection only yields adaptation to changing local environments, and better function in an immediate habitat might just as well be achieved by greater simplicity in form and behavior as by ever-increasing complexity. ~ Stephen Jay Gould, #NFDB
592:I finally became convinced that the theory of creation actually had a much better scientific basis than the theory of evolution, for the creation model was actually better able to explain the physical and biological complexity in the world. ~ Roy Spencer, #NFDB
593:If I were given a choice, I would stand by Eve and eat that forbidden apple once again. Why? I know there is beauty and meaning and significance in the complexity of our lives on earth. Otherwise, we are just animals. I prefer us to be human. ~ J D Radke, #NFDB
594:In a single sentence the moral is: admit that complexity always increases, first from the model you fit to the data, thence to the model you use to think about and plan about the experiment and its analysis, and thence to the true situation. ~ John Tukey, #NFDB
595:Scientifically speaking, the existence of God is an untenable hypothesis. It's not well-defined, it's completely unnecessary to fit the data, and it adds unhelpful layers of complexity without any corresponding increase in understanding. ~ Sean M Carroll, #NFDB
596:The beauty of evolution is that it does provide an explanation of how you can get complexity out of simplicity. It does it by slow, gradual degree. At no point are you postulating the sudden coming into existence of a complicated being. ~ Richard Dawkins, #NFDB
597: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. ~ Whitley Strieber, #NFDB
598:And the fundamental point of all these massively parallel experiments is the same: when a problem reaches a certain level of complexity, formal theory won’t get you nearly as far as an incredibly rapid, systematic process of trial and error. ~ Tim Harford, #NFDB
599:As you build up a complex situation step by step, it appears that thresholds of complexity can be reached that herald the appearance of new structures and new types of behaviour which were not present in the building blocks of that complexity. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
600:If someone gave you a device with which you could see entire worlds just by holding it in front of your eyes, worlds of such beauty and complexity that they took your breath away...wouldn't you want to show this device to everyone you knew? ~ Ann Patchett, #NFDB
601:Increasing complexity” on its own is not, however, the ultimate goal or end-product of these evolutionary processes. Evolution results in better answers, not necessarily more complicated ones. Sometimes a superior solution is a simpler one. ~ Ray Kurzweil, #NFDB
602:What's changed? I'm a dad. That's fundamental. Watching your kids grow, you go back a bit. You can watch a bug crawling around for minutes at a time--just sit and marvel at its complexity, the utter bugness of it. I've learned to do that again. ~ Bob Weir, #NFDB
603:When once one believes in a creed, one is proud of its complexity, as scientists are proud of the complexity of science. It shows how rich it is in discoveries. If it is right at all, it is a compliment to say that it's elaborately right. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
604:All of a plant's systems have this feature of irreducible complexity . The complex systems, which must all be present at the same time, and this unbelievable variety bring to mind the question: "How did these perfect systems in plants emerge? ~ Harun Yahya, #NFDB
605:A philosophy of life is a bundle of wisdom you have gathered from your reading and experience. It is not a rigid ideology that allows no development and complexity. It’s a living thing, a developing idea about life that belongs to you alone. ~ Thomas Moore, #NFDB
606:I enjoyed Old Man's War immensely. A space war story with fast action, vivid characters, moral complexity and cool speculative physics, set in a future you almost want to live into, and a universe you sincerely hope you don't live in already. ~ Ken MacLeod, #NFDB
607:I like how wine continues to evolve, like if I opened a bottle of wine today it would taste different than if I'd opened it on any other day, because a bottle of wine is actually alive. And it's constantly evolving and gaining complexity. ~ Virginia Madsen, #NFDB
608:Leadership is knowing how to distill complexity into a comprehensible message to reach the hearts and minds of the larger world. ~ Thomas Jefferson Using philosophy and history to create emotional appeals to shape broad public sentiment. ~ Thomas Jefferson, #NFDB
609:monism that moved on into a flourishing school called Neo-Realism. If a piece of chalk is dropped on the lecture table, that interaction of chalk and table is different only in complexity from the perceptions and knowledges that fill our minds. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
610:We are glorious accidents of an unpredictable process with no drive to complexity, not the expected results of evolutionary principles that yearn to produce a creature capable of understanding the mode of its own necessary construction. ~ Stephen Jay Gould, #NFDB
611:I think that I am among the few lucky ones who are exploiting complexity. Most people are unhappy with the emergence of complexity, they would prefer it if the world were very simple, but then it would be a doom for a cryptographer like myself. ~ Adi Shamir, #NFDB
612:What had been released into the desert vacuum and starry oases of the galaxy was the inexorable logic of reproduction and natural selection. What followed was parasitism, predation, symbiosis, interdependency chaos, complexity, life. ~ Robert Charles Wilson, #NFDB
613:Experience is more than just the summation of events catalogued into our life; it is the seasoning that flavors personalities, giving them depth and complexity where otherwise absent. The big events we experience can define how we see ourselves. ~ Drew Hayes, #NFDB
614:However, none were really able to replace MATLAB completely, which is probably due to how MATLAB hides complexity from its users and how it provides easy to use mathematical functions as well as powerful libraries (toolboxes in MATLAB speak) that ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
615:It seemed to me he was well rid of Maureen, if she really was disturbing him to the extent that it appeared; but being judicious about other people’s love affairs is easy, often merely a sign one has not understood their force or complexity. ~ Anthony Powell, #NFDB
616:the real lesson is that under conditions of true complexity—where the knowledge required exceeds that of any individual and unpredictability reigns—efforts to dictate every step from the center will fail. People need room to act and adapt. Yet ~ Atul Gawande, #NFDB
617:Those who exclaim that “animals are not people” tend to forget that, while true, it is equally true that people are animals. To minimize the complexity of animal behavior without doing the same for human behavior erects an artificial barrier. ~ Frans de Waal, #NFDB
618:As with real reading, the ability to comprehend subtlety and complexity comes only with time and a lot of experience. If you don't adequately acquire those skills, moving out into the real world of real people can actually become quite scary. ~ Jeffrey Kluger, #NFDB
619:I think maybe it's more important to know the traditional concepts we have for thinking about how bodies are feminine or masculine or how sexuality is, straight or gay. These categories very often fail to describe the complexity of who we are. ~ Judith Butler, #NFDB
620:On Becoming a Person, “is that the more I am simply willing to be myself, in all this complexity of life and the more I am willing to understand and accept the realities in myself and in the other person, the more change seems to be stirred up. ~ Phil Jackson, #NFDB
621:the gut contains over 500 million neurons, equivalent in size and complexity to a cat’s brain, and is the source of 90 percent of our body’s serotonin production. The gut-brain is primal, forming in the womb before the heart- and head-brains. It ~ Jenny Blake, #NFDB
622:There was a feeling during the years of George W. Bushs presidency that his gracelessness as well as his appetite for war were linked to his impatience with complexity. He acted from the gut, and was economical with the truth until it disappeared. ~ Teju Cole, #NFDB
623:They come to understand, with awe, the complexity of the compound identity that existed on the Earth. They conclude with a shudder that the Earthly you is utterly lost, unpreserved in the afterlife. You were all these ages, and you were none. ~ David Eagleman, #NFDB
624:Whereas the complexity of an object measures how complicated it is to describe, its information content measures the extent to which it describes the rest of the world. In other words, information is a measure of how much meaning complexity has. ~ Max Tegmark, #NFDB
625:For almost four billion years life had dawdled along without any detectable ambitions in the direction of complexity, and then suddenly, in the space of just five or ten million years, it had created all the basic body designs still in use today. ~ Bill Bryson, #NFDB
626:The writer is often faced with two choices--turn away from the reality of life's intimidating complexity or conquer its mystery by battling with it. The writer who chooses the former soon runs out of energy and produces elegantly tired fiction. ~ Chinua Achebe, #NFDB
627:Black life is ambiguous, and a kaleidoscope of meanings, rich, multi-sided . . . we have frozen our vision in figures that caricature, at best the complexity of our lives and leave the real artistic chore of interpretation unfinished. ~ Charles Bartlett Johnson, #NFDB
628:Our bodies are of such complexity of structure, the motions we perform are so numerous and involved, and the external impressions on our sense organs to such a degree delicate and elusive that it is hard for the average person to grasp this fact. ~ Nikola Tesla, #NFDB
629:Programmers are always surrounded by complexity; we cannot avoid it.... If our basic tool, the language in which we design and code our programs, is also complicated, the language itself becomes part of the problem rather than part of its solution. ~ Tony Hoare, #NFDB
630:The knot of ropes that bound Murdo to his father was Gordian in its complexity and subtlety. Tonight, Murdo had swept a sword through it, disdaining its cleverness. Severing it with determination and without concern for the consequences. David ~ Joanna Chambers, #NFDB
631:I was sitting in the backseat with my brother, Luke, a seven-year-old complexity. Sometimes he acted as if he were two, and sometimes twelve. He was full of questions and energy and opinions except when you wanted him to have any of those things. ~ Sharon Creech, #NFDB
632:People are tempted to politicize the fact that I paint black figures, and the complexity of this is an essential part of the work. But my starting point is always the language of painting itself and how that relates to the subject matter. ~ Lynette Yiadom Boakye, #NFDB
633:The unconscious wants truth, as the body does. The complexity and fecundity of dreams come from the complexity and fecundity of the unconscious struggling to fulfill that desire. The complexity and fecundity of poetry come from the same struggle. ~ Adrienne Rich, #NFDB
634:This book is not economics for dummies; it is economics for smart people who never studied economics (or have only a vague recollection of doing so). Most of the great ideas in economics are intuitive when the dressings of complexity are peeled away. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
635:Intelligent design is a modest position theologically and philosophically. It attributes the complexity and diversity of life to intelligence, but does not identify that intelligence with the God of any religious faith or philosophical system. ~ William A Dembski, #NFDB
636:Managing complexity is the most important technical topic in software development. In my view, it's so important that Software's Primary Technical Imperative has to be managing complexity. Complexity is not a new feature of software development. ~ Steve McConnell, #NFDB
637:Players enjoy complexity – especially the power that comes with powerful tools. What they do not like is “uninteresting decisions,” or games that leave them confused or with too many “easy” decisions – decisions where there is no learning to be had. ~ Kurt Squire, #NFDB
638:The power system admits only one kind of complexity, that which conforms to its own method and belongs to the current period: a system so uniform that its components are in effect interchangeable parts, conceived as if by a single collective mind. ~ Lewis Mumford, #NFDB
639:There was never a better illustration of the validity of the Enlightenment dream – that order can emerge where nobody is in charge. The genome, now sequenced, stands as emphatic evidence that there can be order and complexity without any management. ~ Matt Ridley, #NFDB
640:We have to look at the figures of speech a writer uses, his images and symbols, to realize that underneath all the complexity of human life that uneasy stare at an alien nature is still haunting us, and the problem of surmounting it still with us. ~ Northrop Frye, #NFDB
641:Life is apparently nothing but the privileged exaggeration of a fundamental cosmic tendency (as fundamental as entropy or gravitation) which may be called the ‘Law of complexity/consciousness.’ ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phyletic Structure of the Human Group, #NFDB
642:Not one example of significant self-generation or self-organization can be found in the entire realm of nature.... Without causation, nothing happens and without organization by an intelligent being, systems tend to lower and lower levels of complexity. ~ Hugh Ross, #NFDB
643:Whatever the composition of a firm, if it is to do good business it should be a place where everyone is encouraged to progress toward complexity- or at the very least a place that does not make it more difficult to achieve personal growth. ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, #NFDB
644:What marks the transition from non-sentient to sentient beings? A model of increasing complexity based on evolution through natural selection is simply a descriptive hypothesis, a kind of euphemism for “mystery,” and not a satisfactory explanation. ~ Dalai Lama XIV, #NFDB
645:Evolution across the universe was nothing but the endless proliferation of automatic, organized complexity, a vast arid Turing machine full of self-replicating machinery forever unaware of its own existence. And we—we were the flukes and the fossils. We ~ Peter Watts, #NFDB
646:Nothing is more important to our shared future than the well-being of children. For children are at our core - not only as vulnerable beings in need of love and care but as a moral touchstone amidst the complexity and contentiousness of modern life. ~ Hillary Clinton, #NFDB
647:Part of the blame lies with intellectuals who are unable or unwilling to convey their ideas in terms that will play down to the cafe. But anyone who sits in that cafe and dismisses complexity by reveling in their own simplicity is no less pretentious. ~ Michael Perry, #NFDB
648:We need to look down from a great height and contemplate, in their widest, most general aspect, the organic relationships linking consciousness and complexity within the Universe. ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, A Great Event Foreshadowed - The Planetization of Mankind, #NFDB
649:What would it be like, a world without snow? I cannot imagine such a place. It would be like a world devoid of numbers. Every snowflake, unique as every number, tells us something about complexity. Perhaps that is why we will never tire of its wonder. ~ Daniel Tammet, #NFDB
650:By tomorrow Marilyn would forget this moment: Lydia's shout, the shattered edges in her tone. It would disappear forever from her memory of Lydia, the way memories of a lost loved one always smooth and simplify themselves, shedding complexity like scales. ~ Celeste Ng, #NFDB
651:However, a good life consists of more than simply the totality of enjoyable experiences. It must also have a meaningful pattern, a trajectory of growth that results in the development of increasing emotional, cognitive, and social complexity. ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, #NFDB
652:The simplest and most satisfactory view is that thought is simply behavior - verbal or nonverbal, covert or overt. It is not some mysterious process responsible for behavior but the very behavior itself in all the complexity of its controlling relations. ~ B F Skinner, #NFDB
653:Amazing fine tuning occurs in the laws that make this complexity possible. Realization of the complexity of what is accomplished makes it very difficult not to use the word 'miraculous' without taking a stand as to the ontological status of the word. ~ George F R Ellis, #NFDB
654:I'm inordinately proud of Smash, on so many levels. The complexity of producing that show, every week, is just incredible. As a television producer and as a Broadway producer, which I once was, I am in awe of what we can do on that show, every week. ~ Robert Greenblatt, #NFDB
655:One way to explain the complexity and unpredictability of historical systems, despite their ultimate determinacy, is to note that long chains of causation may separate final effects from ultimate causes lying outside the domain of that field of science. ~ Jared Diamond, #NFDB
656:Our model of the cosmos must be as inexhaustible as the cosmos. A complexity that includes not only duration but creation, not only being but becoming, not only geometry but ethics. It is not the answer we are after, but only how to ask the question. ~ Ursula K Le Guin, #NFDB
657:At what point in the history of Letheras, he wondered, did rampant greed become a virtue? The level of self-justification required was staggering in its tautological complexity, and it seemed language itself was its greatest armour against common sense. ~ Steven Erikson, #NFDB
658:Of all the simplifications to which the human spirit naturally inclines, unable to reconcile itself to the complexity of the real, there is none more dangerous than the attempt to integrate the whole of society in one vast, permanent action group. ~ Bertrand De Jouvenel, #NFDB
659:A novel, a story, a myth, or a tale, all have the same function: they spare us from the complexity of the world and shield us from its randomness. Myths impart order to the disorder of human perception and the perceived “chaos of human experience. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb, #NFDB
660:Considering the inconceivable complexity of processes even in a simple cell, it is little short of a miracle that the simplest possible model - namely, a linear equation between two variables - actually applies in quite a general number of cases. ~ Ludwig von Bertalanffy, #NFDB
661:The flow experience, like everything else, is not “good” in an absolute sense. It is good only in that it has the potential to make life more rich, intense, and meaningful; it is good because it increases the strength and complexity of the self. ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, #NFDB
662:Idealization of motherhood and mothering forever traps us in this either/or state. It robs us of our own complexity and of our ability to see ourselves as genuinely interconnected. With this social expectation in place, burnout is stigmatized, not anticipated. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
663:Lots of us have expertise in particular areas. Becoming an expert in something means that we become more and more fascinated by nuance and complexity. That's when the Curse of Knowledge kicks in, and we start to forget what it's like not to know what we know. ~ Chip Heath, #NFDB
664:The existance of many gods conveys true complexity of mortal life. Conversely, the assertion of but one god leads to a denial of complexity, and encourages the need to maek the world simple. Not the fault of the god, but a crime commited by its believers. ~ Steven Erikson, #NFDB
665:The existence of many gods conveys true complexity of mortal life. Conversely, the assertion of but one god leads to a denial of complexity, and encourages the need to make the world simple. Not the fault of the god, but a crime committed by its believers. ~ Steven Erikson, #NFDB
666:Yeah, leading an examined life, I always say, is a pain in the ass. It adds an element of complexity to business that most businessmen don't want to hear about. They just want to call a fabric manufacturer, and say, "Hey, give us 10,000 yards of shirting." ~ Yvon Chouinard, #NFDB
667:Once everyone is connected to everyone and everything else, nothing matters anymore. If everyone in the world is your Facebook friend, then why have any Facebook friends at all? We're back where we started. The ultimate complexity is just another entropy. ~ Douglas Rushkoff, #NFDB
668:Once upon a time fairy tales were told to audiences of young and old alike. It is only in the last century that such tales were deemed fit only for small children, stripped of much of their original complexity, sensuality, and power to frighten and delight. ~ Terri Windling, #NFDB
669:Software is different than other products um, partly because it's, it's not physical and, and partly because of its complexity. You can express in software millions of different cases and making sure that you handle all of them correctly is extremely difficult. ~ Bill Gates, #NFDB
670:There are some who think that the government is limited in how many corruption cases it can bring against Wall Street, because juries can't understand the complexity of the financial schemes involved. But in 'U.S.A. v. Carollo,' that turned out not to be true. ~ Matt Taibbi, #NFDB
671:There is appropriate complexity and appropriate simplicity. The more we learn, the more we discover that we humans are fantastically complicated creatures. Yet, on the other hand, human life is full of moments when we know that things are also very, very simple. ~ Tom Wright, #NFDB
672:I have tried (I am not sure how successfully) to write plain tales. I dare not say they are simple; there is not a simple page, a simple word, on earth -\-\ for all pages, all words, predicate the universe, whose most notorious attribute is its complexity. ~ Jorge Luis Borges, #NFDB
673:When we are able to do something so easily, we regard such thing as simplicity; but simplicity is complexity. Withing the things which are simple lay the things which are complex and within the things which are complex, lay the things which are simple ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah, #NFDB
674:1. Providing a unique interface between members of the organization 2. Delivering unique creativity 3. Managing a situation or organization of great complexity 4. Leading customers 5. Inspiring staff 6. Providing deep domain knowledge 7. Possessing a unique talent ~ Seth Godin, #NFDB
675:I think that because most films where there's a teenager, it's aimed at a teenage audience. Restless is - I wouldn't classify it as a teen film, strictly, but it's definitely a film that appeals to young people, but also gives them credit for their complexity. ~ Mia Wasikowska, #NFDB
676:Mrs. Kooshof's intolerance for complexity, for the looping circuitry of a well-told tale, symptomizes an epidemic disease of our modern world. (I see it daily among my students. The short attention span, the appetite limited to linearity. Too much Melrose Place.) ~ Tim O Brien, #NFDB
677:The utility of a language as a tool of thought increases with the range of topics it can treat, but decreases with the amount of vocabulary and the complexity of grammatical rules which the user must keep in mind. Economy of notation is therefore important. ~ Kenneth E Iverson, #NFDB
678: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, #NFDB
679:There is a vast gulf in complexity, subtlety, and flexibility between human beings and other animals in regard to language ability, and that gulf is a large part of why humans have been such a successful species of such disproportionate influence on this planet. ~ John McWhorter, #NFDB
680:to design means forcing ourselves to unlearn what we believe we already know, patiently to take apart the mechanisms behind our reflexes and to acknowledge the mystery and stupefying complexity of everyday gestures like switching off a light of turning on a tap ~ Alain de Botton, #NFDB
681:people did not lie if the situation did not call for it: at levels of zero complexity (i.e., our control condition), 100% of our participants were truthful. On the other hand, people were surprisingly “quick” to falsify at the first hint of substantial complexity. One ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
682:Two professors who study the science of complexity—Brenda Zimmerman of York University and Sholom Glouberman of the University of Toronto—have proposed a distinction among three different kinds of problems in the world: the simple, the complicated, and the complex. ~ Atul Gawande, #NFDB
683:We need language. We need language to tell stories. We need stories to create a self. We need a self because the complexity of the chemical processes that make up our individual humanities exceeds the processing power of our brains. The self we create is a fiction. ~ Mohsin Hamid, #NFDB
684:But when we don’t sleep, or when we work too hard, often even we can’t see there’s a problem. Sure, we don’t feel great; but what we can’t see is what we are losing: the capacity to reason, to judge, to make good and humane decisions, to see consequences and complexity. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
685:I felt very isolated with my identity virtually my entire life, that nobody really got it and that I really didn't have the personal agency to express it, i kind of imagined that maybe at some point (I'd have to) own it publicly and discuss this kind of complexity. ~ Rachel Dolezal, #NFDB
686:[In science any model depends on a pre-chosen taxonomy] a set of classifications into which we divide the enormous complexity of the real world... Land, labor, and capital are extremely heterogeneous aggregates, not much better than earth, air, fire, and water. ~ Kenneth E Boulding, #NFDB
687:Complexity and profundity have been equated by the academic culture just as fame and significance have been conflated by the popular culture. Fame and significance have nothing to do with one another; and complexity and profundity have nothing to do with one another. ~ Dennis Prager, #NFDB
688:I don't [believe in God]. I have a problem with religion or anything else that says, 'We have all the answers,' because there's no such thing as 'the answers.' We're complex. We change our minds on issues all the time. Religion leaves no room for human complexity. ~ Daniel Radcliffe, #NFDB
689:The total disorder in the universe, as measured by the quantity that physicists call entropy, increases steadily over time. Also, the total order in the universe, as measured by the complexity and permanence of organized structures, also increases steadily over time. ~ Freeman Dyson, #NFDB
690:This internal struggle was one she’d considered her entire life — what were the peculiar genetics that allowed an organism the complexity to battle with itself? To allow one to feel loneliness even in the midst of knowing that being alone was what made it truly happy? ~ Nick Thacker, #NFDB
691:Most important act for the future is to become aware of our darkness, to lower our moral sights, resist the desire to be perfect, recognize our complexity, become critical of conventional morality & search for a new balance that includes our dark side as well as the light ~ Tacey, #NFDB
692:The Bible reflects the complexity and diversity of the human experience, with all its joys and sorrows. And in the story of Job, it’s not the learned theologians who get the peek at glory, but the man who said, with candor and courage, “I desire to argue with God. ~ Rachel Held Evans, #NFDB
693:The complexity of the language of images is disguised by the ease and rapidity with which we read them. I've tried to make work that is as transparent and simple as possible. No matter how much I strip away the result is always more complex to me than I expect. ~ Michael Craig Martin, #NFDB
694:A lot of the times we don't see enough of strength. Imagery is obviously a large part of it. I think it's important to see her [Michelle Obama] passion, her complexity, and to see her be challenged. Whether it's about forgiveness, or wanting to do more, it's what it is. ~ Tika Sumpter, #NFDB
695:I try to be one of the exceptional people who can live with the complexity of things, who are at peace with the unknown and the unknowable, who leave all the cages open. I tell myself: There's so much that you don't know, you can't know, you aren't ever going to know. ~ Kelly Corrigan, #NFDB
696:The underlying message of all these rules is that inheritance tends to work against the primary technical imperative you have as a programmer, which is to manage complexity. For the sake of controlling complexity, you should maintain a heavy bias against inheritance. ~ Steve McConnell, #NFDB
697:To encounter the depths and rich complexity of the cosmos, we require ways of knowing that fully integrate the imagination, the aesthetic sensibility, moral & spiritual intuition, revelatory experience, symbolic perception, somatic & sensuous modes of understanding. ~ R Tarnas, #NFDB
698:Being able to shoot a fist size group on a B-27 in no way, shape, or form resembles the task complexity of being accosted in a parking lot in reduced light by someone who does not telegraph their intentions until the last possible moment and uses a major threat of force. ~ Massad Ayoob, #NFDB
699:There must be bands of enthusiasts for everything on earth-fanatics who shared a vocabulary, a batch of technical skills and equipment, and, perhaps, a vision of some single slice of the beauty and mystery of things, of their complexity, fascination, and unexpectedness. ~ Annie Dillard, #NFDB
700:A good speed reading course should therefore teach you to read at many different speeds, not just one speed that is faster than anything you can manage now. It should enable you to vary your rate of reading in accordance with the nature and complexity of the material. ~ Mortimer J Adler, #NFDB
701:Don't accept the excuse of complexity. A lot of people will tell you, this is too challenging, this is too complicated, yeah well I know other people simplify but that's not for me, this is a complicated business. They're wrong. You can change the world in 140 characters. ~ Keith Rabois, #NFDB
702:Economics helps you understand that money isn’t the only thing that matters in life. Economics teaches you that making a choice means giving up something. And economics can help you appreciate complexity and how seemingly unrelated actions and people can become entangled. ~ Russ Roberts, #NFDB
703:Right now we are in an age of religious complexity. The simplicity which is in Christ is rarely found among us. In its stead are programs, methods, organizations and a world of nervous activities which occupy time and attention but can never satisfy the longing of the heart. ~ A W Tozer, #NFDB
704:The more independent the subsystems are, the more you make it safe to focus on one bit of complexity at a time. Carefully defined objects separate concerns so that you can focus on one thing at a time. Packages provide the same benefit at a higher level of aggregation. ~ Steve McConnell, #NFDB
705:The obsession with which those on the right resist Charles Darwin’s insight – that the complexity of nature does not imply a designer – matches the obsession with which those on the left resist Adam Smith’s insight – that the complexity of society does not imply a planner. ~ Matt Ridley, #NFDB
706:There was a great complexity to my father. He was a devoted family man. But, in the same breath, he simply was not suited to an anchored life. He should have been somebody who had a backpack, an old map, a bit of change in his pocket and that was it - roaming the world. ~ Christian Bale, #NFDB
707:David, we have been around your building and we've seven kanban boards. Each one is different! Each team is following a different process! How can you possibly cope with this complexity?' My answer was always a dismissive 'of course! Each team's situation is different. ~ David J Anderson, #NFDB
708:Earlier generations of machines decreased the complexity of tasks. In contrast, information technologies can increase the intellectual content of work at all levels. Work comes to depend on an ability to understand, respond to, manage, and create value from information. ~ Shoshana Zuboff, #NFDB
709:I do think that in some ways, the complexity of technology, the things that we all have to deal with in media, have created a new kind of person that is sensitive to media, but also sensitive to the kind of beliefs that people have. And this person can put the two together. ~ Jeff Goodby, #NFDB
710:Jesus doesn’t call us to simple. He calls us into complexity. The human soul, psyche, mind, and emotions are complicated. And if he calls us to anything, it’s to enter into the mess that is day-to-day life alongside broken people in the midst of chaotic circumstances. Scott ~ Scott Sauls, #NFDB
711:(my trillions are American, like all my units: one American trillion is a million millions; an American billion is a thousand millions). Our brains are no better equipped to handle extremes of complexity than extremes of size and the other difficult extremes of physics. ~ Richard Dawkins, #NFDB
712:. . . any one episode, or even moment, in a person’s life is so complex, with so many layers of past and present, desire and indifference, drift and drive, consciousness and unconsciousness, that language is the best means we’ve found of approaching that kind of complexity. ~ Ben Fountain, #NFDB
713:By some accounts, humans are dwarfed and shown to be trivial on the cosmic scale. By some accounts, humans are reduced and shown to be nothing but electronic molecules in motion on the atomic scale. But by equally impressive accounts, humans live at the center of complexity. ~ Paul Davies, #NFDB
714:The vulgarization of Darwinism that sees the "struggle for existence" as nothing but the competition for some environmental resource in short supply ignores the large body of evidence about the actual complexity of the relationship between organisms and their resources. ~ Richard Lewontin, #NFDB
715:Most research into life's murky origin has been carried out by chemists. They've tried a variety of approaches in their attempts to recreate the first steps on the road to life, but little progress has been made. Perhaps that is no surprise, given life's stupendous complexity. ~ Paul Davies, #NFDB
716:That it should be the questions and shape of a life, its total complexity gathered, arranged, and considered, which matters in the end, not some stamp of salvation or damnation that disperses all the complexity into some unsatisfying little decision - the balancing of scales. ~ Tony Kushner, #NFDB
717:The truth is that Islam itself was a barbaric reaction against that very humane complexity that is really a Christian character; that idea of balance in the deity, as of balance in the family, that makes that creed a sort of sanity, and that sanity the soul of civilisation. ~ G K Chesterton, #NFDB
718:You have to record as many details as possible and achieve an order, without taking away the complexity of the real. To voice the real and at the same time to create an image that is a world in itself, with its own coherence, its autonomy and sovereignty; an image that thinks ~ Luc Delahaye, #NFDB
719:Cubism is not a manner but an aesthetic, and even a state of mind; it is therefore inevitably connected with every manifestation of contemporary thought. It is possible to invent a technique or a manner independently, but one cannot invent the whole complexity of a state of mind. ~ Juan Gris, #NFDB
720:Even in the obscure vast history of a planet the time it takes to make a forest counts. It takes a while. And not every planet can do it; it is no common effect, that tangling of the sun's first cool light in the shadow and complexity of innumberable wind-stirred branches. ~ Ursula K Le Guin, #NFDB
721:If I had to express in one word what makes the creative personality different from others, it would be complexity. Like the color white that includes all the hues in the spectrum, they tend to bring together the entire range of human possibilities within themselves. ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, #NFDB
722:I listened to the plan. When I understood the overall idea and the complexity it involved, I finally commented, “Lieutenant, I appreciate your motivation to get out there and get after it. But perhaps—at least for these first few patrols—we need to simplify this a little bit. ~ Jocko Willink, #NFDB
723:My work was fairly theoretical. It was in recursive function theory. And in particular, hierarchies of functions in terms of computational complexity. I got involved in real computers and programming mainly by being - well, I was interested even as I came to graduate school. ~ Dennis Ritchie, #NFDB
724:We remake the world through our technologies, and these in turn remake and extend us, in ever spiraling lattices of complexity. McLuhan uncannily foresaw the future, where electronic technology would shape and expand cultures and societies into a global membrane of communications. ~ B W Powe, #NFDB
725:We should not lose ourselves in vainglorious sohemes for changing human nature all over the planet. Rather, we should learn to view ourselves with a sense of proportion and Christian humility before the enormous complexity of the world in which it has been given us to live. ~ George F Kennan, #NFDB
726:I don't think you would have any trouble at all in deciding that you are thinking of some event and then visualizing it happening with its consequences, and constructing a rational analysis of it without being able to verbalize it adequately in anything like its full complexity. ~ Noam Chomsky, #NFDB
727:technologies (reflecting new and more complex behaviors) do not tend to be associated with the appearance of new kinds of hominid. It was old kinds of hominid that started to do new things, even though those new things always seem to indicate a step up in cognitive complexity. ~ Ian Tattersall, #NFDB
728:A 2010 study found that some habits can be formed in a matter of weeks while others can take more than five months.[xxxix] The researchers also found that the complexity of the behavior and how important the habit was to the person greatly affected how quickly the routine was formed. ~ Nir Eyal, #NFDB
729:And to me, if you really want to rediscover wonder, you need to step outside of that tiny, terrified space of rightness and look around at each other and look out at the vastness and complexity and mystery of the universe and be able to say, “Wow, I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong. ~ Kathryn Schulz, #NFDB
730:For example, the populations of both the Roman Empire and Han China grew to 50–60 million people at the peak. This is the point when we surpassed the social insects. During the past two millennia no other animal anywhere has rivaled human societies in size and complexity. ·•· In ~ Peter Turchin, #NFDB
731:I believe that this example demonstrates how great science and great poetry are both visionary, and may even arrive at the same intuitions. Our culture is foolish to keep science and poetry separated: they are two tools to open our eyes to the complexity and beauty of the world. ~ Carlo Rovelli, #NFDB
732:The fact that all normal children acquire essentially comparable grammars of great complexity with remarkable rapidity suggests that human beings are somehow specially designed to do this, with data-handling or 'hypothesis-formulating' ability of unknown character and complexity. ~ Noam Chomsky, #NFDB
733:War as a moral metaphor is limited, limiting, and dangerous. By reducing the choices of action to “a war against” whatever-it-is, you divide the world into Me or Us (good) and Them or It (bad) and reduce the ethical complexity and moral richness of our life to Yes/No, On/Off. ~ Ursula K Le Guin, #NFDB
734:What I love about design is the artistic and scientific complexity that also becomes useful . . . Great designers also pursue a mission. Great designers design with mankind in mind . . . The crossroads of science and art, innovation and inspiration are what I love about design. ~ Michelle Obama, #NFDB
735:As we just saw, some concepts such as symmetries retain their central status. In contrast, other concepts, such as initial conditions, complexity and randomness, get reinterpreted as mere illusions, existing only in the mind of the beholder and not in the external physical reality. ~ Max Tegmark, #NFDB
736:Love reduces the complexity of living. It amazes me that when Henry walks towards the cafe table where I wait for him, or opens the gate to our house, the sight of him is sufficient to exult me. No letter from anyone, even in praise of my book, can stir me as much as a note from him. ~ Ana s Nin, #NFDB
737:No scientist, engineer, writer, psychologist, artist, or physician - and certainly no scholar, and therefore no serious university faculty member - pursues his or her vocation by getting right answers from a set of prescribed alternatives that trivialize complexity and ambiguity. ~ Leon Botstein, #NFDB
738:We left home, married, had children of our own, found the seeds of meanness blooming also within us. Dad began dresssing the pole with more complexity and less discernible logic. He draped some kind of fur over it on Groundhog Day and lugged out a floodlight to ensure a shadow. ~ George Saunders, #NFDB
739:Whenever I saw her, I felt like I had been living in another country, doing moderately well in another language, and then she showed up speaking English and suddenly I could speak with all the complexity and nuance that I hadn't realized was gone. With Lucy I was a native speaker. ~ Ann Patchett, #NFDB
740:Commodified fantasy takes no risks: it invents nothing, but imitates and trivializes. It proceeds by depriving the old stories of their intellectual and ethical complexity, turning their action to violence, their actors to dolls, and their truth-telling to sentimental platitude. ~ Ursula K Le Guin, #NFDB
741:Density, complexity, and historical-semantic value that is so strong as to make politics possible... Gramsci's insight is to have recognised that subordination, fracturing, diffusion, reproducing, as much as producing, creating, forcing, guiding, are necessary aspects of elaboration. ~ Edward Said, #NFDB
742:When we are dealing with complexity, blaming without proper analysis is one of the most common as well as one of the most perilous things an organization can do. And it rests, in part, on the erroneous belief that toughness and openness are in conflict with each other. They are not. ~ Matthew Syed, #NFDB
743:Most of the complexity of a human neuron is devoted to maintaining its life-support functions, not its information-processing capabilities. Ultimately, we will be able to port our mental processes to a more suitable computational substrate. Then our minds won’t have to stay so small. ~ Ray Kurzweil, #NFDB
744:Therefore Godel's theorem had an electrifying effect upon logicians, mathematicians, and philosophers interested in the foundations of mathematics, for it showed that no fixed system, no matter how complicated could represent the complexity of the whole numbers: 0,1,2,3,..... ~ Douglas R Hofstadter, #NFDB
745:Linear programming can be viewed as part of a great revolutionary development which has given mankind the ability to state general goals and to lay out a path of detailed decisions to take in order to "best" achieve its goals when faced with practical situations of great complexity. ~ George Dantzig, #NFDB
746:Programming, it turns out, is hard. The fundamental rules are typically simple and clear. But programs built on top of these rules tend to become complex enough to introduce their own rules and complexity. You’re building your own maze, in a way, and you might just get lost in it. ~ Marijn Haverbeke, #NFDB
747:Most of them ran counter to the ethos of BBLR. Virtually all of them made the tax code more complicated—including that bizarre “anti-complexity clause,” Section 7803(c)(2)(B)(ii)(IX). Three decades after the passage of the 1986 reforms, the U.S. tax code is a mockery of the BBLR principle. ~ T R Reid, #NFDB
748:It's something that people relate to - and I hope my kid doesn't relate to - but there's a level of believability in playing complex characters. You know, Christopher Walken has done some hilarious comedies, De Niro. There's great room for complexity and darkness to do well in comedies. ~ Jeremy Sisto, #NFDB
749:Programming, it turns out, is hard. The fundamental rules are typically simple and cleaR But programs built on top of these rules tend to become complex enough to introduce their own rules and complexity. You're building your own maze, in a way, and you might just get lost in it.
~ Marijn Haverbeke,#NFDB
750:The great enemy of communication, we find, is the illusion of it. We have talked enough; but we have not listened. And by not listening we have failed to concede the immense complexity of our society—and thus the great gaps between ourselves and those with whom we seek understanding. ~ William H Whyte, #NFDB
751:During Prohibition, Atlantic City created the idea of the speakeasy, which turned into nightclubs and that extraordinary political complexity and corruption coming out of New Jersey at the time. The long hand that they had-and maybe still do-even had to do with presidential elections. ~ Martin Scorsese, #NFDB
752:The answer to growing complexity in the social sphere is renewed efforts at participation by each one of us, or else a progressive decline of inert and unquestioning masses submitting to government by an elite which will have little regard for the ultimate interest of the common man. ~ Gordon W Allport, #NFDB
753:The boredom will go away once you enter the cycle. The panic disappears after repeated exposure. The frustration is a sign of progress—a signal that your mind is processing complexity and requires more practice. The insecurities will transform into their opposites when you gain mastery. ~ Robert Greene, #NFDB
754:I feel most people’s sexuality is enormously complicated. That’s what it means to be human. Wouldn’t it be great if we honored that complexity rather than turn it into gossip or ridicule? Wouldn’t it be great if we accepted sexual diversity, in ourselves and others, without condemning it? ~ Janet Jackson, #NFDB
755:Insofar as we appreciate order, it is when we perceive it as being accompanied by complexity, when we feel that a variety of elements has been brought to order--that windows, doors and other details have been knitted into a scheme that manages to be at once regular and intricate. (p184) ~ Alain de Botton, #NFDB
756:A liberal education will impart an awareness of the amazing and precious complexity of human relationships. Since those relationships are violated more often out of insensitiveness than out of deliberate intent, whatever increases sensitiveness of perception and understanding humanizes life. ~ Sidney Hook, #NFDB
757:These children will not be coming of age, this or any other summer. This August will not ask them to find hidden reserves of strength and courage as they confront the complexity of the adult world and come away sadder and wiser and bonded for life. This summer has other requirement for them. ~ Tana French, #NFDB
758:I've done a number of films. I've been around this. I think the biggest challenge is just getting the script right, the way that you want the script to be. It's really about capturing the complexity of emotions and creating the kind of characters that people will want to watch every week. ~ Nicholas Sparks, #NFDB
759:The United Nations emerged as a temple of official good intentions, a place where governments might - without abating their transgressions - go to church; a place made remote - by agreed untruth and procedural complexity, and by tedium itself - from the risk of intense public involvement. ~ Shirley Hazzard, #NFDB
760:We humans are a complex interwoven system of the body, the mind, and the spirit. We are formed and informed by the interplay of these systems. Our health care, to be truly effective, must acknowledge and address this complexity and interconnectedness – and also the effect we have on each other. ~ Ann Scott, #NFDB
761:In a learning organization, leaders are designers, stewards, and teachers. They are responsible for building organizations where people continually expand their capabilities to understand complexity, clarify vision, and improve shared mental models - that is, they are responsible for learning. ~ Peter Senge, #NFDB
762:Science offers us an explanation of how complexity (the difficult) arose out of simplicity (the easy). The hypothesis of God offers no worthwhile explanation for anything, for it simply postulates what we are trying to explain. It postulates the difficult to explain, and leaves it at that. ~ Richard Dawkins, #NFDB
763:The social sciences, like much of biology but unlike most fields of the physical sciences, have to deal with structures of essential complexity, i.e. with structures whose characteristic properties can be exhibited only by models made up of relatively large numbers of variables. ~ Friedrich August von Hayek, #NFDB
764:Experts depend on the fact that you don’t have the information they do. Or that you are so befuddled by the complexity of their operation that you wouldn’t know what to do with the information if you had it. Or that you are so in awe of their expertise that you wouldn’t dare challenge them. ~ Steven D Levitt, #NFDB
765:We're looking at such enormous complexity and variety that it makes a mockery of "celebrating diversity." In the L.A. of the future, no one will need to say, "Let's celebrate diversity." Diversity is going to be a fundamental part of our lives. That's what it's going to mean to be modern. ~ Richard Rodriguez, #NFDB
766:The walls were hung with a series of gigantic paintings in gilded frames of great complexity, all depicting the city of Venice, but the day was overcast, a cold stormy rain had set in, and Venice – that city built of equal parts of sunlit marble and sunlit sea – was drowned in a London gloom. ~ Susanna Clarke, #NFDB
767:Those three things—autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward—are, most people agree, the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying. It is not how much money we make that ultimately makes us happy between nine and five. It's whether our work fulfills us. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
768:Ideologies are simple ideas, disguised as science or philosophy, that purport to explain the complexity of the world and offer remedies that will perfect it. Ideologues are people who pretend they know how to “make the world a better place” before they’ve taken care of their own chaos within. ~ Jordan Peterson, #NFDB
769:Perhaps if one less dragonfly had drowned in the Carboniferous swamps, the intelligent organisms on our planet today would have feathers and teach their young in rookeries. The pattern of evolutionary causality is a web of astonishing complexity; the incompleteness of our understanding humbles us. ~ Carl Sagan, #NFDB
770:You are not the most intelligent creature in the universe. You are not even the most intelligent creature on your planet. The tonal language in the song of a humpback whale displays more complexity than the entire works of Shakespeare. It is not a competition. Well, it is. But don’t worry about it. ~ Matt Haig, #NFDB
771:An image system is a strategy of motifs, a category of imagery embedded in the film that repeats in sight and sound from beginning to end with persistence and great variation, but with equally great subtlety, as a subliminal communication to increase the depth and complexity of aesthetic emotion. ~ Robert McKee, #NFDB
772:Animals! the object of insatiable interest, examples of the riddle of life, created, as it were, to reveal the human being to man himself, displaying his richness and complexity in a thousand kaleidoscopic possibilities, each of them brought to some curious end, to some characteristic exuberance. ~ Bruno Schulz, #NFDB
773:electronic media have become an environment of their own- to the list of neighborhood and region and continent and planet we must now add television as a place where we live. and the problem is not that it exists- the problem is that it supplants. it's simplicity makes complexity hard to fathom. ~ Bill McKibben, #NFDB
774:Sextants that divided the sky into angles not found in the usual geometries, microscopes whose hermetically sealed lenses distorted the viewed object into shimmering rainbow images, other instruments whose complexity and manifold adjustments quite overwhelmed my powers of speculation as to their use ~ K W Jeter, #NFDB
775:To be human is to be in the tense condition of a death-foreseeing, consciously libidinous animal. No other earthly creature suffers such a capacity for thought, such a complexity of envisioned but frustrated possibilities, such a troubling ability to question the tribal and biological imperatives. ~ John Updike, #NFDB
776:He taught ideas of nuance and complexity in his classes and yet he was asking her for a single reason, the cause. But she had not had a bold epiphany and there was no cause; it was simply that layer after layer of discontent had settled in her, and formed a mass that now propelled her. ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, #NFDB
777:Ideologies are simple ideas, disguised as science or philosophy, that purport to explain the complexity of the world and offer remedies that will perfect it. Ideologues are people who pretend they know how to “make the world a better place” before they’ve taken care of their own chaos within. ~ Jordan B Peterson, #NFDB
778:This idea says: no, people matter. You are the cutting edge of a thirteen-billion-year-old process of defining novelty. Your acts matter. Your thoughts matter. Your purpose? To add to the complexity. Your enemy? Disorder, entropy, stupidity, and tastelessness. ~ Terence McKenna, Dreaming Awake at the End of Time, #NFDB
779:If every museum in the New World were emptied, if every famous building in the Old World were destroyed and only Venice saved, there would be enough there to fill a full lifetime with delight. Venice, with all its complexity and variety, is in itself the greatest surviving work of art in the world. ~ Evelyn Waugh, #NFDB
780:The whole process of nature is an integrated process of immense complexity and it is really impossible to tell whether something that happens in it is good or bad. Because you never know what will be the consequences of the misfortune. Or, you never know what will be the consequences of good fortune. ~ Alan Watts, #NFDB
781:The study of geography is about more than just memorizing places on a map. It's about understanding the complexity of our world, appreciating the diversity of cultures that exists across continents. And in the end, it's about using all that knowledge to help bridge divides and bring people together. ~ Barack Obama, #NFDB
782:It is essential to grasp the incontestable truth that a Marxist must take cognisance of real life, of the true facts of reality, and not cling to a theory of yesterday, which, like all theories, at best only outlines the main and the general, only comes near to embracing life in all its complexity. ~ Vladimir Lenin, #NFDB
783:Modern scientists attribute to such systems an "irre d u c i b l e complexity." In the same way that a motor will not work if one of its cogs is missing, in plants the absence of just one system, or a single functional failure in any one of the parts of the system, will lead to the death of the plant. ~ Harun Yahya, #NFDB
784:My hope is that I'm going to continue to make more and more challenging work that's going to come out more and more interesting. I don't know if that will always continue to happen, but every one of my films has definitely been a progression as far as complexity of narrative, character, and plot. ~ Darren Aronofsky, #NFDB
785:One universe, four forces, billions of galaxies. The precision and complexity of our world is enough to make even the famous cosmologist go just a little bit crazy. How does it all fit together? Is there a single, overarching design to the cosmos? And if we find it, will we glimpse the mind of God? ~ Morgan Freeman, #NFDB
786:The primary consequence of the computational nature of the universe is that the universe naturally generates complex systems, such as life. Although the basic laws of physics are comparatively simple in form, they give rise, because they are computationally universal, to systems of enormous complexity. ~ Seth Lloyd, #NFDB
787:This is why killing and stealing are wrong—not because a book tells us they are wrong, or a law tells us they are wrong, or a spiritual guide tells us they are wrong, but because if everyone did them we would not move toward the ultimate complexity that is God, with the rest of the universe. ~ Gregory David Roberts, #NFDB
788:almost every living cell there was already a functioning computer with a huge memory? A mammalian cell had a DNA complement of several billion base pairs, each acting as a piece of information. What was reproduction, after all, but a computerized biological process of enormous complexity and reliability? ~ Greg Bear, #NFDB
789:So when you do your family tree and Margaret Cho does hers, and... Wanda Sykes and John Legend... we're adding to the database that scholars can then draw from to generalize about the complexity of the American experience. And that's the contribution that family trees make to broader scholarship. ~ Henry Louis Gates, #NFDB
790:these sensory capacities are deeply interwoven with the complexity that we know of as the world. They are a primary point of interface between me and not me. For the ecological sophistication that we call Earth to exist, those interfaces must, of necessity, be extremely sophisticated as well. ~ Stephen Harrod Buhner, #NFDB
791:Those three things—autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward—are, most people agree, the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying. It is not how much money we make that ultimately makes us happy between nine and five. It’s whether our work fulfills us. ~ Malcolm Gladwell, #NFDB
792:Pain heightens every sense. More powerfully than any drug, it intensifies colors, sounds, sight, feelings. Pain is like a glass wall. It is impossible to climb it, but you must, and, somehow, you do. Then there is an explosion of brilliance and the world is more apparent in its complexity and beauty. ~ Suzanne Massie, #NFDB
793:Those three things--autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward--are, most people agree, the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying. It is not how much money we make that ultimately makes us happy between nine and five. It's whether our work fulfills us. ~ Malcolm Gladwell, #NFDB
794:We're looking at complexity. We're looking at blond kids in Beverley Hills who can speak Spanish because they have been raised by Guatemalan nannies. We're looking at Evangelicals coming up from Latin America to convert the U.S. at the same time that L.A. movie stars are taking up Indian pantheism. ~ Richard Rodriguez, #NFDB
795:Checklists turn out...to be among the basic tools of the quality and productivity revolution in aviation, engineering, construction - in virtually every field combining high risk and complexity. Checklists seem lowly and simplistic, but they help fill in for the gaps in our brains and between our brains. ~ Atul Gawande, #NFDB
796:The point is... to live one's life in the full complexity of what one is, which is something much darker, more contradictory, more of a maelstrom of impulses and passions, of cruelty, ecstacy, and madness, than is apparent to the civilized being who glides on the surface and fits smoothly into the world. ~ Thomas Nagel, #NFDB
797:There is a new science of complexity which says that the link between cause and effect is increasingly difficult to trace; that change (planned or otherwise) unfolds in non-linear ways; that paradoxes and contradictions abound; and that creative solutions arise out of diversity, uncertainty and chaos. ~ Andy Hargreaves, #NFDB
798:Those three things - autonomy, complexity and a connection between effort and reward - are, most people agree, the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying. It is not how much money we make that ultimately makes us happy between nine and five. It's whether our work fulfills us. ~ Malcolm Gladwell, #NFDB
799:Complexity is not cheap; on the contrary, it is very expensive indeed. The administrative state has found an easy solution to the problem of increasing the volume of public ‘goods’ without making commensurate increases to taxation, and that is to finance current government consumption through borrowing. ~ Niall Ferguson, #NFDB
800:Correlation across replicated environments adds a whole new dimension of complexity of the environment, ... You would expect most application groups to have the same set of policies. In reality, you have differences in policies. That reflects back to that whole process of manual storing in the environment. ~ Andrew Bird, #NFDB
801:Schwartz said that several of the early computer engineers relied on LSD in designing circuit chips, especially in the years before they could be designed on computers. “You had to be able to visualize a staggering complexity in three dimensions, hold it all in your head. They found that LSD could help. ~ Michael Pollan, #NFDB
802:Those three things — autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward — are, most people agree, the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying. It is not how much money we make that ultimately makes us happy between nine and five. It’s whether our work fulfills us. ~ Malcolm Gladwell, #NFDB
803:I think of my best poems as vessels that I can or hope to fill with everything I have. I try to give to them all of the electric complexity. Each one fails at this, of course, but I keep trying - adoring each of them, loving the process, the ebb and flow of it - and each time, the failures fail a bit better. ~ Alex Lemon, #NFDB
804:Paradoxically, the simpler poetry is, the more difficult it becomes for a critic to discuss intelligently. Trained to explicate, the critic often loses the ability to evaluate literature outside the critical act. A work is good only in proportion to the richness and complexity of interpretations it provokes. ~ Dana Gioia, #NFDB
805:The Enormous Room seems to me to be the book that has nearest approached the mood of reckless adventure in which men will reach the white heat of imagination needed to fuse the soggy disjointed complexity of the industrial life about us into seething fluid of creation. There can be no more playing safe. ~ John Dos Passos, #NFDB
806:I’m not really interested in the black and white, the 'goodies and baddies.' I find the complexity of the gray areas more compelling, more intriguing. As I have said before, there are angels and demons in all of us, and I am interested in the relationship between the two within the ‘ordinary’ person. ~ Jacqueline Winspear, #NFDB
807:I think from age 13, 14, 15, I thought, yes, this rich studio produced music is the future, but it can't be the future to go run away into the recording studio. How can we take that kind of complexity and richness and make it possible for people to touch it and play it live. That's what hyperinstruments are. ~ Tod Machover, #NFDB
808:There is no 'the truth','a truth' - truth is not one thing, or even a system. It is an increasing complexity. the pattern of the carpet is a surface. When we look closely, or when we become weavers, we learn of the tiny multiple threads unseen in the overall pattern, the knots on the underside of the carpet ~ Adrienne Rich, #NFDB
809:And in spite of all the pains I had lavished on these problems, I was more than ever stupefied by the complexity of this innumerable dance, involving doubtless other determinants of which I had not the slightest idea. And I said, with rapture, Here is something I can study all my life, and never understand. ~ Samuel Beckett, #NFDB
810:History is a litany of injustice, no one denies it. But when has a simple solution ever been anything but evil? Only in complexity do we find answers. Through complexity men struggle towards fairness; it is slow and clumsy, but it's the only way. Simplicity demands too great a sacrifice. It always has." - Lestat ~ Anne Rice, #NFDB
811:I go into any movie that's historical fiction thinking, 'OK, I'm here to watch a work of art, something delivering a series of opinions, and if it's a good work of art, these opinions become so deeply embedded in complexity and richness that I won't even be bothered by the opinions. I'll make my own mind up.' ~ Tony Kushner, #NFDB
812:In products of the human mind, simplicity marks the end of a process of refining, while complexity marks a primitive stage. Michelangelo 's definition of art as the purgation of superfluities suggests that the creative effort consists largely in the elimination of that which complicates and confuses a pattern. ~ Eric Hoffer, #NFDB
813:I didn’t think of Steve in terms of being nice or mean, approving or disapproving. He was simply being straight with me. The relationship we would have over the years ahead would always remain that simple. Steve didn’t like Complexity in his working relationships any more than he liked extra buttons on his iPod. ~ Ken Segall, #NFDB
814:If from the distance of a few years, I have found it almost impossible to reconstruct a realistic image of my father in his social and moral complexity with any certainty, imagine how difficult it is to do the same for our Prophet and his Companions. Of course the material that has survived is voluminous. ~ Omar Saif Ghobash, #NFDB
815:I was a terrible believer in things,but I was also a terrible nonbeliever in things. I was as searching as I was skeptical. I didn't know where to put my faith,or if there was such a place,or even what the word faith meant, in all of it's complexity. Everything seemed to be possibly potent and possibly fake. ~ Cheryl Strayed, #NFDB
816:Laura's gossip was redeemed by its lack of spite. She was warmly objective about every event, taking endless delight in action and complexity, as if she had been bed-ridden in a small windowless room for years and was just now discovering the dramatic possibilities of daily life. She sang Alice through the day. ~ Jane Smiley, #NFDB
817:...we are trying, in a world of increasing complexity, to create a simpler and more understandable place for ourselves. No longer do we grow up in large families. We feel increasingly estranged, replaceable, and ephemeral. Genealogy gives us a feeling of immortality. The individual dies; the family lives on. ~ Oliver P tzsch, #NFDB
818:All of us who study the origin of life find that the more we look into it, the more we feel it is too complex to have evolved anywhere. We all believe as an article of faith that life evolved from dead matter on this planet. It is just that life's complexity is so great, it is hard for us to imagine that it did. ~ Harold Urey, #NFDB
819:The novel remains for me one of the few forms where we can record man's complexity and the strength and decency of his longings. Where we can describe, step by step, minute by minute, our not altogether unpleasant struggle to put ourselves into a viable and devout relationship to our beloved and mistaken world. ~ John Cheever, #NFDB
820:For the problem of decision-making in our complicated world is not how to get the problem simple enough so that we can all understand it; the problem is how to get our thinking about the problem as complex as humanly possible--and thus approach (we can never match) the complexity of the real world around us. ~ Harlan Cleveland, #NFDB
821:For Trump, as for many showmen or press release entrepreneurs, the enemy of everything is complexity and red tape, and the solution for everything is cutting corners. Bypass or ignore the difficulties; just move in a straight line to the vision, which, if it’s bold enough, or grandiose enough, will sell itself. ~ Michael Wolff, #NFDB
822:It is a natural human impulse to think of evolution as a long chain of improvements, of a never-ending advance towards largeness and complexity – in a word, towards us. We flatter ourselves. Most of the real diversity in evolution has been small-scale. We large things are just flukes – an interesting side branch. ~ Bill Bryson, #NFDB
823:Love is like a series of improbable, lonely notes landing together in meaningful chaos. Where every channel carries a rhythm that conveys an expression of emotion. It doesn't feel flat or fake or hollow. It's not exaggerated with overtones. The complexity might feel organized, but the creation is never controlled. ~ Pam Godwin, #NFDB
824:I would love to photograph Angelina Jolie. A friend of mine is working with her on her next film and told me what I was already suspecting, that she is extremely interesting. I have never seen a picture of her that conveys all of her complexity. That would be a fabulous challenge, to find that in a photograph. ~ Peter Lindbergh, #NFDB
825:Oh, the most important thing about myself is that my life has been full of changes. Therefore, when I observe the world, I don’t expect to see it just like I was seeing the fellow who lives in the next room. There is this complexity which seems to me to be part of the meaning of existence and everything we value. ~ Chinua Achebe, #NFDB
826:One symptom that you have bogged down in complexity overload is when you find yourself doggedly applying a method that is clearly irrelevant, at least to any outside observer. It is like the mechanically inept person whose car breaks down—so he puts water in the battery and empties the ashtrays. — P. J. Plauger ~ Steve McConnell, #NFDB
827:I believe it was the great ogre philosopher Gary who observed that complexity is, generally speaking, an illusion of conscious desire. All things exist in as simple a form as necessity dictates. When a thing is labeled 'complex,' that's just a roundabout way of saying you're not observant enough to understand it. ~ A Lee Martinez, #NFDB
828:It amazes him that life never offers completely smooth sailing, even for one day, a sinister cloud manages to creep its way over the horizon. And, what makes life even more mysterious, what truly probes the depth and complexity of the psyche, is that on an overcast day that one cloud would pass entirely unnoticed. ~ Jacob M Appel, #NFDB
829:Let us keep the discoveries and indisputable measurements of physics. But ... A more complete study of the movements of the world will oblige us, little by little, to turn it upside down; in other words, to discover that if things hold and hold together, it is only by reason of complexity, from above. ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #NFDB
830:No matter how exotic human civilization becomes, no matter the developments of life and society nor the complexity of the machine/human interface, there always come interludes of lonely power when the course of humankind, the very future of humankind, depends upon the relatively simple actions of single individual. ~ Frank Herbert, #NFDB
831:The common strands that seemed to transcend all creative fields was an openness to one’s inner life, a preference for complexity and ambiguity, an unusually high tolerance for disorder and disarray, the ability to extract order from chaos, independence, unconventionality, and a willingness to take risks. This ~ Scott Barry Kaufman, #NFDB
832:The point in all this is that language is a handy whipping boy to summon and belabor when we have failed in some serious way. In other words, we play politics with language, and in so doing conceal the reality and the complexity of our situation from ourselves and from those foolish enough to put their trust in us. ~ Chinua Achebe, #NFDB
833:We can begin to let go of the complications that cause us to suffer by cultivating a simple state of awareness. In this process, tiny steps yield big results, in part because simplicity is nature's default position. Suffering and the complications that fuel it are unnatural; it wastes energy to maintain complexity. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
834:Another way to be awakened by the beauty and complexity of the word is to get a dog. Small Things like a plant that I had passed a thousand time and never given a second thought to. But the dog is curious. And the dog stops and wants to smell this and smell that. And the dog makes you look and focus and take the time. ~ Dean Koontz, #NFDB
835:If I had to express in one word what makes their [creative individuals'] personalities different from others, it's complexity. They show tendencies of thought and action that in most people are segregated. They contain contradictory extremes; instead of being an "individual," each of them is a "multitude." ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, #NFDB
836:No matter how exotic human civilization becomes, no matter the developments of life and society nor the complexity of the machine/human interface, there always come interludes of lonely power when the course of humankind, the very future of humankind, depends upon the relatively simple actions of single individuals. ~ Frank Herbert, #NFDB
837:One of the things I'm trying to do over and over again in my books is create new mythologies, create new ways to understand the complexity of the world. I think what mythology does is impress upon chaotic experience the patterns, hierarchies and shapes which allow us to interpret the chaos and make fresh sense of it. ~ Clive Barker, #NFDB
838:We cannot fathom the marvelous complexity of an organic being; but on the hypothesis here advanced this complexity is much increased. Each living creature must be looked at as a microcosm--a little universe, formed of a host of self-propagating organisms, inconceivably minute and as numerous as the stars in heaven. ~ Charles Darwin, #NFDB
839:We need to enact fundamental tax reform. The weight and complexity of our 73,000-page tax code are crushing everyday Americans. We need to radically simplify the tax code so that we can re-start the real engine of growth in our economy. That means our tax code needs to go from 73,000 pages down to about three pages. ~ Carly Fiorina, #NFDB
840:Our frenetic and flattened culture is not conducive to wrestling with thick ideas, ideas with depth, complexity, and personal implications. It is a culture of immediacy, simple emotions, snap judgments, optics, and identity formation. In such a world, is it any wonder that Christians so often speak past their listeners? ~ Alan Noble, #NFDB
841:An admonition like "The more complex you make the model, the worse the forecast gets." is equivalent to saying "Never add too much salt to the recipe." How much complexity-how much salt-did you begin with? If you want to get good at forecasting, you'll need to immerse yourself in the craft and trust your own taste buds. ~ Nate Silver, #NFDB
842:by means of evolution by natural selection, which showed how living things can become well adapted to their environments over the course of time under a very wide range of circumstances, so long as the environment is not changing too quickly. Complexity could develop from simplicity without direct Divine intervention. ~ John D Barrow, #NFDB
843:I wanted to keep the complexity of the female experience in the film as much as it is in the book, and the subject of not wanting a child is a very interesting subject, one that's not dealt with very much actually.However that complexity was not serving the story of what became the film [The Girl on the Train]. ~ Erin Cressida Wilson, #NFDB
844:No kitchen is complete without veal stock."
"Do you have veal stock in this kitchen? Does your neighbor?"
"It is the foundation of all sauces. It adds a complexity. Deliciousness. Has Escoffier not told you of this theory of five tastes? A Japanese chemist proved it, and called it 'umami,' which means deliciousness. ~ N M Kelby,#NFDB
845:As an architect, I try to be guided not by habit but by a conscious sense of the past-by precedent, thoughtfully considered...As an artist, I frankly write about what I like in architecture: complexity and contradiction. From what we find we like-what we are easily attracted to-we can learn much of what we really are. ~ Robert Venturi, #NFDB
846:Every man, knowing to the smallest detail all the complexity of the conditions surrounding him, involuntarily assumes that the complexity of these conditions and the difficulty of comprehending them are only his personal, accidental peculiarity, and never thinks that others are surrounded by the same complexity as he is. ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
847:In modern industrialized countries, networks grew to a complexity that has proved bewildering to the Paleolithic mind we inherited. Our instincts still desire the tiny, united band-networks that prevailed during the hundreds of millennia preceding the dawn of history. Our instincts remain unprepared for civilization. ~ Edward O Wilson, #NFDB
848:was a terrible believer in things, but I was also a terrible nonbeliever in things. I was as searching as I was skeptical. I didn’t know where to put my faith, or if there was such a place, or even precisely what the word faith meant, in all of its complexity. Everything seemed to be possibly potent and possibly fake. ~ Cheryl Strayed, #NFDB
849:I believe in the complexity of the human story, and that there's no way you can tell that story in one way and say, 'this is it.' Always there will be someone who can tell it differently depending on where they are standing ... this is the way I think the world's stories should be told: from many different perspectives. ~ Chinua Achebe, #NFDB
850:I was a terrible believer in things, but I was also a terrible nonbelieer in things. I was as searching as I was skeptical. I didn't know where to put my faith, or if there was such a place, or even precisely what the word faith meant, in all of its complexity. Everything seemed to be possibly potent and possibly fake. ~ Cheryl Strayed, #NFDB
851:It’s no game. Believe me, she is a woman of far greater complexity than you—or anyone—realize. The secrets inside her mind are like flowers in a garden at nighttime, filling the darkness with perfume. Oh, she has extraordinary charm. Next to that secret charm of hers, her talent as a poet is really only a sort of costume. ~ Fumiko Enchi, #NFDB
852:I was a terrible believer in things, but I was also a terrible nonbeliever in things. I was as searching as I was skeptical. I didn't know where to put my faith, or if there was such a place, or even precisely what the word faith meant, in all of its complexity. Everything seemed to be possibly potent and possibly fake. ~ Cheryl Strayed, #NFDB
853:I was a terrible believer in things, but I was also a terrible nonbeliever in things. I was as searching as I was skeptical. I didn’t know where to put my faith, or if there was such a place, or even precisely what the word faith meant, in all of its complexity. Everything seemed to be possibly potent and possibly fake. ~ Cheryl Strayed, #NFDB
854:All of the films that I've made are about the country I live in and grew up in... And I think if you're going to put an artist's eye to it, you're going to put a critical eye to it. I've always been interested in the gray area that exists between the black and white, or the red and blue, and that's where complexity lies. ~ Robert Redford, #NFDB
855:I found that the camera was a comforting companion. It opened up new worlds, and gave me access to people's most intimate moments. I discovered the privilege of seeing life in all its complexity, the thrill of learning something new every day. When I was behind a camera, it was the only place in the world I wanted to be. ~ Lynsey Addario, #NFDB
856:It wasn’t because you weren’t beautiful, talented, funny, creative or had everything in common. It was because some men prefer plain vanilla ice cream. It’s predictable and a safe choice. Confident and adventurous men prefer the complexity and layers of a sundae, even the ones sprinkled with a little bit of nuts on top. ~ Shannon L Alder, #NFDB
857:A smudge on the wall is an object of limitless fascination, multiplying in size, complexity, color. But more than that, one sees every relationship it has to the rest of the universe; it possesses, therefore, an endless variety of meanings, and one proceeds to entertain every possible thought there is to think about it. And ~ Oliver Sacks, #NFDB
858:I wonder how many times we’ve been on this precipice only to delete what we can’t understand. And then thinking we can just copy it back, and find that it’s been lost. I wonder if this is why downloading the human consciousness has been such a dead end. Like there’s some bit of complexity there that can’t survive duplication. ~ Hugh Howey, #NFDB
859:Named for his smooth and slithery essence, the Oyster was a senior professor: he was patronizing, smug, and had all of the intellectual and emotional complexity of, as one might expect, a small mollusk. He thought of women in terms of breasts, not minds, and it always seemed to irritate him that most women had both. ~ Kay Redfield Jamison, #NFDB
860:The idea of psychedelic societies is something new. And it doesn't necessarily mean that everyone takes the drug. It merely means that the complexity and the mysteriousness of mind are centered in the consciousness of the civilization as the mystery which it comes from and which it must relate to in order to be relevant. ~ Terence McKenna, #NFDB
861:Where you have complexity, by nature you can have fraud and mistakes. You'll have more of that than in a company that shovels sand from a river and sells it. This will always be true of financial companies, including ones run by governments. If you want accurate numbers from financial companies, you're in the wrong world. ~ Charlie Munger, #NFDB
862:But be aware of the fact that as a leader, your position carries much more psychological and emotional weight than you know. People want to please their leaders; they don’t want to let you down. As a result, they can often hear criticism in ways that you never intended, and that adds to the complexity of your job as a leader. ~ Henry Cloud, #NFDB
863:Death makes me realize how deeply I have internalized the agnosticism I preach in all my books. I consider dogmatic belief and dogmatic denial very childish forms of conceit in a world of infinitely whirling complexity. None of us can see enough from one corner of space-time to know "all" about the rest of space-time. ~ Robert Anton Wilson, #NFDB
864:In the abstract, it might be tempting to imagine that irreducible complexity simply requires multiple simultaneous mutations - that evolution might be far chancier than we thought, but still possible. Such an appeal to brute luck can never be refuted... Luck is metaphysical speculation; scientific explanations invoke causes. ~ Michael Behe, #NFDB
865:Perhaps nothing is so wounding to a writer than being accused of having written something that hurts a child. Censorship is an attitude of mistrust and suspicion that seeks to deprive the human experience of mystery and complexity. But without mystery and complexity there is no wonder; there is no awe; there is no laughter. ~ Julius Lester, #NFDB
866:Death makes me realize how deeply I have internalized the agnosticism I preach in all my books. I consider dogmatic belief and dogmatic denial very childish forms of conceit in a world of infinitely whirling complexity. None of us can see enough from one corner of space-time to know "all" about the rest of space-time. ~ Robert Anton Wilson, #NFDB
867:Only a woman of pride, complexity and emotional tension is genuinely worth the act of love, and there are only two ways to get yourself one of them. Either you lie, and stain the relationship with your own sense of guile, or you accept the involvement, the emotional responsibility, the permanence she must by nature crave. ~ John D MacDonald, #NFDB
868:Publishing is not evolving. Publishing is going away. Because the word "publishing" means a cadre of professionals who are taking on the incredible difficulty and complexity and expense of making something public. That's not a job anymore. That's a button. There's a button that says "publish," and when you press it, it's done. ~ Clay Shirky, #NFDB
869:As we grow older we become more conscious of the complexity, incoherence, and unreasonableness of human beings; this indeed is the only excuse that offers for the middle-aged or elderly writer whose thoughts should more properly be turned to graver matters, occupying himself with the trivial concerns of imaginary people. ~ W Somerset Maugham, #NFDB
870:I didn't struggle to find my style - I prefer to call it "voice," because I think the word is more suggestive of complexity, implying quality of form and content. I do, however, struggle with making my work "work," and there's no predicting whether this can be achieved calmly or with a ferocious evisceration of the psyche. ~ Phoebe Gloeckner, #NFDB
871:In the Principia Mathematica, Bertrand Russell and Alfred Whitehead attempted to give a rigorous foundation to mathematics using formal logic as their basis. They began with what they considered to be axioms, and used those to derive theorems of increasing complexity. By page 362, they had established enough to prove "1 + 1 = 2. ~ Ted Chiang, #NFDB
872:Nature has evolved to be the inventor of complexity. Just as a jazz musician embroiders around a theme, thus improvising new melodic phrases according to his inspiration and the public's reactions, nature plays spontaneously with the physical laws that were fixed at the start of the universe. It uses them to create novelty9 ~ Matthieu Ricard, #NFDB
873:This book is not economics for dummies; it is economics for smart people who never studied economics (or have only a vague recollection of doing so). Most of the great ideas in economics are intuitive when the dressings of complexity are peeled away. That is naked economics. Economics should not be accessible only to the experts. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
874:He had a deep respect for life, a special compassion for animals, and great awe and reverence for nature’s complexity and abundance. While a brilliant inventor and designer himself, he always thought that nature’s ingenuity was vastly superior to human design. He felt that we would be wise to respect nature and learn from her. ~ Fritjof Capra, #NFDB
875:market-driven pressures plus an engineering-driven company yield ever-increasing features, complexity, and confusion. But even companies that do intend to search for human needs are thwarted by the severe challenges of the product development process, in particular, the challenges of insufficient time and insufficient money. ~ Donald A Norman, #NFDB
876:We must stand together, realizing the complexity of our histories, both personal and social, choosing when we can tolerate each other’s company and when we cannot. We must never pretend to be experts on each other’s lives, never belittle the deep differences that do exist or pretend that we do not see the places of exposed pain. ~ Joan Nestle, #NFDB
877:Complexity is looking at interacting elements and asking how they form patterns and how the patterns unfold. It's important to point out that the patterns may never be finished. They're open-ended. In standard science this hit some things that most scientists have a negative reaction to. Science doesn't like perpetual novelty. ~ W Brian Arthur, #NFDB
878:inheritance is a powerful tool for reducing complexity because a programmer can focus on the generic attributes of an object without worrying about the details. If a programmer must be constantly thinking about semantic differences in subclass implementations, then inheritance is increasing complexity rather than reducing it. ~ Steve McConnell, #NFDB
879:Lenelle Moïse's poems render the abstract - policy, disaster, history, diaspora - specific. Her words make the political not just personal, but corporeal: the beautiful system of the human body as canvas and subject, perfect in all its attendant complications and complexity, and still ruled, undeniably, by a warm, beating heart. ~ Erin McKeown, #NFDB
880:Aware of it or not, each of us is involved in the grand enterprise of evolution. The new information being generated in each of our lives contributes inevitably to the ever-increasing complexity and richness of the universe. Our key choice is whether to become aware of and take responsibility for the power of our intentionality. ~ George Leonard, #NFDB
881:A well-loved child is set a challenging precedent. In its very nature, parental love works to conceal the effort which went into generating it. It shields the recipient from the donor's complexity and sadness - and from an awareness of how many other interests, friends and concerns the parent has sacrificed in the name of love. ~ Alain de Botton, #NFDB
882:It is clear that while science provides insights into the complexity of the world around us, those insights...present a fractured mosaic rather than a seamless whole. There are profound limits to science that must be recognized if we are to minimize the destructive consequences of using the powers provided by scientific discovery. ~ David Suzuki, #NFDB
883:It's the old idea that the process of evolution is some push in the direction of greater complexity--in particular greater intellectual complexity. In one twig of the tree of life, namely ours, having a big brain happened to have advantages. But that's just what worked for a particular species of primate 5 to 7 million years ago. ~ Steven Pinker, #NFDB
884:One of the reasons that most literary artists are contemptuous of Sigmund Freud—whose thought Vladimir Nabokov once characterized as no more than private parts covered up by Greek myths—is that his extreme determinism is felt to be immensely untrue to the rich complexity of life, with its twists and turns and manifold surprises. ~ Joseph Epstein, #NFDB
885:The true hero in the Black Swan world is someone who prevents a calamity and, naturally, because the calamity did not take place, does not get recognition—or a bonus—for it. I will be taking the concept deeper in Book VII, on ethics, about the unfairness of a bonus system and how such unfairness is magnified by complexity. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb, #NFDB
886:It used to be that if your automobile broke, the teenager down the street with the wrench could fix it. Now you have to have sophisticated equipment that can deal with microchips. We're entering a world in which the complexity of the devices and the system of interconnecting devices is beyond our capability to easily understand. ~ Howard Rheingold, #NFDB
887:The wisdom of literature is quite antithetical to having opinions. 'Nothing is my last word about anything,' said Henry James. Furnishing opinions, even correct opinions - whenever asked - cheapens what novelists and poets do best, which is to sponsor reflectiveness, to pursue complexity. Information will never replace illumination. ~ Susan Sontag, #NFDB
888:Why are experts inferior to algorithms? One reason, which Meehl suspected, is that experts try to be clever, think outside the box, and consider complex combinations of features in making their predictions. Complexity may work in the odd case, but more often than not it reduces validity. Simple combinations of features are better. ~ Daniel Kahneman, #NFDB
889:A farmer, as one of his farmer correspondents once wrote to Liberty Hyde Bailey, is "a dispenser of the 'Mysteries of God.'"
The husband, unlike the "manager" or the would-be objective scientist, belongs inherently to the complexity and the mystery that is to be husbanded, and so the husbanding mind is both careful and humble. ~ Wendell Berry,#NFDB
890:Being empathic is so much a part of everyday discourse—popular singers warble platitudes about being in the other’s skin, walking in the other’s moccasins—that we tend to forget the complexity of the process. It is extraordinarily difficult to know really what the other feels; far too often we project our own feelings onto the other. ~ Irvin D Yalom, #NFDB
891:Brink Lindsey has pointed out. ‘Despite the obvious successes of unplanned markets, despite the spectacular rise of the Internet’s decentralized order, and despite the well-publicized new science of “complexity” and its study of self-organizing systems, it is still widely assumed that the only alternative to central authority is chaos. ~ Matt Ridley, #NFDB
892:However, we have the benefits of the billions of years of evolution that have already taken place, which are responsible for the greatly increased order of complexity in the natural world. We can now benefit from it by using our evolved tools to reverse engineer the products of biological evolution (most importantly, the human brain). ~ Ray Kurzweil, #NFDB
893:Ideologies are substitutes for true knowledge, and ideologues are always dangerous when they come to power, because a simple-minded I-know-it-all approach is no match for the complexity of existence. Furthermore, when their social contraptions fail to fly, ideologues blame not themselves but all who see through the simplifications. ~ Jordan Peterson, #NFDB
894:The price we pay for the complexity of life is too high. When you think of all the effort you have to put in -telephonic, technological and relational -to alter even the slightest bit of behavior in this strange world we call social life, you are left pining for the straightforwardness of primitive peoples and their physical work. ~ Jean Baudrillard, #NFDB
895:There is probably no one, however rigid his virtue, who is not liable to find himself, by the complexity of circumstances, living at close quarters with the very vice which he himself has been most outspoken in condemning -- without altogether recognizing it beneath the disguise of ambiguous behavior which it assumes in his presence. ~ Marcel Proust, #NFDB
896:Anthropology has reached that point of development where the careful investigation of facts shakes our firm belief in the far-reaching theories that have been built up. The complexity of each phenomenon dawns on our minds, and makes us desirous of proceeding more cautiously. Heretofore we have seen the features common to all human thought ~ Franz Boas, #NFDB
897:Ideologies are substitutes for true knowledge, and ideologues are always dangerous when they come to power, because a simple-minded I-know-it-all approach is no match for the complexity of existence. Furthermore, when their social contraptions fail to fly, ideologues blame not themselves but all who see through the simplifications. ~ Jordan B Peterson, #NFDB
898:If there is anything the artist or a true work of art teaches us, it is that variety and complexity really increase the unity, and that to achieve unity within a great variety of complexity is a greater achievement and more satisfying piece of art than to achieve unity with just a few elements, which is relatively easily achieved. ~ David Steindl Rast, #NFDB
899:It’s easy to slip into guardedness and close ourselves off from the world when dealing with the messiness involved in navigating expectations, misunderstandings, and collaborative disagreements. This is especially true when we are busy or feel like we don’t have the time or emotional bandwidth to deal with the complexity of relationships. ~ Todd Henry, #NFDB
900:If there is any instrument you must fall in love with and fetishize, it is the human brain—the most miraculous, awe-inspiring, information-processing tool devised in the known universe, with a complexity we can’t even begin to fathom, and with dimensional powers that far outstrip any piece of technology in sophistication and usefulness. ~ Darius Foroux, #NFDB
901:If there is any instrument you must fall in love with and fetishize, it is the human brain—the most miraculous, awe-inspiring, information-processing tool devised in the known universe, with a complexity we can’t even begin to fathom, and with dimensional powers that far outstrip any piece of technology in sophistication and usefulness. ~ Robert Greene, #NFDB
902:I think to be honest, that being is inside. I meet that being in so many people that I meet everywhere in the world and when I do meet that being, in other people, what I want to ask is "How do we keep opening ourselves so that we can become as vulnerable and as willing to live in the deepest complexity and ambiguity and truth that we can? ~ Eve Ensler, #NFDB
903:We are focused on features, not products. We eliminated future products that would have made the complexity problem worse. We don't want to have 20 different products that work in 20 different ways. I was getting lost at our site keeping track of everything. I would rather have a smaller set of products that have a shared set of features. ~ Sergey Brin, #NFDB
904:I assume the senses crave sources of maximum information, that the eye benefits by exercise, stretch, and expansion towards materials of complexity and substance, . . . conditions which alert the total sensibility - cast it almost in stress - extend insight and response, the basic responsive range of empathetic-kinesthetic vitality. ~ Carolee Schneemann, #NFDB
905:Lately, he'd been looking at Starbucks baristas and wishing he had their jobs. Tall, grande, latte, cappuccino, skinny, whatever. Not much complexity there. And when you left work at the end of the day you didn't have to think about a fucking thing. Who cared if they made shit for money? At least they wouldn't have to pay much in tax. ~ Paolo Bacigalupi, #NFDB
906:What's more, a lot of people who harbor an intolerance for complexity see it not as a character flaw but a cognitive virtue. That's because they've fallen into the trap of believing that complicated ideas ("complicated" now constituting anything that requires reading, watching or listening to in its entirety) are the purview of the "elite. ~ Meghan Daum, #NFDB
907:Insecure managers create complexity. Frightened, nervous managers use thick convoluted planning books and busy slides filled with everything they’ve known since childhood……. They worry that if they’re simple, people will think they’re simple minded. In reality, of course, it’s just the reverse. Clear, tough minded people are the most simple. ~ Jack Welch, #NFDB
908:In times of profound and overwhelming social change like the present, however, extreme views hold out the appeal of simplicity. By ignoring the complexity of the forces that shape our personal and collective circumstances, they offer us scapegoats. Yet they fail to provide a viable pathway from the cold war to the global village. ~ Hillary Rodham Clinton, #NFDB
909:I think I'll always feel a little in awe whenever I see someone in their 20s or 30s carrying a cello or violin case - because I know, if they're doing it professionally, how many years of practice have gone into being able to make music with them. And the sounds they can make just hit me very hard, and feel full of limitless complexity. ~ Jonny Greenwood, #NFDB
910:Politics is to the conversation of Louisiana what horse racing is to England’s. In London, anybody from the Queen to a dustman will talk horses; in Louisiana, anyone from a society woman to a bellhop will talk politics. Louisiana politics is of an intensity and complexity that are matched, in my experience, only in the republic of Lebanon. ~ A J Liebling, #NFDB
911:If we are to understand the human condition, and if we are to accept ourselves in all the complexity, self-doubt, extravagance of feeling, guilt, joy, the slow freeing of the self to its full capacity for action and creation, both as human being and as artist, we have to know all we can about each other, and we have to be willing to go naked. ~ May Sarton, #NFDB
912:Biology is a way of approaching the truth about the mind. In biology most people don't tackle problems at the level of complexity that psychoanalysis does. But psychoanalysis has a degree of uncertainty about it. A psychoanalyst may have some deep insights, but cannot, at the moment, run experiments to establish whether it's really the truth. ~ Eric Kandel, #NFDB
913: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.' ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #NFDB
914:A single thread of self generation ties the cosmos, the bios, and the technos together into one creation. Humans are not the culmination of this trajectory but an intermediary, smack in the middle between the born and the made... The arc of complexity and open-ended creation in the last four billion years is nothing compared to what lies ahead. ~ Kevin Kelly, #NFDB
915:By "essence" I understand a universal, of any degree of complexity and definition, which may be given immediately, whether to sense or to thought.... This object of pure sense or pure thought, with no belief superadded, an object inwardly complete and individual, but without external relations or physical status, is what I call an essence. ~ George Santayana, #NFDB
916:It is difficult to imagine this kind of a new world because our present world is so different. On the whole, our life is too complex, our scholarship too serious, our philosophy too somber, and our thoughts too involved. This seriousness and this involved complexity of our thought and scholarship make the present world such an unhappy one today. ~ Lin Yutang, #NFDB
917:We find that the manager, particularly at senior levels, is overburdened with work. With the increasing complexity of modern organizations and their problems, he is destined to become more so. He is driven to brevity, fragmentation, and superficiality in his tasks, yet he cannot easily delegate them because of the nature of his information. ~ Henry Mintzberg, #NFDB
918:After several decades of empirical study, Jaques concluded that just as humans differ in intelligence, we differ in our ability to handle time-dependent complexity. We all have a natural time horizon we are comfortable with: what Jaques called “time span of discretion,” or the length of the longest task an individual can successfully undertake. ~ John Brockman, #NFDB
919:Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by millions of legitimate operators. … 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.(Gibson 1984: 67) ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
920:How can a sentient person of the modern age mistake photography for reality? All perception is selection, and all photographs--no matter how objectively journalistic the photographer's intent--exclude aspects of the moment's complexity. Photographs economize the truth; they are always moments more or less illusorily abducted from time's continuum. ~ Sally Mann, #NFDB
921:I believe C++ instills fear in programmers, fear that the interaction of some details causes unpredictable results. Its unmanageable complexity has spawned more fear-preventing tools than any other language, but the solution should have been to create and use a language that does not overload the whole goddamn human brain with irrelevant details. ~ Erik Naggum, #NFDB
922:Metric-lowering drugs are particularly vicious because of a legal complexity. The doctor has the incentive to prescribe it because should the patient have a heart attack, he would be sued for negligence; but the error in the opposite direction is not penalized at all, as side effects do not appear at all as being caused by the medicine. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb, #NFDB
923:Most Americans are close to total ignorance about the world. They are ignorant. That is an unhealthy condition in a country in which foreign policy has to be endorsed by the people if it is to be pursued. And it makes it much more difficult for any president to pursue an intelligent policy that does justice to the complexity of the world. ~ Zbigniew Brzezi ski, #NFDB
924:No matter how exotic human civilization becomes, no matter the developments of life and society nor the complexity of the machine/ human interface, there always come interludes of lonely power when the course of humankind, the very future of humankind, depends upon the relatively simple actions of single individuals. —FROM THE TLEILAXU GODBUK ~ Frank Herbert, #NFDB
925:Perhaps we all lose our sense of reality to the precise degree to which we are engrossed in our own work, and perhaps that is why we see in the increasing complexity of our mental constructs a means for greater understanding, even while intuitively we know that we shall never be able to fathom the imponderables that govern our course through life. ~ W G Sebald, #NFDB
926:A denouement is not a complete or fully resolved ending but a satisfying closure to a story. [in French translates 'an untying, a relaxing of a knot of complexity']
Denouement is the rest that comes when all the disparate plot lines of a story, gnarled and taut, have been untied and an order has come about that brings a new moment of shalom. ~ Dan B Allender,#NFDB
927:The key of writing fiction isn't just to remove something that the reader or listener can easily imagine. It's not a matter of being coy, or withholding information. It's allowing for multiple possibilities, recognizing the complexity of human behavior, and making the world of a piece of fiction as marvelously confounding as the world we live in. ~ Peter Turchi, #NFDB
928:We live in two worlds - order and chaos. In the world of order, we plan, reflect, and think about what to do next. In the world of chaos, things happen, we get things done, yet unpredictability persists. In one world, we like to think we are in control. In the other, we mingle together with increasing complexity, conflict, and uncertainty. ~ David Spangler, #NFDB
929:NASA identifies reuse candidates at the ends of their projects. They then perform the work needed to make the classes reusable as a special project at the end of the main project or as the first step in a new project. This approach helps prevent "gold-plating"—creation of functionality that isn't required and that unnecessarily adds complexity. ~ Steve McConnell, #NFDB
930:What Lippmann took from the war—as he explained in his 1922 classic Public Opinion—was the gap between the true complexity of the world and the narratives the public uses to understand it—the rough “stereotypes” (a word he coined in his book). When it came to the war, he believed that the “consent” of the governed had been, in his phrase, “manufactured. ~ Tim Wu, #NFDB
931:The point, which can hardly be repeated too often, is that differentiation is not separation. The head and the feet are different, but not separate, and though man is not connected to the universe by exactly the same physical relation as branch to tree or feet to head, he is nonetheless connected - and by physical relations of fascinating complexity. ~ Alan Watts, #NFDB
932:Inheritance adds complexity to a program, and, as such, it's a dangerous technique. As Java guru Joshua Bloch says, "Design and document for inheritance, or prohibit it." If a class isn't designed to be inherited from, make its members non-virtual in C++, final in Java, or non-overridable in Microsoft Visual Basic so that you can't inherit from it. ~ Steve McConnell, #NFDB
933:I think there are great roles for women in television because there is time to allow those characters to evolve. Even if you're the wife or the girlfriend or whatever it is that we women are, playing those things on TV, they are much more drawn out and there are greater arcs for the role. The roles are more integral to the complexity of the story. ~ Linda Cardellini, #NFDB
934:Life became art became life when Nick Fury, agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., was recast in the image of Samuel L. Jackson, following a scene in The Ultimates in which the character of Fury himself had actually suggested Jackson as the ideal actor to play him, in a Möbius-loop of such self-referential, cross-dimensional complexity, my powers of description fail me. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
935:All propaganda or popularization involves a putting of the complex into the simple, but such a move is instantly deconstructive. For if the complex can be put into the simple, then it cannot be as complex as it seemed in the first place; and if the simple can be an adequate medium of such complexity, then it cannot after all be as simple as all that. ~ Terry Eagleton, #NFDB
936:In The Last of Her Kind, Sigrid Nunez once again creates characters of such depth and situations of such vivid moral complexity that reading these pages is like living them. Only as I closed the book did I sadly realize that Georgette and Ann weren't my neighbors. But happily I can revisit them again, and again, in this beautiful and absorbing novel. ~ Margot Livesey, #NFDB
937:All people of broad, strong sense have an instinctive repugnance to the men of maxims; because such people early discern that the mysterious complexity of our life is not to be embraced by maxims, and that to lace ourselves up in formulas of that sort is to repress all the divine promptings and inspirations that spring from growing insight and sympathy. ~ George Eliot, #NFDB
938:Complexity and obscurity have professional value - they are the academic equivalents of apprenticeship rules in the building trades. They exclude the outsiders, keep down the competition, preserve the image of a privileged or priestly class. The man who makes things clear is a scab. He is criticized less for his clarity than for his treachery. ~ John Kenneth Galbraith, #NFDB
939:I saw the whole universe laid out before me, a vast shining machine of indescribable beauty and complexity. Its design was too intricate for me to understand, and I knew I could never begin to grasp more than the smallest idea of its purpose. But I sensed that every part of it, from quark to quasar, was unique and - in some mysterious way - significant. ~ R J Anderson, #NFDB
940:At her tone, at once intimate and formal, a terrible sadness came over me, and when we looked at each other it seemed that the whole past was redefined and brought into focus by this moment, clear as glass, a complexity of stillness that was rainy afternoons in spring, a dark chair in the hallway, the light-as-air touch of her hand on the back of my head. ~ Donna Tartt, #NFDB
941:I've never thought of my poems as violent. Violence, to me, has so much negativity attached to it - maybe that's my trouble with the word. But ferocious - indeed, I'll take it. And yes, poetry does need a bit of ferocity. Poetry needs to be alive, unabashedly, and, for me, that entails seeing its complexity - the grit and grimness and jubilance and beauty. ~ Alex Lemon, #NFDB
942:Since childhood I had treasured the sublime study of chess, the swim through ever-deepening layers of complexity. I could spend hours at a chessboard and stand up from the experience on fire with insight about chess, basketball, the ocean, psychology, love, art. The game was exhilarating and also spiritually calming. It centered me. Chess was my friend. ~ Josh Waitzkin, #NFDB
943:I think one difficulty is that the problem is one of such enormous complexity that the very mass of facts presented to the public by press and radio make it exceedingly difficult for the man in the street to reach a clear appraisement of the situation. It is virtually impossible at this distance to grasp at all the real significance of the situation. ~ George C Marshall, #NFDB
944:The music began, passages of immense technical complexity fluidly bridging Caravaggio’s chiaroscuro with Renoir’s impressionism. The gloom and shadows of claustrophobic chambers contrasting with the vibrant radiance of a wide-open landscape. The realism of humanity down to its dirty nails and rotten wounds combined with the fleeting sanguinity of the moment. ~ Ella Leya, #NFDB
945:As Dawkins goes on to say (p. 316), “The one thing that makes evolution such a neat theory is that it explains how organized complexity can arise out of primeval simplicity.” This is one of the key strengths of Darwin’s idea, and the key weakness of the alternatives. In fact, I once argued, it is unlikely that any other theory could have this strength: ~ Daniel C Dennett, #NFDB
946:The income tax has spawned an intrusive bureaucracy, creating so much complexity and red tape that millions of ordinary citizens have to go get some accountant to fill out the forms for them - and then sign under penalty of perjury that it was done right. If you knew how to do it right, you wouldn't have to go to somebody else to have it done, would you? ~ Thomas Sowell, #NFDB
947:A key aspect of a probabilistic fractal is that it enables the generation of a great deal of apparent complexity, including extensive varying detail, from a relatively small amount of design information. Biology uses this same principle. Genes supply the design information, but the detail in an organism is vastly greater than the genetic design information. ~ Ray Kurzweil, #NFDB
948:I—” At her tone, at once intimate and formal, a terrible sadness came over me, and when we looked at each other it seemed that the whole past was redefined and brought into focus by this moment, clear as glass, a complexity of stillness that was rainy afternoons in spring, a dark chair in the hallway, the light-as-air touch of her hand on the back of my head. ~ Donna Tartt, #NFDB
949:It {Darwin's theory of evolution] was a concept of such stunning simplicity, but it gave rise, naturally, to all of the infinite and baffling complexity of life. The awe it inspired in me made the awe that people talk about in respect of religious experience seem, frankly, silly beside it. I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day. ~ Douglas Adams, #NFDB
950:At her tone, at once intimate and formal, a terrible sadness came over me, and when we looked at each other it seemed that the whole past was redefined and brought into focus by this moment, clear as glass, a complexity of stillness that was rainy afternoons in spring, a dark chair in the hallway, the light-as-air touch of her hand on the back of my head. “I’m ~ Donna Tartt, #NFDB
951:For most of modern life, our strong talents and desires for group effort have been filtered through relatively rigid institutional structures because of the complexity of managing groups. We haven't had all the groups we've wanted, we've simply had the groups we could afford. The old limits of what unmanaged and unpaid groups can do are no longer in operation. ~ Clay Shirky, #NFDB
952:The evolutionary vision is agnostic in regard to systems in the universe of greater complexity than those of which human beings have clear knowledge. It recognizes aesthetic, moral, and religious ideas and experiences as a species, in this case of mental structures or of images, which clearly interacts with other species in the world's great' ecosystem. ~ Kenneth E Boulding, #NFDB
953:We are one multidimensional being and exist in multiple universes transcending space and time. We could also be described as multiple personalities of the Universe/God. This is important because enlightenment involves comprehending the complexity of our Oneness and realizing our multidimensional existence. We are everything, everywhere at every time. ~ Russell Anthony Gibbs, #NFDB
954:What makes a good follower? The single most important characteristic may well be a willingness to tell the truth. In a world of growing complexity leaders are increasingly dependent on their subordinates for good information, whether the leaders want to hear it or not. Followers who tell the truth and leaders who listen to it are an unbeatable combination. ~ Warren G Bennis, #NFDB
955:When writing these tests it’s obvious and clear where “duplication” lies and how “common” pieces can be pulled into helper methods. Unfortunately, each time we extract a method we risk complicating our tiny universes. The right abstractions can reduce complexity; however, it’s often unclear which abstraction within a test will provide the most value to the team. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
956:At that point, Gilfoy redefined her mission as addressing Vancity’s overreliance on technological complexity to solve process and people problems. The cure indicated for this diagnosis—simplification—was not esoteric or highly technical. Everyone could intuitively understand what it meant to pare back needless processes and steps, and everyone could help do it. ~ Lisa Bodell, #NFDB
957:Everything is complex and everything is simple. The rose has no why attached to it, it blooms because it blooms, how no thought of itself, or desire to be seen. What could be more complicated than a rose for someone who wants to understand it? What could be simpler for someone who wants nothing? The complexity of thinking, the simplicity of beholding. ~ Andre Comte Sponville, #NFDB
958:I can disagree with your opinion, it turns out, but I can’t disagree with your experience. And once I have a sense of your experience, you and I are in relationship, acknowledging the complexity in each other’s position, listening less guardedly. The difference in our opinions will probably remain intact, but it no longer defines what is possible between us. ~ Krista Tippett, #NFDB
959:If I offered you a choice between being an architect for $75,000 a year and working in a tollbooth every day for the rest of your life for $100,000 a year, which would you take? I’m guessing the former, because there is complexity, autonomy, and a relationship between effort and reward in doing creative work, and that’s worth more to most of us than money. ~ Malcolm Gladwell, #NFDB
960:Poetry can explain individuals to ourselves, and change our attitudes, and help us see the complexity of the world, but the kind of poetry I follow isn't going to change public opinion directly. Other art forms can - if you're a TV writer, you have some interesting challenges, or if you're a country musician, somebody like Brad Paisley. But poetry not so much. ~ Stephen Burt, #NFDB
961:Extrapolated, technology wants what life wants:
Increasing efficiency
Increasing opportunity
Increasing emergence
Increasing complexity
Increasing diversity
Increasing specialization
Increasing ubiquity
Increasing freedom
Increasing mutualism
Increasing beauty
Increasing sentience
Increasing structure
Increasing evolvability ~ Kevin Kelly,#NFDB
962:Cutting through complexity to find a solution runs through four predictable stages: determine a goal, find the highest-leverage approach, discover the ideal technology for that approach, and in the meantime, make the smartest application of the technology that you already have - whether it's something sophisticated, like a drug, or something simpler, like a bednet. ~ Bill Gates, #NFDB
963:It is probably worth stating here that nobody wants to fail. We all want to succeed, whether we are entrepreneurs, sportsmen, politicians, scientists, or parents. But at a collective level, at the level of systemic complexity, success can only happen when we admit our mistakes, learn from them, and create a climate where it is, in a certain sense, “safe” to fail. ~ Matthew Syed, #NFDB
964:I was a terrible believer in things,but I was also a terrible nonbeliever in things. I was as searching as I was skeptical. I didn't know where to put my faith,or if there was such a place,or even what the word faith meant, in all of it's complexity. Everything seemed to be possibly potent and possibly fake. ~ Cheryl Strayed, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, #NFDB
965:Standardized process guidelines belie the complexity of individual patient circumstances, and freeze care delivery processes rather than foster innovation. What is needed is competition on results, not standardized care. What is needed is competition on results, not just evidence-based medicine. There should be no presumption that good quality is more costly. ~ Michael E Porter, #NFDB
966:If an organism (whether natural or artificial) is to be perfect, it must combine with the plurality and differentiation of its parts, a maximum of lightness and simplicity. Side by side with the complication which makes a thing unwieldy, there is useful (or centered) complexity. ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Transformation and Continuation in Man of the Mechanism of Evolution, #NFDB
967:I’ve spent many long hours thinking about the bits and pieces of things; the complexity of human interaction; personalities and emotions; temperaments; the knowns, the unknowns, and intangibles involved in two people coming together, and I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s a small miracle any two people can put it all together and actually find love with each other. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
968:emotional, motivational, and ethical characteristics.19 The common strands that seemed to transcend all creative fields was an openness to one’s inner life, a preference for complexity and ambiguity, an unusually high tolerance for disorder and disarray, the ability to extract order from chaos, independence, unconventionality, and a willingness to take risks. ~ Scott Barry Kaufman, #NFDB
969:Every man who knows to the minutest details all the complexity of the conditions surrounding him, cannot help imagining that the complexity of these conditions, and the difficulty of making them clear, is something exceptional and personal, peculiar to himself, and never supposes that others are surrounded by just as complicated an array of personal affairs as he is. ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
970:[American exceptionalism] is a reaction to the inability of people to understand global complexity or important issues like American energy dependency. Therefore, they search for simplistic sources of comfort and clarity. And the people that they are now selecting to be, so to speak, the spokespersons of their anxieties are, in most cases, stunningly ignorant. ~ Zbigniew Brzezi ski, #NFDB
971:Beneath the pleasure generated by the juxtaposition of order and complexity, we can identify the subsidiary architectural virtue of balance. Beauty is a likely outcome whenever architects skilfully mediate between any number of oppositions, including the old and the new, the natural and the man-made, the luxurious and the modest, and the masculine and the feminine. ~ Alain de Botton, #NFDB
972:Modern work demands knowledge transfer: the ability to apply knowledge to new situations and different domains. Our most fundamental thought processes have changed to accommodate increasing complexity and the need to derive new patterns rather than rely only on familiar ones. Our conceptual classification schemes provide a scaffolding for connecting knowledge, making ~ David Epstein, #NFDB
973:The complexity for minimum component costs has increased at a rate of roughly a factor of two per year. . . . Certainly over the short term this rate can be expected to continue, if not to increase. Over the longer term, the rate of increase is a bit more uncertain, although there is no reason to believe it will not remain nearly constant for at least ten years.2 ~ Erik Brynjolfsson, #NFDB
974:Here we find not the collapse of order, like the one-way dissipative crash of Humpty-Dumpty. Rather, things build up, from small to large, from pebbles to rocks layered with moss. This upward process sings to stratified stability. Step by step, the development of complexity from level to level is an arrow in possibility space. ~ Tyler Volk, Metapatterns - Across Space, Time, and Mind, #NFDB
975: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. ~ Claude Levi Strauss, #NFDB
976:The people I recommend the iPhone 4S for are the ones who are already in the Mac world, because it's so compatible, and people who are just scared of computers altogether and don't want to use them. The iPhone is the least frightening thing. For that kind of person who is scared of complexity, well, here's a phone that is simple to use and does what you need it to do. ~ Steve Wozniak, #NFDB
977:If you search the scientific literature on evolution, and if you focus your search on the question of how molecular machines - the basis of life - developed, you find an eerie and complete silence. The complexity of life's foundation has paralyzed science's attempt to account for it; molecular machines raise an as-yet-impenetrable barrier to Darwinism's universal reach. ~ Michael Behe, #NFDB
978:Let your eyes
get used to light. Don't miss your own splendor! Don't stay in the batlike
mind that loves complexity and doubt, the unlit niches. Bats seek those to live
in, because there a bat's accomplishments seem greater than they are. He can impress
as he confuses you with cave ramifications. Little by little accustom yourself to your own light, ~ Rumi,#NFDB
979:Under opacity and in the newfound complexity of the world, people can hide risks and hurt others, with the law incapable of catching them. Iatrogenics has both delayed and invisible consequences. It is hard to see causal links, to fully understand what’s going on.
Under such epistemic limitations, skin in the game is the only true mitigator of fragility. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb,#NFDB
980:A blend of good and bad characterized all humans, and to pretend to sort that out was an insult to human complexity. But at the same time, Sandro understood that people only tended to allow their own contradictions, and not those of others. It was OK to be murky to yourself, to know you weren't an angel, but other people had to be more cleanly divided into good and bad. ~ Rachel Kushner, #NFDB
981:Linear programming is viewed as a revolutionary development giving man the ability to state general objectives and to find, by means of the simplex method, optimal policy decisions for a broad class of practical decision problems of great complexity. In the real world, planning tends to be ad hoc because of the many special-interest groups with their multiple objectives. ~ George Dantzig, #NFDB
982:Man's mind cannot grasp the causes of events in their completeness, but the desire to find those causes is implanted in man's soul. And without considering the multiplicity and complexity of the conditions any one of which taken separately may seem to be the cause, he snatches at the first approximation to a cause that seems to him intelligible and says: "This is the cause! ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
983:A blend of good and bad characterized all humans, and to pretend to sort that out was an insult to human complexity. But at the same time, Sandro understood that people only tended to allow their own contradictions, and not those of others. It was okay to be murky to yourself, to know you weren’t an angel, but other people had to be more cleanly divided into good and bad. ~ Rachel Kushner, #NFDB
984:Much of the image of the amazingness of America comes from the movies into other cultures. And it's much the same thing when you reverse it. Much of Africa is presented through poverty, through drought and war. [But] you're not presenting people, you're not presenting countries, you're not presenting complexity, and so people can't care about an amorphous mass called Africa. ~ Chris Abani, #NFDB
985:Obama entered the presidency trailing clouds of intellectual self-regard. His carefully cultivated persona was of a uniquely thoughtful, judicious, deliberative, evidence-driven man comfortable with complexity. The protracted consideration of Keystone supposedly displayed these virtues. Now, however, it is clear that his mind has always been as closed as an unshucked oyster. ~ George Will, #NFDB
986:Thai food ain't about simplicity. It's about the juggling of disparate elements to create a harmonious finish. Like a complex musical chord it's got to have a smooth surface but it doesn't matter what's happening underneath. Simplicity isn't the dictum here, at all. Some westerners think it's a jumble of flavours, but to a Thai that's important, it's the complexity they delight in. ~ David, #NFDB
987:Thus paranoia in an age of network excess produces a feedback loop: the failure to comprehend a complex world leads to the demand for more and more information, which only further clouds our understanding – revealing more and more complexity that must be accounted for by ever more byzantine theories of the world. More information produces not more clarity, but more confusion. ~ James Bridle, #NFDB
988:To match the complexity of your conscious experience and your unconscious processing, to deal with the constant confusion bombarding your senses and the noisy chatter of the agencies within your mind, you’ve developed the ability to knit everything together into something simpler and less accurate, something less informative but more entertaining, and most times more useful. ~ David McRaney, #NFDB
989:THE DIFFICULTIES AND INDEED PERPLEXITIES which beset us the moment we try to make philosophic sense out of the findings of quantum theory are caused, not just by the complexity and subtlety of the microworld, but first and foremost by an adhesion to certain false metaphysical premises, which have occupied a position of intellectual dominance since the time of René Descartes. ~ Wolfgang Smith, #NFDB
990:We have seen that the process of stellar alchemy takes time – billions of years of it. And because our Universe is expanding it needs to be billions of light years in size if it is to have enough time to produce the building blocks for living complexity. A universe that was only as big as our Milky Way galaxy, with its 100 billion stars, would be little more than a month old. ~ John D Barrow, #NFDB
991:Pessimism is a very easy way out because it is a short view of life. If you look at what is happening around us today, you can't help but feel that life is a terrible complexity of problems. But if you look back a few thousand years, you realize that we have advanced fantastically. If you take a long view, I do not see how you can be pessimistic about the future of mankind. ~ Robertson Davies, #NFDB
992:Crowd control.’ ‘Excuse me?’ ‘That’s all civilization is, T’riss. A means by which we manage the proliferation of our kind. It increases in complexity the more of us there are. Laws keep us muzzled and punishment delivers the necessary message when those laws are broken. Civilizations in decline are notable when certain of their members escape justice, and do so with impunity. ~ Steven Erikson, #NFDB
993:The truly awesome intellectuals in our history have not merely made discoveries; they have woven variegated, but firm, tapestries of comprehensive coverage. The tapestries have various fates: Most burn or unravel in the footsteps of time and the fires of later discovery. But their glory lies in their integrity as unified structures of great complexity and broad implication. ~ Stephen Jay Gould, #NFDB
994:Creationists have also changed their name ... to intelligent design theorists who study 'irreducible complexity' and the 'abrupt appearance' of life-yet more jargon for 'God did it.' ... Notice that they have no interest in replacing evolution with native American creation myths or including the Code of Hammarabi alongside the posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools. ~ Michael Shermer, #NFDB
995:Creationists have also changed their name ... to intelligent design theorists who study 'irreducible complexity' and the 'abrupt appearance' of life—yet more jargon for 'God did it.' ... Notice that they have no interest in replacing evolution with native American creation myths or including the Code of Hammurabi alongside the posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools. ~ Michael Shermer, #NFDB
996:She had devoted her life, in a practical and unimportant way, trying to prove that fear was evil because it promoted prejudice, that courage was good because it was a sign of selflessness, that ignorance was bad because fear sprang from it, that knowledge was good because the more you knew of the world’s complexity the more clearly you saw the insignificance of the part you played. ~ Paul Scott, #NFDB
997:Slow though the process of selection may be, if feeble man can do much by his power of artificial selection, I can see no limit to the amount of change to the beauty and infinite complexity of the coadaptations between all organic beings, one with another and with their physical conditions of life, which may be effected in the long course of time by nature's power of selection. ~ Charles Darwin, #NFDB
998:What differentiates human from lower-animal consciousness is time. You can't explain the concept of "tomorrow" to your dog. Our consciousness is dominated by time - We're constantly running simulations of the future. Our brain is a prediction machine. The hallmark of intelligence, indeed of genius, is the number and complexity of the feedback loops we use in predicting the future. ~ Michio Kaku, #NFDB
999:Perhaps we humans are cosmic dwarfs; perhaps we are molecular giants. But there is no denying our mid-scale complexity. We humans live neither at the range of the infinitely small, nor at that of the infinitely large, but we might well live at the range of the infinitely complex. We live at the range of the most caring; we ourselves might embody the most capacity for caring. ~ Holmes Rolston III, #NFDB
1000:I saw immediately what they were: human technology that had become haunted, possessed by quick, gleaming cleverness. I had seen smart machines before then, but nothing with the agility and cunning of true intelligence. I knew instantly that these were a different order of machine. Some alchemy of chaos and complexity had given their minds powers of consciousness and free will. ~ Alastair Reynolds, #NFDB
1001:Every thing thinks, but according to its complexity. If this is so, then stones also think...and this stone thinks only I stone, I stone, I stone. But perhaps it cannot even say I. It thinks: Stone, stone, stone... God enjoys being All, as this stone enjoys being almost nothing, but since it knows no other way of being, it is pleased with its own way, eternally satisfied with itself. ~ Umberto Eco, #NFDB
1002:Jesus never wanted us to have canned, prefabricated answers for every issue—he wants us to wrestle with the complexity of his message over and over again, until we are able to hold truth in tandem with tension. Truth must be held humbly next to the same hand that holds our doubt. Jesus, I believe, wants us to embrace the tension of faith and repent of our own need for certainty. ~ Benjamin L Corey, #NFDB
1003:Ordinary experience, from waking second to second, is in fact highly synthetic (in the sense of combinative or constructive), and made of a complexity of strands, past memories and present perceptions, times and places, private and public history, hopelessly beyond science's powers to analyse. It is quintessentially 'wild' ... unphilosophical, irrational uncontrollable, incalculable. ~ John Fowles, #NFDB
1004:The meditator develops new depths of insight through direct communication with the reality of the phenomenal world... He or she is able to see not only the absence of complexity, the absence of duality, but the stoneness of stone and the waterness of water. One sees things precisely as they are, not merely in the physical sense, but with awareness of their spiritual significance. ~ Chogyam Trungpa, #NFDB
1005:Watching 40 mile chunks of ice break off of Antarctica will change your life forever, but realizing that driving a car, or flying a plane, or having a nice steak, or drinking from a plastic bottle all contributed to the destruction of the environment - it's a bit complex, but music needs to pave the way for getting people to think about this kind of complexity. I'm just doing my share. ~ DJ Spooky, #NFDB
1006:We see what we want to see, what we can tolerate seeing, and our partner does the same. Neutralizing each other’s complexity affords us a kind of manageable otherness. We narrow down our partner, ignoring or rejecting essential parts when they threaten the established order of our coupledom. We also reduce ourselves, jettisoning large chunks of our personalities in the name of love. ~ Esther Perel, #NFDB
1007:Apart from outright fraud, there are all those “benevolent mistakes” that scientists make more or less unwittingly: poor experiment design, sloppy data management, bias in the interpretation of facts and inadequate communication of results and methods. Then, of course, there is the devilish complexity of reality itself, which withholds more than it reveals to the prying eyes of science. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1008:The cold view to take of our future is that we are therefore headed for extinction in a universe of impersonal chemical, physical, and biological laws. A more productive, certainly more engaging view, is that we have the intelligence to grasp what is happening, the composure not to be intimidated by its complexity, and the courage to take steps that may bear no fruit in our lifetimes. ~ Barry Lopez, #NFDB
1009:A world that is in equilibrium upon instability, because it is in movement: and a world whose dynamic consistence is increasing in exact proportion with the complexity of its arrangements, because it is converging upon itself in as many sidereal points as there ever have been, as there are now, and as there ever will be, thinking planets. ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Convergence of the Universe, #NFDB
1010:The daily grinding of evolution, as accelerated by technology, churns out more and more complex organisms, with higher rates of energy use, and with increasing specialization. Minds are the ideal way to express complexity, energy density, increasing specialization, expanding diversity -- all in one system. Mindedness is what evolution produces. Mindedness is what technology wants, too. ~ Kevin Kelly, #NFDB
1011:This approach to voice is designed to liberate the natural voice and thereby develop a vocal technique that serves the freedom of human expression. The basic assumption of the work is that everyone possesses a voice capable of expressing, through a two- to four-octave natural pitch range, whatever gamut of emotion, complexity of mood, and subtlety of thought he or she experiences. ~ Kristin Linklater, #NFDB
1012:We can imagine the books we'd like to read, even if they have not yet been written, and we can imagine libraries full of books we would like to possess, even if they are well beyond our reacher, because we enjoy dreaming up a library that reflects every one of our interests and every one of our foibles--a library that, in its variety and complexity, fully reflects the reader we are. ~ Alberto Manguel, #NFDB
1013:Given the complexity of interpersonal relationships and institutions and the complexity of co-ordination of the actions of many people, it is enormously unlikely that, even if there were one ideal pattern for society, it could be arrived at in an a priori fashion. And even supposing that some great genius did come along with a blueprint, who could have the confidence that it could work ~ Robert Nozick, #NFDB
1014:Our minds may believe that we need subtle and complex spiritual teachings to guide us to Reality, but we do not. In fact, the more complex the teaching is, the easier it is for the mind to hide from itself amidst the complexity while imagining that it is advancing toward enlightenment. But it is often only advancing in creating more and more intricate circles to walk around and around in. ~ Adyashanti, #NFDB
1015:Teaching students to value literary masterpieces is our best hope of awakening them to the
infinite capacities and complexities of human experience, of helping them acknowledge and
accept complexity and ambiguity, and of making them love and respect the language that allows
us to smuggle out, and send one another, our urgent, eloquent dispatches from the prison of
self. ~ Francine Prose,#NFDB
1016:I have become convinced, through my studies, that the only way to achieve a safe, just and viable world is to live by the Golden Rule. This is what drives my writing. I want to point out this interconnectedness, point out the beauty of the faith in all traditions without exception, show the complexity of the atrocities that we have experienced, and our shared culpability as a species. ~ Karen Armstrong, #NFDB
1017:I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives. ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
1018:Finally one should add that in spite of the great complexity of protein synthesis and in spite of the considerable technical difficulties in synthesizing polynucleotides with defined sequences it is not unreasonable to hope that all these points will be clarified in the near future, and that the genetic code will be completely established on a sound experimental basis within a few years. ~ Francis Crick, #NFDB
1019:I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives. ~ James Gleick, #NFDB
1020:Robert Greene, the author of Mastery, put it best: “If there is any instrument you must fall in love with and fetishize, it is the human brain—the most miraculous, awe-inspiring, information-processing tool devised in the known universe, with a complexity we can’t even begin to fathom, and with dimensional powers that far outstrip any piece of technology in sophistication and usefulness. ~ Darius Foroux, #NFDB
1021:the simplicity of many of Bush’s pronouncements is often misinterpreted as evidence that he has penetrated to the core of a complex issue, when in fact exactly the opposite is true: They often mark his refusal even to consider complexity. And that’s particularly troubling in a world where the challenges America faces are often quite complex and require rigorous, sustained, disciplined analysis. ~ Al Gore, #NFDB
1022:The connoisseur's hushed, museum-trained gaze is not well-designed for these purposes. That gaze values subtlety, complexity, ambiguity, and irony. Its most characteristic grace note is self-congratulation at being the kind of person who likes this rare and beautiful thing, whatever it may be, laced always with contempt for those too crude, too uneducated, or too simple to be able do so. ~ Paul J Griffiths, #NFDB
1023:Here's a summary list of the valid reasons to create a class: Model real-world objects Model abstract objects Reduce complexity Isolate complexity Hide implementation details Limit effects of changes Hide global data Streamline parameter passing Make central points of control Facilitate reusable code Plan for a family of programs Package related operations Accomplish a specific refactoring ~ Steve McConnell, #NFDB
1024:The American ideal of sexuality appears to be rooted in the American ideal of masculinity. This idea has created cowboys and Indians, good guys and bad guys, punks and studs, tough guys and softies, butch and faggot, black and white. It is an ideal so paralytically infantile that it is virtually forbidden - as an unpatriotic act - that the American boy evolve into the complexity of manhood ~ James A Baldwin, #NFDB
1025:The more you watch users carefully and listen to them articulate their intentions, motivations, and thought processes, the more you realize that their individual reactions to Web pages are based on so many variables that attempts to describe users in terms of one-dimensional likes and dislikes are futile and counter-productive. Good design, on the other hand, takes this complexity into account. ~ Steve Krug, #NFDB
1026:In Dogen's writing, the practical instruction, philosophy and poetry are together in one voice. People hear about his poetry, go to his work, and expect to find poetry, or they hear about his philosophy and expect to find philosophy. They look just for practical instruction and find poetry and philosophy. They can't make out the complexity of his writing, become frustrated and let him go. ~ Kazuaki Tanahashi, #NFDB
1027:Another misguided trick bosses use to demonstrate their brilliance – at least to themselves – is to develop incomprehensible strategies. Unfortunately, if your people can’t understand your strategy, they can’t figure out what to do. And, even if they can comprehend the twists and turns, the complexity can scatter their attention in so many directions that they won’t do any single thing well. ~ Robert I Sutton, #NFDB
1028:Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts... A graphic representation of data abstracted from 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, #NFDB
1029:Modern work demands knowledge transfer: the ability to apply knowledge to new situations and different domains. Our most fundamental thought processes have changed to accommodate increasing complexity and the need to derive new patterns rather than rely only on familiar ones. Our conceptual classification schemes provide a scaffolding for connecting knowledge, making it accessible and flexible. ~ David Epstein, #NFDB
1030:The aspects of global warming that matter most to people - how rapidly will the seas rise? Are hurricanes already getting stronger? How strong will they get as a result of warming? Those are still immersed in complexity. So in those realms that catch people's attention most, or that get used as symbols by environmental campaigners, those facets really do come with significant back-and-forthing. ~ Andrew Revkin, #NFDB
1031:There are no inherent barriers to our being able to reverse engineer the operating principles of human intelligence and replicate these capabilities in the more powerful computational substrates that will become available in the decades ahead. The human brain is a complex hierarchy of complex systems, but it does not represent a level of complexity beyond what we are already capable of handling. ~ Ray Kurzweil, #NFDB
1032:Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts... A graphic representation of data abstracted from 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, #NFDB
1033:Plato argued that good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will always find a way around law. By pretending that procedure will get rid of corruption, we have succeeded only in humiliating honest people and provided a cover of darkness and complexity for the bad people. There is a scandal here, but it's not the result of venal bureaucrats.
(1994) p. 99 ~ Philip K Howard,#NFDB
1034:With the old economics destroyed, organizational forms perfected for industrial production have to be replaced with structures optimized for digital data. It makes increasingly less sense even to talk about a publishing industry, because the core problem publishing solves — the incredible difficulty, complexity, and expense of making something available to the public — has stopped being a problem. ~ Clay Shirky, #NFDB
1035:I shall define the God Hypothesis more defensibly: there exists a superhuman, supernatural intelligence who deliberately designed and created the universe and everything in it, including us. This book will advocate an alternative view: any creative intelligence, of sufficient complexity to design anything, comes into existence only as the end product of an extended process of gradual evolution. ~ Richard Dawkins, #NFDB
1036:It happens from time to time in every complex and active society, that certain persons feel the complexity and insistence as a tangle, and seek freedom in retirement, as Thoreau sought at Walden Pond. They do not, however, in this manner escape from the social institutions of their time, nor do they really mean to do so; what they gain, if they are successful, is a saner relation to them. ~ Charles Horton Cooley, #NFDB
1037:No one exclaims at the moment of one's dazzling coming-out, It's a person! Instead: It's a girl, It's a boy. Pink or blue. Only two sexes. I was disappointed. If human bodies, minds, fates are so complex, if we are free like no other mammal, why limit the range? I seethed, and then, like everyone else, I settled down and made the best of my inheritance. For sure, complexity would come upon me in time. ~ Ian McEwan, #NFDB
1038:Of all created things the source is one, Simple, single as love; remember The cell and seed of life, the sphere That is, of child, white bird, and small blue dragon-fly Green fern, and the gold four-petalled tormentilla The ultimate memory. Each latent cell puts out a future, Unfolds its differing complexity As a tree puts forth leaves, and spins a fate Fern-traced, bird feathered, or fish-scaled. ~ Kathleen Raine, #NFDB
1039:The complexity of C++ (even more complexity has been added in the new C++), and the resulting impact on productivity, is no longer justified. All the hoops that the C++ programmer had to jump through in order to use a C-compatible language make no sense anymore - they're just a waste of time and effort. Now, Go makes much more sense for the class of problems that C++ was originally intended to solve. ~ Bruce Eckel, #NFDB
1040:All involve risk, uncertainty, and complexity — and therefore steps that are worth committing to a checklist and testing in routine care. Good checklists could become as important as doctors and nurses as good stethoscopes (which, unlike checklist, have never been proved to make a difference in patient care). The hard question — still unanswered — is whether medical culture can seize the opportunity. ~ Atul Gawande, #NFDB
1041:Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts . . . 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, #NFDB
1042:The formation in geological time of the human body by the laws of physics (or any other laws of similar nature), starting from a random distribution of elementary particles and the field is as unlikely as the separation of the atmosphere into its components. The complexity of the living things has to be present within the material, from which they are derived, or in the laws, governing their formation. ~ Kurt Godel, #NFDB
1043:We imagined ourselves as the Sons of Liberty with a mission to preserve, protect, and project the revolutionary spirit of rock and roll. We feared that the music which had given us sustenance was in danger of spiritual starvation. We feared it losing its sense of purpose, we feared it falling into fattened hands, we feared it floundering in a mire of spectacle, finance, and vapid technical complexity. ~ Patti Smith, #NFDB
1044:We allow for complexity, and therefore make accommodations for disagreement and its patient resolution, in most of the big areas of life: international trade, immigration, oncology . . . But when it comes to domestic existence, we tend to make a fateful presumption of ease, which in turn inspires in us a tense aversion to protracted negotiation. We would think it peculiar indeed to devote a two-day ~ Alain de Botton, #NFDB
1045:As the mind learns to understand more complicated combinations of ideas, simpler formulae soon reduce their complexity; so truths that were discovered only by great effort, that could at first only be understood by men capable of profound thought, are soon developed and proved by methods that are not beyond the reach of common intelligence. The strength and the limits of man ~ Nicolas de Caritat marquis de Condorcet, #NFDB
1046:If the chemistry was too simple and the complexity of the interactions was too low, then nothing would happen; the system would be "subcritical." But if the complexity of the interactions was rich enough-and Kauffman's mathematics now allowed him to define precisely what that meant-then the system would be "supercritical." Autocatalysis would be inevitable. And the order really would be for free. ~ M Mitchell Waldrop, #NFDB
1047:The magic is not in the complexity of the task; the magic is in the doing of simple things repeatedly and long enough to ignite the miracle of the Compound Effect. So, beware of neglecting the simple things that make the big things in your life possible. The biggest difference between successful people and unsuccessful people is that successful people are willing to do what unsuccessful people are not. ~ Darren Hardy, #NFDB
1048:While it is undoubtedly true that there are areas that require individuals with Tiger’s precocity and clarity of purpose, as complexity increases—as technology spins the world into vaster webs of interconnected systems in which each individual only sees a small part—we also need more Rogers: people who start broad and embrace diverse experiences and perspectives while they progress. People with range. ~ David Epstein, #NFDB
1049:Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts . . . 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, #NFDB
1050:A human being creates complexity by writing a novel on the surface of paper; a weather system creates complexity by writing waves on the surface of an ocean. What is the difference between the information carried in the words of a novel and the information carried on the waves of the sea? Listen, and the waves will speak, and someday, I tell you, you will write your thoughts on the surface of the sea. ~ Douglas Preston, #NFDB
1051:I think the next [21st] century will be the century of complexity. We have already discovered the basic laws that govern matter and understand all the normal situations. We don't know how the laws fit together, and what happens under extreme conditions. But I expect we will find a complete unified theory sometime this century. The is no limit to the complexity that we can build using those basic laws. ~ Stephen Hawking, #NFDB
1052:We fit beautifully together like this. Sex with her shattered me down to my deepest levels of complexity; even if Brynne wasn’t aware, I was. I don’t even know what I said to her during the heat of it. I say all kinds of things to her because she likes my filthy mouth. She told me so. It’s a damn good thing too because I cannot help it. The filter between my brain and my mouth is pretty much nonexistent. ~ Raine Miller, #NFDB
1053:Above we worried about how to think about our initial conditions, and we now have a radical answer: this information isn't fundamentally about our physical reality, but about our place in it. The vast complexity we observe is an illusion in the sense that the underlying reality is quite simple to describe, and what requires close to a googol bits to specify is just our particular address in the multiverse. ~ Max Tegmark, #NFDB
1054:. . I have written a couple of screenplays for studios, and each time has been less gratifying than the last. In my experience, they want no real representations of homosexuality, they want no complexity, they are terrified of ambiguity and unanswered questions - they don't know what they want, except that they want to make lots of money. The only freedom I've ever had as an artist has been in the theatre. ~ Craig Lucas, #NFDB
1055:Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts . . . 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, #NFDB
1056:Incumbent corporations—“big business”—often lobby for, and get, new complexity as a strategy to keep underfunded upstart competitors out of the market. In reality, monopoly market power is typically the by-product of this unholy collusion between complexity-mongers in and outside government. Market share can only be protected permanently in partnership with the power monopolists inside government. Complexity ~ Matt Kibbe, #NFDB
1057:quoting Tolstoy: “I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives. ~ James Gleick, #NFDB
1058:When a child is born its sense-organs are brought in contact with the outer world. The waves of sound, heat and light beat upon its feeble body, its sensitive nerve-fibres quiver, the muscles contract and relax in obedience: a gasp, a breath, and in this act a marvelous little engine, of inconceivable delicacy and complexity of construction, unlike any on earth, is hitched to the wheel-work of the Universe. ~ Nikola Tesla, #NFDB
1059:A good novel is one that shows the complexity of individuals, and creates enough space for all these characters to have a voice; in this way a novel is called democratic - not that it advocates democracy but that by nature it is so. Empathy lies at the heart of Gatsby, like so many other great novels - the biggest sin is to be blind to others' problems and pains. Not seeing them means denying their existence. ~ Azar Nafisi, #NFDB
1060:Keep it simple' wasn't always the right response. Many things that boosted my happiness also added complexity to my life. Having children. Learning to post videos to my website. Going to an out-of-town wedding. Applied too broadly, my impulse to 'Keep it simple' would impoverish me. 'Life is barren enough surely with all her trappings,' warned Samuel Johnson, 'let us therefore by cautious how we strip her. ~ Gretchen Rubin, #NFDB
1061:When we say that human behaviour is unpredictable, we are right, because it is too complex to be predicted, especially by ourselves. Our intense sensation of internal liberty, as Spinoza acutely saw, comes from the fact that the ideas and images which we have of ourselves are much cruder and sketchier than the detailed complexity of what is happening within us. We are the source of amazement in our own eyes ~ Carlo Rovelli, #NFDB
1062:Realizing the extent to which people in the past struggled with circumstances that they scarcely understood is perhaps the most important insight flowing from historical study. To understand the past in all its complexity is to acquire historical wisdom and humility and indeed a tragic sense of life. A tragic sense does not mean a sad or pessimistic sense of life; it means a sense of the limitations of life. ~ Gordon S Wood, #NFDB
1063:There was also a dark-haired man of about thirty (BMI approximately twenty) who appeared not to have shaved for several days, and, beside him, the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. In contrast to the complexity of Bianca’s costume, she was wearing a green dress with zero decoration, so minimal that it did not even have straps to hold it in place. It took me a moment to realise that its wearer was Rosie. ~ Graeme Simsion, #NFDB
1064:We talk about “awe and wonder,” but those are two different words. I am in awe of the universe: its scope, its complexity, its depth, its meticulous precision. But my primary feeling is wonder. Awe has connotations of reverence: “this fills me with awe and I am not worthy.” Wonder has connotations of curiosity: “this fills me with wonder and I am going to figure it out.” I will take wonder over awe every day. ~ Sean Carroll, #NFDB
1065:Acknowledge the complexity of the world and resist the impression that you easily understand it. People are too quick to accept conventional wisdom, because it sounds basically true and it tends to be reinforced by both their peers and opinion leaders, many of whome have never looked at whether the facts support the received wisdom. It's a basic fact of life that many things "everybody knows" turn out to be wrong. ~ Jim Rogers, #NFDB
1066:quoting Tolstoy: “I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.” Many ~ James Gleick, #NFDB
1067:What do I make of all this texture? What does it mean about the kind of world in which I have been set down? The texture of the world, its filigree and scrollwork, means that there is the possibility for beauty here, a beauty inexhaustible in its complexity, which opens to my knock, which answers in me a call I do not remember calling, and which trains me to the wild and extravagant nature of the spirit I seek. ~ Annie Dillard, #NFDB
1068:Past generations were most concerned with the material side of creation: How could something come from nothing? Cosmologists now recognize another, informational side of creation. Creation of a world entails above all information. The state of everything—everywhere—at every time—must be defined. The most economical way to specify such information is through a complexity-generating recursion of physical law. ~ William Poundstone, #NFDB
1069:As it did 50,000 years ago, the world now constantly opens up, acquiring endless levels of complexity. How can we flourish in such a constantly reinvented world? How can we retool our civilization and our education system to understand and prosper in this extraordinary new world? The key is to do what our ancestors did: immerse ourselves in the arts. This, of course, is what many have suggested through the centuries. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1070:He also found he made mistakes in handling complexity. A good decision requires looking at so many different features of companies in so many ways that, even without the cocaine brain, he was missing obvious patterns. His mental checklist wasn’t good enough. “I am not Warren,” he said. “I don’t have a 300 IQ.” He needed an approach that could work for someone with an ordinary IQ. So he devised a written checklist. ~ Atul Gawande, #NFDB
1071:I now believe there is a God...I now think it [the evidence] does point to a creative Intelligence almost entirely because of the DNA investigations. What I think the DNA material has done is that it has shown, by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which which are needed to produce life, that intelligence must have been involved in getting these extraordinarily diverse elements to work together. ~ Antony Flew, #NFDB
1072:The complexity of modern federal criminal law, codified in several thousand sections of the United States Code and the virtually infinite variety of factual circumstances that might trigger an investigation into a possible violation of the law, make it difficult for anyone to know, in advance, just what particular set of statements might later appear (to a prosecutor) to be relevant to some such investigation. ~ Stephen G Breyer, #NFDB
1073:There is one purpose to life and one only: to bear witness to and understand as much as possible of the complexity of the world -- its beauty, its mysteries, its riddles. The more you understand, the more you look, the greater is your enjoyment of life and your sense of peace. That's all there is to it. Everything else is fun and games. If an activity is not grounded in "to love" or "to learn" it does not have value. ~ Anne Rice, #NFDB
1074:Americans tend to prefer their presidents on horseback: heroes who dream big and sound trumpets. There is, however, another kind of leader – quieter and less glamorous but no less significant – whose virtues repay our attention. There is greatness in political lives dedicated more to steadiness than to boldness, more to reform than to revolution, more to management of complexity than to the making of mass movements. ~ Jon Meacham, #NFDB
1075:A wider of more altruistic attitude is very relevant in today's world. If we look at the situation from various angles, such as the complexity and inter-connectedness of the nature of modern existence, then we will gradually notice a change in our outlook, so that when we say 'others' and when we think of others, we will no longer dismiss them as something that is irrelevant to us. We will no longer feel indifferent. ~ Dalai Lama, #NFDB
1076:I do remain optimistic that one day the world will realise that carbon dioxide is more of a friend than an enemy to the earth's flora and fauna, and I do seriously believe that, given the extraordinary complexity of the natural forces controlling our climate, which have done so for millions of years, the only sensible policy response to the natural process of climate change is prudent and cost-effective adaptation. ~ Nick Minchin, #NFDB
1077:They brought home to me the central reason why books have meant so much to me. It is not because of my pleasure in the art of writing, though that has been very great. It is because they have taken me so far beyond the narrow limits of my own experience and have so greatly enlarged my sense of the complexity of life: of its consuming darkness, and also – thank God – of the light which continues to struggle through. ~ Diana Athill, #NFDB
1078:When Galileo discovered he could use the tools of mathematics and mechanics to understand the motion of celestial bodies, he felt, in the words of one imminent researcher, that he had learned the language in which God recreated the universe. Today we are learning the language in which God created life. We are gaining ever more awe for the complexity, the beauty, the wonder of God's most devine and sacred gift. ~ William J Clinton, #NFDB
1079:Durable, memorable poetry is usually alert to complexity. A really good poem gives you a reason to read it 20 times, because the language in a good poem is doing a lot of work emotionally and a lot of work intellectually. That means durable poetry can help us think about complexity, can help us resist easy answers and help us step back. And it can help us sometimes calm down, and sometimes it can help us stay upset. ~ Stephen Burt, #NFDB
1080:This is the time for every artist in every genre to do what he or she does loudly and consistently. It doesn't matter to me what your position is. You've got to keep asserting the complexity and the originality of life, and the multiplicity of it, and the facets of it. This is about being a complex human being in the world, not about finding a villain. This is no time for anything else than the best that you've got. ~ Toni Morrison, #NFDB
1081:We want to believe in the essential, unchanging goodness of people, in their power to resist external pressures, in their rational appraisal and then rejection of situational temptations. We invest human nature with God-like qualities, with moral and rational faculties that make us both just and wise. We simplify the complexity of human experience by erecting a seemingly impermeable boundary between Good and Evil. ~ Philip Zimbardo, #NFDB
1082:know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives. —Leo Tolstoy, What Is Art? ~ Zia Haider Rahman, #NFDB
1083:Democracy is a luxury enjoyed by simple low-population societies, though wealth can maintain it for longer than its natural span. However, societies grow in population and complexity, the technological apparatus of control improves, individual freedoms impinge upon others until they demand “action” from government that is generally eager to comply and accrue more power to itself, and democracy gradually sickens and dies. ~ Neal Asher, #NFDB
1084:Inequality is not only natural and inborn, it grows with the complexity of civilization. Hereditary inequalities breed social and artificial inequalities; every invention or discovery is made or seized by the exceptional individual, and makes the strong stronger, the weak relatively weaker, than before. Economic development specializes functions, differentiates abilities, and makes men unequally valuable to their group. ~ Will Durant, #NFDB
1085:It seems that we frequently confuse indeterminacy and chance. Indeterminacy is the freedom available at each level which, however, cannot jump over the shadow of its own history. Evolution is the history of an unfolding complexity, not the history of random processes. Out of this fog emerge the contours of a world in which nothing is random but much is indetermined and free within limits. ~ Erich Jantsch, The Self-Organizing Universe, #NFDB
1086:Many of our attempts to understand Christian faith have only cheapened it. I can no more understand the totality of God than the pancake I made for breakfast understands the complexity of me. The little we do understand, that grain of sand our minds are capable of grasping, those ideas such as God is good, God feels, God loves, God knows all, are enough to keep our hearts dwelling on His majesty and otherness forever. ~ Donald Miller, #NFDB
1087:So who you are at any given moment depends on the detailed rhythms of your neuronal firing. During the day, the conscious you emerges from that integrated neural complexity. At night, when the interaction of your neurons changes just a bit, you disappear. Your loved ones have to wait until the next morning, when your neurons let the wave die and work themselves back into their complex rhythm. Only then do you return. ~ David Eagleman, #NFDB
1088:The body, with its various parts, needs to function like a well-rehearsed orchestra. Every system must play its role properly, and at exactly the right time, or noise and chaos ensue. It is for this reason that routine is so necessary. The acts of life we repeat every day need to be automatized. They must be turned into stable and reliable habits, so they lose their complexity and gain predictability and simplicity. ~ Jordan Peterson, #NFDB
1089:We want to believe in the essential, unchanging goodness of people, in their power to resist external pressures, in their rational appraisal and then rejection of situational temptations. We invest human nature with God-like qualities, with moral and rational faculties that make us both just and wise. We simplify the complexity of human experience by erecting a seemingly impermeable boundary between Good and Evil. ~ Philip G Zimbardo, #NFDB
1090:A most important example may be recognized in the study of optimal design of sociotechnological systems and institutions. If such systems are driven too far in size, complexity, and scope, they tend to deteriorate by every measure, even in terms of simple cost-benefit relations; e.g., traveling by car in traffic-congested cities may cost more time than walking. ~ Erich Jantsch, Evolution and Consciousness - Human Systems in Transition, #NFDB
1091:I claim that many patterns of Nature are so irregular and fragmented, that, compared with Euclid - a term used in this work to denote all of standard geometry - Nature exhibits not simply a higher degree but an altogether different level of complexity ... The existence of these patterns challenges us to study these forms that Euclid leaves aside as being "formless," to investigate the morphology of the "amorphous." ~ Benoit Mandelbrot, #NFDB
1092:The body, with its various parts, needs to function like a well-rehearsed orchestra. Every system must play its role properly, and at exactly the right time, or noise and chaos ensue. It is for this reason that routine is so necessary. The acts of life we repeat every day need to be automatized. They must be turned into stable and reliable habits, so they lose their complexity and gain predictability and simplicity. ~ Jordan B Peterson, #NFDB
1093:There is one purpose to life and one only: to bear witness to and understand as much as possible of the complexity of the world-its beauty, its mysteries, its riddles. The more you understand, the more you look, the greater is your enjoyment of life and your sense of peace. That's all there is to it. Everything else is fun and games. If an activity is not grounded in "to love" or "to learn," it does not have value. - Zurvan ~ Anne Rice, #NFDB
1094:Yet the integrity of the universe is the context in which creativity is best expressed. The canvas does not limit God’s creativity but rather celebrates it. The elegant complexity of creation is a beautiful reminder that the creative mind is a disciplined mind, that the creative act is not a struggle to be free of limitations but a demonstration that when we embrace our limitations, creativity has no boundaries. ~ Erwin Raphael McManus, #NFDB
1095:...that language may be a compound code, and that the discovery of an enormous complexity beneath a simple surface may well be more dismaying than delightful. E.g.: the maze of termite tunnels in your joist, the intricate cancer in her perfect breast, the psychopathology of everyday life, the Auschwitz in an anthill casually DDT'd by a child, the rage of atoms in a drop of ink - in short, anything examined curiously enough. ~ John Barth, #NFDB
1096:The combination of causes of phenomena is beyond the grasp of the human intellect. But the impulse to seek causes is innate in the soul of man. And the human intellect, with no inkling of the immense variety and complexity of circumstances conditioning a phenomenon, any one of which may be separately conceived of as the cause of it, snatches at the first and most easily understood approximation, and says here is the cause. ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
1097:The ecology of the valley was complex beyond our understanding, and it began to die as we went on manipulating it in ever more frantic ways. As it went dead and empty of the old life it became a place where no one wanted to live. In our right minds we want to seek out places that reek of complexity. Our drive to industrialize soured and undercut the intimacies that drew most people to country life in the first place. ~ William Kittredge, #NFDB
1098:What I do is to collaborate with each actor and work one-on-one to create a character. And that is a matter of huge complexity and is a combination of a great deal of discussion and a lot of practical work. It involves a lot of consideration for the real people out there, and all kinds of sources of real people. The result is the character. But I'm not supposed to talk about what it is we do, because it's nobody's business. ~ Mike Leigh, #NFDB
1099:The growing complexity of science, technology, and organization does not imply either a growing knowledge or a growing need for knowledge in the general population. On the contrary, the increasingly complex processes tend to lead to increasingly simple and easily understood products. The genius of mass production is precisely in its making more products more accessible, both economically and intellectually to more people. ~ Thomas Sowell, #NFDB
1100:If there is a lesson here it has to do with humility. For all our vaunted intelligence and complexity, we are not the sole authors of our destinies or of anything else. You may exercise diligently, eat a medically fashionable diet, and still die of a sting from an irritated bee. You may be a slim, toned paragon of wellness, and still a macrophage within your body may decide to throw in its lot with an incipient tumor. ~ Barbara Ehrenreich, #NFDB
1101:believe that any time we tell stories like these that embrace complexity, we are participating in Scripture’s wisdom tradition. We are doing the thing to which all artists are called, which is not to dazzle or instruct or lecture, but to tell the truth—in all its beauty, frustration, and surprise. We might not make $62 million at it, but we are, in the words of Proverbs, “walk[ing] in the way of insight” (Proverbs 9:6). ~ Rachel Held Evans, #NFDB
1102:We can go on for years arguing about the way in which the enormous organism could have come into being. As we look closer at the bewildering complexity of the mechanism, our brains begin to reel. How are we to reconcile this persistent growth with the determinism of the molecules, the blind play of the chromosomes, the apparent incapacity to transmit individual acquisitions by generation? ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man, #NFDB
1103:That movements of an extreme complexity were taking place seemed certain, and yet what a simple thing it seemed, that vast yellow light sailing slowly behind my bars and which little by little the dense wall devoured, and finally eclipsed. And now its tranquil course was written on the walls, a radiance scored with shadow, then a brief quivering of leaves, if they were leaves, then that too went out, leaving me in the dark. ~ Samuel Beckett, #NFDB
1104:The absence of a focal enemy, which is what the Cold War had provided; the complexity of the developments that are occurring that mean that the world is just extremely complicated - lots of different and competing stories and strands; the continuing reality of megaterrorism; and the dysfunctionality of our politics that has neglected the foundations of the U.S. role in the world; have altogether left us somewhat confused. ~ Graham T Allison, #NFDB
1105:In the past few years, genealogical research has become increasingly popular. Perhaps one of the reasons for this is that we are trying, in a world of increasing complexity, to create a simpler and more understandable place for ourselves. No longer do we grow up in large families. We feel increasingly estranged, replaceable, and ephemeral. Genealogy gives us a feeling of immortality. The individual dies; the family lives on. ~ Oliver P tzsch, #NFDB
1106:A condition, like the existence of stars or certain chemical elements, is identified as a necessary condition for the existence of any form of chemical complexity, of which life is the most impressive known example. This does not mean that if this condition is met that life must exist, will never die out if it does exist, or that the fact that this condition holds in our Universe means that it was ‘designed’ with life in mind. ~ John D Barrow, #NFDB
1107:Cephalopods are an island of mental complexity in the sea of invertebrate animals. Because our most recent common ancestor was so simple and lies so far back, cephalopods are an independent experiment in the evolution of large brains and complex behavior. If we can make contact with cephalopods as sentient beings, it is not because of a shared history, not because of kinship, but because evolution built minds twice over. ~ Peter Godfrey Smith, #NFDB
1108:My Lasher is powerful beyond your
dreams of a daimon, and he has learnt much.’
‘Learned,’ I repeated in amazement. ‘How learned, Deborah, for he is merely a spirit, and they are
forever foolish and therein lies the danger, that in granting our wishes they do not understand the
complexity of them, and thereby prove our undoing. There are a thousand tales that prove it. Has this not
happened? How so do you say learned? ~ Anne Rice,#NFDB
1109:The capacity to tolerate complexity and welcome contradiction, not the need for simplicity and certainty, is the attribute of an explorer. Centuries ago, when some people suspended their search for absolute truth and began instead to ask how things worked, modern science was born. Curiously, it was by abandoning the search for absolute truth that science began to make progress, opening the material universe to human exploration. ~ Heinz Pagels, #NFDB
1110:That movements of an extreme complexity were taking place seemed certain, and yet what a simple thing it seemed, that vast yellow light sailing slowly behind my bars and which little by little the dense wall devoured, and finally eclipsed. And now its tranquil course was written on the walls, a radiance scored with shadow, then a brief quivering of leaves, if they were leaves, then that too went out, leaving me in the dark. How ~ Samuel Beckett, #NFDB
1111:I like what Barcelona is doing. This city almost perfectly combines its natural advantages with cultural attractions, IT parks and first-rate educational opportunities. The same applies for Dublin, which manages to achieve a blend of complexity, tolerance and artistry and makes a point of not devoting every part of the city to the tourism industry. Sometimes creativity also means forgoing short-term profits and simply saying no. ~ Charles Landry, #NFDB
1112:By erasing any nuance and complexity about porn and sexuality, the virginity movement gives young women only two choices of who they can be sexually: sluts or not sluts. While the first choice doesn't seem attractive, I can guarantee you that most young women are going to go with the option that allows them to have sex. And there's no in-between identity for young women who are making smart, healthy choices in their sexual lives. ~ Jessica Valenti, #NFDB
1113:If there is one word that makes creative people different from others, it is the word complexity. Instead of being an individual, they are a multitude. Like the color white that includes all colors, they tend to bring together the entire range of human possibilities within themselves. Creativity allows for paradox, light, shadow, inconsistency, even chaos -and creative people experience both extremes with equal intensity. ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, #NFDB
1114:Here I argue against the popular understanding of complexity as a method or a worldview. Such comprehensions are due to the natural tendency by which society acquires new knowledge. After making a presentation of what the sciences of complexity are, I claim that these sciences are not of control. I stress that they are a problem, namely frontier-problem based sciences. I thereafter characterized complexity sciences as spearhead science. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1115:John Hubbard, exploring iterated functions and the infinite fractal wildness of the Mandelbrot set, considered chaos a poor name for his work, because it implied randomness. To him, the overriding message was that simple processes in nature could produce magnificent edifices of complexity without randomness. In nonlinearity and feedback lay all the necessary tools for encoding and then unfolding structures as rich as the human brain. ~ James Gleick, #NFDB
1116:Most of the complexity of the stories has developed as the stories came along (and may be a product of the principle that "nothing is what it seems"). I did start with some essential ambiguousness in the aliens' motivation and the questions this raises in human minds, which I consider to have been disregarded in Contact (novel and film). That, in part, may be what has delayed the writing of the fifth and sixth novelettes in the series. ~ James Gunn, #NFDB
1117:New laws, new kinds of things can emerge as the universe evolves. The more moving parts you have in something, the more possibilities there are. There's a whole new science now of complexity, and what we see is that complexity requires a very different approach than the kind of bottom-up approach that fundamental physics has always used. We're gonna have to think about the world in a different way if we want to address complex systems. ~ Adam Frank, #NFDB
1118:The everyday brain could be dubbed "the baseline brain," because it operates at the minimum functioning to keep you alive and healthy. It controls your heart rate, your blood pressure, your immune function, all of your subconscious impulses. That's not a minor role; the baseline brain is a marvel of complexity and efficiency. But too much of it is devoted to habits, old conditioning, unconscious reflexes, and lack of self-awareness. ~ Deepak Chopra, #NFDB
1119:People look down on stuff like geography and meteorology, and not only because they're standing on one and being soaked by the other. They don't look quite like real science. But geography is only physics slowed down and with a few trees stuck on it, and meteorology is full of excitingly fashionable chaos and complexity. And summer isn't a time. It's a place as well. Summer is a moving creature and likes to go south for the winter. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
1120:It is ludicrous to believe that asset bubbles can only be recognized in hindsight,” he wrote. “There are specific identifiers that are entirely recognizable during the bubble’s inflation. One hallmark of mania is the rapid rise in the incidence and complexity of fraud…. The FBI reports mortgage-related fraud is up fivefold since 2000.” Bad behavior was no longer on the fringes of an otherwise sound economy; it was its central feature. ~ Michael Lewis, #NFDB
1121:People look down on stuff like geography and meteorology, and not only because they’re standing on one and being soaked by the other. They don’t look quite like real science.† But geography is only physics slowed down and with a few trees stuck on it, and meteorology is full of excitingly fashionable chaos and complexity. And summer isn’t a time. It’s a place as well. Summer is a moving creature and likes to go south for the winter. ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
1122:After Tracy died, almost every day , often many times a day, I was asked, “How are you?” I decided I had to stop answering. The question is well meant but meaningless. It’s impossible to answer partly because I never know the time frame in which it’s meant. “In this second? In this minute? For the last hour? Today? Since I last saw you?” Every answer could be different and the answers grow in complexity with ever-widening time frames. ~ Frederick Marx, #NFDB
1123:Complexity is self-generating. The diversity of our world is understandable because it is possible to design imaginary self-consistent worlds potentially as complex as our own. This is no mere restatement of common sense. Everyone daydreams alternate worlds, but the imagination soon tires of filling in details. Ulam, Von Neumann, and Conway showed that a few recursive rules can paint in all the details. Creation can be simple. ~ William Poundstone, #NFDB
1124:In times like ours, where the growing complexity of life leaves us barely the time to read the newspapers, where the map of Europehas endured profound rearrangements and is perhaps on the brink of enduring yet others, where so many threatening and new problems appear everywhere, you will admit it may be demanded of a writer that he be more than a fine wit who makes us forget in idle and byzantine discussions on the merits of pure form. ~ Marcel Proust, #NFDB
1125:Leonardo did not pursue science and engineering in order to dominate nature, as Francis Bacon would advocate a century later, but always tried to learn as much as possible from nature. He was in awe of the beauty he saw in the complexity of natural forms, patterns, and processes, and aware that nature’s ingenuity was far superior to human design. Accordingly, he often used natural processes and structures as models for his own designs. ~ Fritjof Capra, #NFDB
1126:Since we know the universe itself was once very small—perhaps smaller than a proton—this means something quite remarkable. It means the universe itself, in all its mind-boggling vastness and complexity, could simply have popped into existence without violating the known laws of nature. From that moment on, vast amounts of energy were released as space itself expanded—a place to store all the negative energy needed to balance the books. ~ Stephen Hawking, #NFDB
1127:Another consequence of an old expanding universe, besides its large size, is that it is cold, dark and lonely. When any ball of gas or radiation is expanded in volume, the temperature of its constituents falls off in proportion to the increase in its size. A universe that is big and old enough to contain the building blocks of complexity will be very cold and the levels of average radiant energy so low that space will everywhere appear dark. ~ John D Barrow, #NFDB
1128:Nowadays theologians aren't quite so straightforward as Paley. They don't point to complex living mechanisms and say that they are self-evidently designed by a creator, just like a watch. But there is a tendency to point to them and say 'It is impossible to believe' that such complexity, or such perfection, could have evolved by natural selection. Whenever I read such a remark, I always feel like writing 'Speak for yourself' in the margin. ~ Richard Dawkins, #NFDB
1129:We regard as 'scientific' a method based on deep analysis of facts, theories, and views, presupposing unprejudiced, unfearing open discussion and conclusions. The complexity and diversity of all the phenomena of modern life, the great possibilities and dangers linked with the scientific-technical revolution and with a number of social tendencies demand precisely such an approach, as has been acknowledged in a number of official statements. ~ Andrei Sakharov, #NFDB
1130:Because I'd lived through adversity once before, what I learned about myself was like a reminder of something I'd once known but had nearly forgotten-namely, that beneath the elegant clothing, and the accomplished dancing, and the clever conversation, my life had no complexity at all, but was as simple as a stone falling toward the ground. My whole purpose in everything during the past ten years had been to win the affections of the Chairman. ~ Arthur Golden, #NFDB
1131:The end of the world: the wholesale internal introversion upon itself of the noosphere, which has simultaneously reached the uttermost limit of its complexity and its centrality . . . the overthrow of equilibrium, detaching the mind, furfilled at last, from its material matrix, so that it will henceforth rest with all its weight on God-Omega . . . critical point simultaneously of emergence and emersion, of maturation and evasion. ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #NFDB
1132:The inherent non-linearity of the digital allows for more input from others, including the subject and reader as collaborators. The top-down, bedtime-style story is of limited use. A non-linear narrative that allows for increased complexity and depth, and encourages both subject and reader to have greater involvement, will eventually emerge more fully from the digital environment. This, in a sense, is the more profound democratization of media. ~ Fred Ritchin, #NFDB
1133:You see it in the 36 percent increase between 2004 and 2007 in lawsuits against attorneys for legal mistakes—the most common being simple administrative errors, like missed calendar dates and clerical screwups, as well as errors in applying the law. You see it in flawed software design, in foreign intelligence failures, in our tottering banks—in fact, in almost any endeavor requiring mastery of complexity and of large amounts of knowledge. Such ~ Atul Gawande, #NFDB
1134:Old truths and ancient magic, revolution and invention, all conspire to distract us from the passion that in one way or another defeats us all. And weary finally of this complexity, we dream of that long-ago time when we sat upon our mother’s knee and each kiss was the perfect consummation of desire. What can we do but reach for the embrace that must now contain both Heaven and Hell: our doom again and again and again. —Lestat in The Vampire Lestat ~ Anne Rice, #NFDB
1135:Complexity and simplicity,” he replied. “Time was simple, is simple. We can divide it into simple parts, measure it, arrange dinner by it, drink whisky to its passage. We can mathematically deploy it, use it to express ideas about the observable universe, and yet if asked to explain it in simple language to a child–in simple language which is not deceit, of course–we are powerless. The most it ever seems we know how to do with time is to waste it. ~ Claire North, #NFDB
1136:For four years he lived in Brooklyn, and four years in Brooklyn are a geologic age -- a single stratum of grey time. They were years of poverty, of desperation, of loneliness unutterable. All about him were the poor, the outcast, the neglected and forsaken people of America, and he was one of them. But life is strong, and year after year it went on around him in all its manifold complexity, rich with its unnoticed and unrecorded little happenings. ~ Thomas Wolfe, #NFDB
1137:I'm with the president nearly every day. We engage in complex conversations about some of the most weighty matters facing the world. I deliver to him this exquisite product that's been developed by my officers. He engages in a way that shows his understanding of the complexity. He asks really hard questions. He delivers policy outcomes based on the information that we provide him. My observation of the president is that, we deal in serious matters. ~ Mike Pompeo, #NFDB
1138:We are talking about an awesome power. It is the power to weave illusions that appear real as long as they last. That is the very core of the Fed's power. Of course not everyone is instinctively against this illusion-weaving power, and many even welcome it. Tragically, the innocent who understand little about the complexity of the monetary system suffer the most, while those who are in the know reap great profit whether the market is going up or down. ~ Ron Paul, #NFDB
1139:We have to ask ourselves why we are so focused on silent girly-girls in G-strings faking lust. This is not a sign of progress, it's a testament to what's still missing from our understanding of human sexuality with all its complexity and power. We are still so uneasy with the vicissitudes of sex we need to surround ourselves with caricatures of female hotness to safely conjure up the concept of 'sexy.' When you think about it, it's kind of pathetic. ~ Ariel Levy, #NFDB
1140:History is a litany of injustice, no one denies it. But when has a simple solution ever been
anything but evil? Only in complexity do we find answers. Through complexity men struggle towards
fairness; it is slow and clumsy, but it's the only way. Simplicity demands too great a sacrifice. It always has."
"Yes," Marius said. "Exactly. Simplicity and brutality are synonymous in philosophy and in actions. It is brutal
what you propose! ~ Anne Rice,#NFDB
1141:It's not that we need to form new organizations. It's simply that we have to awaken to new ways of thinking. I believe it makes no sense to spend a lot of time attacking the current realities. It is time to create the new models that have in them the complexity that makes the older systems obsolete. And to the extent that we can do that, and do that quickly, I think we can provide what will be necessary for a major breakthrough for the future. ~ Don Edward Beck, #NFDB
1142:Evolution, from being initially selective, cannot but make itself elective in higher living beings, as a direct effect of complexity: until the time comes when, with the appearance of the faculty of thought, it reflects definitively upon itself and so ‘takes off’ and suddenly opens out into planned invention (technology) and higher co-consciousness (civilization). ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Transformation and Continuation in Man of the Mechanism of Evolution, #NFDB
1143:And if that’s the case—if we are our remembering selves—then it matters far less how we feel moment to moment with our children. They play rich and crucial roles in our life stories, generating both outsize highs and outsize lows. Without such complexity, we don’t feel like we’ve amounted to much. “You don’t have a good story until something deviates from the expected,” says McAdams. “And raising children leads to some pretty unexpected happenings. ~ Jennifer Senior, #NFDB
1144:Notably, the core of NASA's approach to creating reusable classes does not involve "designing for reuse." NASA identifies reuse candidates at the ends of their projects. They then perform the work needed to make the classes reusable as a special project at the end of the main project or as the first step in a new project. This approach helps prevent "gold-plating"—creation of functionality that isn't required and that unnecessarily adds complexity. ~ Steve McConnell, #NFDB
1145:A bleak, black book, it engenders awe and despair. I have read it in its entirety 4 1/2 times, each time finding its resonance and beauty so great as to demand another reading. As I read, I found myself devastated by the thoroughness of the book's annihilating sensibility and revived by the beauty of its language, the complexity of its design, the melancholy, horror and stoic sympathy in its rendering of what we used to call the human condition. ~ Michael Silverblatt, #NFDB
1146:Because we cannot deal with the many as individuals, we sometimes try to simplify the many into an abstraction called the mass. Because we cannot deal with the complexity of the present, we often over-ride it and live in a simplified dream of the future. Because we cannot solve our own problems right here at home, we talk about problems out there in the world. An escape process goes on from the intolerable burden we have placed upon ourselves. ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh, #NFDB
1147:Smell is of all senses by far the most evocative: perhaps because we have no vocabulary for it – nothing but a few poverty-stricken approximations to describe the whole vast complexity of odour – and therefore the scent, unnamed and unnamable, remains pure of association; it cannot be called upon again and again, and blunted, by the use of a word; and so it strikes afresh every time, bringing with it all the circumstances of its first perception. This ~ Patrick O Brian, #NFDB
1148:In overlooking, denying, evading this complexity--which is nothing more than the disquieting complexity of ourselves--we are diminished and we perish; only within this web of ambiguity, paradox, this hunger, danger, darkness, can we find at once ourselves and the power that will free us from ourselves. It is this power of revelation that is the business of the novelist, this journey toward a more vast reality which must take precedence over other claims. ~ James Baldwin, #NFDB
1149:A self that is only differentiated—not integrated—may attain great individual accomplishments, but risks being mired in self-centered egotism. By the same token, a person whose self is based exclusively on integration will be connected and secure, but lack autonomous individuality. Only when a person invests equal amounts of psychic energy in these two processes and avoids both selfishness and conformity is the self likely to reflect complexity. ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, #NFDB
1150:pattern, especially pattern that appeared on different scales at the same time. They had a taste for randomness and complexity, for jagged edges and sudden leaps. Believers in chaos—and they sometimes call themselves believers, or converts, or evangelists—speculate about determinism and free will, about evolution, about the nature of conscious intelligence. They feel that they are turning back a trend in science toward reductionism, the analysis of systems ~ James Gleick, #NFDB
1151:And if that's the case -- if we are our remembering selves -- then it matters far less how we feel moment to moment with our children. They play rich and crucial roles in our life stories, generating both outsize highs and outsize lows. Without such complexity, we don't feel like we've amounted to much. "You don't have a good story until something deviates from the expected," says McAdams. "And raising children leads to some pretty unexpected happenings. ~ Jennifer Senior, #NFDB
1152:In overlooking, denying, evading this complexity--which is nothing more than the disquieting complexity of ourselves--we are diminished and we perish; only within this web of ambiguity, paradox, this hunger, danger, darkness, can we find at once ourselves and the power that will free us from ourselves. It is this power of revelation that is the business of the novelist, this journey toward a more vast reality which must take precedence over other claims. ~ James A Baldwin, #NFDB
1153:Evelyn continued to hold the wheel, recognizing the sensation of being in control of the rudder, while Martin explained how the direction of the wind was key, and how all the elements worked together to affect speed.
"It's physics," she said, becoming fascinated by the complexity of the air and water flow working together, and comprehending how the shape of the hull and sails and the size of the keel all played an important part in the boat's movement. ~ Julianne MacLean,#NFDB
1154:My early self-portraits appeared effortlessly and seemed like equivalents for my deeper emotions. Many critics remarked that the images had an almost other-worldly haunting presence. For me, they were simply my own reality at that point in my life. What I was trying to reveal was my inner soul in all its fragile complexity. Without knowing it, I was trying to peel back the layers that shroud and bind us all as we struggle to reveal our own authentic selves. ~ Joyce Tenneson, #NFDB
1155:Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. It takes a lot of hard work to make something simple, to truly understand the underlying challenges and come up with elegant solutions. [...] It's not just minimalism or the absence of clutter. It involves digging through the depth of complexity. To be truly simple, you have to go really deep. [...] You have to deeply understand the essence of a product in order to be able to get rid of the parts that are not essential. ~ Steve Jobs, #NFDB
1156:If in the human economy, a squash in the field is worth more than a bushel of soil, that does not mean that food is more valuable than soil; it means simply that we do not know how to value the soil. In its complexity and its potential longevity, the soil exceeds our comprehension; we do not know how to place a just market value on it, and we will never learn how. Its value is inestimable; we must value it, beyond whatever price we put on it, by respecting it. ~ Wendell Berry, #NFDB
1157:Perhaps, you know, new laws, new domains of potential openness are occurring as the universe ages, and complexity previously disallowed is now possible, and we are that complexity. We are nature moving out of its genetic phase - a phase under the control of chemical genes, which are physical structures, in to an epigenetic phase, a phase of culture ruled by codes, transformable culturally confined codes - mathematics, religion, philosophy, art, dance, humor. ~ Terence McKenna, #NFDB
1158:In reality, however, she was guilty of a distinctive kind of laziness. By failing to engage with the complexity of the system she managed, she was blaming preemptively and thus undermining openness and learning. She was weakening the most important accountability of all: what the philosopher Virginia Sharpe calls “forward-looking accountability.” This is the accountability to learn from adverse events so that future patients are not harmed by avoidable mistakes. ~ Matthew Syed, #NFDB
1159:Pleasure is an important component of the quality of life, but by itself it does not bring happiness. Sleep, rest, food, and sex provide restorative homeostatic experiences that return consciousness to order after the needs of the body intrude and cause psychic entropy to occur. But they do not produce psychological growth. They do not add complexity to the self. Pleasure helps to maintain order, but by itself cannot create new order in consciousness. ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, #NFDB
1160:The Hawk and the Dove is a wonderful idea for a book, wonderfully carried out. Nicholas Thompson has used illuminating new material to present each of his protagonists in a convincing, respectful, but unsparing way. Even more valuable, he has used the interactions and tensions between Paul Nitze and George Kennan to bring much of American 20th century foreign policy to life, with human richness ever present but with the big issues clear in all their complexity. ~ James Fallows, #NFDB
1161:A self that is only differentiated - not integrated - may attain great individual accomplishments, but risks being mired in self-centered egotism. By the same token, a person who self is based exclusively on integration will be well connected and secure, but lack autonomous individuality. Only when a person invests equal amounts of psychic energy in these two processes and avoids both selfishness and conformity is the self likely to reflect complexity. ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, #NFDB
1162:Programmers are always surrounded by complexity; we cannot avoid it. Our applications are complex because we are ambitious to use our computers in ever more sophisticated ways. Programming is complex because of the large number of conflicting objectives for each of our programming projects. If our basic tool, the language in which we design and code our programs, is also complicated, the language itself becomes part of the problem rather than part of its solution. ~ C A R Hoare, #NFDB
1163:He always reminded us that every atom in our bodies was once part of a distant star that had exploded. He talked about how evolution moves from simplicity toward complexity, and how human intelligence is the highest known expression of evolution. I remember him telling me that a frog's brain is much more complex than a star. He saw human consciousness as the first neuron of the universe coming to life and awareness. A spark in the darkness, waiting to spread to fire. ~ Greg Iles, #NFDB
1164:When you’re arrogant and egotistical,” says Dr. Olds, “you’re shutting out complexity, novelty, and unpredictability to preserve a distorted self-image. Any incoming information that could lead to self-doubt is stamped out. It’s a massive data reduction. Humility moves in the other direction, it opens us up and increases incoming information. As a result, there is more opportunity for pattern recognition, more dopamine, and less need for judgmental metacognition. ~ Steven Kotler, #NFDB
1165:There are four: delaying of gratification, acceptance of responsibility, dedication to truth, and balancing. As will be evident, these are not complex tools whose application demands extensive training. To the contrary, they are simple tools, and almost all children are adept in their use by the age of ten. Yet presidents and kings will often forget to use them, to their own downfall. The problem lies not in the complexity of these tools but in the will to use them. ~ M Scott Peck, #NFDB
1166:There is even a view, not uncommonly expressed, that might best be regarded as a combination of A and D (or perhaps B and D)-a possibility that will actually feature significantly in our later deliberations. According to this view, the brain's action is indeed that of a computer, but it is a computer of such wonderful complexity that its imitation is beyond the wit of man and science, being necessarily a divine creation of God-the 'best programmer in the business'! ~ Roger Penrose, #NFDB
1167:Computers are ridiculous. So is science in general. CHURCH TURING Thesis, Theodore Rosak Version
This view is prevalent among certain people who see in anything smacking of numbers or exactitude a threat to human values. It is too bad that they do not appreciate the depth and complexity and beauty involved in exploring abstract structures sch as the human mind, where, indeed, one comes in intimate contact with the ultimate questions of what to be human is. ~ Douglas R Hofstadter,#NFDB
1168:Her kids and I tease her remorselessly about her devotion to cleaning, but of course it’s Hiroko’s deeper cleanliness—her freedom from second thoughts, from the need to gossip, from malice or the hunger for complexity—that is one of her sovereign gifts. Dusting is how she clears her head. Cohen himself, asked about his Zen training, explained, “It’s just house cleaning. From time to time the dust and the dirty clothes accumulate in the corners and it’s time to clean up. ~ Pico Iyer, #NFDB
1169:I believe that almost all important, useful ideas are simple. Peter Whittle has recently put it nicely in an autobiographical essay. "If a piece of work is heavy and complicated then it is wrong." . . . Some writers feel that to express their ideas in simple terms is degrading. Some use complexity to disguise the paucity of their material. In fact, simplicity is a virtue and when, as here, it is both original and useful, it can represent a real advance in knowledge. ~ Dennis Lindley, #NFDB
1170:Beauty is more important in computing than anywhere else in technology because software is so complicated. Beauty is the ultimate defense against complexity. ... The geniuses of the computer field, on the the other hand, are the people with the keenest aesthetic senses, the ones who are capable of creating beauty. Beauty is decisive at every level: the most important interfaces, the most important programming languages, the winning algorithms are the beautiful ones. ~ David Gelernter, #NFDB
1171:I grew up in a household that was filled with Scottish and Irish ballads. So I think that the complexity and the melancholy and the languor of them has kind of gotten into my bones and that's the way I write. Now what does it contribute to my books? I don't know; I guess I would say that those are the kinds of books I like to read, books with vivid images and lots of mist and velvet cloaks and stuff. It's not as though I'm setting out to do that; it's just who I am. ~ Franny Billingsley, #NFDB
1172:Architecture is art. I don't think you should say that too much, but it is art. I mean, architecture is many, many things. Architecture is science, is technology, is geography, is typography, is anthropology, is sociology, is art, is history. You know all this comes together. Architecture is a kind of bouillabaisse, an incredible bouillabaisse. And, by the way, architecture is also a very polluted art in the sense that it's polluted by life, and by the complexity of things. ~ Renzo Piano, #NFDB
1173:Captain considered it, and shrugged. "It seems right," he said. "It is not precisely what El wanted; but enthroned as he is in his Palace, viewing the Land from a high seat, he does not see its complexity. This Land was made wrong. All of his efforts to make it right only spread the wrongness about it new ways. It is left to souls like me to decide what to do about it; and though I cannot see all the answers, I can guess that adding more wrongness will not help matters. ~ Neal Stephenson, #NFDB
1174:I have devoted 30 years of research to how creative people live and work, to make more understandable the mysterious process by which they come up with new ideas and new things. [...] If I had to express in one word what makes their personalities different from others, it's complexity. They show tendencies of thought and action that in most people are segregated. They contain contradictory extremes; instead of being an "individual", each of them is a "multitude". ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, #NFDB
1175:Theoretical physics is one of the hardest of human endeavours, combining as it does subtle and abstract concepts that normally defy visualizations with a technical complexity that is impossible to master in its entirety. Only by adopting the highest standards of mathematical and conceptual discipline can most physicists make progress. Yet Feynman appeared to ride roughshod over this strict code of practice and pluck new results like ready-made fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1176:Are the individual functions in your modules too large? This is not so much a matter of line count as it is of internal complexity. If you can’t informally describe a function’s contract with its callers in one line, the function is probably too large.9 9 Many years ago, I learned from Kernighan & Plauger’s The Elements of Programming Style a useful rule. Write that one-line comment immediately after the prototype of your function. For every function, without exception. ~ Eric S Raymond, #NFDB
1177:Forget morality tales and all the fury and mire of human complexity, and follow the money. It will lead you through urban legends about sex and revenge and jealousy and the acquisition of power over others, but ultimately, it will lead you to the issue from which all the other motivations derive—money, piles of it, green and lovely and cascading like leaves out of a beneficent sky, money and money and money, the one item that human beings will go to any lengths to acquire. ~ James Lee Burke, #NFDB
1178:We did our best to conjure up the culinary staples of our culture, but since we were dependent on Chinese markets our food had an unacceptably Chinese tinge, another blow in the gauntlet of our humiliation that left us with the sweet-and-sour taste of unreliable memories, just correct enough to evoke the past, just wrong enough to remind us that the past was forever gone, missing along with the proper variety, subtlety, and complexity of our universal solvent, fish sauce. ~ Viet Thanh Nguyen, #NFDB
1179:The canvas is on the easel now, as large and white as a sheet that has never been slept in. My paintings have become larger and larger as I have grown older. As a young painter you are overwhelmed by the complexity of your subject. Every crease, every dimple, is an equally startling revelation. It’s like your first girl. You don’t understand her. You can only copy her – hesitantly. Later you become shamelessly yourself. You create in your image – as nearly life-size as possible. ~ John Berger, #NFDB
1180:I find that this desire to be all of oneself in each moment — all the richness and complexity, with nothing hidden from oneself, and nothing feared in oneself — this is a common desire in those who have seemed to show much movement in therapy. I do not need to say that this is a difficult, and in its absolute sense an impossible goal. Yet one of the most evident trends in clients is to move toward becoming all of the complexity of one’s changing self in each significant moment. ~ Carl R Rogers, #NFDB
1181:The question of how to define life is notoriously controversial. Competing definitions abound, some of which include highly specific requirements such as being composed of cells, which might disqualify both future intelligent machines and extraterrestrial civilizations. Since we don’t want to limit our thinking about the future of life to the species we’ve encountered so far, let’s instead define life very broadly, simply as a process that can retain its complexity and replicate. ~ Max Tegmark, #NFDB
1182:A second possible approach to general systems theory is through the arrangement of theoretical systems and constructs in a hierarchy of complexity, roughly corresponding to the complexity of the "individuals" of the various empirical fields... leading towards a "system of systems." [...] I suggest below a possible arrangement of "levels" of theoretical discourse...(vi) [...] the "animal" level, characterized by increased mobility, teleological behavior and self-awareness... ~ Kenneth E Boulding, #NFDB
1183:Buddha says: Life should be simple, not complex. Life should be based on needs, not on desires. Needs are perfectly okay: you need food, you need clothes, you need a shelter, you need love, you need relationship. Perfectly good, nothing wrong in it. Needs can be fulfilled; desires are basically unfulfillable. Desires create complexity. They create complexity because they can never be fulfilled. You go on and on working hard for them, and they remain unfulfilled, and you remain empty. ~ Rajneesh, #NFDB
1184:It is not how much money we make that ultimately makes us happy between nine and five. It’s whether our work fulfills us. If I offered you a choice between being an architect for $75,000 a year and working in a tollbooth every day for the rest of your life for $100,000 a year, which would you take? I’m guessing the former, because there is complexity, autonomy, and a relationship between effort and reward in doing creative work, and that’s worth more to most of us than money. ~ Malcolm Gladwell, #NFDB
1185:[T]he complexity of nature is not innate but consequence of the instruments used to handle it. There is nothing complex about walking, breathing, and circulating one's blood. Living organisms have developed these functions without without thinking about them at all. The circulation of the blood becomes complex only when stated in physiological terms, that is, when understood by means of a conceptual model constructed of the kind of simple units which conscious attention requires. ~ Alan W Watts, #NFDB
1186:When you start looking at a problem and it seems really simple, you don't really understand the complexity of the problem. Then you get into the problem, and you see that it's really complicated, and you come up with all these convoluted solutions. That's sort of the middle, and that's where most people stop... But the really great person will keep on going and find the key, the underlying principle of the problem - and come up with an elegant, really beautiful solution that works. ~ Steve Jobs, #NFDB
1187:No, the real lesson is that under conditions of true complexity—where the knowledge required exceeds that of any individual and unpredictability reigns—efforts to dictate every step from the center will fail. People need room to act and adapt. Yet they cannot succeed as isolated individuals, either—that is anarchy. Instead, they require a seemingly contradictory mix of freedom and expectation—expectation to coordinate, for example, and also to measure progress toward common goals. ~ Atul Gawande, #NFDB
1188:The middle path makes me wary. . . . But in the middle of my life, I am coming to see the middle path as a walk with wisdom where conversations of complexity can be found, that the middle path is the path of movement. . . . In the right and left worlds, the stories are largely set. . . . We become missionaries for a position . . . practitioners of the missionary position. Variety is lost. Diversity is lost. Creativity is lost in our inability to make love with the world. ~ Terry Tempest Williams, #NFDB
1189:There are thousands of proteins in the cells, some of them very large chains of molecules. And the cell doesn't function if one of those chains of molecules isn't there, and you start looking at the complexity of life and the mystery of life, and then start thinking about things like the twenty universal constants, that if any one of them from Plank's minimum to the mass of a proton, if one of them is the tiniest bit off, there would be no life or possibility of it in the universe. ~ Dean Koontz, #NFDB
1190:The world is a thing of utter inordinate complexity and richness and strangeness that is absolutely awesome. I mean the idea that such complexity can arise not only out of such simplicity, but probably absolutely out of nothing, is the most fabulous extraordinary idea. And once you get some kind of inkling of how that might have happened, it’s just wonderful. And … the opportunity to spend 70 or 80 years of your life in such a universe is time well spent as far as I am concerned. ~ Douglas Adams, #NFDB
1191:[T]he complexity of nature is not innate but a consequence of the instruments used to handle it. There is nothing complex about walking, breathing, and circulating one's blood. Living organisms have developed these functions without without thinking about them at all. The circulation of the blood becomes complex only when stated in physiological terms, that is, when understood by means of a conceptual model constructed of the kind of simple units which conscious attention requires. ~ Alan W Watts, #NFDB
1192:the real lesson is that under conditions of true complexity—where the knowledge required exceeds that of any individual and unpredictability reigns—efforts to dictate every step from the center will fail. People need room to act and adapt. Yet they cannot succeed as isolated individuals, either—that is anarchy. Instead, they require a seemingly contradictory mix of freedom and expectation—expectation to coordinate, for example, and also to measure progress toward common goals. This ~ Atul Gawande, #NFDB
1193:Engineers speak half-jokingly of Murphy’s Law: “If anything can go wrong, it will.” But complexity stands under a second law as well. Let me call it Drucker’s Law: “If one thing goes wrong, everything else will, and at the same time.” And if anything goes wrong, then there is a premium on knowing one’s business, on understanding it, on being close to it. Diversity and complexity, however, mean that one cannot know one’s businesses, cannot understand them, cannot be close to them. ~ Peter F Drucker, #NFDB
1194:For many of us it seems that to be a feminist in the way that we have seen or understood feminism is to conform to an identity and way of living that doesn't allow for individuality, complexity, or less than perfect personal histories. We fear that the identity will dictate and regulate our lives, instantaneously pitting us against someone, forcing us to choose inflexible and unchanging sides, female against male, black against white, oppressed against oppressor, good against bad. ~ Rebecca Walker, #NFDB
1195:But tracking my progress and missteps is the one of the reasons I’ve accumulated the success I have. The process forces you to be conscious of your decisions. But as Jim Rohn would say, “What’s simple to do is also simple not to do.” The magic is not in the complexity of the task; the magic is in the doing of simple things repeatedly and long enough to ignite the miracle of the Compound Effect. So, beware of neglecting the simple things that make the big things in your life possible. ~ Darren Hardy, #NFDB
1196:We go through life seeing reality not as it really is, in its unfathomable depths of complexity and contradiction, but as we hope or fear or expect it to be. Too often, we confuse certainty for truth and the strength of our beliefs for the strength of the evidence. When we collide with the unexpected, with the antipode to our hopes, we are plunged into bewildered despair. We rise from the pit only by love. Perhaps Keats had it slightly wrong — perhaps truth is love and love is truth. ~ Maria Popova, #NFDB
1197:Layering and Separation 53C O N F U S I ON and clutter are failures of design, not attributes of information. And so the point is to find design strategies that reveal detail and complexity — rather than to fault the data for an excess of complication.Or, worse, to fault viewers for a lack of understanding. Among the most powerful devices for reducing noise and enriching the content of displays is the technique of layering and separation, visually stratifying various aspects of the data. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1198:One can truly say that the irresistible progress of natural science since the time of Galileo has made its first halt before the study of the higher parts of the brain, the organ of the most complicated relations of the animal to the external world. And it seems, and not without reason, that now is the really critical moment for natural science; for the brain, in its highest complexity-the human brain-which created and creates natural science, itself becomes the object of this science. ~ Ivan Pavlov, #NFDB
1199:CHARLES PERROW is a sociologist known for studying industrial accidents, such as those that occur with nuclear power plants, airlines, and shipping. In Normal Accidents, he wrote that “We construct an expected world because we can’t handle the complexity of the present one, and then process the information that fits the expected world, and find reasons to exclude the information that might contradict it. Unexpected or unlikely interactions are ignored when we make our construction. ~ Laurence Gonzales, #NFDB
1200:The most powerful words in English are 'Tell me a story,' words that are intimately related to the complexity of history, the origins of language, the continuity of the species, the taproot of our humanity, our singularity, and art itself. I was born into the century in which novels lost their stories, poems their rhymes, paintings their form, and music its beauty, but that does not mean I had to like that trend or go along with it. I fight against these movements with every book I write. ~ Pat Conroy, #NFDB
1201:The world is a thing of utter inordinate complexity and richness and strangeness that is absolutely awesome. I mean the idea that such complexity can arise not only out of such simplicity, but probably absolutely out of nothing, is the most fabulous extraordinary idea. And once you get some kind of inkling of how that might have happened ' it's just wonderful. And . . . the opportunity to spend 70 or 80 years of your life in such a universe is time well spent as far as I am concerned. ~ Douglas Adams, #NFDB
1202:The big ape could be safely ignored. That’s how you deal with the overwhelming complexity of the world: you ignore it, while you concentrate minutely on your private concerns. You see things that facilitate your movement forward, toward your desired goals. You detect obstacles, when they pop up in your path. You’re blind to everything else (and there’s a lot of everything else—so you’re very blind). And it has to be that way, because there is much more of the world than there is of you. ~ Jordan Peterson, #NFDB
1203:The mechanist is intimately convinced that a precise knowledge of the chemical constitution, structure, and properties of the various organelles of a cell will solve biological problems. This will come in a few centuries. For the time being, the biologist has to face such concepts as orienting forces or morphogenetic fields. Owing to the scarcity of chemical data and to the complexity of life, and despite the progresses of biochemistry, the biologist is still threatened with vertigo. ~ Andre Michel Lwoff, #NFDB
1204:Why do any of us act the way we do? Is it our beliefs or our biology that shapes us? Lauren Grodstein considers this eternal question through the story of Andrew Waite, scientist, father, widower, struggling to raise two daughters, living with the ghost of his wife, facing a test of his faith in science. There are no easy answers here, just the honest complexity of human beings trying their best to be good people. The Explanation for Everything is moving, beautiful, and wonderfully funny. ~ Victor LaValle, #NFDB
1205:Apprehend. Which is a nice word if you roll it around your mouth. Apprehend. ‘It doesn’t just mean “understand”, although it includes that meaning, fully. It means you should face the truth of the world – not let yourself be fooled by how you’d like it to be. You should try to be fully aware of the richness of reality, of the mixed-up complexity of all the processes going right back to the birth of the stars that have produced you and the world you live in, and this very moment . . . ‘And ~ Terry Pratchett, #NFDB
1206:I would say that Futurama: Bender's Big Score requires a lot of concentration to watch. It's a very complicated time-travel story. Part of the joke on that was just that the complexity would be over the top. This one is a more straight-forward science-fiction story, I would say. Alien invasion and people running in terror, that kind of thing, with a slight twist of there being an inappropriate physical relationship with the big octopus monster. We've got a straight-up science-fiction movie. ~ David X Cohen, #NFDB
1207:Often the idea of survival is mentioned in relation to capitalism, as in the phrase ‘economic survival’ or the thought ‘I need to earn money to survive.’ However, in our endeavour we hoped to sever survival from economy, striving for a purer form of modernized surviving. Our fight would be a fight for survival and the fighting itself would be our life, not in the sense of employment but in the sense of a full reality with all of the inherent risk, complexity and completion that living implies. ~ Jacob Wren, #NFDB
1208:The big ape could be safely ignored. That’s how you deal with the overwhelming complexity of the world: you ignore it, while you concentrate minutely on your private concerns. You see things that facilitate your movement forward, toward your desired goals. You detect obstacles, when they pop up in your path. You’re blind to everything else (and there’s a lot of everything else—so you’re very blind). And it has to be that way, because there is much more of the world than there is of you. ~ Jordan B Peterson, #NFDB
1209:The development of higher complexity along the axis of phylogeny requires conservative information storage which permits each step to build on the achievements of the former steps. Genetic communication works with such a conservative storage as does generally all genealogical communication over many generations. Sociocultural genealogy uses the outer storage facilities of buildings, scripts, and works of art. They contribute to the phylogeny of the neural mind. ~ Erich Jantsch, The Self-Organizing Universe, #NFDB
1210:We are hurtling toward a day of ecological reckoning. We should have acted many years ago to contain the damage and build a bridge to a different kind of civilization. Now we are faced with an increased population, worse pollution, dwindling resources, progressive biological destruction, much greater complexity, compounding debt, and enormous inertia in the system—a nexus of problems that have no separate solutions, only an aggregate solution requiring a total revolution in our way of life. ~ William Ophuls, #NFDB
1211:I was a terrible believer in things, but I was also a terrible nonbeliever in things. I was as searching as I was skeptical. I didn’t know where to put my faith, or if there was such a place, or even precisely what the word faith meant, in all of its complexity. Everything seemed to be possibly potent and possibly fake. “You’re a seeker,” my mother had said to me when she was in her last week, lying in bed in the hospital, “like me.” But I didn’t know what my mother sought, exactly. Did she? ~ Cheryl Strayed, #NFDB
1212:And we see such hierarchy in the organisation of the Homo erectus settlement of Gesher Benot Ya’aqov. But hierarchy is something that would only be needed in direct proportion to the growth of complexity in communication content – what is being talked about – as information flow grew faster and more complex. Information-rich communication, especially when coming at high rates of speed typical of human languages, will be aided, just as Simon predicted, by being structured in particular ways. ~ Daniel L Everett, #NFDB
1213:He stared up at the stars, and it seemed to him then that they were dancers, stately and graceful, performing a dance almost infinite in its complexity. He imagined he could see the very faces of the stars; pale, they were, and smiling gently, as if they had spent so much time above the world, watching the scrambling and the joy and the pain of the people below them, that they could not help being amused every time another little human believed itself the center of its world, as each of us does. ~ Neil Gaiman, #NFDB
1214:He stared up at the stars: and it seemed to him then that they were dancers, stately and graceful, performing a dance almost infinite in its complexity. He imagined he could see the very faces of the stars; pale, they were, and smiling gently, as if they had spent so much time above the world, watching the scrambling and the joy and the pain of the people below them, that they could not help being amused every time another little human believed itself the center of its world, as each of us does. ~ Neil Gaiman, #NFDB
1215:On one planet [earth], and possibly only one planet in the entire universe, molecules that would normally make nothing more complicated than a chunk of rock, gather themselves together into chunks of rock-sized matter of such staggering complexity that they are capable of running, jumping, swimming, flying, seeing, hearing, capturing and eating other such animated chunks of complexity; capable in some cases of thinking and feeling, and falling in love with yet other chunks of complex matter. ~ Richard Dawkins, #NFDB
1216:The multiple factors (ecological, physiological, psychic…) combining to assemble and firmly unite living beings in general (and human beings more especially) are merely the extension and expression on this level of the forces of complexity/consciousness, always working, as we have said, to construct (as far back as possible and everywhere possible in the universe), in opposition to entropy, corpuscular combinations of an ever higher order. ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phyletic Structure of the Human Group, #NFDB
1217:For centuries the most powerful argument for God's existence from the physical world was the so-called argument from design: Living things are so beautiful and elegant and so apparently purposeful, they could only have been made by an intelligent designer. But [Charles] Darwin provided a simpler explanation. His way is a gradual, incremental improvement starting from very simple beginnings and working up step by tiny incremental step to more complexity, more elegance, more adaptive perfection. ~ Richard Dawkins, #NFDB
1218:The capacity to create [visual] effects in the computer has made the job easier, but it has also introduced the complexity that you can with a few more keystrokes generate such a busy canvas that the eye doesn't know where to go. You lose human scale on an event and you're just wowed by the kinetics and the visualization. But, often in those cases I feel you lose touch with the human characters and what it is that they would feel and how they might feel, and that's still the most important part. ~ Harrison Ford, #NFDB
1219:The English team’s revisions showed that the Cambrian had been a time of unparalleled innovation and experimentation in body designs. For almost four billion years life had dawdled along without any detectable ambitions in the direction of complexity, and then suddenly, in the space of just five or ten million years, it had created all the basic body designs still in use today. Name a creature, from a nematode worm to Cameron Diaz, and they all use architecture first created in the Cambrian party. ~ Bill Bryson, #NFDB
1220:Life uses information (stored in DNA) to capture energy (which it stores in a chemical called ATP) to create order. Humans burn prodigious amounts of energy — we generate about 10,000 times as much energy per gram as the sun. The sun is hotter only because it is much bigger. We use energy to create and maintain intricate cellular and bodily complexity, the opposite of entropy, just as we do in the economy, where the harnessing of power from burning fuel enables us to build skyscrapers and aeroplanes. ~ Matt Ridley, #NFDB
1221:Although technology often leads science in discovery, the philosophy of technology is usually drawn from the scientific philosophy of its time. In our time, the technology of machines has drawn its inspiration from mechanics, dealing with complexity by reducing the number of relevant parts. The technology of government, on the other hand, has drawn upon statistical mechanics, creating simplicity by dealing only with people in the structureless mass, as interchangeable units, and taking averages. ~ Gerald M Weinberg, #NFDB
1222:Why doesn’t science take that on board as a major problem in the description of nature: the emergence of complexity? Well, you ask a scientist, they say, “Well, you see, these are separate domains of nature. How atoms become molecules has nothing to do with how animals become human beings.” This is bullshit! This is just some kind of compartmentalized thinking where you don’t want to come to grips with the overarching metaphors that are working on various levels. ~ Terence McKenna, Dreaming Awake at the End of Time, #NFDB
1223:You know, not every good book needs to be a movie, or a television series, or a video game. There's great work in those mediums, of course, but sometimes a book should remain a book. I still believe nothing tells a story with the richness and complexity of a good novel. When people say they think a book would make a good movie, they say this sometimes because, if it worked, they already saw all the images in the movie theatre that is in their brains. And sometimes that is the way it should stay. ~ Carlos Ruiz Zafon, #NFDB
1224:Cephalopods are an island of mental complexity in the sea of invertebrate animals. Because our most recent common ancestor was so simple and lies so far back, cephalopods are an independent experiment in the evolution of large brains and complex behavior. If we can make contact with cephalopods as sentient beings, it is not because of a shared history, not because of kinship, but because evolution built minds twice over. This is probably the closest we will come to meeting an intelligent alien. ~ Peter Godfrey Smith, #NFDB
1225:In other words, Birkhoff proposed a formula for the feeling of aesthetic value: M = O / C. The meaning of this formula is: For a given degree of complexity, the aesthetic measure is higher the more order the object possesses. Alternatively, if the amount of order is specified, the aesthetic measure is higher the less complex the object. Since for most practical purposes, the order is determined primarily by the symmetries of the object, Birkhoff's theory heralds symmetry as a crucial aesthetic element. ~ Mario Livio, #NFDB
1226:There is a race between the increasing complexity of the systems we build and our ability to develop intellectual tools for understanding their complexity. If the race is won by our tools, then systems will eventually become easier to use and more reliable. If not, they will continue to become harder to use and less reliable for all but a relatively small set of common tasks. Given how hard thinking is, if those intellectual tools are to succeed, they will have to substitute calculation for thought. ~ Leslie Lamport, #NFDB
1227:Individual behavior, they note in Prolegomena to the Construction of the Central City (significantly, the first neohuman work not to have a named author), was to become ‘as predictable as the functioning of a refrigerator.’ Indeed, while writing down their instructions, they acknowledged as a main source of stylistic inspiration, indeed more than any other human literary production, ‘the manual for electrical appliances of medium size and complexity, in particular the video player JVC HR-DV3S/MS. ~ Michel Houellebecq, #NFDB
1228:Simple being is a deep sigh of relief that comes from letting go of pretense. It is also the sigh that comes from releasing a heavy burden that results from creating and managing the false selves that are substitute centers for the truth of our being. It is the sigh of release as we exchange complexity for simplicity. It is the sigh of release as we let go of preoccupations, inordinate attachments, and disordered passions. Things in the depths of our beings get aligned when we let go of these things. ~ David G Benner, #NFDB
1229:Think about it. On one planet, and possibly only one planet in the entire universe, molecules that would normally make nothing more complicated than a chunk of rock, gather themselves together into chunks of rock-sized matter of such staggering complexity that they are capable of running, jumping, swimming, flying, seeing, hearing, capturing and eating other such animated chunks of complexity; capable in some cases of thinking and feeling, and falling in love with yet other chunks of complex matter. ~ Richard Dawkins, #NFDB
1230:We feared that the music which had given us sustenance was in danger of spiritual starvation. We feared it losing its sense of purpose, we feared it falling into fattened hands, we feared it floundering in a mire of spectacle, finance, and vapid technical complexity. We would call forth in our minds the image of Paul Revere, riding through the American night, petitioning the people to wake up, to take up arms. We too would take up arms, the arms of our generation, the electric guitar and the microphone. ~ Patti Smith, #NFDB
1231:Gray. For him, as for many folks, it was a confusing color. It lent itself to no particular interpretation. It was a color that could go one way or the other. People desperately wanted the world to be clear-cut in black and white. It made life so much easier: Tough decisions faded away; everything was nicely organized and cataloged. And so were people. But the world was not like that. And neither were the people who inhabited it. At least for those who bothered to explore its complexity. Its grayness. ~ David Baldacci, #NFDB
1232:In place of negative falsification, we have nurtured, in the past thirty years, a new fetishization. Black female protagonists are now unerringly strong and soulful; they are sexually voracious and unafraid; they take the unreal forms of earth mothers, African queens, divas, spirits of history; they process grandly through novels thick with a breed of greeting-card lyricism. They have little of the complexity, the flaws and uncertainties, depth and beauty of Janie Crawford and the novel she springs from. ~ Zadie Smith, #NFDB
1233:Psychiatry, as a subspecialty of medicine, aspires to define mental illness as precisely as, let’s say, cancer of the pancreas, or streptococcal infection of the lungs. However, given the complexity of mind, brain, and human attachment systems, we have not come even close to achieving that sort of precision. Understanding what is “wrong” with people currently is more a question of the mind-set of the practitioner (and of what insurance companies will pay for) than of verifiable, objective facts. ~ Bessel A van der Kolk, #NFDB
1234:Complexity theorists Eric J. Chaisson and Joseph A. Tainter supply the tools required to understand why spending discipline will likely fail and why currency wars and a dollar collapse may follow. Chaisson, an astrophysicist, is a leading theorist of complexity in evolution. Tainter, an anthropologist, is also a leading theorist of complexity as it relates to the collapse of civilization. Their theories, taken together and applied to capital markets as affected by contemporary politics, should give us pause. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1235:Expertise is the mantra of modern medicine. In the early twentieth century, you needed only a high school diploma and a one-year medical degree to practice medicine. By the century’s end, all doctors had to have a college degree, a four-year medical degree, and an additional three to seven years of residency training in an individual field of practice—pediatrics, surgery, neurology, or the like. In recent years, though, even this level of preparation has not been enough for the new complexity of medicine. ~ Atul Gawande, #NFDB
1236:If I offered you a choice between being an architect for $75,000 a year and working in a tollbooth every day for the rest of your life for $100,000 a year, which would you take? I’m guessing the former, because there is complexity, autonomy, and a relationship between effort and reward in doing creative work, and that’s worth more to most of us than money. Work that fulfills those three criteria is meaningful. Being a teacher is meaningful. Being a physician is meaningful. So is being an entrepreneur, ~ Malcolm Gladwell, #NFDB
1237:In the past, I used to think real love was anti-capitalistic.
I believed love, as the modern world understood it, was an endless siege fueled by the impossibility of healthy co-dependence.
One person always gave. One person always took.
Selflessness and selfishness.
I was wrong.
Real love is unto itself. For every person, it’s different, and no one can presume to explain its complexity using mere words.
For me, love comes down to the moments of pure, unadulterated happiness in your life. ~ Ren e Ahdieh,#NFDB
1238:Whether one believes that the faith he spawned is the world's only true religion or a preposterous fable, Joseph emerges from the fog of time as one of the most remarkable figures ever to have breathed American air. "Whatever his lapses," Harold Bloom argues in The American Religion, "Smith was an authentic religious genius, unique in our national history.... In proportion to his importance and his complexity, he remains the least-studied personage, of an undiminished vitality, in our entire national sage. ~ Jon Krakauer, #NFDB
1239:A human language is a system of remarkable complexity. To come to know a human language would be an extraordinary achievement for a creature not specifically designed to accomplish this task. A normal child acquires this knowledge on relatively slight exposure and without specific training. He can then quite effortlessly make use of an intricate structure of specific rules and guiding principles to convey his thoughts and feelings to others, arousing in them novel ideas and subtle perceptions and judgments. ~ Noam Chomsky, #NFDB
1240:Had I been present at the Creation, I would have given some useful hints for the better ordering of the universe. Remarking on the complexity of Ptolemaic model of the universe after it was explained to him. Footnote: Carlyle says, in his History of Frederick the Great, book ii. chap. vii. that this saying of Alphonso about Ptolemy's astronomy, 'that it seemed a crank machine; that it was pity the Creator had not taken advice,' is still remembered by mankind, - this and no other of his many sayings. ~ Alfonso X of Castile, #NFDB
1241:Elizabeth Turnage is a woman of grit and grace who lives into the stories of those who join her in this odd journey of seeking God. She honors the complexity of life without ever losing sight of the simple glory of the cross. Her grasp of the mundane and miraculous and their interplay gives a depth and honesty to her story that tugs at the heart and gives us hope our story can matter. Her book will be a clarion call to bring our broken, holy, troubled, and glorious life to the author of all stories: Jesus. ~ Dan B Allender, #NFDB
1242:Most of our solitude is forced, not chosen, creating loneliness rather than spiritual intimacy with the Father, and our culture is anything but morally strict. We gravitate toward the trite and trivial rather than the somber and grave, and we pride ourselves on adornment and complexity rather than simplicity, often because many of us are trying desperately to hide our true selves. Ascetics, perhaps more than any of the other spiritual temperaments, must truly go against their culture to practice loving God. ~ Gary L Thomas, #NFDB
1243:An honorable human relationship — that is, one in which two people have the right to use the word “love” — is a process, delicate, violent, often terrifying to both persons involved, a process of refining the truths they can tell each other.
It is important to do this because it breaks down human self-delusion and isolation.
It is important to do this because in doing so we do justice to our own complexity.
It is important to do this because we can count on so few people to go that hard way with us. ~ Adrienne Rich,#NFDB
1244:One person looks around and sees a universe created by a god who watches over its long unfurling, marking the fall of sparrows and listening to the prayers of his finest creation. Another person believes that life, in all its baroque complexity, is a chemical aberration that will briefly decorate the surface of a ball of rock spinning somewhere among a billion galaxies. And the two of them could talk for hours and find no great difference between one another, for neither set of beliefs make us kinder or wiser. ~ Mark Haddon, #NFDB
1245:The Winter Woman is as wild as a blizzard, as fresh as new snow. While some see her as cold, she has a fiery heart under that ice-queen exterior. She likes the stark simplicity of Japanese art and the daring complexity of Russian literature. She prefers sharp to flowing lines, brooding to pouting, and rock and roll to country and western. Her drink is vodka, her car is German, her analgesic is Advil. The Winter Woman likes her men weak and her coffee strong. She is prone to anemia, hysteria, and suicide. ~ Christopher Moore, #NFDB
1246:An idea is only an idea if it causes unease, debate and reflection. By that standard, Thomas Homer-Dixon's concept of an 'ingenuity gap' is truly a new idea. I can think of no other new concept that so fully condenses all of the challenges we face as a human civilization than the 'ingenuity gap'. Homer-Dixon has found a way to unite all of our concerns about economics, war, population growth, complexity, etc. under a single heading. He is one of an elite group of academics who can write for a mass audience. ~ Robert D Kaplan, #NFDB
1247:As we ascend to the hierarchies of living matter, we find, even on the lowest level observable through the electron microscope, sub-cellular structures-organelles-of staggering complexity. And the most striking fact is that these minuscule parts of the cell function as self-governing wholes in their own right, each following its own statute-book of rules. One type of organelles look as quasi-independent agencies after the cell's growth; others after its energy supply, reproduction, communications, and so on. ~ Arthur Koestler, #NFDB
1248:Historians often minimize or discount the impact that any one individual can have on human destiny-and for good reason. Given the broad tides in the affairs of men, and the complexity of the fires that shape and change history, it is almost always a mistake to ascribe too much significance to the actions of a single person. But even the most jaded observer an concede that, every now and then, a man or woman steps up to the plate and takes a mighty swing that clears the bases and fundamentally changes the game. ~ Kevin Fedarko, #NFDB
1249:In 2008 we suffered an economic catastrophe, and the rules of the game fundamentally changed forever. A few years ago, you might hear a leader talking about doing things "the way we've always done it." No more. Today, nearly every industry is in the midst of massive upheaval. Today, we live in a world of dizzying speed, exponential complexity, and ruthless competition. Leaders today realize they need to innovate, and their chief concerns now focus on fostering creative and innovation within their organizations. ~ Josh Linkner, #NFDB
1250:And this is a point whose importance goes far beyond this discussion of the occult. We are considering the most important law of human nature. Man is at his best when he has a strong sense of purpose. When my consciousness is doing its proper work—grasping some of the immense complexity of the universe, and calculating how to increase its control and power—its energy flows into the subconscious, and arouses all the forces of the subconscious mind. When conscious purpose fails, everything else slowly breaks down. ~ Colin Wilson, #NFDB
1251:A society that could heal the dismembered world would recognize the inherent value of each person and of the plant, animal and elemental life that makes up the earth's living body; it would offer real protection, encourage free expression, and reestablish an ecological balance to be biologically and economically sustainable. Its underlying metaphor would be mystery, the sense of wonder at all that is beyond us and around us, at the forces that sustain our lives and the intricate complexity and beauty of their dance. ~ Starhawk, #NFDB
1252:The Constitution. . . illustrates the complexity of the American system: that it serves the interests of a wealthy elite, but also does enough for small property owners, for middle-income mechanics and farmers, to build a broad base of support. The slightly prosperous people who make up this base of support are buffers against the blacks, the Indians, the very poor whites. They enable the elite to keep control with a minimum of coercion, a maximum of law--all made palatable by the fanfare of patriotism and unity. ~ Howard Zinn, #NFDB
1253:There has never been a military operation remotely approaching the scale and the complexity of D-Day. It involved 176,000 troops, more than 12,000 airplanes, almost 10,000 ships, boats, landing craft, frigates, sloops, and other special combat vessels--all involved in a surprise attack on the heavily fortified north coast of France, to secure a beachhead in the heart of enemy-held territory so that the march to Germany and victory could begin. It was daring, risky, confusing, bloody, and ultimately glorious [p.25] ~ Tom Brokaw, #NFDB
1254:Sometimes it has seemed to me that man's main accomplishment has been to tear down, rob pollute, kill. First, his earth, Then his fellow-men. In recent years has come our final, triumphal achievement: a nuclear contraption and a guided missile to carry it, works of such incredible complexity that only our handful of geniuses could create them, works that can blow up our planet in a jiffy, snuffing out life for good. Can, and probably will, given the folly of those who rule us and who have the power to decide. ~ William L Shirer, #NFDB
1255:Right now we are in an age of religious complexity. The simplicity which is in Christ is rarely found among us. In its stead are programs, methods, organizations and a world of nervous activities which occupy time and attention but can never satisfy the longing of the heart. The shallowness of our inner experience, the hollowness of our worship, and that servile imitation of the world which marks our promotional methods all testify that we, in this day, know God only imperfectly, and the peace of God scarcely at all. ~ A W Tozer, #NFDB
1256:I didn’t acknowledge his words for a moment because the world had stopped spinning as soon as I met his eyes. Galaxies had less complexity and beauty than the swirling amber and chocolate that battled for dominance in his irises. His sharp jaw and pronounced chin spoke to places deep inside me and filled me with the urge to trace my fingers across them as I drew his lips to mine. Something stronger than butterflies burst to life in my stomach, threatening to tear me apart from the inside if I kept staring at him. ~ Michelle Irwin, #NFDB
1257:I'm not trying to create a stand-in or avatar with whom the reader can identify, but separate, believable characters with distinct personalities; I'm trying to place the reader more in the role of observer rather than that of participant. I think this approach comes out of my own personal desire and struggle to understand our world, and the complex interactions of people with one another and their environment. My work is an improvised exploration of this complexity, as opposed to a structured, plot-driven narrative. ~ Jason Lutes, #NFDB
1258:In these days in which we live, when existence has become a thing of infinite complexity and fate, if it slips us a bit of goose with one hand, is pretty sure to give us the sleeve across the windpipe with the other, it is rarely that we find a human being that is unmixedly happy. Always the bitter will be blended with the sweet, and in this mélange one can be reasonably certain that it is the former that will predominate.
A severe indictment of our modern civilization, but it can't say it didn't ask for it. ~ P G Wodehouse,#NFDB
1259:try to visualize all the streams of human interaction, of communication. All those linking streams flowing in and between people, through text, pictures, spoken words and TV commentaries, streams through shared memories, casual relations, witnessed events, touching pasts and futures, cause and effect. Try to see this immense latticework of lakes and flowing streams, see the size and awesome complexity of it. This huge rich environment. This waterway paradise of all information and identities and societies and selves. ~ Steven Hall, #NFDB
1260:I looked at her and she looked at me and we weren’t walking. We were just standing there, and her eyes were so interesting. Not in the usual way of being interesting, like the extremely blue or extremely big of flanked by obscenely long lashes or anything. What interested me about the Duke’s eyes was the complexity of the color- she always said they looked like the bottom of trash-can bins, a swirl of green and brown and yellow but she was underselling herself she always undersold herself. Christ it was hard to unthink ~ John Green, #NFDB
1261:Rosemary bubbled with delight at the trunks. Her naivete responded whole-heartedly to the expensive simplicity of the Divers, unaware of its complexity and its lack of innocence, unaware that it was all a selection of quality rather than quantity from the run of the world's bazaar; and that the simplicity of behavior also, the nursery-like peace and good will, the emphasis on the simpler virtues, was part of a desperate bargain with the gods and had been attained through struggles she could not have guessed at. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald, #NFDB
1262:Routine comes down like twilight on a harsh landscape, softening it until it is tolerable. The complexity is too subtle, too varied; the values are changing utterly with each lesion of vitality; it has begun to appear that we can learn nothing from the past with which to face the future—so we cease to be impulsive, convincible men, interested in what is ethically true by fine margins, we substitute rules of conduct for ideas of integrity, we value safety above romance, we become, quite unconsciously, pragmatic. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald, #NFDB
1263:The earliest signs of living things, announcing as they do a high complexity of organization, entirely exclude the hypothesis of a transmutation from lower to higher grades of being. The first fiat of Creation which went forth, doubtlessly ensured the perfect adaptation of animals to the surrounding media; and thus, whilst the geologist recognizes a beginning, he can see in the innumerable facts of the eye of the earliest crustacean, the same evidences of Omniscience as in the completion of the vertebrate form. ~ Roderick Murchison, #NFDB
1264:Violent men’s grievances are born out of a conviction of their personal righteousness and innocence: they are never the instigators; they are only righting what has been done to them. This shit-eating innocence is crucial to the fantasy of American masculinity, a bizarre collection of expectations and tropes “so paralytically infantile,”as James Baldwin writes in “Freaks and the American Ideal of Manhood,”“that it is virtually forbidden—as an unpatriotic act—that the American boy evolve into the complexity of manhood. ~ Alice Bolin, #NFDB
1265:Instead, when you have a symptom—when you feel cloudy, sad, sore, gassy, weepy, tired, or unnecessarily anxious—bring some wonder to it. Ask why and try to make the connections. Your body’s symptoms are telling you something about equilibrium. Your body is trying to tell you that it has lost balance. Stand back and appreciate the infinite complexity of your organism. Know that fear will only drive you to treat your body like a robotic machine that needs oil and gear changes. We are so much more than buttons and levers. ~ Kelly Brogan, #NFDB
1266:The magic is not in the complexity of the task; the magic is in the doing of simple things repeatedly and long enough to ignite the miracle of the Compound Effect. So, beware of neglecting the simple things that make the big things in your life possible. The biggest difference between successful people and unsuccessful people is that successful people are willing to do what unsuccessful people are not. Remember that; it will come in handy many times throughout life when faced with a difficult, tedious, or tough choice. ~ Darren Hardy, #NFDB
1267:Violent men’s grievances are born out of a conviction of their personal righteousness and innocence: they are never the instigators; they are only righting what has been done to them. This shit-eating innocence is crucial to the fantasy of American masculinity, a bizarre collection of expectations and tropes “so paralytically infantile,” as James Baldwin writes in “Freaks and the American Ideal of Manhood,” “that it is virtually forbidden—as an unpatriotic act—that the American boy evolve into the complexity of manhood. ~ Alice Bolin, #NFDB
1268:According to Harvard University’s Atlas of Economic Complexity, the key to driving economic growth is not so much individual experts as the combination of expertise required to make complex products: for example, the mix of experience in batteries, liquid crystals, semiconductors, software, metallurgy, and lean manufacturing required to make a smartphone. The fastest way to secure this array of talent is to import it. The same idea applies to more and more fields in an age when even cooking has become culinary science. ~ Ruchir Sharma, #NFDB
1269:One of the more radical concepts in this philosophy is that God is only Mind. Anything we experience is an idea in the Mind of God, and since only Mind is real, anything material, physical, corporeal, etc. must be an illusion, only an idea. The entire physical world with all of its complexity is just an illusory thought, and if we believe something is solid, permanent, or objective, we are deluding ourselves. In this philosophy everything happens in our minds, and any change we want to see must take place in our minds. ~ Edwin Navarro, #NFDB
1270:There is an informational entity known as the metavirus, which causes
information systems to infect themselves with customized viruses. This may be
just a basic principle of nature, like Darwinian selection, or it may be an
actual piece of information that floats around the universe on comets and radio
waves -- I'm not sure. In any case, what it comes down to is this: Any
information system of sufficient complexity will inevitably become infected with
viruses -- viruses generated from within itself. ~ Neal Stephenson,#NFDB
1271:An honorable human relationship – that is, one in which two people have the right to use the word "love" – is a process, delicate, violent, often terrifying to both persons involved, a process of refining the truths they can tell each other.
It is important to do this because it breaks down human self-delusion and isolation.
It is important to do this because in doing so we do justice to our own complexity.
It is important to do this because we can count on so few people to go that hard way with us. ~ Adrienne Rich,#NFDB
1272:So it seems as though this part of us that is living a life on Earth is only a small piece or splinter of a much larger us. That we are many rather than one, or rather pieces of a more complex whole. We are only able to focus on the splinter we perceive as our totality. That is a good thing, because if we were aware of the complexity of it we would not be able to function in this world or reality. We are only able to see the facade that masks a much larger picture. Only now are we being allowed to peek behind the veil. ~ Dolores Cannon, #NFDB
1273: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. By contrast, computers double their speed and memories every 18 months. There is a real danger that computers will develop intelligence and take over. We urgently need to develop direct connections to the brain so that computers can add to human intelligence rather than be in opposition. ~ Stephen Hawking, #NFDB
1274:If my nightmare is a culture inhabited by posthumans who regard their bodies as fashion accessories rather than the ground of being, my dream is a version of the posthuman that embraces the possibilities of information technologies without being seduced by fantasies of unlimited power and disembodied immortality, that recognizes and celebrates finitude as a condition of human being, and that understands human life is embedded in a material world of great complexity, one on which we depend for our continued survival. ~ N Katherine Hayles, #NFDB
1275:At the end of the day, I really go with my personal taste and with what's on the page in terms of character. But beyond that, there's a complexity about the scripts I tend to respond to. I've not lost my curiosity about how the world functions. And a script that can embody that and thematically explore bigger questions in a way which seems fresh is likely to get my attention. Frankly, I also have an eye for what will appeal to an audience, as opposed to a self-indulgent exercise that isn't taking the audience into account. ~ Carmen Ejogo, #NFDB
1276:What are you making?" he asked me.
"Eggplant with a pomegranate walnut sauce." It was nice to be able to answer at least something with certainty. I turned the eggplant over in the pan. The sauce was just a mixture of pomegranate juice, good red wine vinegar, garlic, red pepper flakes, and salt. Nothing else. It was hard for me to resist embellishing recipes that called for so little, but the complexity of the juice transformed what would otherwise be the world's most basic support ingredients into a symphony of flavor. ~ Beth Harbison,#NFDB
1277:When Galileo showed that his methods of scientific discovery were competent to provide a mechanical theory which should cover every occupant of space, Descartes found in himself two conflicting motives. As a man of scientific genius he could not but endorse the claims of mechanics, yet as a religious and moral man he could not accept, as Hobbes accepted, the discouraging rider to those claims, namely that human nature differs only in degree of complexity from clockwork. Thgjnental could not be just a variety of the mechanical. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1278:I woke up with a start, a little after 5:30 in the morning, to that wonderful feeling that lasts only a fraction of a second, when you don’t know where you are—not even what continent you’re on! I jumped up from the futon and went over to my computer to make a note of the few fragments of the dream I could still hold on to before they completely melted away in the mind’s morning fog. The complexity and the confusion of the adventure put me in a good mood: I take such dreams as a sign that my brain is in good working order. ~ C dric Villani, #NFDB
1279:Modern science is characterized by its ever-increasing specialization, necessitated by the enormous amount of data, the complexity of techniques and of theoretical structures within every field. Thus science is split into innumerable disciplines continually generating new subdisciplines. In consequence, the physicist, the biologist, the psychologist and the social scientist are, so to speak, encapsulated in their private universes, and it is difficult to get word from one cocoon to the other. ~ Ludwig von Bertalanffy, General System Theory, #NFDB
1280:The portrait artist must acknowledge human complexity with each brushstroke. The eyes, nose and mouth that compose a sitter's face, just like the suffering and joy that compose his soul, are similar to those of ten million others yet still singular to him. This acknowledgment is where art begins. It may also be where mercy begins. If criminals drew the faces of their victims before perpetrating their crimes and judges drew the faces of the guilty before sentencing them, then there would be no faces for executioners to draw. ~ Anthony Marra, #NFDB
1281:It is tempting when looking at the life of anyone who has committed suicide to read into the decision to die a vastly complex web of reasons; and, of course, such complexity is warranted. No one illness or event causes suicide; and certainly no one knows all, or perhaps even most, of the motivations behind the killing of the self. But psychopathology is almost always there, and its deadliness is fierce. Love, success, and friendship are not always enough to counter the pain and destructiveness of severe mental illness ~ Kay Redfield Jamison, #NFDB
1282:My relationship with the Internet was like the one I had with the :). I hated the :) and hated to be the object of other people’s :), their :-) and their :>. I hated :-)) the most because it reminded me of my double chin. Then there was :( and :-( and ;-) as well as ;) and *-), which I didn’t even understand, although it was not as mystifying as D:< or >:O or :-&. These simplifications of speech, designed by idiots, resulted in hieroglyphics of such compounded complexity that they flew far above my intelligence. ~ Joshua Ferris, #NFDB
1283:But unpredictability was not the reason physicists and mathematicians began taking pendulums seriously again in the sixties and seventies. Unpredictability was only the attention-grabber. Those studying chaotic dynamics discovered that the disorderly behavior of simple systems acted as a creative process. It generated complexity: richly organized patterns, sometimes stable and sometimes unstable, sometimes finite and sometimes infinite, but always with the fascination of living things. That was why scientists played with toys. ~ James Gleick, #NFDB
1284:I saw the endless steppes, which, although they appeared to be nothing but desert, were, in fact, full of life, full of creatures hidden in the low scrub. I saw the flat horizon, the vast empty space, heard the sound of horses’ hooves, the quiet wind, and then, all around us, nothing, absolutely nothing. It was as if the world had chosen this place to display, at once, its vastness, its simplicity, and its complexity. It was as if we could—and should—become like the steppes—empty, infinite, and, at the same time, full of life. ~ Paulo Coelho, #NFDB
1285:People want their reason for living to be a singular thing, like a career or a relationship, because this makes an individual feel secure in the physical world. We don't fare well in the realm of the invisible - so telling someone that their purpose is multilayered and includes the arduous journey of discovering who they really are is not always the answer they want to hear. But consider the complexity of the question: "What is my reason for living?" How can that question not include a journey into the depths of your own life? ~ Caroline Myss, #NFDB
1286:It takes me some time, standing in front of this poster, to understand why the word “diverse” strikes me as so false in this context, so disingenuous. It is not because this neighborhood is not full of many different kinds of people, but because that word implies some easy version of this difficult reality, some version that is not full of sparks and averted eyes and police cars. But still, I’d like to believe in the promise of that word. Not the sunshininess of it, or the quota-making politics of it, but the real complexity of it. ~ Eula Biss, #NFDB
1287:Now, in the development of our knowledge of the workings of Nature out of the tremendously complex assemblage of phenomena presented to the scientific inquirer, mathematics plays in some respects a very limited, in others a very important part. As regards the limitations, it is merely necessary to refer to the sciences connected with living matter, and to the ologies generally, to see that the facts and their connections are too indistinctly known to render mathematical analysis practicable, to say nothing of the complexity. ~ Oliver Heaviside, #NFDB
1288:In spite of the complexity of your situation, it's notable that you didn't waver when it came to what you know to be the right thing to do. That's because you know the right thing to do. So do it. It's hard, I know. It's one of the hardest things you'll ever have to do. And you're going to bawl your head off doing it. But I promise you it will be okay. Your tears will be born of grief, but also of relief. You will be better for them. They will make you harder, softer, cleaner, dirtier. Free.
A glorious something else awaits. ~ Cheryl Strayed,#NFDB
1289:It was just too easy to say that adults did not like stories that were simple, and perhaps that was wrong. Perhaps that was what adults really wanted, searched for and rarely found: a simple story in which good triumphs against cynicism and dispair. That was what she wanted, but she was aware of the fact that one did not publicise the fact too widely, certainly not in sophisticated circles. Such circles wanted complexity, dysfunction and irony: there was no room for joy, celebration or pathos. But where was the FUN in that? ~ Alexander McCall Smith, #NFDB
1290:Yes,” she said, “television is one of those unique products of the American genius. A means of keeping a complex country intact. Just as America begins to explode every which way, riches and opportunity and complexity, just then along comes the TV to bring it all together. Rich and poor, black and white—they share the same heroes, Matt Dillon and Paladin. In January the talk is of Superbowl. In October, baseball. Say what you will, but only Americans could so skillfully build instant bridges among the classes, bind together diversity. ~ Tim O Brien, #NFDB
1291:The boundaries of these ecoranges, by the way, like the boundaries of all self-organized systems, are very porous. There is a constant flow of energy, and information, into and out of them. They are all tightly interwoven into the larger ecosystem of the Earth itself. Each acts locally, each acts globally. They are part of a highly complex and redundant system for maintaining the homeodynamis of the Earth. They develop more complexity over time, for the greater the complexity, the greater the ability to maintain homeodynamis. ~ Stephen Harrod Buhner, #NFDB
1292:modern software is inherently complex, and no matter how hard you try, you'll eventually bump into some level of complexity that's inherent in the real-world problem itself. This suggests a two-prong approach to managing complexity: Minimize the amount of essential complexity that anyone's brain has to deal with at any one time. Keep accidental complexity from needlessly proliferating. Once you understand that all other technical goals in software are secondary to managing complexity, many design considerations become straightforward. ~ Steve McConnell, #NFDB
1293:There is no theoretical reason to expect evolutionary lineages to increase in complexity with time, and no empirical evidence that they do so. Nevertheless, eukaryotic cells are more complex than prokaryotic ones, animals and plants are more complex than protists, and so on. This increase in complexity may have been achieved as a result of a series of major evolutionary transitions. These involved changes in the way information is stored and transmitted.
[The major evolutionary transitions, Nature 374, 227 - 232 (16 March 1994)] ~ John Maynard Smith,#NFDB
1294:One study showed that an individual in an open relationship tends to be "individualistic, an academic achiever, creative, nonconforming, stimulated by complexity and chaos, inventive, relatively unconventional and indifferent to what others said, concerned about his/her own personal values and ethical systems, and willing to take risks to explore possibilities." Because open relationships require well-developed relationship skills, people in them tend to have more self-awareness, better communication skills and a better sense of self. ~ Tristan Taormino, #NFDB
1295:When I come to a new city is I combine: I say, well, it's like Barcelona and Edinburgh, though I can't imagine what that would be. But Toronto, the last few times I've been here, what always comes up is Chicago and West Berlin. It's a big, sprawling city beside a lake, of a certain age and a certain architectural complexity. But the high-end retail core looks more like West Germany than the Magnificent Mile. Yonge Street is like K-Damm. There's an excess of surface marble and bronze: it's Germanic and as pretentious as pretentious can be. ~ William Gibson, #NFDB
1296:Generally speaking, our minds impose an entirely artificial order on the world. It is the only way that such an inadequate instrument as our brain can function. It cannot deal with the complexity of reality, so simplifies everything until it can, putting events into an artificial order so they can be dealt with one at a time, rather than all at once as they should be. Such a way of interpreting existence is learnt, rather in the way that our brain has to turn the images which hit our retinas upside down in order to make sense of them. Children ~ Iain Pears, #NFDB
1297:It’s a shame that there isn’t a true name for a woman like my mother, Gwendolyn. My father, James, is a bigamist. That is what he is. Laverne is his wife. She found him first and my mother has always respected the other woman’s squatter’s rights. But was my mother his wife, too? She has legal documents and even a single Polaroid proving that she stood with James Alexander Witherspoon Junior in front of a judge just over the state line in Alabama. However, to call her only his “wife” doesn’t really explain the full complexity of her position. ~ Tayari Jones, #NFDB
1298:What distinguishes [Afropolitans] is a willingness to complicate Africa – namely, to engage with, critique, and celebrate the parts of Africa that mean most to them. Perhaps what most typifies the Afropolitan consciousness is the refusal to oversimplify; the effort to understand what is ailing in Africa alongside the desire to honour what is wonderful, unique. Rather than essentialising the geographical entity, we seek to comprehend the cultural complexity; to honour the intellectual and spiritual legacy; and to sustain our parents’ cultures. ~ Taiye Selasi, #NFDB
1299:We are all, always, the desire not to die. This desire is as immeasurable and varied as life's complexity, but at bottom this is what it is: To continue to be, to be more and more, to develop and to endure. All the force we have, all our energy and clearness of mind serve to intensify themselves in one way or another. We intensify ourselves with new impressions, new sensations, new ideas. We endeavour to take what we do not have and to add it to ourselves. Humanity is the desire for novelty founded upon the fear of death. That is what it is. ~ Henri Barbusse, #NFDB
1300:When a livestock farmer is willing to “practice complexity”—to choreograph the symbiosis of several different animals, each of which has been allowed to behave and eat as it evolved to—he will find he has little need for machinery, fertilizer, and, most strikingly, chemicals. He finds he has no sanitation problem or any of the diseases that result from raising a single animal in a crowded monoculture and then feeding it things it wasn’t designed to eat. This is perhaps the greatest efficiency of a farm treated as a biological system: health. ~ Michael Pollan, #NFDB
1301:I am someone who proudly and humbly affirms that love is the mystery-of-mysteries, and that nothing measurable matters 'a very good God damn'; that 'an artist, a man, a failure' is no mere whenfully accreting mechanism, but a givingly eternal complexity-neither some soulless and heartless ultrapredatory infra-animal nor any understandingly knowing and believing and thinking automaton, but a naturally and miraculously whole human being-a feelingly illimitable individual; whose only happiness is to transcend himself, whose every agony is to grow. ~ e e cummings, #NFDB
1302:We already realize that in a multilevel system which is self-organizing at least at a macroscopic and microscopic level, it is no longer the same if we assume that energy organizes matter or that the reverse holds. If the emphasis is on matter systems organizing energy, a microscopic, Darwinian description seems to follow. If the aspect of an energy system organizing matter is in the foreground, a macroscopic description in terms of ultracycles imposes itself, in which entire ecosystems evolve to higher complexity. ~ Erich Jantsch, The Self-Organizing Universe, #NFDB
1303:The fact that these organizations shift between cooperation, competition, and violent conflict increases the general complexity of their interactions and with it their collective capacity, efficiency, and resilience. The diffuse nature of Palestinian resistance and the fact that knowledge, skills, and munitions are transferred within and between these organizations—and that they sometimes stage joint attacks and at others compete to outdo each other—substantially reduces the effect that the Israeli occupation forces seek to achieve by attacking them ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1304:There is, then, an analogy–and perhaps more than mere analogy–between central vision and conscious, one-at-a-time thinking, and between peripheral vision and the rather mysterious process which enables us to regulate the incredible complexity of our bodies without thinking at all. It should be noted, further, that we call our bodies complex as a result of trying to understand them in terms of linear thought, of words and concepts. But the complexity is not so much in our bodies as in the task of trying to understand them by this means of thinking. ~ Alan W Watts, #NFDB
1305:When we talk of "exploring the mystical," we are not trying to dig into creation, because if you dig into creation, it will only get more complex. It will not bring clarity; it will only bring more complexity. That is why the yogis looked in a different direction. We looked inward. If you look inward, a different dimension opens up. Now instead of things getting more complex, you get to clarity. It is because of this that we say that those who look inward have a third eye. They see things that others cannot see. They have brought a new clarity to life. ~ Sadhguru, #NFDB
1306:The mitochondria in our cells, that power our metabolism, were formerly free living bacteria, as are the chloroplasts that power those of plants. All complex life-forms are generated through just this kind of cooperative joining, over long evolutionary time, with information built upon information, complexity always increasing in order to more fully stabilize the system. And all such symbiogenic joinings produce life-forms that are not only more complex but whose capacities cannot be predicted from a study of the parts that joined together. ~ Stephen Harrod Buhner, #NFDB
1307:An ignorant man, who is not fool enough to meddle with his clock, is however sufficiently confident to think he can safely take to pieces, and put together at his pleasure, a moral machine of another guise, importance and complexity, composed of far other wheels, and springs, and balances, and counteracting and co-operating powers. Men little think how immorally they act in rashly meddling with what they do not understand. Their delusive good intention is no sort of excuse for their presumption. They who truly mean well must be fearful of acting ill. ~ Edmund Burke, #NFDB
1308:Supposing we divide the world into two parts—on the one side, matter which has no roots in mass consciousness, and on the other side the living being. Would we not be justified then in saying, “But—interiority, the rudiment of consciousness, exists everywhere; it is only that if the particle is extremely simple, the consciousness is so small that we cannot perceive it; if there is an increase in complexity, this consciousness comes out into the open and we have the world of life?” ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Place of Technology in a General Biology of Mankind, #NFDB
1309:While this new motto might seem self-contradictory, Mark explains that it focuses on a higher-level goal. “The goal is to move fast,” Mark told me. “When we were smaller, being willing to break things allowed us to move faster. But as we grew, the willingness to break things actually started slowing us down, because increasing complexity made it harder and harder to fix things once they broke. By taking the extra time to focus on stable infrastructure, we reduce the impact and time to recover from breaking things, so that we can actually move faster. ~ Reid Hoffman, #NFDB
1310:Why Should I Care What Color the Bikeshed Is? "The really, really short answer is that you should not. The somewhat longer answer is that just because you are capable of building a bikeshed does not mean you should stop others from building one just because you do not like the color they plan to paint it. This is a metaphor indicating that you need not argue about every little feature just because you know enough to do so. Some people have commented that the amount of noise generated by a change is inversely proportional to the complexity of the change. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1311:What shall I say! And how shall I describe this Birth to you? For this wonder fills me with astonishment. The Ancient of Days has become an infant. He Who sits upon the sublime and heavenly Throne, now lies in a manger. And He Who cannot be touched, Who is simple, without complexity, and incorporeal, now lies subject to the hands of men. He Who has broken the bonds of sinners, is now bound by an infant's bands. But He has decreed that ignominy shall become honor, infamy be clothed with glory, and total humiliation the measure of His Goodness. ~ Saint John Chrysostom, #NFDB
1312:Every age has its own characteristics. Right now we are in an age of religious complexity. The simplicity which is in Christ is rarely found among us. In its stead are programs, methods, organizations and a world of nervous activities which occupy time and attention but can never satisfy the longing of the heart. The shallowness of our inner experience, the hollowness of our worship, and that servile imitation of the world which marks our promotional methods all testify that we, in this day, know God only imperfectly, and the peace of God scarcely at all. ~ A W Tozer, #NFDB
1313:An immune system of enormous complexity is present in all vertebrate animals. When we place a population of lymphocytes from such an animal in appropriate tissue culture fluid, and when we add an antigen, the lymphocytes will produce specific antibody molecules, in the absense of any nerve cells. I find it astonishing that the immune system embodies a degree of complexity which suggests some more or less superficial though striking analogies with human language, and that this cognitive system has evolved and functions without assistance of the brain. ~ Niels Kaj Jerne, #NFDB
1314:wealthy conservatives at the ballot box. The Constitution, then, illustrates the complexity of the American system: that it serves the interests of a wealthy elite, but also does enough for small property owners, for middle-income mechanics and farmers, to build a broad base of support. The slightly prosperous people who make up this base of support are buffers against the blacks, the Indians, the very poor whites. They enable the elite to keep control with a minimum of coercion, a maximum of law—all made palatable by the fanfare of patriotism and unity. ~ Howard Zinn, #NFDB
1315:We live in strange times. We also live in strange places: each in a universe of our own. The people with whom we populate our universes are the shadows of whole other universes intersecting with our own. Being able to glance out into this bewildering complexity of infinite recursion and say things like, 'Oh, hi, Ed! Nice tan. How's Carol?' involves a great deal of filtering skill for which all conscious entities have eventually to develop a capacity in order to protect themselves from the contemplation of the chaos through which they seethe and tumble. ~ Douglas Adams, #NFDB
1316:Concealed within the stones are frozen fires. Borne on vast waves of polychrome gas that attracted, discarded, formed, and reformed patterns of infinite complexity, the living sparks had taken their allotted places. They were burning before the beginning. They will burn after the end. Their fire is impervious to time. Time is a human concept. Creation is on a different scale. Every spark was a syllable spoken into silence, a miniscule portion of the great Word that became a roar of limitless power and exploded to create a universe. From chaos, cosmos. ~ Morgan Llywelyn, #NFDB
1317:People are storytelling creatures. We like stories that go somewhere, and therefore we like trends - because trends are things that either get better or get worse, so we can either rejoice or lament. But we mistakenly depict many things as trends moving in some direction. We take the "full house" of variation in a system and try to represent it as a single number, when in fact what we should be doing is studying the variation as it expands and contracts. If you look at the history of the variation in all its complexity, then you see there's no trend. ~ Stephen Jay Gould, #NFDB
1318:The theory they used to prevent women voting was that the female brain could not comprehend the complexity of politics. Politics was for men. Child-bearing was for women. And the best supplier of reasons for keeping people in their place has always been religion. We saw it at work in the debate over slavery. The Bible and the Qur’an both took slavery for granted. They took the subordination of women for granted too. So we run up against the awkward fact that sacred texts can be used to supply ammunition for those who want to keep people under control. ~ Richard Holloway, #NFDB
1319:Never can a new idea move within the law. It matters not whether that idea pertains to political and social changes or to any other domain of human thought and expression - to science, literature, music; in fact, everything that makes for freedom and joy and beauty must refuse to move within the law. How can it be otherwise? The law is stationary, fixed, mechanical, 'a chariot wheel' which grinds all alike without regard to time, place and condition, without ever taking into account cause and effect, without ever going into the complexity of the human soul. ~ Emma Goldman, #NFDB
1320:functional design, where it applies, makes the least psychological demands on the people. They are highly secure both in their work and in their relationships. When it, however, is being used beyond fairly narrow limits of size and complexity it creates emotional tensions, hostilities, and insecurities. People will then tend to see themselves and their functions belittled, besieged, attacked. They will come to see it as their first job to defend their function, to protect it against marauders in other functions, to make sure “it doesn’t get pushed around. ~ Peter F Drucker, #NFDB
1321:After having produced aquatic animals of all ranks and having caused extensive variations in them by the different environments provided by the waters, nature led them little by little to the habit of living in the air, first by the water's edge and afterwards on all the dry parts of the globe. These animals have in course of time been profoundly altered by such novel conditions; which so greatly influenced their habits and organs that the regular gradation which they should have exhibited in complexity of organisation is often scarcely recognisable. ~ Jean Baptiste Lamarck, #NFDB
1322:War is not a football game, nor is it merely an expanded version of a fistfight on the school playground. Because Fourth Generation war involves not only many different players, but many different kinds of players, fighting for many different kinds of goals (anything from money to political power to religious martyrdom), it is more complex than war between state militaries. Attempts to simplify that complexity by ignoring various elements merely set us up for failure. The worst possible simplification is reducing the problem to putting firepower on targets. ~ William S Lind, #NFDB
1323:Perhaps because of pressure for simple sound bites, a steady stream of reports in the media (and even in the scientific literature) has created the false impression that the brain area for such-and-such has just been discovered. Such reports feed popular expectation and hope for easy labeling, but the true situation is much more interesting: the continuous networks of neural circuitry accomplish their functions using multiple, independently discovered strategies. The brain lends itself well to the complexity of the world, but poorly to clear-cut cartography. ~ David Eagleman, #NFDB
1324:Truth is always stranger than fiction. We craft fiction to match our sense of how things ought to be, but truth cannot be crafted. Truth is, and truth has a way of astonishing us to our knees. Reminding us, that the universe does not exist to fulfill our expectations. Because we are imperfect beings who are self-blinded to the truth of the world’s stunning complexity, we shave reality to paper thin theories and ideologies that we can easily grasp – and we call them truths. But the truth of a sea in all it’s immensity cannot be embodied in one tidewashed pebble. ~ Dean Koontz, #NFDB
1325:We are living in complex, difficult times and I wanted Syriana to reflect this complexity in a visceral way, to embrace it narratively. There are no good guys and no bad guys and there are no easy answers. The characters do not have traditional character arcs; the stories don't wrap up in neat little life lessons, the questions remain open. The hope was that by not wrapping everything up, the film will get under your skin in a different way and stay with you longer. This seemed like the most honest reflection of this post 9-11 world we all find ourselves in. ~ Stephen Gaghan, #NFDB
1326:Raisin in our only outlier for now: her mother is white, she lives in a white neighbourhood, she eats white food, she listens to white music and goes to a white school. In some ways, things will be easier for her, and in others, much harder, because you can belong even less when you come from two separate factions. We struggled towards whiteness, and soon she will have to develop her own definitions for the complexity of being two things at once. I want to stamp brownness on her, but in a way that protects her rather than exposes her. I can't have it both ways. ~ Scaachi Koul, #NFDB
1327:There had been times-he was almost certain-when he'd known unmitigated joy, but so faded were they to his recollection that he had begun to suspect the fictional conjuring of nostalgia. As with civilizations and their golden ages, so too with people: each individual ever longing for that golden past moment of true peace and wellness.
So often it was rooted in childhood, in a time before the strictures of enlightenment had afflicted the soul, when what had seemed simple unfolded its complexity like the petals of a poison flower, to waft its miasma of decay. ~ Steven Erikson,#NFDB
1328:Stephen Pinker of Harvard even argues that early humans’ intelligence increased “partly because they were equipped23 with levers of influence on the world, namely the grippers found at the end of their two arms.” We now know that the literally incredible amount of sensitivity and articulation of the human hand, which has increased at roughly the same pace as has the complexity of the human brain, is not merely a product of the pressures of natural selection, but an initiator of it: The hand has led the brain to evolve24 just as much as the brain has led the hand. ~ William Rosen, #NFDB
1329:The ribosomes, for instance, which manufacture proteins, rival in complexity any chemical factory. The mitochondria are power plants which extract energy from food by a complicated chain of chemical reactions involving some fifty different steps: a single cell may have up to five thousand such power plants. Then there are the centrosomes, with their spindle apparatus, which organises the incredible choreography of the cell dividing into two; and the DNA spirals of heredity, coiled up in the inner sanctum of the chromosomes, working their even more potent magic. ~ Arthur Koestler, #NFDB
1330:To me, fiction writing at any length, in any form, is a feat of radical compression: take the sprawling chaos of human experience, run it through the sieve of perception, and distill it into something comparatively miniscule that somehow, miraculously, illuminates the vast complexity around it. I don’t think about short stories any differently than I do about novels or novellas or even memoirs. But the smaller scale of a story is important; the distillation must be even more extreme in order to succeed. It also must be purer; there is almost no room for mistakes. ~ Jennifer Egan, #NFDB
1331:I would call the attention of the reader to the difference between "reason" and "reasoning." Reason is a light, reasoning a process. Reason is a faculty, reasoning an exercise of that faculty. Reasoning proceeds from one truth to another by means of argumentation. This generally involves the whole mind in labor and complexity. But reason does not exist merely in order to engage in reasoning. The process is a means to an end. The true fulfillment of reason as a faculty is found when it can embrace the truth simply and without labor in the light of single intuition. ~ Thomas Merton, #NFDB
1332:People have a hard time accepting free-market economics for the same reason they have a hard time accepting evolution: it is counterintuitive. Life looks intelligently designed, so our natural inclination is to infer that there must be an intelligent designer--a God. Similarly, the economy looks designed, so our natural inclination is to infer that we need a designer--a government. In fact, emergence and complexity theory explains how the principles of self-organization and emergence cause complex systems to arise from simple systems without a top-down designer. ~ Michael Shermer, #NFDB
1333:What’s simple to do is also simple not to do.” The magic is not in the complexity of the task; the magic is in the doing of simple things repeatedly and long enough to ignite the miracle of the Compound Effect. So, beware of neglecting the simple things that make the big things in your life possible. The biggest difference between successful people and unsuccessful people is that successful people are willing to do what unsuccessful people are not. Remember that; it will come in handy many times throughout life when faced with a difficult, tedious, or tough choice. ~ Darren Hardy, #NFDB
1334:If we want to postulate a deity capable of engineering all the organized complexity in the world, either instantaneously or by guiding evolution, that deity must have been vastly complex in the first place. The creationist, whether a naive Bible-thumper or an educated bishop, simply postulates an already existing being of prodigious intelligence and complexity. If we are going to allow ourselves the luxury of postulating organized complexity without offering an explanation, we might as well make a job of it and simply postulate the existence of life as we know it! ~ Richard Dawkins, #NFDB
1335:To the average man, life presents itself, not as material malleable to his hand, but as a series of problems…which he has to solve…And he is distressed to find that the more means he can dispose of—such as machine-power, rapid transport, and general civilized amenities, the more his problems grow in hardness and complexity….Perhaps the first thing he can learn form the artists is that the only way of 'mastering' one's material is to abandon the whole conception of mastery and to co-operate with it in love: whosoever will be a lord of life, let him be its servant. ~ Dorothy L Sayers, #NFDB
1336:We have to look at the figures of speech a writer uses, his images and symbols, to realize that underneath all the complexity of human life that uneasy stare at an alien nature is still haunting us, and the problem of surmounting it still with us. Above all, we have to look at the total design of a writer's work, the title he gives to it, and the his main theme, which means his point in writing it, to understand that literature is still doing the same job that mythology did earlier, but filling in its huge cloudy shapes with sharper lights and deeper shadows. [p.32] ~ Northrop Frye, #NFDB
1337:in one of the most famous papers of the twentieth century, ‘The Architecture of Complexity’, Simon wrote that the central theme that runs through my remarks is that complexity frequently takes the form of hierarchy, and that hierarchic systems have some common properties that are independent of their specific content. Hierarchy, I shall argue, is one of the central structural schemes that the architect of complexity uses. And also: I have already given an example of one kind of hierarchy that is frequently encountered in the social sciences: a formal organisation. ~ Daniel L Everett, #NFDB
1338:I still have those childish moments when I wish with all my heart that I could wake up and find it's all been a dream. I really have thought that. I have felt-stronger than grief, stronger than anger, stronger than despair-the profound desire to return to the netherworld of the safer past. There are still flashes of unexpected sadness, the pauses that last longer than they used to. The desire for retribution, the fear of retribution. Like a death in the family, like a personal tragedy, an event like this lays bare the complexity of our worlds, internal and external. ~ David Levithan, #NFDB
1339:For an enzyme to be functional, it must fold into a precise three-dimensional shape. How such a complex folding can take place remains a mystery. A small chain of 150 amino acids making up an enzyme has an extraordinary number of possible folding configurations: if it tested 1,012 different configurations every second, it would take about 1,026 years to find the right one. . . . Yet, a denatured enzyme can refold within fractions of a second and then precisely react in a chemical reaction. . . . [I]t demonstrates a stunning complexity and harmony in the universe.21 ~ T Colin Campbell, #NFDB
1340:Friendship is not enjoyable unless we take up its expressive challenges. If a person surrounds himself with “friends” who simply reaffirm his public persona, who never question his dreams and desires, who never force him to try out new ways of being, he misses out on the opportunities friendship presents. A true friend is someone we can occasionally be crazy with, someone who does not expect us to be always true to form. It is someone who shares our goal of self-realization, and therefore is willing to share the risks that any increase in complexity entails. ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, #NFDB
1341:The natural world seems a marvel of complexity, requiring a vastly intricate intelligence to create and govern it, just because we have represented it to ourselves in the clumsy 'notation' of thought.
[...] Understanding nature by means of thought is like trying to make out the contours of an enormous cave with the aid of a small flashlight casting a bright but very thin beam. The path of the light and the series of 'spots' over which it has passed must be retained in memory, and from this record the general appearance of the cave must laboriously be reconstructed. ~ Alan W Watts,#NFDB
1342:It's possible to find order in chaos, and it's equally possible to find chaos underlying apparent order. Order and chaos are slippery concepts. They're like a set of twins who like to swap clothing from time to time. Order and chaos frequently intermingle and overlap, the same as beginnings and endings. Things are often more complicated, or more simple, than they seem. Often it depends on your angle. I think that telling a story is a way of trying to make life's complexity more comprehensible. It's a way of trying to separate order from chaos, patterns from pandemonium. ~ Gavin Extence, #NFDB
1343:it is not that complexity is overrated, but is is overcomplicated; it is not that obscurity is too obscure, it's that the underside grows grungy if it isn't exposed to the change of air;
it is not that the language is exhausted, it is that we run down; it's not that the edge won't cut anymore, it is that the cuts are getting thinner;
it's not that art is artificial, it is that the artists get outright seditty; it's not that literary reputations are not inevitable, it's that they are invented;
not that theories are not beautiful, but that they are feeble ~ C D Wright,#NFDB
1344:We need merely understand that the evolutionary process is neither random nor determined but creative. It follows the general pattern of all creativity. While there is no way of fully understanding the origin moment of the universe we can appreciate the direction of evolution in its larger arc of development as moving from lesser to great complexity in structure and from lesser to greater modes of consciousness. We can also understand the governing principles of evolution in terms of its three movements toward differentiation, inner spontaneity, and comprehensive bonding. ~ Thomas Berry, #NFDB
1345:Yet, when we allow complexity to be hidden and handled for us, we should at least notice what we are giving up. We risk becoming users of components, handlers of black boxes that do not open or don’t seem worth opening. We risk becoming people who cannot really fix things, who can only swap components, work with mechanisms we can use but do not understand in crucial ways. This not-knowing is fine while everything works as we expected. But when something breaks or goes wrong or needs fundamental change, what will we do except stand helpless in the face of our own creations ~ Ellen Ullman, #NFDB
1346:I have often wondered whether the white people who know we are kin actually see us as family. It's critical for me to think about the possibilities of every Southern white family connected to African Americans on DNA tests truly reaching out and vice versa, to create a dialogue. Would we be better off if we embraced this complexity and dealt with our pain or shame? Would we finally be Americans or Southerners or both if we truly understood how impenetrably connected we actually are? Is it too late?
Maybe I'll just invite everyone to dinner one day and find out. ~ Michael W Twitty,#NFDB
1347:I will help-but only so much, only so far. It is not that I believe these children are less than my own. It is not that I believe I do not have a responsibility for them. It is just that in a world of haves and have-nots, I do not want to give up too much of what I have. I do not want to diminish the complexity and diversity of my life. Instead, I will choose to spend another seventy-five dollars on myself rather than send another child to school, and I will choose to do this over and over again. I no longer think of myself as a good person. I have adjusted to that. ~ Sharman Apt Russell, #NFDB
1348:let’s instead define life very broadly, simply as a process that can retain its complexity and replicate. What’s replicated isn’t matter (made of atoms) but information (made of bits) specifying how the atoms are arranged. When a bacterium makes a copy of its DNA, no new atoms are created, but a new set of atoms are arranged in the same pattern as the original, thereby copying the information. In other words, we can think of life as a self-replicating information-processing system whose information (software) determines both its behavior and the blueprints for its hardware. ~ Max Tegmark, #NFDB
1349:To the average man, life presents itself, not as material malleable to his hand, but as a series of problems...which he has to solve...And he is distressed to find that the more means he can dispose of-such as machine-power, rapid transport, and general civilized amenities, the more his problems grow in hardness and complexity....Perhaps the first thing he can learn form the artists is that the only way of 'mastering' one's material is to abandon the whole conception of mastery and to co-operate with it in love: whosoever will be a lord of life, let him be its servant. ~ Dorothy L Sayers, #NFDB
1350:I will help--but only so much, only so far. It is not that I believe these children are less than my own. It is not that I believe I do not have a responsibility for them. It is just that in a world of haves and have-nots, I do not want to give up too much of what I have. I do not want to diminish the complexity and diversity of my life. Instead, I will choose to spend another seventy-five dollars on myself rather than send another child to school, and I will choose to do this over and over again. I no longer think of myself as a good person. I have adjusted to that. ~ Sharman Apt Russell, #NFDB
1351:Maketa Groves has a strong, bright lyric gift. Her poems come out of music and are full of music. They bring us the sounds of the streets and the sounds of nature, and make us see once again that they are parts of the same song. She celebrates American lives as they are lived today: the mother scrubbing her kitchen floor at midnight, the drag-queens in the Tenderloin, the homeless woman knitting in the courtyard. This is poetry that relentlessly shows us the beauty in the world, with all its struggles and complexity, and demands that we go out to meet it with open hearts. ~ Diane di Prima, #NFDB
1352:as long as Nature’s actions in the animate and inanimate world fill us with wonder and offer an unmatched example for us, a realm of solutions that exceeds in its perfection and complexity everything we can achieve ourselves, the number of unknowns will be bigger than our knowledge. It is only when we are eventually able to compete with Nature on the level of creation, when we have learned to copy it so that we can discover all of its limitations as a Designer, that we shall enter the realm of freedom, of being able to work out a creative strategy subordinated to our goals. ~ Stanis aw Lem, #NFDB
1353:During the twentieth century, neuroscientists and psychologists also came to more fully appreciate the astounding complexity of the human brain. Inside our skulls, they discovered, are some 100 billion neurons, which take many different shapes and range in length from a few tenths of a millimeter to a few feet.4 A single neuron typically has many dendrites (though only one axon), and dendrites and axons can have a multitude of branches and synaptic terminals. The average neuron makes about a thousand synaptic connections, and some neurons can make a hundred times that number. ~ Nicholas Carr, #NFDB
1354:There were profound reasons for his attachment to the sea: he loved it because as a hardworking artist he needed rest, needed to escape from the demanding complexity of phenomena and lie hidden on the bosom of the simple and tremendous; because of a forbidden longing deep within him that ran quite contrary to his life's task and was for that very reason seductive, a longing for the unarticulated and immeasurable, for eternity, for nothingness. To rest in the arms of perfection is the desire of any man intent upon creating excellence; and is not nothingness a form of perfection? ~ Thomas Mann, #NFDB
1355:What does reflect reality very well is complexity theory, which comes from physics. I'm the one pioneering the idea of bringing it to capital markets. When you look at capital markets through the lens of complexity theory, you ask "what's the scale of the system?" Scale is a fancy word for size. What measures are you using? If you look at total debt, the concentration of assets in the five largest banks, what percentage of the total assets of the five largest banks are interconnected? What you see is a very densely connected, fragile system that could collapse at any moment. ~ James Rickards, #NFDB
1356:A cosmic perspective actually strengthens our concerns about what happens here and now, because it offers a vision of just how prodigious life’s future potential could be. Earth’s biosphere is the outcome of more than four billion years of Darwinian selection: the stupendous time spans of the evolutionary past are now part of common culture. But life’s future could be more prolonged than its past. In the aeons that lie ahead, even more marvellous diversity could emerge, on and beyond Earth. The unfolding of intelligence and complexity could still be near its cosmic beginnings. ~ Martin J Rees, #NFDB
1357:We don’t like checklists. They can be painstaking. They’re not much fun. But I don’t think the issue here is mere laziness. There’s something deeper, more visceral going on when people walk away not only from saving lives but from making money. It somehow feels beneath us to use a checklist, an embarrassment. It runs counter to deeply held beliefs about how the truly great among us—those we aspire to be—handle situations of high stakes and complexity. The truly great are daring. They improvise. They do not have protocols and checklists. Maybe our idea of heroism needs updating. ~ Atul Gawande, #NFDB
1358:Over time, I started becoming more aware of the vastness and complexity of the universe, which led me away from any sort of conventional Christianity. I still love the teachings of Christ, but I also believe that the human condition prevents us from having any true objective knowledge of the universe. All human belief systems are inherently flawed. If I had to label myself now, I'd call myself a Taoist-Christian-agnostic quantum mechanic. Also, there's nothing in the actual Bible that limits a Christian in their interest in science. Anti-science is a function of ignorant fundamentalism. ~ Moby, #NFDB
1359:One can truly say that the irresistible progress of natural science since the time of Galileo has made its first halt before the study of the higher parts of the brain, the organ of the most complicated relations of the animal to the external world. And it seems, and not without reason, that now is the really critical moment for natural science; for the brain, in its highest complexity—the human brain—which created and creates natural science, itself becomes the object of this science. ~ Ivan Pavlov, #NFDB
1360:From the distance of England the Italian cuisine seems to be all things to all people. It does not expect you to bend to its rigor, like the French. It is not rough and boisterous like the Spanish. It is soft and feminine and is adored in the highest circles, though it is not above a degree of prostitution too. But first and foremost it is kind to children. Consider the pizza: all around the world the pizza has come to represent the deepest form of security known to the human palate. It is like a smiling face: it assuages the fear of complexity by showing everything on its surface. ~ Rachel Cusk, #NFDB
1361:In literature, too, we admire prose in which a small and astutely arranged set of words has been constructed to carry a large consignment of ideas. 'We all have strength enough to bear the misfortunes of others,' writes La Rochefoucauld in an aphorism which transports us with an energy and exactitude comparable to that of Maillard bridge. The Swiss engineer reduces the number of supports just as the French writer compacts into a single line what lesser minds might have taken pages to express. We delight in complexity to which genius has lent an appearance of simplicity. (p 207) ~ Alain de Botton, #NFDB
1362:That’s how you deal with the overwhelming complexity of the world: you ignore it, while you concentrate minutely on your private concerns. You see things that facilitate your movement forward, toward your desired goals. You detect obstacles, when they pop up in your path. You’re blind to everything else (and there’s a lot of everything else—so you’re very blind). And it has to be that way, because there is much more of the world than there is of you. You must shepherd your limited resources carefully. Seeing is very difficult, so you must choose what to see, and let the rest go. ~ Jordan Peterson, #NFDB
1363:Women face a lot of challenges every day - we have to stand firm in our walk and our intentions - but there are times when that weight feels too heavy, feels like a load that I just can't bear that day. I try to work through that in my art, whatever medium that might be. My live performance is based around the color red, and all the things that communicates as a woman to the world - fiery, really vocal, present, almost a kind of stubborn color - and redefining it as being very complex. Being able to express that complexity, I'm getting a lot better at that the older I've gotten. ~ Solange Knowles, #NFDB
1364:Modernist manuals of writing often conflate story with conflict. This reductionism reflects a culture that inflates aggression and competition while cultivating ignorance of other behavioral options. No narrative of any complexity can be built on or reduced to a single element. Conflict is one kind of behavior. There are others, equally important in any human life, such as relating, finding, losing, bearing, discovering, parting, changing. Change is the universal aspect of all these sources of story. Story is something moving, something happening, something or somebody changing. ~ Ursula K Le Guin, #NFDB
1365:As polytheism is in religious belief reflected in the recognition of moral complexity, so henotheism in religious practice is reflected in the recognition of moral diversity. To worship different gods is to align oneself with different ideals, and to embrace different moral standards. The example of the mother and the judge shows one way in which this works out in practice. The mother places parental love above impartial justice, while the judge does the opposite. In the language of Greek Paganism, the mother bows to Hera, the judge to Zeus Dikaios, and both are right to do so. ~ John Michael Greer, #NFDB
1366:I am a political recidivist. An incorrigible, repeat voter. A career lever-pusher. My electoral rap sheet is as long as your arm. Over the course of three decades, I have voted for presidents and school board members. I have voted in high hopes and high dudgeon. I have voted in favor of candidates and merely against their opponents. I have voted for propositions written with such complexity that I needed Noam Chomsky to deconstruct their meaning. I have been a single-issue voter and a marginal voter. I have even voted for people who ran unopposed. Hold an election and I'll be there. ~ Ellen Goodman, #NFDB
1367:That’s how you deal with the overwhelming complexity of the world: you ignore it, while you concentrate minutely on your private concerns. You see things that facilitate your movement forward, toward your desired goals. You detect obstacles, when they pop up in your path. You’re blind to everything else (and there’s a lot of everything else—so you’re very blind). And it has to be that way, because there is much more of the world than there is of you. You must shepherd your limited resources carefully. Seeing is very difficult, so you must choose what to see, and let the rest go. ~ Jordan B Peterson, #NFDB
1368:The kernel of a strategy contains three elements: A diagnosis that defines or explains the nature of the challenge. A good diagnosis simplifies the often overwhelming complexity of reality by identifying certain aspects of the situation as critical. A guiding policy for dealing with the challenge. This is an overall approach chosen to cope with or overcome the obstacles identified in the diagnosis. A set of coherent actions that are designed to carry out the guiding policy. These are steps that are coordinated with one another to work together in accomplishing the guiding policy. ~ Richard P Rumelt, #NFDB
1369:Secular theorists often assume they know what a religious argument is like: they present it as a crude prescription from God, backed up with threat of hellfire, derived from general or particular revelation, and they contrast it with the elegant complexity of a philosophical argument by Rawls (say) or Dworkin. With this image in mind, they think it obvious that religious argument should be excluded from public life. . . . But those who have bothered to make themselves familiar with existing religious-based arguments in modern political theory know that this is mostly a travesty . . 13 ~ Edward Feser, #NFDB
1370:We live in strange times. We also live in strange places: each in a universe of our own. The people with whom we populate our universes are the shadows of whole other universes intersecting with our own. Being able to glance out into this bewildering complexity of infinite recursion and say things like, “Oh, hi, Ed! Nice tan. How’s Carol?” involves a great deal of filtering skill for which all conscious entities have eventually to develop a capacity in order to protect themselves from the contemplation of the chaos through which they seethe and tumble. So give your kid a break, okay? ~ Douglas Adams, #NFDB
1371:The Analytical Engine might act upon other things besides number, were objects found whose mutual fundamental relations could be expressed by those of the abstract science of operations, and which should be also susceptible of adaptations to the action of the operating notation and mechanism of the engine… Supposing, for instance, that the fundamental relations of pitched sounds in the science of harmony and of musical composition were susceptible of such expression and adaptations, the engine might compose elaborate and scientific pieces of music of any degree of complexity or extent. ~ Ada Lovelace, #NFDB
1372:the participants in the public debate risk being driven less by reasoned arguments than by what catches the mood of the moment. The immediate focus is pounded daily into the public consciousness by advocates whose status is generated by the ability to dramatize. Participants at public demonstrations are rarely assembled around a specific program. Rather, many seek the uplift of a moment of exaltation, treating their role in the event primarily as participation in an emotional experience. These attitudes reflect in part the complexity of defining an identity in the age of social media. ~ Henry Kissinger, #NFDB
1373:In moments of spiritual crisis we naturally fall back upon what worked for us, or seemed to work, heretofore. Sometimes this shows up through the reassertion of our old values in belligerent, testy ways. Regression of any kind is just such a return to old presumptions, often after they have been shown to be insufficient for the complexity of larger questions. The virtue of the old presumptions is that they once worked, or seemed to work, and therein lies if not certainty, then nostalgia for a previous, presumptive security. In our private lives, we frequently fall back upon our old roles. ~ James Hollis, #NFDB
1374:I feel with some passion that what we truly are is private, and almost infinitely complex, and ambiguous, and both external and internal, and double- or triple- or multiply natured, and largely mysterious even to ourselves; and furthermore that what we are is only part of us, because identity, unlike "identity", must include what we do. And I think that to find oneself and every aspect of this complexity reduced in the public mind to one property that apparently subsumes all the rest ("gay", "black", "Muslim", whatever) is to be the victim of a piece of extraordinary intellectual vulgarity. ~ Philip Pullman, #NFDB
1375:I don't know if the young Einstein had encountered the Paradiso during his intellectual wanderings in Italy, and whether or not the vivid imagination of the Italian poet may have had a direct influence on his intuition that the universe might be both finite and without boundary. Whether or not such influence occurred, I believe that this example demonstrates how great science and great poetry are both visionary, and may even arrive at the same intuitions. Our culture is foolish to keep science and poetry separated: they are two tools to open our eyes to the complexity and beauty of the world. ~ Carlo Rovelli, #NFDB
1376:Imagination in these works is equated with empathy; we can't experience all that others have gone through, but we can understand even the most monstrous individuals in works of fiction. A good novel is one that shows the complexity of individuals, and creates enough space for all these characters to have a voice; in this way a novel is called democratic—not that it advocates democracy but that by nature it is so. Empathy lies at the heart of Gatsby, like so many other great novels—the biggest sin is to be blind to others' problems and pains. Not seeing them means denying their existence. ~ Azar Nafisi, #NFDB
1377:Ordinary psyches often react to bad news with a momentary thrill, seeing the world, for once, in jagged clarity, as if lightning has just struck. But then darkness and dysfunction rush in. A mind such as Beethoven's remains illumined, or sees in the darkness shapes it never saw before, which inspire rather than terrify. This altered shape (raptus, he would say) makes art of the shapes, while holding in counterpoise such dualities as intellect and intuition, the conscious and the unconscious, mental health and mental disorder, the conventional and the unconventional, complexity and simplicity. ~ Edmund Morris, #NFDB
1378:If one takes meaning into consideration, happiness might best be described as “a zest for life in all its complexity,” as Sissela Bok writes in her book. To achieve it means to “attach our lives to something larger than ourselves.” To be happy, one must do. It could be something as simple as teaching Sunday school or as grand as leading nonviolent protests. It could be as cerebral as seeking the cure for cancer or as physical as climbing mountains. It could be creating art. And it could be raising a child—my “best piece of poetrie,” as Ben Jonson said in his elegy for his seven-year-old son. ~ Jennifer Senior, #NFDB
1379:And if you did this, if you saved your mother from this vicious killer, would you be doing the wrong thing or the right thing?"
"The right thing," I said just as swiftly.
"No, Lin, I'm afraid not," he frowned. "We have just seen that in the terms of this new, objective definition of good and evil, killing is always wrong because, if everyone did it, we would not move toward God, the ultimate complexity, with the rest of the universe. So it is wrong to kill. But your reasons were good. So therefore, the truth of this decision is that you did the wrong thing, for the right reasons ... ~ Gregory David Roberts,#NFDB
1380:She held out her hand, like a man. He hesitated, then took the hand and shook it. It was very warm. You could not help but be aware of the wild passage of blood on the other side of its wall, veins, capillaries, sweat glands, tiny factories in the throes of complicated manufacture. [He] looked at the eyes and, knowing how eyes worked, was astonished, not for the first time, at the infinite complexity of Creation, wondering how this thing, this instrument for seeing, could transmit so clearly its entreaty while at the same time—-Look, I am only an eye—-denying that it was doing anything of the sort. ~ Peter Carey, #NFDB
1381:To the non-suspecting citizen at large, things are entirely plain: he sees naught but a man and a woman in love. But upon closer inspection things are, in fact, incredibly complicated: it is the love of a man who feels like a woman, but feels attracted to a woman instead of other men; a woman who, in turn, feels like a man and not like a woman, but nonetheless loves the man! Eventually the complexity of the problem is annulled entirely naturally: the mutual feelings are experienced as normal and only slightly tainted by a suspicion of inversion.
"The Death Of Baron Jesus Maria Von Friedel ~ Hanns Heinz Ewers,#NFDB
1382:The story of evolution is more dramatic, more compelling, more intricate than any creation myth. Yet like any creation myth, it is a tale of transformations, of sudden and spectacular changes, eruptions of innovation that transfigured our planet, overwriting past revolutions with new layers of complexity. The tranquil beauty of our planet from space belies the real history of this place, full of strife and ingenuity and change. How ironic that our own petty squabbles reflect our planet's turbulent past, and that we alone, despoilers of the Earth, can rise above it to see the beautiful unity of the whole. ~ Nick Lane, #NFDB
1383:War as a moral metaphor is limited, limiting, and dangerous. By reducing the choices of action to “a war against” whatever-it-is, you divide the world into Me or Us (good) and Them or It (bad) and reduce the ethical complexity and moral richness of our life to Yes/No, On/Off. This is puerile, misleading, and degrading. In stories, it evades any solution but violence and offers the reader mere infantile reassurance. All too often the heroes of such fantasies behave exactly as the villains do, acting with mindless violence, but the hero is on the “right” side and therefore will win. Right makes might. ~ Ursula K Le Guin, #NFDB
1384:Psychologist Arthur S. Reber offers the following summary of the psychological research on decision making: “During the 1970s . . . it became increasingly apparent that people do not typically solve problems, make decisions, or reach conclusions using the kinds of standard, conscious, and rational processes that they were more-or-less assumed to be using.” To the contrary, people could best be described, in much of their decision making, as being “arational”: “When people were observed making choices and solving problems of interesting complexity, the rational and logical elements were often missing. ~ William B Irvine, #NFDB
1385:Look at any randomly selected piece of your world. Encoded deep in the biology of every cell in every blade of grass, in every insect’s wing, in every bacterium cell, is the history of the third planet from the Sun in a Solar System making its way lethargically around a galaxy called the Milky Way. Its shape, form, function, colour, smell, taste, molecular structure, arrangement of atoms, sequence of bases, and possibilities for the future are all absolutely unique. There is nowhere else in the observable Universe where you will see precisely that little clump of emergent, living complexity. It is wonderful. ~ Brian Cox, #NFDB
1386:To assess Franklin properly, we must view him, instead, in all his complexity. He was not a frivolous man, nor a shallow one, nor a simple one. There are many layers to peel back as he stands before us so coyly disguised, both to history and to himself, as a plain character unadorned by wigs and other pretensions. Let’s begin with the surface layer, the Franklin who serves as a lightning rod for the Jovian bolts from those who disdain middle-class values. There is something to be said—and Franklin said it well and often—for the personal virtues of diligence, honesty, industry, and temperance, especially ~ Walter Isaacson, #NFDB
1387:From time to time, a complex algorithm will lead to a longer routine, and in those circumstances, the routine should be allowed to grow organically up to 100–200 lines. (A line is a noncomment, nonblank line of source code.) Decades of evidence say that routines of such length are no more error prone than shorter routines. Let issues such as the routine's cohesion, depth of nesting, number of variables, number of decision points, number of comments needed to explain the routine, and other complexity-related considerations dictate the length of the routine rather than imposing a length restriction per se. ~ Steve McConnell, #NFDB
1388:You truly contain within your gentleness, within your humanity, all the unyielding immensity and grandeur of the world. And it is because of this, it is because there exists in you this ineffable synthesis of what our human thought and experience would never have dared join together in order to adore them—element and totality, the one and the many, mind and matter, the infinite and the personal; it is because of the indefinable contours which this complexity gives to your appearance and to your activity, that my heart, enamoured of cosmic reality, gives itself passionately to you. ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Cosmic Life, #NFDB
1389:But he could no longer disbelieve in the reality of love, since God Himself had loved his individual soul with divine love from all eternity. Gradually, as his soul was enriched with spiritual knowledge, he saw the whole world forming one vast symmetrical expression of God's power and love. Life became a divine gift for every moment and sensation of which, were it even the sight of a single leaf hanging on the twig of a tree, his soul should praise and thank the Giver. The world for all its solid substance and complexity no longer existed for his soul save as a theorem of divine power and love and universality. ~ James Joyce, #NFDB
1390:The original condition of human beings, prior to the development of self-reflective consciousness, must have been a state of inner peace disturbed only now and again by tides of hunger, sexuality, pain, and danger. The forms of psychic entropy that currently cause us so much anguish—unfulfilled wants, dashed expectations, loneliness, frustration, anxiety, guilt—are all likely to have been recent invaders of the mind. They are by-products of the tremendous increase in complexity of the cerebral cortex and of the symbolic enrichment of culture. They are the dark side of the emergence of consciousness. ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, #NFDB
1391:We are convinced by things that show internal complexity, that show the traces of an interesting evolution. Those signs tell us that we might be rewarded if we accord it our trust. An important aspect of design is the degree to which the object involves you in its own completion. Some work invites you into itself by not offering a finished, glossy, one-reading-only surface. This is what makes old buildings interesting to me. I think that humans have a taste for things that not only show that they have been through a process of evolution, but which also show they are still a part of one. They are not dead yet. ~ Stewart Brand, #NFDB
1392:The transpersonal experiences revealing the Earth as an intelligent, conscious entity are corroborated by scientific evidence. Gregory Bateson, who created a brilliant synthesis of cybernetics, information and systems theory, the theory of evolution, anthropology, and psychology came to the conclusion that it was logically inevitable to assume that mental processes occurred at all levels in any system or natural phenomenon of sufficient complexity. He believed that mental processes are present in cells, organs, tissues, organisms, animal and human groups, eco-systems, and even the earth and universe as a whole. ~ Stanislav Grof, #NFDB
1393:Yet despite the complexity of contemporary society, there are still some simple formulas we can use to distill the path to social and economic flourishing. One of these, labeled the “Success Sequence,” and credited to Ron Haskins and Isabel Sawhill of the left-of-center Brookings Institute, proposes a three-step rule book for modern American life:
1. Finish high school.
2. Get a job. (Any job. Because working leads to more working, which leads to better jobs.)
3. Get married before having children.
When people follow this pattern—and crucially, in this order—life generally turns out pretty well. ~ Ben Sasse,#NFDB
1394:Noögenesis rises upwards in us and through us unceasingly. We have pointed to the principal characteristics of that movement: the closer association of the grains of thought; the synthesis of individuals and of nations or races; the need of an autonomous and supreme personal focus to bind elementary personalities together, without deforming them, in an atmosphere of active sympathy. And, once again: all this results from the combined action of two curvatures—the roundness of the earth and the cosmic convergence of mind—in conformity with the law of complexity and consciousness. ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man, #NFDB
1395:... there was one new metallic monstrosity stacked in one corner that she hadn’t seen the last time she was a visitor to his strange chamber, it appeared to be a mass of hard drives all fused together, but they looked too sophisticated to be merely hard drives.
“What on earth is that?”
“That’s my Kung Fu,” he said proudly, patting the top of the futuristic-looking stack.
“Is that what you wanted to show me?”
“No, but it’s impressive, isn’t it?”
“If you say so.”
Steves sighed and shook his head, so few people could appreciate the intellectual complexity of an almost untraceable hacking device. ~ E A Bucchianeri,#NFDB
1396:The rise of complexity through layering—through stratified stability—is seen everywhere. A symbiosis of prokaryotes created eukaryotes. Around the gymnosperm’s “naked seed” evolved the additional layer of the angiosperm’s “covered seed.” Solitary insects came before the hive and the hill. Computer programmers ensure that each subroutine checks before assembling the whole. Fax machines incorporate prior stable units: telephone, microchip, printing, paper, and alphabet. Words preceded sentences, which preceded books. All are composites, layer stacked upon stabilizing layer. ~ Tyler Volk, Metapatterns - Across Space, Time, and Mind, #NFDB
1397:The way we envision the stars is by imagining they're attached to a giant invisible sphere surrounding the earth. It is a total fiction, really - just a construction we came up with to help us get our heads around the complexity of it all ... The ecliptic, put simply is the plane of the earth's orbit around the sun. But since we all live here on earth, we observe the sun to be moving along this plane instead. Why? Because what would be the point of looking at things from the perspective of the sun? That's no use to anyone ... Ergo, it's an imaginary circle, as it's only a part of our human construction of the cosmos. ~ Benjamin Wood, #NFDB
1398:Pessimism is a very easy way out when you’re considering what life really is, because pessimism is a short view of life. If you look at what is happening around us today and what has happened just since you were born, you can’t help but feel that life is a terrible complexity of problems and illnesses of one sort or another. But if you look back a few thousand years, you realize that we have advanced fantastically from the day when the first amoeba crawled out of the slime and made its adventure on land. If you take a long view, I do not see how you can be pessimistic about the future of man or the future of the world. ~ Robertson Davies, #NFDB
1399:When it comes down to it, government is simply an abandonment of responsibility on the assumption that there are people, other than ourselves, who really know how to manage things. But the government, run ostensibly for the good of the people, becomes a self-serving corporation. To keep things under control it proliferates laws of ever-increasing complexity and unintelligibility, and hinders productive work by demanding so much accounting on paper that the record of what has been done becomes more important than what has actually been done. The Taoist moral is that people who mistrust themselves and one another are doomed. ~ Alan W Watts, #NFDB
1400:When it comes down to it, government is simply an abandonment of responsibility on the assumption that there are people, other than ourselves, who really know how to manage things. But the government, run ostensibly for the good of the people, becomes a self-serving corporation. To keep things under control, it proliferates law of ever-increasing complexity and unintelligibility, and hinders productive work by demanding so much accounting on paper that the record of what has been done becomes more important than what has actually been done. [...] The Taoist moral is that people who mistrust themselves and one another are doomed. ~ Alan W Watts, #NFDB
1401:And there were moments in this fetid little paradise when I prayed that in spite of everything I was capable of, I was somehow kin to every mortal. Maybe I was not the exotic outcast that I imagined, but merely the dim magnification of every human soul. Old truths and ancient magic, revolution and invention, all conspire to distract us from the passion that in one way or another defeats us all. And weary finally of this complexity, we dream of that long-ago time when each kiss was the pefect consummation of desire. What can we do but reach for the embrace that must now contain both heaven and hell: our doom again and again and agian. ~ Anne Rice, #NFDB
1402:In his 1993 book Technopoly, Neil Postman distilled the main tenets of Taylor’s system of scientific management. Taylorism, he wrote, is founded on six assumptions: “that the primary, if not the only, goal of human labor and thought is efficiency; that technical calculation is in all respects superior to human judgment; that in fact human judgment cannot be trusted, because it is plagued by laxity, ambiguity, and unnecessary complexity; that subjectivity is an obstacle to clear thinking; that what cannot be measured either does not exist or is of no value; and that the affairs of citizens are best guided and conducted by experts. ~ Nicholas Carr, #NFDB
1403:Man's mind cannot grasp the causes of events in their completeness, but the desire to find those causes is implanted in man's soul. And without considering the multiplicity and complexity of the conditions any one of which taken separately may seem to be the cause, he snatches at the first approximation to a cause that seems to him intelligible and says: "This is the cause!" In historical events (where the actions of men are the subject of observation) the first and most primitive approximation to present itself was the will of the gods and, after that, the will of those who stood in the most prominent position—the heroes of history. ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
1404:No spiritual exercise is such a blending of complexity and simplicity. It is the simplest form of speech that infant lips can try, yet the sublimest strains that reach the Majesty on high. It is as appropriate to the aged philosopher as to the little child. It is the ejaculation of a moment and the attitude of a lifetime. It is the expression of the rest of faith and of the fight of faith. It is an agony and an ecstasy. It is submissive and yet importunate. In the one moment it lays hold of God and binds the devil. It can be focused on a single objective and it can roam the world. It can be abject confession and rapt adoration. ~ John F MacArthur Jr, #NFDB
1405:we are in an age of religious complexity. The simplicity which is in Christ is rarely found among us. In its stead are programs, methods, organizations and a world of nervous activities which occupy time and attention but can never satisfy the longing of the heart. The shallowness of our inner experience, the hollowness of our worship, and the servile imitation of the world which marks our promotional methods all testify that we, in this day, know God only imperfectly, and the peace of God scarcely at all. If we would find God amid all the religious externals we must first determine to find Him, and then proceed in the way of simplicity. ~ A W Tozer, #NFDB
1406:The scene is reputed to be acrawl with adorably amoral bunnies to whom sex is a pleasant social favor. The new culture. And they are indeed present and available, in exhausting quantity but there is a curious tastelessness about them. A woman who does not guard and treasure herself cannot be of very much value to anyone else. They become a pretty little convenience, like a guest towel. And the cute little things they say, and their dainty little squeals of pleasure and release are as contrived as the embroidered initials on the guest towels. Only a women of pride, complexity and emotional tension is genuinely worth the act of love. ~ John D MacDonald, #NFDB
1407:We imagined ourselves as the Sons of Liberty with a mission to preserve, protect, and project the revolutionary spirit of rock and roll. We feared that the music which had given us sustenance was in danger of spiritual starvation. We feared it losing its sense of purpose, we feared it falling into fattened hands, we feared it floundering in a mire of spectacle, finance, and vapid technical complexity. We would call forth in our minds the image of Paul Revere, riding through the American night, petitioning the people to wake up, to take up arms. We too would take up arms, the arms of our generation, the electric guitar and the microphone. ~ Patti Smith, #NFDB
1408:Isolate complexity. Complexity in all forms—complicated algorithms, large data sets, intricate communications protocols, and so on—is prone to errors. If an error does occur, it will be easier to find if it isn't spread through the code but is localized within a class. Changes arising from fixing the error won't affect other code because only one class will have to be fixed—other code won't be touched. If you find a better, simpler, or more reliable algorithm, it will be easier to replace the old algorithm if it has been isolated into a class. During development, it will be easier to try several designs and keep the one that works best. ~ Steve McConnell, #NFDB
1409:Evolutionary theories allowed materialist theories of consciousness to come in two flavors: emergentism and panpsychism. The former proposes that consciousness emerges from unconscious matter once that matter achieves a certain level of complexity or organization. Sperry was leaning heavily in this direction. The latter, panpsychism, tosses the whole problem out by suggesting that all matter has subjective consciousness, albeit in a wide range of types. The idea here is that there is no need for the idea of emergence and complexity to explain consciousness. Consciousness is a primordial feature of all things, from rocks to ants to us. ~ Michael S Gazzaniga, #NFDB
1410:We imagined ourselves as the Sons of Liberty with a mission to preserve, protect, and project the revolutionary spirit of rock and roll. We feared that the music which had given us sustenance was in danger of spiritual starvation. We feared it losing its sense of purpose, we feared it falling into fattened hands, we feared it floundering in a mire of spectacle, finance, and vapid technical complexity. We would call forth in our minds the image of Paul Revere, riding through the American night, petitioning the people to wake up, to take up arms. We too would take up arms, the arms of our generation, the electric guitar and the microphone. CBGB ~ Patti Smith, #NFDB
1411:The main reason for the terrible cruelty between men today, apart from the absence religion, is still the refined complexity of life which shields people from the consequences of their actions. However cruel Attila, Genghis Khan and their followers may have been, the act of killing people personally, face to face, must have been unpleasant: the wailing relatives and the presence of the corpses. And thus their cruelty was restrained. Nowadays we kill people through such a complex process of communication, and the consequences of our cruelty are so carefully removed and concealed from us, that there is no restraint on the bestiality of the action. ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
1412:Digital computers are themselves more complex than most things people build; they have very large numbers of states. This makes conceiving, describing, and testing them hard. Software systems have orders of magnitude more states than computers do. Likewise, a scaling-up of a software entity is not merely a repetition of the same elements in larger size; it is necessarily an increase in the number of different elements. In most cases, the elements interact with each other in some nonlinear fashion, and the complexity of the whole increases much more than linearly. The complexity of software is an essential property, not an accidental one. ~ Frederick P Brooks Jr, #NFDB
1413:I believe that the disenchantment of the modern universe is the direct result of a simplistic epistemology and moral posture spectacularly inadequate to the depths, complexity, and grandeur of the cosmos. To assume a priori that the entire universe is ultimately a soulless void within which our multidimensional consciousness is an anomalous accident, and that purpose, meaning, conscious intelligence, moral aspiration, and spiritual depths are solely attributes of the human being, reflects a long-invisible inflation on the part of the modern self. And heroic hubris is still indissolubly linked, as it was in ancient Greek tragedy, to heroic fall. ~ Richard Tarnas, #NFDB
1414:one gradually equilibrizes the whole of one’s mental structure and obtains a simple view of the incalculably vast complexity of the universe. For it is written: “Equilibrium is the basis of the work.” Serious students will need to make a careful study of the attributions detailed in this work and commit them to memory. When, by persistent application to his own mental apparatus, the numerical system with its correspondences is partly understood—as opposed to being merely memorized—the student will be amazed to find fresh light breaking in on him at every turn as he continues to refer every item in experience and consciousness to this standard. ~ Israel Regardie, #NFDB
1415:Sophie, come here,' Mike said, and led her upstairs and into a large bedroom. A Greek rug covered the bed; a Mexican ceramic horse stood in front of the fireplace. On one of the bedside tables were piled paperback detective stories in their penny candy wrapper covers.
'Who reads those? You or Flo?'
'Me,' he replied, and he sighed and looked winsome. They're good for me. They ride roughshod over what I live with. Potent men. Palpitating women . . . a murderer's mind laid out like the contents of a child's pencil box.'
'You aren't reading the right ones.'
'The new ones are the old ones. That false complexity is just another kind of pencil box. ~ Paula Fox,#NFDB
1416:there is a reason that puppies, and kittens, and young children, and newly emerging plants all have such a similar feeling to them. These developmental stages occur across genus and species lines—they exist for a purpose they are evolutionary innovations. They allow for unique perceptions of the world, and unique types of interactions with environment. Each developmental stage or consciousness module allows different aspects of the layered complexity of the world within which we are immersed to be perceived. That is a primary part of their function. It is an aspect of the emergent behaviors that occur in all self-organized biological systems ~ Stephen Harrod Buhner, #NFDB
1417:Ideology claims to be binding for the whole society. This development leads to typical problems. As the complexity of society increases, so do the demands upon ideology as a schema for solving problems; in particular, there occurs an unsurveyable increase in the interdependencies among the individual components of an ideology, whose consistency must continue to be maintained. Changes, accommodations, and renovations in an ideology become markedly dífficult, because every small step can have unforeseeable repercussions upon the premises appealed to. The burdens upon the reflexive and opportunistic mechanisms anchored in ideology then become excessive. ~ Niklas Luhmann, #NFDB
1418:With our limited senses and consciousness, we only glimpse a small portion of reality. Furthermore, everything in the universe is in a state of constant flux. Simple words and thoughts cannot capture this flux or complexity. The only solution for an enlightened person is to let the mind absorb itself in what it experiences, without having to form a judgment on what it all means. The mind must be able to feel doubt and uncertainty for as long as possible. As it remains in this state and probes deeply into the mysteries of the universe, ideas will come that are more dimensional and real than if we had jumped to conclusions and formed judgments early on. ~ Robert Greene, #NFDB
1419:The point of loose coupling is that an effective module provides an additional level of abstraction—once you write it, you can take it for granted. It reduces overall program complexity and allows you to focus on one thing at a time. If using a module requires you to focus on more than one thing at once—knowledge of its internal workings, modification to global data, uncertain functionality—the abstractive power is lost and the module's ability to help manage complexity is reduced or eliminated. Classes and routines are first and foremost intellectual tools for reducing complexity. If they're not making your job simpler, they're not doing their jobs. ~ Steve McConnell, #NFDB
1420:Those three things—autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward—are, most people agree, the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying. It is not how much money we make that ultimately makes us happy between nine and five. It’s whether our work fulfills us. If I offered you a choice between being an architect for $75,000 a year and working in a tollbooth every day for the rest of your life for $100,000 a year, which would you take? I’m guessing the former, because there is complexity, autonomy, and a relationship between effort and reward in doing creative work, and that’s worth more to most of us than money. ~ Malcolm Gladwell, #NFDB
1421:All our time spent making lists would be better spent painting, or writing, Or singing, or learning to speak stories. Sometimes I feel as though the Church has a kind of pity for Scripture, Always having to come behind it and explain everything, put everything into actionable steps, acronyms and hidden secrets, as though the original writers, and for that matter the Holy Spirit Who worked in the lives of the original writers, were a bunch of you literate hillbillies. I think the methodology God used to explain His Truth is quite superior. My life is a story, more than a list. I don't feel that a list could ever explain the complexity of all this beauty. ~ Donald Miller, #NFDB
1422:Reality consists of sets of interacting problems, systems of problems we call “messes.” As previously noted, problems are abstractions extracted from reality by analysis. Therefore, education for practice should develop and apply methodology for dealing holistically with systems of problems. Because messes are complex, this requires an ability to cope with complexity. It is much easier to deal with complexity through design in practice—for example, in designing a skyscraper—than in dealing with it academically in a classroom or research facility. The theory of complexity is not required for dealing with complexity in practice; design can handle it. To ~ Russell L Ackoff, #NFDB
1423:Those three things - autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward - are, most people agree, the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying. It is not how much money we make that ultimately makes us happy between nine and five. It's whether our work fulfills us. If I offered you a choice between being an architect for $75,000 a year and working in a tollbooth every day for the rest of your life for $100,000 a year, which would you take? I'm guessing the former, because there is complexity, autonomy, and a relationship between effort and reward in doing creative work, and that's worth more to most us us than money. ~ Malcolm Gladwell, #NFDB
1424:Like an explosive awaiting a spark, unimaginably numerous environments in the universe are waiting out there, for aeons on end, doing nothing at all or blindly generating evidence and storing it up or pouring it out into space. Almost any of them would, if the right knowledge ever reached it, instantly and irrevocably burst into a radically different type of physical activity: intense knowledge-creation, displaying all the various kinds of complexity, universality and reach that are inherent in the laws of nature, and transforming that environment from what is typical today into what could become typical in the future. If we want to, we could be that spark. ~ David Deutsch, #NFDB
1425:[E]very individual is a unique manifestation of the Whole, as every branch is a particular outreaching of the tree. To manifest individuality, every branch must have a sensitive connection with the tree, just as our independently moving and differentiated fingers must have a sensitive connection with the whole body. The point, which can hardly be repeated too often, is that differentiation is not separation. The head and the feet are different, but not separate, and though man is not connected to the universe by exactly the same physical relation as branch to tree or feet to head, he is nonetheless connected—and by physical relations of fascinating complexity. ~ Alan W Watts, #NFDB
1426:I speak of none but the computer that is to come after me,” intoned Deep Thought, his voice regaining its accustomed declamatory tones. “A computer whose merest operational parameters I am not worthy to calculate—and yet I will design it for you. A computer that can calculate the Question to the Ultimate Answer, a computer of such infinite and subtle complexity that organic life itself shall form part of its operational matrix. And you yourselves shall take on new forms and go down into the computer to navigate its ten-million-year program! Yes! I shall design this computer for you. And I shall name it also unto you. And it shall be called…the Earth.” Phouchg ~ Douglas Adams, #NFDB
1427:In the following pages I argue that we have both philosophical and scientific reasons to doubt the adequacy of this widely accepted doctrine of materialism. In the history of Western philosophy, as we will see, it has turned out to be notoriously difficult to formulate a viable concept of matter. And physics in the twentieth century has produced weighty reasons to think that some of the core tenets of materialism were mistaken. These results, when combined with the new theories of information, complexity, and emergence summarized elsewhere in this volume, point toward alternative accounts of the natural world that deserve careful attention and critical evaluation. ~ Paul Davies, #NFDB
1428:You’d have to be crazy to want this job. I don’t mean to be casual about that; I mean that the desire to be the president is a currently undiagnosed but very specific form of insanity. Only a person with an unfathomably huge ego and an off-the-charts level of blind self-confidence and an insatiable hunger for control could look at America, in all of her enormity, with all of her complexity, with all of her beauty and flaws and strength and power, and say, “Yeah. I should be in charge of that.” Only a lunatic would look at a job where you get slandered and scrutinized and attacked by the media and sometimes even assassinated and say, “Sign me up!” Only a lunatic. ~ Daniel O Brien, #NFDB
1429:YOUR CAPACITY IS LIMITED The challenge is that the demand in our lives increasingly exceeds our capacity. Think of capacity as the fuel that makes it possible to bring your skill and talent fully to life. Most of us take our capacity for granted, because for most of our lives we’ve had enough. What’s changed is that between digital technology and rising complexity, there’s more information and more requests coming at us, faster and more relentlessly than ever. Unlike computers, however, human beings aren’t meant to operate continuously, at high speeds, for long periods of time. Rather, we’re designed to move rhythmically between spending and renewing our energy. ~ Jocelyn K Glei, #NFDB
1430:There are webs of complexity that tie everything together, and they are more numerous than the stars in the night sky. At the moment of self-organization of the bacterial membrane, complex feedback loops, both interoceptive and exteroceptive, immediately formed. Information from both locations began traveling in a huge, never-ending river composed of trillions upon trillions of bytes of data to the self-organized, more-than-the-sum-of-the-parts living system that had come into being. The system began, in that instant of self-organization, to modulate both its interior and exterior worlds in order to maintain its state. It began to modulate its environment. ~ Stephen Harrod Buhner, #NFDB
1431:I believe in the complexity of the human story and that there’s no way you can tell that story in one way and say, This is it. Always there will be someone who can tell it differently depending on where they are standing; the same person telling the story will tell it differently. I think of that masquerade in Igbo festivals that dances in the public arena. The Igbo people say, If you want to see it well, you must not stand in one place. The masquerade is moving through this big arena. Dancing. If you’re rooted to a spot, you miss a lot of the grace. So you keep moving, and this is the way I think the world’s stories should be told—from many different perspectives. ~ Chinua Achebe, #NFDB
1432:Leo Tolstoy’s A Confession is possibly the most important document of the last two centuries for understanding our current plight. The dogmas of modern unbelief had captured his elite circle of Russian intellectuals, artists, and members of the social upper crust, and the implications of it slowly destroyed the basis of his life. On those dogmas only two things are real: particles and progress. “Why do I live?” he asked. And the answer he got was, “In infinite space, in infinite time, infinitely small particles change their forms in infinite complexity, and when you have understood the laws of those mutations of form you will understand why you live on the earth”. ~ Dallas Willard, #NFDB
1433:A farmer, as one of his farmer correspondents once wrote to Liberty Hyde Bailey, is “a dispenser of the ‘Mysteries of God.’” The mothering instinct of animals, for example, is a mystery that husbandry must use and trust mostly without understanding. The husband, unlike the “manager” or the would-be objective scientist, belongs inherently to the complexity and the mystery that is to be husbanded, and so the husbanding mind is both careful and humble. Husbandry originates precautionary sayings like “Don’t put all your eggs into one basket” and “Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.” It does not boast of technological feats that will “feed the world.” Husbandry, ~ Wendell Berry, #NFDB
1434:A farmer, as one of his farmer correspondents once wrote to Liberty Hyde Bailey, is “a dispenser of the ‘Mysteries of God.’” The mothering instinct of animals, for example, is a mystery that husbandry must use and trust mostly without understanding. The husband, unlike the “manager” or the would-be objective scientist, belongs inherently to the complexity and the mystery that is to be husbanded, and so the husbanding mind is both careful and humble. Husbandry originates precautionary sayings like “Don’t put all your eggs into one basket” and ���Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.” It does not boast of technological feats that will “feed the world.” Husbandry, ~ Wendell Berry, #NFDB
1435:The word agriculture, after all, does not mean "agriscience," much less "agribusiness." It means "cultivation of land." And cultivation is at the root of the sense both of culture and of cult. The ideas of tillage and worship are thus joined in culture. And these words all come from an Indo-European root meaning both "to revolve" and "to dwell." To live, to survive on the earth, to care for the soil, and to worship, all are bound at the root to the idea of a cycle. It is only by understanding the cultural complexity and largeness of the concept of agriculture that we can see the threatening diminishments implied by the term "agribusiness." (pg. 285, The Use of Energy) ~ Wendell Berry, #NFDB
1436:All sex is a form of longing even as it happens. Because it happens against the crush of time. Because the surface of the act is public, a cross-grain of fear and ruin. She wanted her body to remain a secret of the past, untouched by complexity and regret. She was superstitious about talking to doctors in detail. She thought they would take her body over, name all the damaged parts, speak all the awful words. She lay for a long time with her eyes closed, trying to drift into sleep. Then she rubbed the cat’s fur and felt her childhood there. It was complete in a touch, everything intact, carried out of old lost houses and fields and summer days into the river of her hand. ~ Don DeLillo, #NFDB
1437:Unix is not so much a product as it is a painstakingly compiled oral history of the hacker subculture. It is our Gilgamesh epic: a living body of narrative that many people know by heart, and tell over and over again—making their own personal embellishments whenever it strikes their fancy. The bad embellishments are shouted down, the good ones picked up by others, polished, improved, and, over time, incorporated into the story. […] Thus Unix has slowly accreted around a simple kernel and acquired a kind of complexity and asymmetry about it that is organic, like the roots of a tree, or the branchings of a coronary artery. Understanding it is more like anatomy than physics. ~ Neal Stephenson, #NFDB
1438:We should be far more worried about "genetic enhancement"- efforts to artificially construct "improved humans." Here I side with Fukuyama: Although the technology for improvement is close at hand, it comes with great risks, and some of the greatest risks stem from the complexity of the underlying biology. As we have seen, the basic logic by which genes operate-the regulatory IF conjoined with protein template THEN- is straightforward- which is why genetic enhancement might be possible, in principle. But the combined effects of 30,000 genes far exceed our comprehension; if we know the general principles, we don't know the details, and what we don't know really could hurt us. ~ Gary F Marcus, #NFDB
1439:Since we don’t want to limit our thinking about the future of life to the species we’ve encountered so far, let’s instead define life very broadly, simply as a process that can retain its complexity and replicate. What’s replicated isn’t matter (made of atoms) but information (made of bits) specifying how the atoms are arranged. When a bacterium makes a copy of its DNA, no new atoms are created, but a new set of atoms are arranged in the same pattern as the original, thereby copying the information. In other words, we can think of life as a self-replicating information-processing system whose information (software) determines both its behavior and the blueprints for its hardware. ~ Max Tegmark, #NFDB
1440:It is the equivalent of a “phase change” in chemistry from a solid to a liquid. What is the feature of something solid? It is full of friction. What is the feature of a liquid? It feels friction-free. When you simultaneously take the friction and complexity out of more and more things and provide interactive one-touch solutions, all kinds of human-to-human and business-to-consumer and business-to-business interactions move from solids to liquids, from slow to fast, from their complexity being a burden and full of friction to their complexity becoming invisible and frictionless. And so whatever you want to move, compute, analyze, or communicate can be done with less effort. As ~ Thomas L Friedman, #NFDB
1441:The India of the picture had never existed outside its gilt frame, and the emotions the picture was meant to conjure up were not much more than smugly pious. And yet now, as always, there was a feeling somewhere in it of shadowy dignity. It still stirred thoughts in her that she found difficult to analyze. She had devoted her life, in a practical and unimportant way, trying to prove that fear was evil because it promoted prejudice, that courage was good because it was a sign of selflessness, that ignorance was bad because fear sprang from it, that knowledge was good because the more you knew of the world’s complexity the more clearly you saw the insignificance of the part you played. ~ Paul Scott, #NFDB
1442:The trend toward the ownership of land by fewer and fewer individuals is, it seems to me, a disastrous thing. For when too large a proportion of the populace is supporting itself by the indirections of trade and business and commerce and art and the million schemes of men in cities, then the complexity of society is likely to become so great as to destroy its equilibrium, and it will always be out of balance in some way. But if a considerable portion of the people are occupied wholly or partially in labors that directly supply them with many things that they want, or think they want, whether it be a sweet pea or a sour pickle, then the public poise will be a good deal harder to upset. ~ E B White, #NFDB
1443:This book is written from a changing town in Virginia, but this class of mine, these people--the ones who smell like an ashtray in the checkout line, devour a carton of Little Debbies at a sitting, and praise Jesus for a truck with no spare tire--exist in every state in our nation. Maybe the next time we on the left encounter such seemingly self-screwing, stubborn, God-obsessed folks, we can be open to their trials, understand the complexity of their situation, even have enough solidarity to pop for a cheap retread tire out of our own pockets, simply because that would be the kind thing to do and surely would make the ghosts of Joe Hill, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Mohandas Gandhi smile. ~ Joe Bageant, #NFDB
1444:As infants, we see the world in parts. There is the good—the things that feed and nourish us. There is the bad—the things that frustrate or deny us. As children mature, they come to see the world in more complex ways, realizing, for example, that beyond black and white, there are shades of gray. The same mother who feeds us may sometimes have no milk. Over time, we transform a collection of parts into a comprehension of wholes.4 With this integration, we learn to tolerate disappointment and ambiguity. And we learn that to sustain realistic relationships, one must accept others in their complexity. When we imagine a robot as a true companion, there is no need to do any of this work. ~ Sherry Turkle, #NFDB
1445:No spiritual exercise is such a blending of complexity and simplicity. It is the simplest form of speech that infant lips can try, yet the sublimest strains that reach the Majesty on high. It is as appropriate to the aged philosopher as to the little child. It is the ejaculation of a moment and the attitude of a lifetime. It is the expression of the rest of faith and of the fight of faith. It is an agony and an ecstasy. It is submissive and yet importunate. In the one moment it lays hold of God and binds the devil. It can be focused on a single objective and it can roam the world. It can be abject confession and rapt adoration. It invests puny man with a sort of omnipotence.2 ~ John F MacArthur Jr, #NFDB
1446:These researchers do not employ the ‘absence of evidence’ argument. That said, these studies appear to be based on an unusual conception of language as largely grammar and words, failing to consider the overall role and origins of symbols from abstract culture. They examine the growing complexity of tool use and relate this to a purported increase in language complexity, based on the assumption that the syntax of modern languages will always include complex syntactic devices for combining symbols such as hierarchy and recursion. In addition, these researchers discuss the absence of symbols among earlier Homo species, contrasting this with the widespread use of symbols among sapiens. ~ Daniel L Everett, #NFDB
1447:upside down is the one we daily live in, in which sin has upset all order. A humourless determination to castigate sin and disorder takes over, a denial of ambiguity and complexity in an unmixed condemnation, which reflects the attempts by controlling élites to abolish carnivalesque and ludic practices, on the grounds that they sew disorder, mix pagan and Christian elements, and are a breeding ground of vice. (We are witnessing the birth of what will become in our day p.c.) Delumeau relates this to a parallel shift in attitude to madness;94 where previously this could be seen as the site of vision, even holiness, it now comes more and more to be judged unambiguously as the fruit of sin. ~ Charles Taylor, #NFDB
1448:The alternative, should you, or any writer of English, choose to employ it (and who is to stop you?) is, by use of subordinate clause upon subordinate clause, which itself may be subordinated to those clauses that have gone before or after, to construct a sentence of such labyrinthine grammatical complexity that, like Theseus before you when he searched the dark Minoan mazes for that monstrous monster, half bull and half man, or rather half woman for it had been conceived from, or in, Pasiphae, herself within a Daedalian contraption of perverted invention, you must unravel a ball of grammatical yarn lest you wander for ever, amazed in the maze, searching through dark eternity for a full stop. ~ Mark Forsyth, #NFDB
1449:When faced with complexity, it is reassuring to tell ourselves that we can uncover and understand every facet of every problem if we just try hard enough. But that’s a fallacy. The better approach, I believe, is to accept that we can’t understand every facet of a complex environment and to focus, instead, on techniques to deal with combining different viewpoints. If we start with the attitude that different viewpoints are additive rather than competitive, we become more effective because our ideas or decisions are honed and tempered by that discourse. In a healthy, creative culture, the people in the trenches feel free to speak up and bring to light differing views that can help give us clarity. ~ Ed Catmull, #NFDB
1450:Sometimes gaining and losing are more intimately related than we like to think. And some things cannot be moved or owned. Some light does not make it all the way through the atmosphere, but scatters... The blue of distance comes with time, with the discovery of melancholy, of loss, the texture of longing, of the complexity of the terrain we traverse, and with the years of travel. If sorrow and beauty are all tied up together, then perhaps maturity brings with it not … abstraction, but an aesthetic sense that partially redeems the losses time brings and finds beauty in the faraway... Some things we have only as long as they remain lost, some things are not lost only so long as they are distant. ~ Rebecca Solnit, #NFDB
1451:Then no matter where you are, in a crowded restaurant or on some desolate street or even in the comforts of your own home, you'll watch yourself dismantle every assurance you ever lived by. You'll stand aside as a great complexity intrudes, tearing apart, piece by piece, all your carefully conceived denials, whether deliberate or unconscious. And for better or worse you'll turn, unable to resist, though try to resist you still will, fighting with everything you've got not to face the thing you most dread, what is now, what will be, what has always come before, the creature you truly are, the creature we all are, buried in the nameless black of a name.
And then the nightmares will begin. ~ Mark Z Danielewski,#NFDB
1452:It is of the prophetic ministry of the church to teach people that we are sinners. Think of church as lifelong learning in how to be a sinner. We may be conceived in sin, but we fail to be cognizant of sin without the grace of God. The "sins" of non- Christians tend to be rather puny. For Christians, sin is not so much inherent in the human condition, though it is that; rather, sin is the problem we have between us and God. It is rebellion against our true Sovereign, an offense against the way the Creator has created us to be. The gospel story that we are forgiven-being-redeemed sinners is the means whereby we are able to be honest about the reality, complexity, and perversity of our sin. ~ William H Willimon, #NFDB
1453:Despite being an amateur (or perhaps because of it), whenever I listen to music, I do so without preconceptions, simply opening my ears to the more wonderful passages and physically taking them in. When those wonderful passages are there, I feel joy, and when some parts are not so wonderful, I listen with a touch of regret. Beyond that, I might pause to think about what makes a certain passage wonderful or not so wonderful, but other musical elements are not that important to me. Basically, I believe that music exists to make people happy. In order to do so, those who make music use a wide range of techniques and methods which, in all their complexity, fascinate me in the simplest possible way. ~ Haruki Murakami, #NFDB
1454:For days and weeks on end one racks one's brains to no avail, and, if asked, one could not say whether one goes on writing purely out of habit, or a craving for admiration, or because one knows not how to do anything other, or out of sheer wonderment, despair or outrage, any more than one could say whether writing renders one more perceptive or more insane. Perhaps we all lose our sense of reality to the precise degree to which we are engrossed in our own work, and perhaps that is why we see in the increasing complexity of our mental constructs a means for greater understanding, even while intuitively we know that we shall never be able to fathom the imponderables that govern our course through life? ~ W G Sebald, #NFDB
1455:Tea is an act complete in its simplicity.
When I drink tea, there is only me and the tea.
The rest of the world dissolves.
There are no worries about the future.
No dwelling on past mistakes.
Tea is simple: loose-leaf tea, hot pure water, a cup.
I inhale the scent, tiny delicate pieces of the tea floating above the cup.
I drink the tea, the essence of the leaves becoming a part of me.
I am informed by the tea, changed.
This is the act of life, in one pure moment, and in this act the truth of the world suddenly becomes revealed: all the complexity, pain, drama of life is a pretense, invented in our minds for no good purpose.
There is only the tea, and me, converging. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh,#NFDB
1456:But as in the sphere of man's experimental knowledge one who sincerely inquires how he is to live cannot be satisfied with the reply--"Study in endless space the mutations, infinite in time and in complexity, of innumerable atoms, and then you will understand your life"--so also a sincere man cannot be satisfied with the reply: "Study the whole life of humanity of which we cannot know either the beginning or the end, of which we do not even know a small part, and then you will understand your own life." And like the experimental semi-sciences, so these other semi-sciences are the more filled with obscurities, inexactitudes, stupidities, and contradictions, the further they diverge from the real problems. ~ Leo Tolstoy, #NFDB
1457:London’s lost rivers had taken on a romantic sort of mystery in popular awareness. The idea of waters flowing on and on in the endless darkness under the city streets was deliciously eerie, and of course lost and abandoned tunnels and caverns had always appealed to a certain sort of adventurous spirit. Even the names were evocative: the Tyburn, the Fleet, the Effra, the Westbourne, once broad streams in their own right—now bound and channeled in the bowels of the ancient city, but not entirely forgotten. The old rivers flowed now in a muffled roar and chime of water through cathedrals of tile and brick, unseen arches and coigns of gorgeous complexity guiding and shaping their eventual journey to the sea. ~ Vivian Shaw, #NFDB
1458:one gradually equilibrizes the whole of one's mental structure and obtains a simple view of the incalculably vast complexity of the universe. For it is written: "Equilibrium is the basis of the work." Serious students will need to make a careful study of the attributions detailed in this work and commit them to memory. When, by persistent application to his own mental apparatus, the numerical system with its correspondences is partly understood-as opposed to being merely memorized-the student will be amazed to find fresh light breaking in on him at every turn as he continues to refer every item in experience and consciousness to this standard.
~ Israel Regardie, A Garden Of Pomegranates: Skrying On the Tree Of Life,#NFDB
1459:Then no matter where you are, in a crowded restaurant or on some desolate street or even in the comforts of your own home, you'll watch yourself dismantle every assurance you ever lived by. You'll stand aside as a great complexity intrudes, tearing apart, piece by piece, all of your carefully conceived denials, whether deliberate or unconscious. And then for better or worse you'll turn, unable to resist, though try to resist you still will, fighting with everything you've got not to face the thing you most dread, what is now, what will be, what has always come before, the creature you truly are, the creature we all are, buried in the nameless black of a name.
and then the nightmares will begin. ~ Mark Z Danielewski,#NFDB
1460:Wolfram, one of the most innovative thinkers in scientific computing and in the theory of complex systems, has been best known for the development of Mathematica, a computer program/system that allows a range of calculations not accessible before. After ten years of virtual silence, Wolfram is about to emerge with a provocative book that makes the bold claim that he can replace the basic infrastructure of science. In a world used to more than three hundred years of science being dominated by mathematical equations as the basic building blocks of models for nature, Wolfram proposes simple computer programs instead. He suggests that nature's main secret is the use of simple programs to generate complexity. ~ Mario Livio, #NFDB
1461:The emperor has no clothes, and sooner or later everyone is going to see what’s staring them right in the face. When that happens, perhaps, there will be a major shift; a mass exodus away from the complexity and futility of all spiritual teachings. An exodus not outward toward Japan or India or Tibet, but inward, toward the self; toward self-reliance, toward self-determination, toward a common sense approach to figuring out just what the hell’s going on around here. A wiping of the slate. A fresh start. Sincere, intelligent people dispensing with the past and beginning anew. Beginning by asking themselves, “Okay, where are we? What do we know for sure? What do we know that’s true?” A spiritual revolution. ~ Jed McKenna, #NFDB
1462:Both scientists and laypeople can find themselves seduced into the easy trap of wanting to assign each function of the brain to a specific location. Perhaps because of pressure for simple sound bites, a steady stream of reports in the media (and even in the scientific literature) has created the false impression that the brain area for such-and-such has just been discovered. Such reports feed popular expectation and hope for easy labeling, but the true situation is much more interesting: the continuous networks of neural circuitry accomplish their functions using multiple, independently discovered strategies. The brain lends itself well to the complexity of the world, but poorly to clear-cut cartography. ~ David Eagleman, #NFDB
1463:Champagne, m'lord?'
'Have we got any? One bottle would do. Even a half-bottle.'
Smith's face puckered, as if manfully attempting to force his mind to grapple with a mathematical or philosophical problem of extraordinary complexity. His bearing suggested that he had certainly before heard the word 'champagne' used, if only in some distant, outlandish context; that devotion to his master alone gave him some apprehension of what this question—these ravings, almost—might mean. Nothing good could come of it. This was a disastrous way to talk. That was his unspoken message so far as champagne was concerned. After a long pause, he at last shook his head.
'I doubt if there is any champagne left, m'lord. ~ Anthony Powell,#NFDB
1464:Those three things—autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward—are, most people agree, the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying. It is not how much money we make that ultimately makes us happy between nine and five. It’s whether our work fulfills us. If I offered you a choice between being an architect for $75,000 a year and working in a tollbooth every day for the rest of your life for $100,000 a year, which would you take? I’m guessing the former, because there is complexity, autonomy, and a relationship between effort and reward in doing creative work, and that’s worth more to most of us than money. Work that fulfills those three criteria is meaningful. ~ Malcolm Gladwell, #NFDB
1465:I was a terrible believer in things, but I was also a terrible nonbeliever in things. I was as searching as I was skeptical. I didn’t know where to put my faith, or if there was such a place, or even precisely what the word faith meant, in all of its complexity. Everything seemed to be possibly potent and possibly fake. “You’re a seeker,” my mother had said to me when she was in her last week, lying in bed in the hospital, “like me.” But I didn’t know what my mother sought, exactly. Did she? It was the one question I hadn’t asked, but even if she’d told me, I’d have doubted her, pressing her to explain the spiritual realm, asking her how it could be proved. I even doubted things whose truth was verifiable. ~ Cheryl Strayed, #NFDB
1466:The complexity of our present trouble suggests as never before that we need to change our present concept of education. Education is not properly an industry, and its proper use is not to serve industries, either by job-training or by industry-subsidized research. It's proper use is to enable citizens to live lives that are economically, politically, socially, and culturally responsible. This cannot be done by gathering or "accessing" what we now call "information" - which is to say facts without context and therefore without priority. A proper education enables young people to put their lives in order, which means knowing what things are more important than other things; it means putting first things first. ~ Wendell Berry, #NFDB
1467:But do you need to have a relationship with yourself at all? Why can’t you just be yourself? When you have a relationship with yourself, you have split yourself into two: “I” and “myself,” subject and object. That mind-created duality is the root cause of all unnecessary complexity, of all problems and conflict in your life. In the state of enlightenment, you are yourself — “you” and “yourself” merge into one. You do not judge yourself, you do not feel sorry for yourself, you are not proud of yourself, you do not love yourself, you do not hate yourself, and so on. The split caused by self-reflective consciousness is healed, its curse removed. There is no “self” that you need to protect, defend, or feed anymore. ~ Eckhart Tolle, #NFDB
1468:These fascinating findings make it untenable to claim that personality ratings are irrelevant, or all in the eye of the beholder, or tell you nothing but some kind of story that the participant is spinning about himself. Being alive and having a successful partnership are profoundly important elements, in both experiential and evolutionary terms, of any human life, and so if some pen-and-paper rating scale that takes ten minutes to complete predicts them, however imperfectly, we should sit up and take notice. We should try to understand how it could be that such a scale could have any predictive value given the preposterous and unpredictable complexity of human life. That, of course, is what this book is about. ~ Daniel Nettle, #NFDB
1469:In order to maximize the benefits of using low-dose psychedelics for creative breakthroughs as described in the prior chapter, the following six areas are important. Set: expectations and pre-session meetings Setting: physical atmosphere Substance: kind and dose Sitter: facilitator Session: time spent with facilitator Support: post-session work environment Set While all of the above factors are important, set is the most critical for problem solving. When psychedelics are taken for other purposes, people gravitate toward internal complexity, visual and sensory enhancements and distortions, and emotional intensity. To help participants achieve significant progress on their own intellectual problems, establishing the ~ James Fadiman, #NFDB
1470:Those who come to Islam because they wish to draw closer to God have no problem with a multiform Islam radiating from a single revealed paradigmatic core. But those who come to Islam seeking an identity will find the multiplicity of traditional Muslim cultures intolerable. People with confused identities are attracted to totalitarian solutions. And today, many young Muslims feel so threatened by the diversity of calls on their allegiance, and by the sheer complexity of modernity, that the only form of Islam they can regard as legitimate is a totalitarian, monolithic one. That there should be four schools of Islamic law is to them unbearable. That Muslim cultures should legitimately differ is a species of blasphemy. ~ Abdal Hakim Murad, #NFDB
1471:Here, then, is our situation at the start of the twenty-first century: We have accumulated stupendous know-how. We have put it in the hands of some of the most highly trained, highly skilled, and hardworking people in our society. And, with it, they have indeed accomplished extraordinary things. Nonetheless, that know-how is often unmanageable. Avoidable failures are common and persistent, not to mention demoralizing and frustrating, across many fields—from medicine to finance, business to government. And the reason is increasingly evident: the volume and complexity of what we know has exceeded our individual ability to deliver its benefits correctly, safely, or reliably. Knowledge has both saved us and burdened us. That ~ Atul Gawande, #NFDB
1472:Then no matter where you are, in a crowded restaurant or on some desolate street or even in
the comforts of your own home, you’ll watch yourself dismantle every assurance you ever lived
by. You’ll stand aside as a great complexity intrudes, tearing apart, piece by piece, all of your
carefully conceived denials, whether deliberate or unconscious. And then for better or worse
you’ll turn, unable to resist, though try to resist you still will, fighting with everything you’ve got
not to face the thing you most dread, what is now, what will be, what has always come before, the
creature you truly are, the creature we all are, buried in the nameless black of a name.
And then the nightmares will begin. ~ Mark Z Danielewski,#NFDB
1473:Once, after one of our special effects software guys resigned, he wrote me an email containing two complaints. First, he said, he didn’t like that his job involved cleaning up so many little problems caused by the new software. Second, he wrote, he was disappointed that we weren’t taking more technical risks in our movies. The irony was that his job was to help solve problems that arose precisely because we were taking a major technical risk by implementing new software systems. The mess that he encountered—the reason he quit—was, in fact, caused by the complexity of trying to do something new. I was struck by how he didn’t understand that taking a risk necessitated a willingness to deal with the mess created by the risk. So: ~ Ed Catmull, #NFDB
1474:That’s how one complex adaptation can jump-start a new complex adaptation. Complexity can also accrete incrementally, starting from a single mutation. First comes some gene A which is simple, but at least a little useful on its own, so that A increases to universality in the gene pool. Now along comes gene B, which is only useful in the presence of A, but A is reliably present in the gene pool, so there’s a reliable selection pressure in favor of B. Now a modified version of A* arises, which depends on B, but doesn’t break B’s dependency on A∕A*. Then along comes C, which depends on A* and B, and B*, which depends on A* and C. Soon you’ve got “irreducibly complex” machinery that breaks if you take out any single piece. ~ Eliezer Yudkowsky, #NFDB
1475:This is perhaps the biggest departure from the science fiction norm. We do not have ‘the cocky guy,’ ‘the fast-talker,’ ‘the brain,’ ‘the wacky alien sidekick’ or any of the other usual characters who populate a space series. Our characters are living, breathing people with all the emotional complexity and contradictions present in quality dramas like The West Wing or The Sopranos. In this way, we hope to challenge our audience in ways that other genre pieces do not. We want the audience to connect with the characters of Galactica as people. Our characters are not super-heroes. They are not an elite. They are everyday people caught up in an enormous cataclysm and trying to survive it as best they can. “They are you and me. ~ Alan Sepinwall, #NFDB
1476:Why do we assume that simple is good? Because with physical products, we have to feel we can dominate them. As you bring order to complexity, you find a way to make the product defer to you. Simplicity isn’t just a visual style. It’s not just minimalism or the absence of clutter. It involves digging through the depth of the complexity. To be truly simple, you have to go really deep. For example, to have no screws on something, you can end up having a product that is so convoluted and so complex. The better way is to go deeper with the simplicity, to understand everything about it and how it’s manufactured. You have to deeply understand the essence of a product in order to be able to get rid of the parts that are not essential. ~ Walter Isaacson, #NFDB
1477:In a scheduled world, you are told you have half an hour to peruse an exhibit at the museum; in a programmed world, you are strapped into the ride at Disneyland and conveyed through the experience at a predetermined pace. However richly conceived, the ride’s complexity is limited because its features are built-in, appearing and unfolding in sync with the motions of your cart. The skeleton dangles, the pirate waves, and the holographic ship emerges from the cloud of smoke. In the programmed life, the lights go on and off at a specified time, the coffee pot activates, the daylight-balanced bulb in the programmable clock radio fades up. Active participation is optional, for these events will go on without us and at their own pace. ~ Douglas Rushkoff, #NFDB
1478:Natural selection almost always builds on what went before…. It is the resulting complexity that makes biological organisms so hard to unscramble. The basic laws of physics can usually be expressed in simple mathematical form, and they are probably the same throughout the universe. The laws of biology, by contrast, are often only broad generalizations, since they describe rather elaborate (chemical) mechanisms that natural selection has evolved over millions of years…. I myself knew very little biology, except in a rather general way, till I was over thirty…my first degree was in physics. It took me a little time to adjust to the rather different way of thinking necessary in biology. It was almost as if one had to be born again. By ~ Oliver Sacks, #NFDB
1479:Teamwork may just be hard in certain lines of work. Under conditions of extreme complexity, we inevitably rely on a division of tasks and expertise—in the operating room, for example, there is the surgeon, the surgical assistant, the scrub nurse, the circulating nurse, the anesthesiologist, and so on. They can each be technical masters at what they do. That’s what we train them to be, and that alone can take years. But the evidence suggests we need them to see their job not just as performing their isolated set of tasks well but also as helping the group get the best possible results. This requires finding a way to ensure that the group lets nothing fall between the cracks and also adapts as a team to whatever problems might arise. ~ Atul Gawande, #NFDB
1480:We need to return from the self-centred concept of sincerity to the other-centred concept of truth. We are not isolated free choosers, monarchs of all we survey, but benighted creatures sunk in a reality whose nature we are constantly and overwhelmingly tempted to deform by fantasy. Our current picture of freedom encourages a dream-like facility; whereas what we require is a renewed sense of the difficulty and complexity of the moral life and the opacity of persons. We need more concepts in terms of which to picture the substance of our being; it is through an enriching and deepening of concepts that moral progress takes place. Simone Weil said that morality was a matter of attention not of will. We need a new vocabulary of attention. ~ Iris Murdoch, #NFDB
1481:I also want to emphasise strongly the point about economics being a moral science. I mentioned before that it deals with introspection and with values. I might have added that it deals with motives, expectations, psychological uncertainties. One has to be constantly on guard against treating the material as constant and homogeneous in the same way that the material of the other sciences, in spite of its complexity, is constant and homogeneous. It is as though the fall of the apple to the ground depended on the apple's motives, on whether it is worth while falling to the ground, and whether the ground wanted the apple to fall, and on mistaken calculations on the part of the apple as to how far it was from the centre of the earth. ~ John Maynard Keynes, #NFDB
1482:The philosophy is that you push the power of decision making out to the periphery and away from the center. You give people the room to adapt, based on their experience and expertise. All you ask is that they talk to one another and take responsibility. That is what works. The strategy is unexpectedly democratic, and it has become standard nowadays, O’Sullivan told me, even in building inspections. The inspectors do not recompute the wind-force calculations or decide whether the joints in a given building should be bolted or welded, he said. Determining whether a structure like Russia Wharf or my hospital’s new wing is built to code and fit for occupancy involves more knowledge and complexity than any one inspector could possibly have. ~ Atul Gawande, #NFDB
1483:At times life orchestrates a very efficent, yet rather painful, modality to allow us to release grievances and judgements towards some people. It consists in slowly setting the stage for us to be in the same circumstances, which eventually lead us to behave exactly like those people.
Each time we express hard judgments regarding what is wrong with others, a complex and long series of events is activated till we reach the moment when we can see our own finger pointing against us.
There is also another way, the most efficent and painless, which does not require any complexity and long orchestration, for it simply takes place in the present. It consists in abstaining right from the beginning from any judgement towards others. ~ Franco Santoro,#NFDB
1484:I turned and moved fast, focusing swiftly on a wave I had selected for no reason. There was whiteness and grenyess in it and a sort of blue and green. It was a line. It did not toss, nor did it stay still. It was all movement, all spillage, but it was pure containment as well, utterly focused just as I was watching it. It had an elemental hold; it was something coming towards us as though to save us but it did nothing instead, it withdrew in a shurgging irony, as if to suggest that this is what the world is, and our time in it, all lifted possibility, all complexity and rushing fervour, to end in nothing on a small strand, and go back out to rejoin the empty family from whom we had set out alone with such a burst of brave unknowing energy. ~ Colm T ib n, #NFDB
1485:Examined in color through the adjustable window of a computer screen, the Mandelbrot set seems more fractal than fractals, so rich is its complication across scales. A cataloguing of the different images within it or a numerical description of the set's outline would require an infinity of information. But here is a paradox: to send a full description of the set over a transmission line requires just a few dozen characters of code. A terse computer program contains enough information to reproduce the entire set. Those who were first to understand the way the set commingles complexity and simplicity were caught unprepared—even Mandelbrot. ~ James Gleick, #NFDB
1486:It doesn't have to be this way...Whatever else is lost, the knowledge isn't. Just because things get out of hand, just because things get smashed, just because everything comes apart, it doesn't mean that it always has to be that way, now and forever. Whether it's care that does it or sheer blind luck, things can work, things can grow, things can change and still stay together. If only they get enough chances, things can work out in the end. We're here, aren't we? In all our awesome complexity, we're here, even though we started out as nothing but ambitious dirt, nothing but clever clay. And in the end, one way or another, we'll find a way to get it all together, to make things work. That's life, May. That's what real life is all about. ~ Brian Stableford, #NFDB
1487:The Irish were poor, but not enslaved. He had come here to hack away at the ropes that held American slavery in place. Sometimes it withered him just to keep his mind steady. He was aware that the essence of proper intelligence was the embrace of contradiction. And the recognition of complexity was to be balanced against the need for simplicity. He was still a slave. Fugitive. If he returned to Boston he could be kidnapped at any time, taken south, strapped to a tree, whipped. His owners. They would make a spectacle of his fame. They had tried to silence him for many years already. No longer. He had been given a chance to speak out against what had held him in chains. And he would continue to do so until the links lay in pieces at his feet. ~ Colum McCann, #NFDB
1488:The mere thought of that one name was nameless medicine, causing her thoughts to cease as she channeled a mesmerizing hate outward, a hate so exalting, so ennobling, that she found she was again capable of lifting her head, a reviving hate that warmed her as surely as though she were sitting before a fire, a hate-filled harbor, a safe hate, a hate beyond mortification and disgust, a redeeming healing consciousness of hate, canceling all new spheres of liability to pain, converting her within the instant into a statue, sitting upright, a divine hate, feeding her, a hate without qualification or appointment, without authority or opposition, an intentional hate, like a true religion without complexity or resolution, a hate that was pure joy. ~ Marilyn Harris, #NFDB
1489:A boat, for all its complexity, is in fact a version of simplicity, but of a satisfyingly complex kind. Get to know the hundreds of ways in which a boat-at-sea works and you become its master and commander. A boat provides control in what looks like uncontrollable circumstances. It is the mirror image of the realities of life on land, which look easier but are, psychologically, far more difficult, more subtle, less visible, and less predictable. The boat, in other words, is the haven from the storms at home. And because a boat's workings are a mystery, in the old sense that it is an arcane art, with its own equipment and vocabulary, its nostrums and obscurities from which the vulgar are excluded, it is also a source of potency and seduction. ~ Adam Nicolson, #NFDB
1490:In the modern computer, software has developed in such a way as to fill this role of go-between. On one end you have the so-called end user who wants to be able to order up a piece of long division, say, simply by supplying two numbers to the machine and ordering it to divide them. At the other end stands the actual computer, which for all its complexity is something of a brute. It can perform only several hundred basic operations, and long division may not be one of them. The machine may have to be instructed to perform a sequence of several of its basic operations in order to accomplish a piece of long division. Software—a series of what are known as programs—translates the end user’s wish into specific, functional commands for the machine. ~ Tracy Kidder, #NFDB
1491:God is the most obvious thing in the world. He is absolutely self-evident - the simplest, clearest and closest reality of life and consciousness. We are only unaware of him because we are too complicated, for our vision is darkened by the complexity of pride. We seek him beyond the horizon with our noses lifted high in the air, and fail to see that he lies at our very feet. We flatter ourselves in premeditating the long, long journey we are going to take in order to find him, the giddy heights of spiritual progress we are going to scale, and all the time are unaware of the truth that "God is nearer to us than we are to ourselves." We are like birds flying in quest of the air, or men with lighted candles searching through the darkness for fire. ~ Alan W Watts, #NFDB
1492:The art of using it consists principally in referring all our ideas to it, discovering thus the common nature of certain things and the essential differences between others, so that ultimately one obtains a simple view of the incalculably vast complexity of the Universe.
The whole subject must be studied in the Book 777, and the main attributions committed to memory: then when by constant use the system is at last understood—as opposed to being merely memorised—the student will find fresh light break in on him at every turn as he continues to measure every item of new knowledge that he attains by this Standard. For to him the Universe will then begin to appear as a coherent and a necessary Whole. ~ Aleister Crowley, Little Essays Towards Truth, "Man",#NFDB
1493:Collective military aggression, I submit, is as much a special invention of civilization as is the collective expression of curiosity through systematic scientific investigation. The fact that human beings are naturally curious did not lead inevitably to organized science; and the fact that they are given to anger and pugnacity was not sufficient in itself to create the institution of war. The latter, like science, is an historic, culture-bound achievement-witness to a much more devious connection between complexity, crisis, frustration, and aggression. Here the ants have more to teach us than the apes- or the supposedly combative 'cave man', whose purely imaginary traits strangely resemble those of a nineteenth-century capitalist enterpriser. ~ Lewis Mumford, #NFDB
1494:The leap from maps to fluid flow seemed so great that even those most responsible sometimes felt it was like a dream. How nature could tie such complexity to such simplicity was far from obvious. "You have to regard it as a kind of miracle, not like the usual connection between theory and experiment," Jerry Gollub said. Within a few years, the miracle was being repeated again and again in a vast bestiary of laboratory systems: bigger fluid cells with water and mercury, electronic oscillators, lasers, even chemical reactions. Theorists adapted Feigenbaum's techiniques and found other mathematical routes to chaos, cousins of period-doubling: such patterns as intermittency and quasiperiodicity. These, too, proved universal in theory and experiment. ~ James Gleick, #NFDB
1495:To exist is to be in communion, and to be in communion is to exchange information. Accordingly, the fundamental science, indeed the science that needs to ground all other sciences, is a theory of communication, and not, as is widely supposed, an atomistic, reductionistic, and mechanistic science of particles or other mindless entities, which then need to be built up to ever greater orders of complexity by equally mindless principles of association, known as natural laws or algorithms or emergent properties or principles of self-organization.2 Within such a theory of communication, the proper object of study is not particles, but the information that passes between entities—entities in turn defined by their ability to communicate information. ~ William A Dembski, #NFDB
1496:When he made us, his purpose was that we should love and honor him, praising him for the wonderfully ordered complexity and variety of his world, using it according to his will, and so enjoying both it and him. And though we have fallen, God has not abandoned his first purpose. Still he plans that a great host of humankind should come to love and honor him. His ultimate objective is to bring them to a state in which they please him entirely and praise him adequately, a state in which he is all in all to them, and he and they rejoice continually in the knowledge of each other’s love—people rejoicing in the saving love of God, set upon them from all eternity, and God rejoicing in the responsive love of people, drawn out of them by grace through the gospel. ~ J I Packer, #NFDB
1497:Proper investigation achieves two things: it reveals a crucial learning opportunity, which means that the systemic problem can be fixed, leading to meaningful evolution. But it has a cultural consequence too: professionals will feel empowered to be open about honest mistakes, along with other vital information, because they know that they will not be unfairly penalized—thus driving evolution still further. In short, we have to engage with the complexity of the world if we are to learn from it; we have to resist the hardwired tendency to blame instantly, and look deeper into the factors surrounding error if we are going to figure out what really happened and thus create a culture based upon openness and honesty rather than defensiveness and back-covering. ~ Matthew Syed, #NFDB
1498:Polarized thinking (or “black-and-white” thinking). In polarized thinking, there is no middle ground. You are either perfect or a failure. You place people or situations in “either/or” categories, without allowing for the complexity of most people and situations. If your performance falls short of perfect, you see yourself as a total failure. You are similarly polarized in judging others, which leads to frequent experiences of frustration and anger. The key to overcoming this type of thinking is to remind yourself, again and again, that most of life is shades of gray. Read a biography of someone universally honored for their contributions to society—Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr., for example—and see how even the best of us are flawed and imperfect. ~ Anonymous, #NFDB
1499:It is a natural human impulse to think of evolution as a long chain of improvements, of a never-ending advance towards largeness and complexity – in a word, towards us. We flatter ourselves. Most of the real diversity in evolution has been small-scale. We large things are just flukes – an interesting side branch. Of the twenty-three main divisions of life, only three – plants, animals and fungi – are large enough to be seen by the human eye33, and even they contain species that are microscopic. Indeed, according to Woese, if you totalled up all the biomass of the planet – every living thing, plants included – microbes would account for at least 80 per cent of all there is34, perhaps more. The world belongs to the very small – and it has done for a very long time. ~ Bill Bryson, #NFDB
1500:My own belief is that one regards oneself, if one is a serious writer, as an instrument for experiencing. Life—all of it-flows through this instrument and is distilled through it into works of art. How one lives as a private person is intimately bound into the work. And at some point I believe one has to stop holding back for fear of alienating some imaginary reader or real relative or friend, and come out with personal truth. If we are to understand the human condition, and if we are to accept ourselves in all the complexity, self-doubt, extravagance of feeling, guilt, joy, the slow freeing of the self to its full capacity for action and creation, both as human being and as artist, we have to know all we can about each other, and we have to be willing to go naked. ~ May Sarton, #NFDB
76 Integral Yoga
41 Christianity
24 Science
12 Integral Theory
10 Occultism
8 Psychology
6 Philosophy
5 Fiction
4 Poetry
3 Education
2 Theosophy
2 Cybernetics
1 Mysticism
1 Alchemy
76 Sri Aurobindo
40 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
38 The Mother
13 Nolini Kanta Gupta
10 Satprem
6 Carl Jung
5 H P Lovecraft
5 A B Purani
4 Aleister Crowley
3 Plato
3 Jordan Peterson
2 Norbert Wiener
2 Jorge Luis Borges
2 George Van Vrekhem
2 Alice Bailey
2 Aldous Huxley
25 The Synthesis Of Yoga
14 The Future of Man
12 The Phenomenon of Man
11 Prayers And Meditations
10 Let Me Explain
9 Essays In Philosophy And Yoga
8 The Life Divine
6 The Human Cycle
5 Lovecraft - Poems
5 Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo
4 Questions And Answers 1957-1958
4 Hymn of the Universe
4 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07
3 Vedic and Philological Studies
3 The Practice of Psycho therapy
3 Questions And Answers 1956
3 Questions And Answers 1953
3 On Education
3 Maps of Meaning
3 Magick Without Tears
3 Letters On Yoga I
3 Isha Upanishad
3 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04
3 Agenda Vol 04
2 The Secret Doctrine
2 The Perennial Philosophy
2 The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
2 Record of Yoga
2 Preparing for the Miraculous
2 On Thoughts And Aphorisms
2 Liber ABA
2 Letters On Yoga IV
2 Letters On Yoga II
2 Essays On The Gita
2 Essays Divine And Human
2 Cybernetics
2 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02
2 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01
2 A Treatise on Cosmic Fire
2 Agenda Vol 10
00.03 - Upanishadic Symbolism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
TheChhandyogya12 gives a whole typal scheme of this universal reality and explains how to realise it and what are the results of the experience. The Universal Brahman means the cosmic movement, the cyclic march of things and events taken in its global aspect. The typical movement that symbolises and epitomises the phenomenon, embodies the truth, is that of the sun. The movement consists of five stages which are called the fivefold sma Sma means the equal Brahman that is ever present in all, the Upanishad itself says deriving the word from sama It is Sma also because it is a rhythmic movement, a cadencea music of the spheres. And a rhythmic movement, in virtue of its being a wave, consists of these five stages: (i) the start, (ii) the rise, (iii) the peak, (iv) the decline and (v) the fall. Now the sun follows this curve and marks out the familiar divisions of the day: dawn, forenoon, noon, afternoon and sunset. Sometimes two other stages are added, one at each end, one of preparation and another of final lapse the twilights with regard to the sun and then ,we have seven instead of five smas Like the Sun, the Fire that is to say, the sacrificial Firecan also be seen in its fivefold cyclic movement: (i) the lighting, (ii) the smoke, (iii) the flame, (iv) smouldering and finally (v) extinction the fuel as it is rubbed to produce the fire and the ashes may be added as the two supernumerary stages. Or again, we may take the cycle of five seasons or of the five worlds or of the deities that control these worlds. The living wealth of this earth is also symbolised in a quintetgoat and sheep and cattle and horse and finally man. Coming to the microcosm, we have in man the cycle of his five senses, basis of all knowledge and activity. For the macrocosm, to I bring out its vast extra-human complexity, the Upanishad refers to a quintet, each term of which is again a trinity: (i) the threefold Veda, the Divine Word that is the origin of creation, (ii) the three worlds or fieldsearth, air-belt or atmosphere and space, (iii) the three principles or deities ruling respectively these worldsFire, Air and Sun, (iv) their expressions, emanations or embodimentsstars and birds and light-rays, and finally, (v) the original inhabitants of these worldsto earth belong the reptiles, to the mid-region the Gandharvas and to heaven the ancient Fathers.
Now, this is the All, the Universal. One has to realise it and possess in one's consciousness. And that can be done only in one way: one has to identify oneself with it, be one with it, become it. Thus by losing one's individuality one lives the life universal; the small lean separate life is enlarged and moulded in the rhythm of the Rich and the Vast. It is thus that man shares in the consciousness and energy that inspire and move and sustain the cosmos. The Upanishad most emphatically enjoins that one must not decry this cosmic godhead or deny any of its elements, not even such as are a taboo to the puritan mind. It is in and through an unimpaired global consciousness that one attains the All-Life and lives uninterruptedly and perennially: Sarvamanveti jyok jvati.
0.01 - I - Sri Aurobindos personality, his outer retirement - outside contacts after 1910 - spiritual personalities- Vibhutis and Avatars - transformtion of human personality, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Jung has admitted that there is an element of mystery, something that baffles the reason, in human personality. One finds that the greater the personality the greater is the complexity. And this is especially so with regard to spiritual personalities whom the Gita calls Vibhutis and Avatars.
Sri Aurobindo has explained the mystery of personality in some of his writings. Ordinarily by personality we mean something which can be described as "a pattern of being marked out by a settled combination of fixed qualities, a determined character.... In one view personality is regarded as a fixed structure of recognisable qualities expressing a power of being"; another idea regards "personality as a flux of self-expressive or sensitive and responsive being.... But flux of nature and fixity of nature" which some call character "are two aspects of being neither of which, nor indeed both together, can be a definition of personality.... But besides this flux and this fixity there is also a third and occult element, the Person behind of whom the personality is a self-expression; the Person puts forward the personality as his role, character, persona, in the present act of his long drama of manifested existence. But the Person is larger than his personality, and it may happen that this inner largeness overflows into the surface formation; the result is a self-expression of being which can no longer be described by fixed qualities, normalities of mood, exact lineaments, or marked out by structural limits."[4]
0.01 - Life and Yoga, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
HERE are two necessities of Nature's workings which seem always to intervene in the greater forms of human activity, whether these belong to our ordinary fields of movement or seek those exceptional spheres and fulfilments which appear to us high and divine. Every such form tends towards a harmonised complexity and totality which again breaks apart into various channels of special effort and tendency, only to unite once more in a larger and more puissant synthesis. Secondly, development into forms is an imperative rule of effective manifestation; yet all truth and practice too strictly formulated becomes old and loses much, if not all, of its virtue; it must be constantly renovated by fresh streams of the spirit revivifying the dead or dying vehicle and changing it, if it is to acquire a new life. To be perpetually reborn is the condition of a material immortality. We are in an age, full of the throes of travail, when all forms of thought and activity that have in themselves any strong power of utility or any secret virtue of persistence are being subjected to a supreme test and given their opportunity of rebirth. The world today presents the aspect of a huge cauldron of Medea in which all things are being cast, shredded into pieces, experimented on, combined and recombined either to perish and provide the scattered material of new forms or to emerge rejuvenated and changed for a fresh term of existence. Indian Yoga, in its essence a special action or formulation of certain great powers of Nature, itself specialised, divided and variously formulated, is potentially one of these dynamic elements of the future life of humanity. The child of immemorial ages, preserved by its vitality and truth into our modern times, it is now emerging from the secret schools and ascetic retreats in which it had taken refuge and is seeking its place in the future sum of living human powers and utilities. But it has first to rediscover itself, bring to the surface
The Conditions of the Synthesis
0.04 - The Systems of Yoga, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
But Rajayoga does not forget that the disabilities of the ordinary mind proceed largely from its subjection to the reactions of the nervous system and the body. It adopts therefore from the Hathayogic system its devices of asana and pran.ayama, but reduces their multiple and elaborate forms in each case to one simplest and most directly effective process sufficient for its own immediate object. Thus it gets rid of the Hathayogic complexity and cumbrousness while it utilises the swift and powerful efficacy of its methods for the control of the body and the vital functions and for the awakening of that internal dynamism, full of a latent supernormal faculty, typified in Yogic terminology by the kun.d.alin, the coiled and sleeping serpent of Energy within. This done, the system proceeds to the perfect quieting of the restless mind and its elevation to a higher plane through concentration of mental force by the successive stages which lead to the utmost inner concentration or ingathered state of the consciousness which is called Samadhi.
By Samadhi, in which the mind acquires the capacity of withdrawing from its limited waking activities into freer and higher states of consciousness, Rajayoga serves a double purpose. It compasses a pure mental action liberated from the confusions of the outer consciousness and passes thence to the higher supra-mental planes on which the individual soul enters into its true spiritual existence. But also it acquires the capacity of that free and concentrated energising of consciousness on
0.05 - The Synthesis of the Systems, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Prakriti and turn them towards the Divine. But the normal action of Nature in us is an integral movement in which the full complexity of all our elements is affected by and affects all our environments. The whole of life is the Yoga of Nature. The
Yoga that we seek must also be an integral action of Nature, and the whole difference between the Yogin and the natural man will be this, that the Yogin seeks to substitute in himself for the integral action of the lower Nature working in and by ego and division the integral action of the higher Nature working in and by God and unity. If indeed our aim be only an escape from the world to God, synthesis is unnecessary and a waste of time; for then our sole practical aim must be to find out one path out of the thousand that lead to God, one shortest possible of short cuts, and not to linger exploring different paths that end in the same goal. But if our aim be a transformation of our integral being into the terms of God-existence, it is then that a synthesis becomes necessary.
0.07 - Letters to a Sadhak, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
surrender in all its complexity is not so easy, it is not so
easy at all. But to achieve even the beginning of a genuine
0 1961-03-11, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
A similar memory has recurred several times under different circumstancesnot exactly the same scene and the same images, because it wasnt something I was seeing but A LIFE I was living. During a certain period, at any time, night or day, I would experience a particular state of trance in which I was rediscovering a life I had lived. I was fully conscious that this life had to do with the first flowering of the human form upon earth, the first human forms able to incarnate the divine being from above. This was the first time I could manifest in a particular terrestrial form (not a general life but an individual form); that is, for the first time, through the mentalization of this material substance, the junction between the higher Being and the lower being was made. I have lived that several times, and always in a similar setting and with quite a similar feeling of such joyous simplicity, without complexity, without problems, without all these questions. It was the blossoming of a joy of lifenothing but that; love and harmony prevailed: flowers, minerals, animals all got along together perfectly.
Things began to go wrong only a LONG time afterwards, long after (but this is a personal impression), probably because certain mental crystallizations were necessary, inevitable, for the general evolution, so that the mind might prepare itself to move on to something else. That was when oh, it seems like a fall into a pitinto ugliness, darkness! Everything became so dark, so ugly, so difficult, so painful. Really really the sense of a fall.
--
Matter was very simple and very harmonious and very luminous not complex enough. This complexity is what ruined everything, but it will lead to an INFINITELY more conscious realizationinfinitely more conscious. And when the earth again becomes as harmonious, simple, luminous, puresimple, pure, purely divine then, with this complexity added, something can be achieved.
(Mother gets up to leave)
It doesnt matter. Fundamentally, it doesnt matter. Yesterday, while I was walking I was walking in a kind of universe that was EXCLUSIVELY the Divineit could be touched, felt: it was within, without, everywhere. For three-quarters of an hour, NOTHING but that, everywhere. Well, I can assure you, at that moment there were certainly no more problems! And what simplicitynothing to think about, nothing to want, nothing to decide: to BE, be, be! (Mother seems to dance) To be in the infinite complexity of a perfect unity: all was there but nothing was separate; all was in movement yet nothing changed place. Truly an experience.
When we become like that, it will be very easy.
0 1963-05-15, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In other words, Nature, or rather Nature in its effort towards expression, was compelled to have recourse to an unbelievable, almost endless complexity in order to reproduce the original Simplicity.
It brings us back to the same thing: it is that excess of complexity which makes possible a simplicity that isnt emptya rich simplicity. An all-embracing simplicity, whereas without those complexities, simplicity is empty.
This has been my experience these last few days.
0 1963-06-19, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There are activities that take place in a semidarkness, which the people of the placepeople who are here at the Ashramregard as light and where everyone attends to his affairs with his own ideas and what he considers to be his knowledge. Everything takes place in a semidarkness, a great confusion and a you know, a most oppressive sense of powerlessness. It went on for hours. Finally, I absolutely wanted I wanted to get out of that place at all costs and return to the Light (the real one) and the open. But it was literally impossible: whatever path I took to get out suddenly collapsed, or disappeared as if swallowed up in a wall or a complexity of incoherent things, or else it came to an abrupt end, plunging straight down very deep. I remember one of those places, I absolutely wanted to find a way out, and when I got there, there was a sheer gulf, and I said to myself, What am I going to do? Just then I saw a man, I dont know who he was, but he was dressed (it was symbolic) as a mountain climber, with all the equipment needed to climb down a sheer cliff, and with the help of his ice axe he fastened himself to the cliff and climbed down. Then I said, This is PRETENDING to find the way, but its not finding the way. I was there concentrating, and as I concentrated, suddenly I was able to find a path which led me up to a terrace.
I was accompanied by three or four people (but they are symbolic people). Everything was taking place in a half-night, and outside it was complete night. But when I reached the terrace, there was one of those big electric street lights, which turned on and gave a white light (like the half-light of an electric lamp in the nightwhich is nothing). The terrace was a very long one, but with a drop on every side: there was no way to get out; at one end, the way was blocked by a sort of house, and on both sides it plunged straight down into a black hole. And then that sense of powerlessness, of knowing nothingyou dont know where to go, you dont know what to do. It was And it is THE ORDINARY STATE OF HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS the consciousness of human activity. But in my consciousness (I was shut in there, you understand), it was truly it was almost a torture, last night; it was frightful.
0 1963-11-20, #Agenda Vol 04, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Ive witnessed the most complete panorama of all the idiotic things in this life,1 they were shown to me as in a complete panorama: passing from one to another, seeing each of them separately and how they combined with each other. And then: Why? Why should one choose this? (A childs question, which one asks immediately.) And immediately, the answer: But the more (lets say central to be clearer) the more central the origin and the more pure in its essence, the greater the ignoble complexity below, as we could call it. Because the lower down you go, the more it takes an essential light to change things.
Once youve been told this very nicely, youre satisfied, you stop worryingits all right, you take things as they are: Thats how things are, its my work and I do it; I ask only one thing, it is to do my work, all the rest doesnt matter.
0 1965-05-19, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I have known one or two sincere doctors, and they admitted to me quite clearly that it was like that. I told them, From the spiritual standpoint, there cannot be two identical cases. Nature never repeats itself there are families, there are analogies, there are similarities, but there arent two identical cases; therefore you know very well that you dont know. When you study it on its own level, the immense complexity of the possibilities of physical reality is such that unless you have a direct and intimate perception, you cannot know what will happen.
Now that the body knows a little, when something is wrong or goes awry for some reason or other (it may be because of transformation, it may be because of attacks there are innumerable reasons), my cells are beginning to say, Oh, no doctor, no doctor, no doctor! They feel the doctor will crystallize the disorder, harden it and take away the plasticity necessary to respond to the deeper forces; and then the disorder will follow an outward, material course which takes ages I dont have the time to wait.
0 1966-03-26, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But when nobody is there or I am alone, or when I dont speak or I am not busy with other people, its the inner lesson: the whole change in the vibration and how the world is organized. This morning, it was really extraordinarily amusing to see the mass of things that lie behind this appearance, an appearance that seems complicated enough as it is, but its nothing! Its thin, flimsy, without complexity in comparison with the MASS of things behind, which (drilling gesture) which bore their way through to reach the surface. Its amusing. But certainly ninety-nine people in a hundred would be seized with panic if they knew, if they saw. I had always been told (I read it, Sri Aurobindo often said it to me, Thon too often said it to me, so did Madame Thon) that its the Grace that keeps people from knowing. Because if they knew, they would be terrified! All, but all the things that are constantly there, moving behindbehind the appearancesall the complexities that are the true causes of or the instruments for all those small events, which to us are absolutely unimportant, but because of which one day you feel everything is harmonious, and another day you feel it takes a labor to do anything at all. And thats how it is. And naturally, when you know, you have the key. But if you know before you have the key, its a little frightening. I think that when people take leave of their senses, its because they are put in contact with the vibrations before having the knowledge, the sufficient knowledge, the sufficient state of consciousness.
There, weve wasted all our time!
0 1967-10-25, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Only, I see quite clearly that they dont believe in it, there is no one who feels. So does it? And the concrete materialization of the spirit of Auroville hasnt taken place yet, it doesnt exist, there isnt in the earth atmosphere a formation of the spirit of Auroville, which is a spirit. (Mother remains absorbed for a long time) At bottom it is: The art of building unity out of complexity. Without uniformity, you understand: unity through harmony in complexity, with each thing in its place.
Its very difficult.
0 1969-02-08, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Its not a feeling, its an experience! You know, I wouldnt like anything better than In fact, this is my constant impression! Do as best you can, and the best thing needed will happen, thats all. But there is such an awareness of the uncertainty of the effect of things, and of this complexity It all becomes so mixed and so confused that
All of life is like that. CIRCUMSTANCES are like that, I am beginning to see that, its beginning to emerge like that, to show itself: honest people look like scoundrels, and scoundrels look like I dont know what.
0 1969-08-30, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And I remember Its interesting because while I was in that state, I remembered the question youd asked me about Pavitra, whether the principle of individuality persists; so something in me said to you, Now you see, its like this! (Mother laughs) I remembered your question, I said, Its like this, there is NO MORE separation, but but this marvel of complexity remains the marvel of a complexity. And the impression is that everything, but everything that is has its own place, but when its in its place, then its perfectly harmonious.
Oh, it was it was a real revelation.
02.04 - Two Sonnets of Shakespeare, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
On the occasion of the 400th birth anniversary of Shakespeare, I present to you today two of the great Shakespearean sonnets. The sonnets, as you know, are all about love. They are however characterised by an incredible intensity and perhaps an equally incredible complexity, for the Shakespearean feeling is of that category.
Shakespeare has treated love in a novel way; he has given a new figure to that common familiar sentiment. And incidentally he has given a new sense and bearing to Death. From a human carnal base there is a struggle, an effort here to rise into something extracorporeal; that is, something outside and independent of the body and impersonal. The sense of the first sonnet is this: the body decays and dies, even as bleak winter seizes upon the beauties of Nature or black Night swallows up the light of the day. But love lingers stillas the song of sweet birdsand the dying cadence of love curiously invokes and evokes a resurgent love in the beloved. The second sonnet hymns the soul's conquest over Death. The soul is that which is sinless in the sinful, it is the pure, the unsullied the immortal lovein this filth and dirt of a mortal body with its crude passions. Death eats away the body, but in this way the soul grows and eats away Death. This is the final epiphany, the death of Death and the resurgence of the soul divine in its love divine.
03.01 - The Malady of the Century, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The ancients, on the contrary, knew not many thingsnot so many as we know; but what they knew they knew well, they were sure of their knowledge. Their creations were not perhaps on the whole as rich and varied and subtleeven in a certain sense as deep as those of modern humanity; but they were finished and completed things, net and clear and full of power. The simple unambiguous virile line that we find in Kalidasa or in the Ajanta, in Homer or in the Par thenon, no longer comes out of the hands of a modern artist. Our delight is in the complexity and turbidity of the composition; we are not satisfied with richness only, we require a certain tortuousness and tangledness in the movement. We love the intermingling of many tints, the play of light dying away into haze and mist and obscurity, of shades that blur the sharpness of the contour. Our preoccupation, in Art, is how to create the impression of the many in its all-round simultaneity of forms and movements. The ancients were more simple and modest; they were satisfied with expressing one thing at a time and that simply done.
The ancient Rishis were worshippers of the Sun and the Day; they were called Finders of the Day, Discoverers of the Solar World. They knew what they were about and they sought to make their meaning plain to others who cared to go to them. They were clear in their thought, direct in their perception; their feelings, however deep, were never obscure. We meet in their atmosphere and in their creative activity no circum-ambulating chiaroscuro, nothing of the turbid magic that draws us today towards the uncertain, the unexpected and the disconcerting. It is a world of certitude, of solid realityeven if it be on the highest spiritual levels of consciousness presenting a bold and precise and clear outline. When we hear them speak we feel they are uttering self-evident truths; there is no need to pause and question. At least so they were to their contemporaries; but the spokesman of our age must needs be a riddle even to ourselves.
03.02 - Aspects of Modernism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Simplicity and intensity, sublimity and profundity were the most predominant qualities of man's achievement in the past; what characterises human endeavour in the present is its wideness, richness, complexity. It can also be noted that the corruptions of these qualities likewise mark out their respective ages. Fanaticism, for example, the corruption of a good and noble thing, fidelity, means a unilateral mind carried to its extreme; it is a characteristic product of the middle ages in the West as in the East. The modern world in its stead has given us dilettantism and cynicism, corruption of largeness and catholicity.
Consciousness has two primary movements. In one it penetrates, enters straight into the heart of things; in the other it spreads out, goes about and round the object. The combination of the two powers is a rarity; ordinarily man follows the one to the exclusion of the other. The modern age in its wide curiosity has neglected the penetrative and intensive movement and is therefore marred by superficiality. It is eager to go over the entire panorama of creation at one glance, if that is possible, to have a telescopic view of things; but it has been able to take in only the surface, the skin, the crust. Even the entrance into the world of atoms and cellsof protons and electrons, of chromosomes and genesis not really a penetrative or intensive movement. It is only another form of the movement of pervasion or extension: it is still a going abroad, only on another line, in a different direction, but always fundamentally on the same horizontal plane. The microscope is only an inverted telescope. Our instruments are the external mind and senses and these move laterally and have not the power to leap on to a different level of vision. The earlier ages of mankind, narrow and circumscribed in many respects, possessed nevertheless that intensive and in-gathering movement, which is a kind of movement in the fourth dimension; it was a sixth sense leading into the Behind or Beyond of things.
03.03 - The Inner Being and the Outer Being, #The Integral Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Yoga to become conscious of the great complexity of our nature, see the different forces that move it and get over it a control of directing knowledge. We are composed of many parts each of which contri butes something to the total movement of our consciousness, our thought, will, sensation, feeling, action, but we do not see the origination or the course of these impulsions; we are aware only of their confused pell-mell results on the surface upon which we can at best impose nothing better than a precarious shifting order.
There are, we might say, two beings in us, one on the surface, our ordinary exterior mind, life, body consciousness, another behind the veil, an inner mind, an inner life, an inner physical consciousness constituting another or inner self. This inner self once awake opens in its turn to our true real and eternal self. It opens inwardly to the soul, called in the language of this Yoga the psychic being which supports our successive births and at each birth assumes a new mind, life and body. It opens above to the Self or spirit which is unborn and by conscious recovery of it we transcend the changing personality and achieve freedom and full mastery over our nature.
06.11 - The Steps of the Soul, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The complexity arises not only in extension, but also in depth. Man does not live on a single plane but on many planes at the same time. There is a scale of gradation in human consciousness: the higher one rises in the scale the greater the number of elements or personalities that one possesses. Whether one lives mostly or mainly on the physical or vital or mental plane or on any particular section of these planes or on planes above and beyond, there will be accordingly differences in the constitution or psycho-physical make-up of the individual personality. The higher one stands the richer the personality, because it lives not only on its own normal level, but also on all that are below and which it has transcended. The complete or integral man, some occultists say, possesses 365 personalities; indeed it may be much more. (The Vedas speak of the three and thirty-three and thirty-three hundred and thirty-three thousand gods that may be housed in the human vehicle the basic three being evidently the triple status or world of Body, Life and Mind).
What is the meaning of this self-contradiction, this division in man? To understand that we must know and remember that each person represents a certain quality or capacity, a particular achievement to be embodied. How best can it be done? What is the way by which one can acquire a quality at its purest, and highest and most perfect? It is by setting an opposition to it. That is how a power is increased and streng thenedby fighting against and overcoming all that weakens and contradicts it. The deficiencies in respect of a particular quality show you where you are to mend and reinforce and in what way to improve in order to make it perfectly perfect. It is the hammer that beats the weak and soft iron to transform it into hard steel. The preliminary discord is useful and necessary to be utilised for a higher harmony. This is the secret of self-conflict in man. You are weakest precisely in that element which is destined to be your greatest asset.
08.28 - Prayer and Aspiration, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It is only when you live consciously and constantly on the highest level, that is to say, the level of the supreme consciousness, that you are able to see that everything is absolutely determined, but at the same time by the very complexity of the intermixture of these determinisms everything is absolutely free. You may call this phenomenon as you like, but it is a kind of absolute determinism and absolute freedom combined. It is the level where there are no contradictions, where all things exist and exist in harmony without contradicting each other.
III
09.11 - The Supramental Manifestation and World Change, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
I believe you have done sufficient mathematics to know the complexity of combinations that arises when you take as your basis some elements out of a sum total. To make it clearer I shall give you an example but without using the terms you have been taught at schoolfrom the letters of the alphabet. There are a certain number of letters. Now, if you want to calculate or know the number of combinations possible with these letters, taking all the letters together and organising them in as many ways as you can, as you have been taught, you will find that it runs into a fantastic figure.
Similarly, take the material world and come down to the most minute particleyou know scientists have arrived at things that are absolutely invisible and incalculable and take this particle as your basis and the material world as the total and, further, imagine a Consciousness or a Will playing with these particles, making all sorts of possible combinations, never repeating the same combination. Of course, mathematically they say that the number of particles is finite and therefore the number of combinations also is finite, but this is purely theoretical, and theory does not interest us. Coming to the practical, even if you suppose that these combinations follow each other in such a manner and at such a speed that the change from one to another is hardly perceptible, it is clear that the time needed for the working out of all these combinations would be, apparently, infinite. That is to say, the number of combinations would be so immense that practically no end could be assigned to it.
100.00 - Synergy, #Synergetics - Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking, #R Buckminster Fuller, #Science
in direct complement to their design complexity, which involves biological and
eternal environmental interplay of chemical element simplexes and compounds
--
compared to the complexity of the biological success of our planet Earth. In its
complexities of design integrity, the Universe is technology.
10.01 - Cycles of Creation, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The present cycle, the great cycle that is to say, has, as I have said, for its ultimate motive and purpose the advent and reign of the Supermind. But this proceeds through stages, each stage forming a minor or lesser cycle. The stages of these cycles are the different degrees of what is called evolution. The evolution starts upon the basis of an apparently simple substance and goes on unfolding gradually an inherent complexity. As we know, the different cycles of evolution in the past were at the outset a purely material universe of inorganic elements, then came the cycle of organic combinations, then the manifestation of life and next the mind and at present the mind at its peak capacity, which means the advent of the strange creature that has a miraculous destiny to accomplish. And that is to bring forth out of him the achievement and fulfilment of the next cycle. For the mind is there to bring forth, to usher in the Supermind and man is there as the laboratory and the vanguard as well of the Supermind.
At the present time the human consciousness in general has been so prepared and its dwelling and playfield the earth consciousness made ready to such a degree that it has been possible for the still secreted higher perfection to enter into the arena. The evolution, the growth has been a gradual expression and revelation of the light, the consciousness in a higher and higher degree of purity and potency through an encasement hard and resistant at first but gradually yielding to the impact of the higher status and even transforming itself so as to become its instrument and embodiment. We speak of the present situation, we are concerned with man and what he is to grow into or bring out of himself. Here also there seem to be stages or cycles of creation leading to the final achievement. The whole burden of the present endeavour is how to transcend, transform or modify the animalhood which is the basis of humanity even now and in and through which man is growing and seeking to manifest and incarnate his superior potencies. Man's supramental destiny means that he totally outgrows the animal, outgrows even his manhood in so far as it is merely human; for he has to incorporate the principle of the supramental which wholly transcends the mental.
1.00c - DIVISION C - THE ETHERIC BODY AND PRANA, #A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
The solar Logos likewise does the same during stated cycles, which are not the cycles succeeding those which we term solar pralaya, but lesser cycles succeeding the 'days of Brahma' or periods of lesser activity, periodically viewed. All these are governed by karma, and just as the true Man himself applies the law of karma to his vehicles, and in his tiny system is the correspondence to that fourth group of karmic entities whom we call the Lipika Lords; He applies the law to his threefold lower nature. The fourth group of extra-cosmic Entities Who have Their place subsidiary to the three cosmic Logoi Who are the threefold sumtotal of the logoic nature, can pass the bounds of the solar ring-pass-not in Their stated cycles. This is a profound mystery and its complexity is increased by the recollection that the fourth Creative Hierarchy of human Monads, and the Lipika Lords in Their three groups (the first [112] group, the second, and the four Maharajahs, making the totality of the threefold karmic rulers who stand between the solar Logos and the seven planetary Logoi), are more closely allied than the other Hierarchies, and their destinies are intimately interwoven.
A further link in this chain which is offered for consideration lies in the fact that the four rays of mind (which concern the karma of the four planetary Logoi) in their totality hold in their keeping the present evolutionary process for Man, viewing him as the Thinker. These four, with the karmic four, work in the closest co-operation. Therefore, we have the following groups interacting:
1.00e - DIVISION E - MOTION ON THE PHYSICAL AND ASTRAL PLANES, #A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
Students should here bear carefully in mind that we are not referring here to points in space; we are simply making this distinction and employing words in order to make an abstruse idea more comprehensible. From the point of view of the totality of the rays and planes there is no north, south, east nor west. But at this point comes a correspondence and a point of real interest, though also of complexity. By means of this very interaction, the work of the four Maharajahs or Lords of Karma, is made possible; the quaternary and all sumtotals of four can be seen as one of the basic combinations of matter, produced by the dual revolutions of planes and rays.
The seven planes, likewise atoms, rotate on their own axis, and conform to that which is required of all atomic lives.
--
We must, nevertheless, recollect that the complexity is increased by the fact that the personality triangles will be brought to full activity according to the ray of the Monad or Spirit. Therefore, no hard or fast rule can be laid down about development. The egoic triangles are dependent largely upon the reflection in the personality of the spiritual life force. They are the midway point, just as the causal or egoic body is the transmitting point (when sufficiently equipped and built) between the higher and the lower.
The permanent atoms are enclosed within the periphery of the causal body, yet that relatively permanent body is built and enlarged, expanded and wrought into [179] a central receiving and transmitting station (using inadequate words to convey an occult idea) by the direct action of the centres, and of the centres above all. Just as it was spiritual force, or the will aspect, that built the solar system, so it is the same force in the man that builds the causal body. By the bringing together of spirit and matter (Father-Mother) in the macrocosm, and their union through the action of the will, the objective solar system, or the Son, was produced that Son of desire, Whose characteristic is love, and Whose nature is buddhi or spiritual wisdom. By the bringing together (in microcosm) of Spirit and matter, and their coherence by means of force (or the spiritual will) that objective system, the causal body, is being produced; it is the product of transmuted desire, whose characteristic (when fully demonstrated) will be love, the expression eventually on the physical plane of buddhi. The causal body is but the sheath of the Ego. The solar system is but the sheath of the Son. In both the greater and the lesser systems, force centres exist which are productive of objectivity. The centres in the human being are reflections in the three worlds of those higher force centres.
1.01 - Adam Kadmon and the Evolution, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
irreducible complexity of Natures workings cannot but
be the planned result of an Intelligence, will be for some
1.01 - Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
its present complexity by a series of acts of introjection. Its com-
plexity has increased in proportion to the despiritualization of
1.01 - THE STUFF OF THE UNIVERSE, #The Phenomenon of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
1 Which we shall call later on ' the Law of Consciousness and complexity '.
45
--
process of growing complexity.
Everything docs not happen continuously at any one moment
--
enormous and in appearance only ? irregular complexity.
Perhaps the day will come when some arrangement or periodicity
1.02.2.1 - Brahman - Oneness of God and the World, #Isha Upanishad, #unset, #Zen
the complexity of consciousness in its cosmic action.
For consciousness is not simple or homogeneous, it is septuple. That is to say, it constitutes itself into seven forms or grades
1.02.4.1 - The Worlds - Surya, #Isha Upanishad, #unset, #Zen
capable of an infinite potential complexity and multiplicity in
self-experience. The working of this potential complexity and
multiplicity in the One is what we call from our point of view
--
no longer prevails and divides, but even in the complexity of
its movements always refers back to essential unity and its own
1.02 - MAPS OF MEANING - THREE LEVELS OF ANALYSIS, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
of our own true nature, because of its intrinsic complexity, and because we act towards others and ourselves
in a socialized manner, which is to say a predictable manner and thereby shield ourselves from our own
--
Mesopotamian creation story, which was elaborated in detail and complexity over the course of numerous
centuries, is the most ancient complete cosmogonic myth at our disposal. We turn from the Sumerians, to
--
The Sumerian and Egyptian myths portray ideas of exceeding complexity, in ritual (dramatic) and
imagistic form. This form is not purposeful mystification, but the manner in which ideas emerge, before
1.02 - Self-Consecration, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
10:There is another direction in which the ordinary practice of Yoga arrives at a helpful but narrowing simplification which is denied to the Sadhaka of the integral aim. The practice of Yoga brings us face to face with the extraordinary complexity of our own being, the stimulating but also embarrassing multiplicity of our personality, the rich endless confusion of Nature. To the ordinary man who lives upon his own waking surface, ignorant of the self's depths and vastnesses behind the veil, his psychological existence is fairly simple. A small but clamorous company of desires, some imperative intellectual and aesthetic cravings, some tastes, a few ruling or prominent ideas amid a great current of unconnected or ill-connected and mostly trivial thoughts, a number of more or less imperative vital needs, alternations of physical health and disease, a scattered and inconsequent succession of joys and griefs, frequent minor disturbances and vicissitudes and rarer strong searchings and upheavals of mind or body, and through it all Nature, partly with the aid of his thought and will, partly without or in spite of it, arranging these things in some rough practical fashion, some tolerable disorderly order, -- this is the material of his existence. The average human being even now is in his inward existence as crude and undeveloped as was the bygone primitive man in his outward life. But as soon as we go deep within ourselves, -- and Yoga means a plunge into all the multiple profundities of' the soul, -- we find ourselves subjectively, as man in his growth has found himself objectively, surrounded by a whole complex world which we have to know and to conquer.
11:The most disconcerting discovery is to find that every part of us -- intellect, will, sense-mind, nervous or desire self, the heart, the body-has each, as it were, its own complex individuality and natural formation independent of the rest; it neither agrees with itself nor with the others nor with the representative ego which is the shadow cast by some central and centralising self on our superficial ignorance. We find that we are composed not of one but many personalities and each has its own demands and differing nature. Our being is a roughly constituted chaos into which we have to introduce the principle of a divine order. Moreover, we find that inwardly too, no less than outwardly, we are not alone in the world; the sharp separateness of our ego was no more than a strong imposition and delusion; we do not exist in ourselves, we do not really live apart in an inner privacy or solitude. Our mind is a receiving, developing and modifying machine into which there is being constantly passed from moment to moment a ceaseless foreign flux, a streaming mass of disparate materials from above, from below, from outside. Much more than half our thoughts and feelings are not our own in the sense that they take form out of ourselves; of hardly anything can it be said that it is truly original to our nature. A large part comes to us from others or from the environment, whether as raw material or as manufactured imports; but still more largely they come from universal Nature here or from other worlds and planes and their beings and powers and influences; for we are overtopped and environed by other planes of consciousness, mind planes, life planes, subtle matter planes, from which our life and action here are fed, or fed on, pressed, dominated, made use offer the manifestation of their forms and forces. The difficulty of our separate salvation is immensely increased by this complexity and manifold openness and subjection to tile in-streaming energies of the universe. Of all this we have to take account, to deal with it, to know what is the secret stuff of our nature and its constituent and resultant motions and to create in it all a divine centre and a true harmony and luminous order.
12:In the ordinary paths of Yoga the method used for dealing with these conflicting materials is direct and simple. One or another of the principal psychological forces in us is selected as our single means for attaining to the Divine; the rest is quieted into inertia or left to starve in its smallness. The Bhakta, seizing on the emotional forces of the being, the intense activities of the heart, abides concentrated in the love of God, gathered up as into a single one-pointed tongue of fire; he is indifferent to the activities of thought, throws behind him the importunities of the reason, cares nothing for the mind's thirst for knowledge. All the knowledge he needs is his faith and the inspirations that well up from a heart in communion with the Divine. He has no use for any will to works that is not turned to the direct worship of the Beloved or the service of the temple. The man of Knowledge, self-confined by a deliberate choice to the force and activities of discriminative thought, finds release in the mind's inward-drawn endeavour. He concentrates on the idea of the self, succeeds by a subtle inner discernment in distinguishing its silent presence amid the veiling activities of Nature, and through the perceptive idea arrives at the concrete spiritual experience. He is indifferent to the play of the emotions, deaf to the hunger-call of passion, closed to the activities of Life, -- the more blessed he, the sooner they fall away from him and leave him free, still and mute, the eternal non-doer. The body is his stumbling-block, the vital functions are his enemies; if their demands can be reduced to a minimum, that is his great good fortune. The endless difficulties that arise from the environing world are dismissed by erecting firmly against them a defence of outer physical and inner spiritual solitude; safe behind a wall of inner silence, he remains impassive and untouched by the world and by others. To be alone with oneself or alone with the Divine, to walk apart with God and his devotees, to entrench oneself in the single self-ward endeavour of the mind or Godward passion of the heart is the trend of these Yogas. The problem is solved by the excision of all but the one central difficulty which pursues the only chosen motive-force; into the midst of the dividing calls of our nature the principle of an exclusive concentration comes sovereignly to our rescue.
1.02 - SOCIAL HEREDITY AND PROGRESS, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
the gravity and unity, but also the complexity, of the seemingly
humble task of the Christian educator:
1.02 - THE NATURE OF THE GROUND, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
Let us now consider these relationships a little more closely. In some fields the physiological intelligence works on its own initiative, as when it directs the never-ceasing processes of breathing, say, or assimilation. In others it acts at the behest of the conscious mind, as when we will to accomplish some action, but do not and cannot will the muscular, glandular, nervous and vascular means to the desired end. The apparently simple act of mimicry well illustrates the extraordinary nature of the feats performed by the physiological intelligence. When a parrot (making use, let us remember, of the beak, tongue and throat of a bird) imitates the sounds produced by the lips, teeth, palate and vocal cords of a man articulating words, what precisely happens? Responding in some as yet entirely uncomprehended way to the conscious minds desire to imitate some remembered or immediately perceived event, the physiological intelligence sets in motion large numbers of muscles, co-ordinating their efforts with such exquisite skill that the result is a more or less perfect copy of the original. Working on its own level, the conscious mind not merely of a parrot, but of the most highly gifted of human beings, would find itself completely baffled by a problem of comparable complexity.
As an example of the third way in which our minds affect matter, we may cite the all-too-familiar phenomenon of nervous indigestion. In certain persons symptoms of dyspepsia make their appearance when the conscious mind is troubled by such negative emotions as fear, envy, anger or hatred. These emotions are directed towards events or persons in the outer environment; but in some way or other they adversely affect the physiological intelligence and this derangement results, among other things, in nervous indigestion. From tuberculosis and gastric ulcer to heart disease and even dental caries, numerous physical ailments have been found to be closely correlated with certain undesirable states of the conscious mind. Conversely, every physician knows that a calm and cheerful patient is much more likely to recover than one who is agitated and depressed.
1.02 - THE WITHIN OF THINGS, #The Phenomenon of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
unheard-of complexity. This complexity increases in geometrical
progression as we pass from the protozoon higher and higher up
--
thesis (or complexity) are hut the two aspects or connected parts of one
and the same phenomenon. 1
--
great Law of complexity and consciousness : a law that itself implies
a psychically convergent structure and curvature of the world.
--
scientific, and at the same time to safeguard the natural complexity
of the stuff of the universe, I accordingly propose the following
--
(that is to say, of the same complexity and the same centricity)
as itself in the universe ; and a radial energy which draws it towards
ever greater complexity and centricity in other words forwards. 1
From this initial state, and supposing that it disposes of a
--
obviously be in a position to increase its internal complexity in
association with neighbouring particles, and thereupon (since its
--
forms of complexity and centricity ?
b. Is there a definite limit and end to the ' elemental ' value and
1.02 - What is Psycho therapy?, #The Practice of Psycho therapy, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
but has visibly increased in scope and complexity; and in the clouds of the
future the lineaments of a new practical psychology have already begun to
1.03 - THE EARTH IN ITS EARLY STAGES, #The Phenomenon of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
with the increasing chemical complexity of the elements of which
it represents the inner lining. But the chemical complexity of the
earth increases in conformity with the laws of thermo-dynamics
1.03 - THE GRAND OPTION, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
internal complexity, begins to reproduce itself. But the process does
not end there. When it exists in sufficient numbers the separate el-
--
raising itself to a state of ever greater organic complexity. This uni-
versal stream on which we are borne expresses in material terms,
1.03 - The Phenomenon of Man, #Let Me Explain, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
of products and services in the growing complexity of our
society. Now in the midst of these great labours, almost no-
--
a. An extreme physico-chemical complexity (particu-
larly apparent in the brain) which permits us to consider him
--
II. THE NOTION OF complexity
We will define the ' complexity' of a thing as the quality the
--
This idea of complexity (more exacdy, centro- complexity)
38
--
The coefficient of complexity enables us to establish among
the natural units which it has helped us to 'identify' and iso-
--
using the degree of complexity as a guide, we may advance
very much more surely than by following any other lead
--
of complexity. The bodies we see around us are not simply
small and large. They are also simple or complex.
--
combined) from the extreme of complexity in the particles
we know is just as astronomical as that between stellar and
--
median: and that, let me repeat, is the infinity of complexity.
When we introduce into our fundamental plan of the
--
function of the increasing physico-chemical complexity of
organized material groups, then surely we must lay down a
--
when we are dealing with low values of complexity, but it
gradually makes itself felt and finally becomes dominant
--
importance grows with its complexity - or, which comes to
the same thing, with the degree of "centration" of the cor-
puscles on themselves. From an atomic complexity of the
order of millions (virus) onwards, it begins to come into our
--
greater centred complexity and greater consciousness), the
curve of universal moleculization?
1.04 - Magic and Religion, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
the variety, and the complexity of the facts to be explained, and
the scantiness of our information regarding them, we shall be ready
1.04 - SOME REFLECTIONS ON PROGRESS, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
clei of increasing complexity, each succeeding stage of material
concentration and differentiation being accompanied by a more
1.04 - THE APPEARANCE OF ANOMALY - CHALLENGE TO THE SHARED MAP, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
representation of the morality constituting a given society is likely to be incomplete, as the complexity of
the patterns emerging consequential to the totality of social interaction exceeds (current) representational
--
in complexity from concrete imitation to generalized philosophical discourse.
The ability to communicate skill and representation makes it possible for the individual to internalize
1.04 - The Future of Man, #Let Me Explain, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
to raise us, by way of increasing complexity, to a higher
awareness of our own personality?
--
of complexity, weighs incomparably more heavily upon
the shoulders of our generation than did the ancient world
--
tence increases in direct ratio with the complexity of its
arrangements, because it is converging upon itself, at as
--
reached, along the complexity-axis (and this with the full
force of his spiritual impact) the extreme limit of the world.
1.04 - The Gods of the Veda, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
(8) The 33 great gods belong to the higher worlds but rest in Swar & work at once in all the strata of consciousness, for the world is always one in its complexity. They are masters of the mental functions, masters also of the vital & material. Agni, for instance, governs the actions of the fiery elements in Nature & in man, but is also the vehicle of pure tapas, tu, tuvis or divine force. They are therefore mankinds greatest helpers.
(9) But in order that they may help, it is necessary to reinforce them in these lower worlds, which are not their own, by self-surrender, by sacrifice, by a share in all mans action, strength, being & bliss, and by this mutual help mans being physical, vital, mental, spiritual is kept in a state of perfect & ever increasing force, energy & joy favourable to the development of immortality. This is the process of Yajna, called often Yoga when applied exclusively to the subjective movements & adhwara when applied to the objective. The Vritras, Panis etc of the Bhuvarloka who are constantly preventing mans growth & throwing back his development, have to be attacked and slain by the gods, for they are not entirely immortal. The sacrifice is largely a battle between evolutionary & reactionary powers.
--
It is supposed that in the Kaliyuga this is no longer possible, or possible only by direct self-surrender to the Supreme Deity. Therefore the complexity of the Vedic system has been removed from the domain of our religious practice and in its place there has been increasingly substituted the worship of the Supreme Deity through Love.
***
1.05 - Computing Machines and the Nervous System, #Cybernetics, or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine, #Norbert Wiener, #Cybernetics
activity of continually increasing complexity, or by going into a
repetitive process like the end of a chess game in which there is
1.05 - Mental Education, #On Education, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
(2) Development of the capacities of expansion, widening, complexity and richness.
(3) Organisation of one's ideas around a central idea, a higher ideal or a supremely luminous idea that will serve as a guide in life.
1.05 - The Activation of Human Energy, #Let Me Explain, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
the logical conclusion of the theory of complexity, may seem
even more far-fetched than the idea (of which it is die ex-
1.05 - THE HOSTILE BROTHERS - ARCHETYPES OF RESPONSE TO THE UNKNOWN, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
itself has developed and become elaborated in complexity and sophistication over the course of centuries:
proper understanding of its nature is terrifying, in a salutary sort of way. This informative terror is the
--
form of practice, for real-world activity. As games increase in complexity, in fact, it becomes increasingly
difficult to distinguish them from real-world activity.
--
limitations. It is of insufficient complexity to truly represent the nature of procedural morality (which is
302
--
Nonetheless, it is a fact that the phenomenon itself (which is of infinite complexity) is always capable of
transcending its representation. This capacity for transcendence is a property of the object (a property of
--
something more complex than its mere present appearance; this increase in complexity is compounded
by the extended active capacity for exploration also typical of our species.
1.05 - The New Consciousness, #On the Way to Supermanhood, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
But it is a curious sort of mastery it does not obey us at all! On the contrary, the minute we try to use it, it eludes us completely, slips through our fingers, pokes fun at us and leaves us looking foolish, like an apprentice sculptor trying to imitate the stroke of the Master: our stroke misses. We even hit our fingers. And we learn. Perhaps we learn not to want anything. But it is a little more complicated than that complicated from our standpoint, of course, because everything is complicated on this side; it is complexity itself. In fact, it is simple. We are learning the law of rhythm. Because Truth is a rhythm.
It has swift flowings, precipitous cascades, slack stretches that go deep into themselves like a sea into a deeper sea, like a great bird into the infinite blue. It has sudden urgings, minute diamond points that probe and pierce, expansive white silences like a steppe in the eternity of ages, like a fathomless gaze spanning lives upon lives, oceans of sorrow and toil, continents of struggle, road upon road of prayer and fervor. It has abrupt bursts, miraculous instantaneous outcomes, a long, untiring patience that follows each step, each quiver of being like a murmur of eternity upholding the minute. And behind that instant or swordlike flash, that vast slowness unfolding its trail of infinity, that burning point bursting out, that commanding word or compelling pressure, there always lies a kind of tranquil clarity, a crystalline distance, a little snow-white note that seems to have traveled and traveled across expanses of calm light, filtered down from an infinity of clear-sighted softness, trickled from a vast sun-washed prairie where no one suffers, acts or becomes a sweeping expanse upholding the little note, the gesture, the word, and the abruptness of an act springing from a fathomless peace where the noise of time and the press of men and the swirl of sorrows are cloaked in their mantle of eternity, already healed, already past, already wept over. For Truth enfolds the world as in a great robe of softness, in an infinite sky where our black birds and birds of paradise, sorrows from here and there, gray wings and pink ones melt away. All becomes one, adjusts to that note, and is in tune; all is simple and stainless, without trace, imprint or doubt, because all flows from that music, and this minute immediate gesture harmonizes with a great swell that will still roll in long after we have left.
1.05 - THE NEW SPIRIT, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
a an extreme physicochemical complexity (particularly ap-
parent in the brain) which permits us to consider him the most
--
tronomical degree of complexity and arrangement, and centered
pari passu upon itself while at the same time it animates itself. Why
--
highest complexity? And why not define Time itself as precisely
the rise of the Universe into those high latitudes where complex-
1.06 - A Summary of my Phenomenological View of the World, #Let Me Explain, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
of progressively greater complexity (this being towards - or
within - a "third infinite", the infinite of complexity, which is
just as real as the Infinitesimal or the Immense). And con-
--
the specific property of this complexity taken to extremely
high values/
--
panying mechanism of 'reproduction', the rise of complexity
on earth increases its pace phyletically (the genesis of species
--
a specially favoured axis of complexity-consciousness: that
of the Primates.
--
tion, the criterion of complexity-consciousness provides
some decisive evidence. On the one hand, an irresistible and
--
pensable to the completion of the process of complexity-
consciousness, at the same time it is equally true (how true,
1.06 - Being Human and the Copernican Principle, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
er complexity, is anathema. Their arguments, however, also
carry barely concealed overtones of an ideological agenda
--
structural complexity, the microcosm. It is because of the ex
istence of this archetype that life in the evolution has gradu
1.06 - LIFE AND THE PLANETS, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
ment in its biochemical aspect, that of complexity.
2. In Terms of complexity; or the Planets
as Vital Centers of the Universe
--
This idea of complexity (more exactly, centro complexity) is eas-
LIFE AND THE PLANETS 99
--
amination of their degree of complexity enables us to distinguish
and separate those which may be called "true natural units," the
--
Secondly, the coefficient of complexity further enables us to es-
tablish, among the natural units which it has helped us to "iden-
--
scale of complexity, the elements succeed one another in the histor-
ical order of their birth. The place in the scale occupied by each par-
--
in terms of their immensity or even complexity (since, as I have
said, nebulae and stars are no more than aggregates) but in terms
of the complexity of the elements which compose them.
We now see a very different picture; a complete reversal of val-
--
of high complexity has a chance to take place. However inconsid-
erable they may be in the history of sidereal bodies, however acci-
--
having established, ON the basis of complexity, the astral
preeminence of the planets in the sidereal system, and particularly
--
of complexity shows, living organisms, far from originating in
germs fallen upon Earth from the celestial spaces, are simply the
--
der of complexity may be roughly expressed by the number of
atoms they contain, their "corpuscular number 55 as one might call
--
so that the position of Man in terms of complexity may be deter-
mined? What method shall we adopt?
--
the degree of complexity in a living creature, the higher its con-
sciousness; and vice versa. The two properties vary in parallel and
--
have reached the point where complexity can no longer be reck-
oned in number of atoms we can nevertheless continue to measure
--
whereby we may measure the growth of complexity through the
maze of invertebrates, arthropods and vertebrates, the position
--
of complexity to consider the Earth one of the vital points of the
Universe, we find ourselves compelled, following the same princi-
--
more closely, once again by the light of our principle of complexity.
The first thing to give us pause, as we survey the progress of
--
The modern world, with its prodigious growth of complexity, weighs
incomparably more heavily upon the shoulders of our generation
--
mony with the law of complexity, 3 an acceptable way of envisag-
ing "the end of the world."
--
God: "proof by complexity."
114 THE FUTURE OF MAN
--
the logical conclusion of the theory of complexity, may seem even
more farfetched than the idea (of which it is the extension) of the
1.06 - MORTIFICATION, NON-ATTACHMENT, RIGHT LIVELIHOOD, #The Perennial Philosophy, #Aldous Huxley, #Philosophy
The Christian simplicity, of which Grou and Fnelon write, is the same thing as the virtue so much admired by Lao Tzu and his successors. According to these Chinese sages, personal sins and social maladjustments are all due to the fact that men have separated themselves from their divine source and live according to their own will and notions, not according to Taowhich is the Great Way, the Logos, the Nature of Things, as it manifests itself on every plane from the physical, up through the animal and the mental, to the spiritual. Enlightenment comes when we give up self-will and make ourselves docile to the workings of Tao in the world around us and in our own bodies, minds and spirits. Sometimes the Taoist philosophers write as though they believed in Rousseaus Noble Savage, and (being Chinese and therefore much more concerned with the concrete and the practical than with the merely speculative) they are fond of prescribing methods by which rulers may reduce the complexity of civilization and so preserve their subjects from the corrupting influences of man-made and therefore Tao-eclipsing conventions of thought, feeling and action. But the rulers who are to perform this task for the masses must themselves be sages; and to become a sage, one must get rid of all the rigidities of unregenerate adulthood and become again as a little child. For only that which is soft and docile is truly alive; that which conquers and outlives everything is that which adapts itself to everything, that which always seeks the lowest placenot the hard rock, but the water that wears away the everlasting hills. The simplicity and spontaneity of the perfect sage are the fruits of mortificationmortification of the will and, by recollectedness and meditation, of the mind. Only the most highly disciplined artist can recapture, on a higher level, the spontaneity of the child with its first paint-box. Nothing is more difficult than to be simple.
May I ask, said Yen Hui, in what consists the fasting of the heart?
1.06 - Psycho therapy and a Philosophy of Life, #The Practice of Psycho therapy, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
The more psychological a condition is, the greater its complexity
and the more it relates to the whole of life. It is true that elementary
1.06 - The Four Powers of the Mother, #The Mother With Letters On The Mother, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
15:But be on your guard and do not try to understand and judge the Divine Mother by your little earthly mind that loves to subject even the things that are beyond it to its own norms and standards, its narrow reasonings and erring impressions, its bottomless aggressive ignorance and its petty self-confident knowledge. The human mind shut in the prison of its half-lit obscurity cannot follow the many-sided freedom of the steps of the Divine Shakti. The rapidity and complexity of her vision and action outrun its stumbling comprehension; the measures of her movement are not its measures. Bewildered by the swift alternation of her many different personalities, her making of rhythms and her breaking of rhythms, her accelerations of speed and her retardations, her varied ways of dealing with the problem of one and of another, her taking up and dropping now of this line and now of that one and her gathering of them together, it will not recognise the way of the Supreme Power when it is circling and sweeping upwards through the maze of the Ignorance to a supernal Light. Open rather your soul to her and be content to feel her with the psychic nature and see her with the psychic vision that alone make a straight response to the Truth. Then the Mother herself will enlighten by their psychic elements your mind and heart and life and physical consciousness and reveal to them too her ways and her nature.
16:Avoid also the error of the ignorant mind's demand on the Divine Power to act always according to our crude surface notions of omniscience and omnipotence. For our mind clamours to be impressed at every turn by miraculous power and easy success and dazzling splendour; otherwise it cannot believe that here is the Divine. The Mother is dealing with the Ignorance in the fields of the Ignorance; she has descended there and is not all above. Partly she veils and partly she unveils her knowledge and her power, often holds them back from her instruments and personalities and follows that she may transform them the way of the seeking mind, the way of the aspiring psychic, the way of the battling vital, the way of the imprisoned and suffering physical nature. There are conditions that have been laid down by a Supreme Will, there are many tangled knots that have to be loosened and cannot be cut abruptly asunder. The Asura and Rakshasa hold this evolving earthly nature and have to be met and conquered on their own terms in their own longconquered fief and province; the human in us has to be led and prepared to transcend its limits and is too weak and obscure to be lifted up suddenly to a form far beyond it. The Divine Consciousness and Force are there and do at each moment the thing that is needed in the conditions of the labour, take always the step that is decreed and shape in the midst of imperfection the perfection that is to come. But only when the supermind has descended in you can she deal directly as the supramental Shakti with supramental natures. If you follow your mind, it will not recognise the Mother even when she is manifest before you. Follow your soul and not your mind, your soul that answers to the Truth, not your mind that leaps at appearances; trust the Divine Power and she will free the godlike elements in you and shape all into an expression of Divine Nature.
1.07 - Medicine and Psycho therapy, #The Practice of Psycho therapy, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
psyches complexity. It is therefore quite wrong when people accuse
psycho therapists of being unable to reach agreement even on their own
1.07 - Standards of Conduct and Spiritual Freedom, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
16:Against this danger of suppression and immobilisation Nature in the individual reacts. It may react by an isolated resistance ranging from the instinctive and brutal revolt of the criminal to the complete negation of the solitary and ascetic. It may react by the assertion of an individualistic trend in the social idea, may impose it on the mass consciousness and establish a compromise between the individual and the social demand. But a compromise is not a solution; it only salves over the difficulty and in the end increases the complexity of the problem and multiplies its issues. A new principle has to be called in other and higher than the two conflicting instincts and powerful at once to override and to reconcile them. Above the natural individual law which sets up as our one standard of conduct the satisfaction of our individual needs, preferences and desires and the natural communal law which sets up as a superior standard the satisfaction of the needs, preferences and desires of the community as a whole, there had to arise the notion of an ideal moral law which is not the satisfaction of need and desire, but controls and even coerces or annuls them in the interests of an ideal order that is not animal, not vital and physical, but mental, a creation of the mind's seeking for light and knowledge and right rule and right movement and true order. The moment this notion becomes powerful in man, he begins to escape from the engrossing vital and material into the mental life; he climbs from the first to the second degree of the threefold ascent of Nature. His needs and desires themselves are touched with a more elevated light of purpose and the mental need, the aesthetic, intellectual and emotional desire begin to predominate over the demand of the physical and vital nature.
17:The natural law of conduct proceeds from a conflict to an equilibrium of forces, impulsions and desires; the higher ethical law proceeds by the development of the mental and moral nature towards a fixed internal standard or else a self-formed ideal of absolute qualities, - justice, righteousness, love, right reason, right power, beauty, light. It is therefore essentially an individual standard; it is not a creation of the mass mind. The thinker is the individual; it is he who calls out and throws into forms that which would otherwise remain subconscious in the amorphous human whole. The moral striver is also the individual; selfdiscipline, not under the yoke of an outer law, but in obedience to an internal light, is essentially an individual effort. But by positing his personal standard as the translation of an absolute moral ideal the thinker imposes it, not on himself alone, but on all the individuals whom his thought can reach and penetrate. And as the mass of individuals come more and more to accept it in idea if only in an imperfect practice or no practice, society also is compelled to obey the new orientation. It absorbs the ideative influence and tries, not with any striking success, to mould its institutions into new forms touched by these higher ideals. But always its instinct is to translate them into binding law, into pattern forms, into mechanic custom, into an external social compulsion upon its living units.
--
25:The later religions endeavour to fix the type of a supreme truth of conduct, erect a system and declare God's law through the mouth of Avatar or prophet. These systems, more powerful and dynamic than the dry ethical idea, are yet for the most part no more than idealistic glorifications of the moral principle sanctified by religious emotion and the label of a superhuman origin. Some, like the extreme Christian ethic, are rejected by Nature because they insist unworkably on an impracticable absolute rule. Others prove in the end to be evolutionary compromises and become obsolete in the march of Time. The true divine law, unlike these mental counterfeits, cannot be a system of rigid ethical determinations that press into their cast-iron moulds all our life-movements. The Law divine is truth of life and truth of the spirit and must take up with a free living plasticity and inspire with the direct touch of its eternal light each step of our action and all the complexity of our life issues. It must act not as a rule and formula but as an enveloping and penetrating conscious presence that determines all our thoughts, activities, feelings, impulsions of will by its infallible power and knowledge.
26:The older religions erected their rule of the wise, their dicta of Manu or Confucius, a complex Shastra in which they attempted to combine the social rule and moral law with the declaration of certain eternal principles of our highest nature in some kind of uniting amalgam. All three were treated on the same ground as equally the expression of everlasting verities, sanatana dharma. But two of these elements are evolutionary and valid for a time, mental constructions, human readings of the will of the Eternal; the third, attached and subdued to certain social and moral formulas, had to share the fortunes of its forms. Either the Shastra grows obsolete and has to be progressively changed or finally cast away or else it stands as a rigid barrier to the self-development of the individual and the race. The Shastra erects a collective and external standard; it ignores the inner nature of the individual, the indeterminable elements of a secret spiritual force within him. But the nature of the individual will not be ignored; its demand is inexorable. The unrestrained indulgence of his outer impulses leads to anarchy and dissolution, but the suppression and coercion of his soul's freedom by a fixed and mechanical rule spells stagnation or an inner death. Not this coercion or determination from outside, but the free discovery of his highest spirit and the truth of an eternal movement is the supreme thing that he has to discover.
1.07 - THE GREAT EVENT FORESHADOWED - THE PLANETIZATION OF MANKIND, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
will have attained a maximum of complexity, and, as a result, of
concentration by total "reflexion" (or planetizatiori) of itself upon it-
--
consciousness and complexity within the Universe.
It would seem that Man, observing it with curiosity, has always
--
that all, in their varied degrees of complexity and magnitude, are
manifestations of a single, fundamental, granular structural prin-
--
varying in proportion to the complexity of any particular mole-
cule: which amounts to saying that the degree of psychism, the
--
stage of particles reaching a million atoms in their complexity
(viruses), we come to the first flush heralding the dawn of Life.
--
the advance of complexity within a process of universal evolution,
nothing can arrest the logical sequence in which two worlds which
--
with the Law of complexity) with what we have called the plane-
tization of Mankind?
--
Spirit of Evolution, planetization (as the theory of complexity would
lead us to expect) can physically have but one effect: it can only per-
1.07 - The Ideal Law of Social Development, #The Human Cycle, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Individual man belongs not only to humanity in general, his nature is not only a variation of human nature in general, but he belongs also to his race-type, his class-type, his mental, vital, physical, spiritual type in which he resembles some, differs from others. According to these affinities he tends to group himself in Churches, sects, communities, classes, coteries, associations whose life he helps, and by them he enriches the life of the large economic, social and political group or society to which he belongs. In modern times this society is the nation. By his enrichment of the national life, though not in that way only, he helps the total life of humanity. But it must be noted that he is not limited and cannot be limited by any of these groupings; he is not merely the noble, merchant, warrior, priest, scholar, artist, cultivator or artisan, not merely the religionist or the worldling or the politician. Nor can he be limited by his nationality; he is not merely the Englishman or the Frenchman, the Japanese or the Indian; if by a part of himself he belongs to the nation, by another he exceeds it and belongs to humanity. And even there is a part of him, the greatest, which is not limited by humanity; he belongs by it to God and to the world of all beings and to the godheads of the future. He has indeed the tendency of self-limitation and subjection to his environment and group, but he has also the equally necessary tendency of expansion and transcendence of environment and groupings. The individual animal is dominated entirely by his type, subordinated to his group when he does group himself; individual man has already begun to share something of the infinity, complexity, free variation of the Self we see manifested in the world. Or at least he has it in possibility even if there be as yet no sign of it in his organised surface nature. There is here no principle of a mere shapeless fluidity; it is the tendency to enrich himself with the largest possible material constantly brought in, constantly assimilated and changed by the law of his individual nature into stuff of his growth and divine expansion.
Thus the community stands as a mid-term and intermediary value between the individual and humanity and it exists not merely for itself, but for the one and the other and to help them to fulfil each other. The individual has to live in humanity as well as humanity in the individual; but mankind is or has been too large an aggregate to make this mutuality a thing intimate and powerfully felt in the ordinary mind of the race, and even if humanity becomes a manageable unit of life, intermediate groups and aggregates must still exist for the purpose of mass-differentiation and the concentration and combination of varying tendencies in the total human aggregate. Therefore the community has to stand for a time to the individual for humanity even at the cost of standing between him and it and limiting the reach of his universality and the wideness of his sympathies. Still the absolute claim of the community, the society or the nation to make its growth, perfection, greatness the sole object of human life or to exist for itself alone as against the individual and the rest of humanity, to take arbitrary possession of the one and make the hostile assertion of itself against the other, whether defensive or offensive, the law of its action in the world and not, as it unfortunately is, a temporary necessity,this attitude of societies, races, religions, communities, nations, empires is evidently an aberration of the human reason, quite as much as the claim of the individual to live for himself egoistically is an aberration and the deformation of a truth.
1.07 - The Primary Data of Being, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
Space on the contrary translates into the manifested world the permanent infinity of the possibilities of the Absolute. It is the category of the being considered in the simultaneous complexity of its elements and of their objective relations apart from their perpetually changing individual unity.
This is the reason why one cannot divide Time without bringing into it the notion of Space so as to be able to discern in it spaces of time.
--
Similarly the concreteness of Space increases in proportion as the divisibility of substance grows by a more complex differentiation of its elements. This substance becomes the more material, the more it lends itself by its very complexity to richer and more numerous combinations.
What we call Matter is the pure possibility of these combinations; it is the abstract multiplicity of the elements whose active organisation constitutes life.
--
By an ever more detailed, precise and individual differentiation of its elements, it constitutes for itself one after another the successive states of an increasing materiality, that is to say, of an increasing complexity in its substance. And in each of these states the objective forms of the being become more concrete, rich and real.
It is therefore by the simple prolongation in its effect of the desire for individual manifestation according to the sole law of a rigorously egoistic affirmation that universal being unrolls the whole process of its material evolution.
1.07 - The Three Schools of Magick 2, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
When the light of intelligence begins to dawn dimly through many fogs upon these savages, we reach a second stage. Bold spirits master courage to assert that the evil which is so obvious, is, in some mysterious way, an illusion. They thus throw back the whole complexity of sorrow to a single cause; that is, the arising of the illusion aforesaid. The problem then assumes a final form: How is that illusion to be destroyed.
A fairly pure example of the first stage of this type of thought is to be found in the Vedas, of the second stage, in the Upanishads. But the answer to the question, "How is the illusion of evil to be destroyed?", depends on another point of theory. We may postulate a Parabrahm infinitely good, etc. etc. etc., in which case we consider the destruction of the illusion of evil as the reuniting of the consciousness with Parabrahm. The unfortunate part of this scheme of things is that on seeking to define Parabrahm for the purpose of returning to Its purity, it is discovered sooner or later, that It possesses no qualities at all! In other words, as the farmer said, on being shown the elephant: There ain't no sich animile. It was Gautama Buddha who perceived the inutility of dragging in this imaginary pachyderm. Since our Parabrahm, he said to the Hindu philosophers, is actually nothing, why not stick to or original perception that everything is sorrow, and admit that the only way to escape from sorrow is to arrive at nothingness?
1.08 - Civilisation and Barbarism, #The Human Cycle, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Once we have determined that this rule of perfect individuality and perfect reciprocity is the ideal law for the individual, the community and the race and that a perfect union and even oneness in a free diversity is its goal, we have to try to see more clearly what we mean when we say that self-realisation is the sense, secret or overt, of individual and of social development. As yet we have not to deal with the race, with mankind as a unity; the nation is still our largest compact and living unit. And it is best to begin with the individual, both because of his nature we have a completer and nearer knowledge and experience than of the aggregate soul and life and because the society or nation is, even in its greater complexity, a larger, a composite individual, the collective Man. What we find valid of the former is therefore likely to be valid in its general principle of the larger entity. Moreover, the development of the free individual is, we have said, the first condition for the development of the perfect society. From the individual, therefore, we have to start; he is our index and our foundation.
The Self of man is a thing hidden and occult; it is not his body, it is not his life, it is noteven though he is in the scale of evolution the mental being, the Manu,his mind. Therefore neither the fullness of his physical, nor of his vital, nor of his mental nature can be either the last term or the true standard of his self-realisation; they are means of manifestation, subordinate indications, foundations of his self-finding, values, practical currency of his self, what you will, but not the thing itself which he secretly is and is obscurely groping or trying overtly and self-consciously to become. Man has not possessed as a race this truth about himself, does not now possess it except in the vision and self-experience of the few in whose footsteps the race is unable to follow, though it may adore them as Avatars, seers, saints or prophets. For the Oversoul who is the master of our evolution, has his own large steps of Time, his own great eras, tracts of slow and courses of rapid expansion, which the strong, semi-divine individual may overleap, but not the still half-animal race. The course of evolution proceeding from the vegetable to the animal, from the animal to the man, starts in the latter from the subhuman; he has to take up into him the animal and even the mineral and vegetable: they constitute his physical nature, they dominate his vitality, they have their hold upon his mentality. His proneness to many kinds of inertia, his readiness to vegetate, his attachment to the soil and clinging to his roots, to safe anchorages of all kinds, and on the other hand his nomadic and predatory impulses, his blind servility to custom and the rule of the pack, his mob-movements and openness to subconscious suggestions from the group-soul, his subjection to the yoke of rage and fear, his need of punishment and reliance on punishment, his inability to think and act for himself, his incapacity for true freedom, his distrust of novelty, his slowness to seize intelligently and assimilate, his downward propensity and earthward gaze, his vital and physical subjection to his heredity, all these and more are his heritage from the subhuman origins of his life and body and physical mind. It is because of this heritage that he finds self-exceeding the most difficult of lessons and the most painful of endeavours. Yet it is by exceeding of the lower self that Nature accomplishes the great strides of her evolutionary process. To learn by what he has been, but also to know and increase to what he can be, is the task that is set for the mental being.
1.08 - Information, Language, and Society, #Cybernetics, or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine, #Norbert Wiener, #Cybernetics
This intercommunication can vary greatly in complexity and
content. With man, it embraces the whole intricacy of language
1.08 - The Four Austerities and the Four Liberations, #On Education, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
The senses should be capable of enduring everything without disgust or displeasure, but at the same time they must acquire and develop more and more the power of discerning the quality, origin and effect of the various vital vibrations in order to know whether they are favourable to harmony, beauty and good health or whether they are harmful to the balance and progress of the physical being and the vital. Moreover, the senses should be used as instruments to approach and study the physical and vital worlds in all their complexity; in this way they will take their true place in the great endeavour towards transformation.
It is by enlightening, streng thening and purifying the vital, and not by weakening it, that one can contri bute to the true progress of the being. To deprive oneself of sensations is therefore as harmful as depriving oneself of food. But just as the choice of food must be made wisely and solely for the growth and proper functioning of the body, so too the choice of sensations and their control should be made with a very scientific austerity and solely for the growth and perfection of the vital, of this highly dynamic instrument, which is as essential for progress as all the other parts of the being.
1.08 - The Gods of the Veda - The Secret of the Veda, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
It is necessary, in order that the reader may follow my arguments with a better understanding, to sketch briefly the important lines of that system as it reveals itself in the ten mandalas of the Rigveda. Its fundamental conception was the unity in complexity of the apparent universe. The Vedic mind, looking out on the great movement of material forces around it, aware of their regularity, law, universality, saw in them symbols and expressions of a diviner life behind. Everywhere they felt the presence of intelligence, of life, of a soul. But they did not make the common distinction between soul and matter. Matter was to them itself a term and expression of the life and soul they had discovered. It was this peculiarity of thought which constituted the essential characteristic of the Vedic outlook and has stood at the root and basis of all Indian thought and religion then & subsequently.
Nevertheless existence is not simple in its infinite oneness. Matter is prithivi, tanu or tanva (terra), a wide yet formal extension of being; but behind matter and containing it is a term of being, not formal though instrumentally creative of form, measuring & containing it, mind, mati or manas. Mind itself is biune in movement, modified mind working in direct relation to material life (anu, the Vedantic prana) and moulding itself to its requirements in order to seize and enjoy it, and pure mind above and controlling it. For each of these three subjective principles there must exist in the nature of things an objective world in which it fulfils its tendencies and in which beings of that particular order of consciousness can live and manifest themselves. The three worlds, tribhuvana, trailokya are called in Vedic terminology, Bhu, the material world, Bhuvar, the intermediate world and Swar, the pure blissful mental world,Bhur, Bhuvar, Swar, earth, the lower heavens and paradise, are the three sacred & mighty vyahritis of the Veda, and the great Vedic formula OM Bhur Bhuvah Swah expressive of our manifest existence triply founded in matter, mind-in-sense & vital movement and pure mind, still resounds in the Indian consciousness & comes with a solemnity, ill-understood but felt, to the descendants of the ancient Rishis. They persist in later belief as three inferior worlds of the Purana, constituents of the aparardha, or lower hemisphere of conscious existence, in which the Vedantic principles of matter, life & mind, anna, prana and manas severally predominate and determine the conditions of existence. Bhuvar & Swar are the two heavens, the double firmament, ubhe rodasi so frequently mentioned in the sacred verses.
1.09 - Civilisation and Culture, #The Human Cycle, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
This very complexity of his mental being, with the absence of any one principle which can safely dominate the others, the absence of any sure and certain light which can guide and fix in their vacillations the reason and the intelligent will, is mans great embarrassment and stumbling-block. All the hostile distinctions, oppositions, antagonisms, struggles, conversions, reversions, perversions of his mentality, all the chaotic war of ideas and impulses and tendencies which perplex his efforts, have arisen from the natural misunderstandings and conflicting claims of his many members. His reason is a judge who gives conflicting verdicts and is bribed and influenced by the suitors; his intelligent will is an administrator harassed by the conflicts of the different estates of his realm and by the sense of his own partiality and final incompetence. Still in the midst of it all he has formed certain large ideas of culture and the mental life, and his conflicting notions about them follow certain definite lines determined by the divisions of his nature and shaped into a general system of curves by his many attempts to arrive either at an exclusive standard or an integral harmony.
We have first the distinction between civilisation and barbarism. In its ordinary, popular sense civilisation means the state of civil society, governed, policed, organised, educated, possessed of knowledge and appliances as opposed to that which has not or is not supposed to have these advantages. In a certain sense the Red Indian, the Basuto, the Fiji islander had their civilisation; they possessed a rigorously, if simply organised society, a social law, some ethical ideas, a religion, a kind of training, a good many virtues in some of which, it is said, civilisation is sadly lacking; but we are agreed to call them savages and barbarians, mainly it seems, because of their crude and limited knowledge, the primitive rudeness of their appliances and the bare simplicity of their social organisation. In the more developed states of society we have such epithets as semi-civilised and semi-barbarous which are applied by different types of civilisation to each other,the one which is for a time dominant and physically successful has naturally the loudest and most self-confident say in the matter. Formerly men were more straightforward and simpleminded and frankly expressed their standpoint by stigmatising all peoples different in general culture from themselves as barbarians or Mlechchhas. The word civilisation so used comes to have a merely relative significance or hardly any fixed sense at all. We must therefore get rid in it of all that is temporary or accidental and fix it upon this distinction that barbarism is the state of society in which man is almost entirely preoccupied with his life and body, his economic and physical existence,at first with their sufficient maintenance, not as yet their greater or richer well-being, and has few means and little inclination to develop his mentality, while civilisation is the more evolved state of society in which to a sufficient social and economic organisation is added the activity of the mental life in most if not all of its parts; for sometimes some of these parts are left aside or discouraged or temporarily atrophied by their inactivity, yet the society may be very obviously civilised and even highly civilised. This conception will bring in all the civilisations historic and prehistoric and put aside all the barbarism, whether of Africa or Europe or Asia, Hun or Goth or Vandal or Turcoman. It is obvious that in a state of barbarism the rude beginnings of civilisation may exist; it is obvious too that in a civilised society a great mass of barbarism or numerous relics of it may exist. In that sense all societies are semi-civilised. How much of our present-day civilisation will be looked back upon with wonder and disgust by a more developed humanity as the superstitions and atrocities of an imperfectly civilised era! But the main point is this that in any society which we can call civilised the mentality of man must be active, the mental pursuits developed and the regulation and improvement of his life by the mental being a clearly self-conscious concept in his better mind.
1.1.01 - Seeking the Divine, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
In these matters it is not the thinking mind but the vital being - the life-force and the desire nature - or some part of it at least, that usually determines men's action and their choice - when it is not some outward necessity or pressure that compels or mainly influences the decision. The mind is only an interpreting, justifying and devising agent. By your taking up the sadhana this part of your vital being has had a pressure put upon it from above and within which has discouraged its old turn of desires and tendencies, its past grooves, those which would have decided its direction before; this vital has, as is often one first result, fallen silent and neutral. It is no longer strongly moved towards the ordinary life; it has not yet received from or through the psychic centre and the higher mental will a sufficient illumination and impulse to take up a new vital movement and run vigorously on the road to a new life. That is the reason for the listlessness of which you speak and the mistiness of the future. Men do not know themselves and have not learned to distinguish these different parts of the being which are usually lumped together as mind; they do not understand their own states and actions, or, if at all, then only on the surface. It is part of the foundation of Yoga to become conscious of the complexity of the nature, see the different forces that move it and get over it a control of directing knowledge.
The remedy can only come from the parts of the being that are already turned towards the Light. To call in the light of the divine consciousness, bring the psychic being to the front and kindle a flame of aspiration which will awaken spiritually the outer mind and set on fire the vital being, is the way out. It is usually a psychic awakening or a series of strong experiences by which the sadhak comes out of this intermediary no man's land of the quiescent vital (few can avoid altogether this passage through a neutral vital indifference) into the full dynamic course of the spiritual movement.
1.1.04 - Philosophy, #Essays Divine And Human, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Truth is an infinitely complex reality and he has the best chance of arriving nearest to it who most recognises but is not daunted by its infinite complexity. We must look at the whole thought-tangle, fact, emotion, idea, truth beyond idea,
Philosophy
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Purpose. Some minds, like Plato, like Vivekananda, feel more than others this mighty complexity and give voice to it. They pour out thought in torrents or in rich and majestic streams.
They are not logically careful of consistency, they cannot build up any coherent, yet comprehensive systems, but they quicken men's minds and liberate them from religious, philosophic and scientific dogma and tradition. They leave the world not surer, but freer than when they entered it.
1.10 - Foresight, #On Education, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Here again the solution is to be found in Yoga. And by yogic discipline one can not only foresee destiny but modify it and change it almost totally. First of all, Yoga teaches us that we are not a single being, a simple entity which necessarily has a single destiny that is simple and logical. Rather we have to acknowledge that the destiny of most men is complex, often to the point of incoherence. Is it not this very complexity which gives us the impression of unexpectedness, of indeterminacy and consequently of unpredictability?
To solve the problem one must know that, to begin with, all living creatures, and more especially human beings, are made up of a combination of several entities that come together, interpenetrate, sometimes organising themselves and completing each other, sometimes opposing and contradicting one another. Each one of these beings or states of being belongs to a world of its own and carries within it its own destiny, its own determinism. And it is the combination of all these determinisms, which is sometimes very heterogeneous, that results in the destiny of the individual. But as the organisation and relationship of all these entities can be altered by personal discipline and effort of will, as these various determinisms act on each other in different ways according to the concentration of the consciousness, their combination is nearly always variable and therefore unforeseeable.
1.10 - THE FORMATION OF THE NOOSPHERE, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
outcome of complexity: experimentally the two terms are insepa-
rable. Like a pair of related quantities they vary simultaneously.
--
a function of complexity, a vast prospect opens before us. To what
regions and through what phases may we suppose that the exten-
--
law of "consciousness and complexity" that we set our course: a
consciousness becoming ever more centered, emerging from the
1.10 - The Secret of the Veda, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The modern world cares little for orthodox Hindu opinion, for the opinion of its Pandits or for the ancient authority of its received guides; putting these things aside as the heavy and now useless baggage of the dead past it moves on free and unhampered to its objective, seeking ever fresh vistas of undiscovered knowledge. But a Hindu writer, still holding the faith of his ancestors, owes a certain debt to the immediate past, not so much as to hamper his free enquiry and outlook upon truth, but enough to demand from him a certain respect for whatever in it is really respectworthy and some attempt to satisfy his coreligionists that in opening out a fresh outlook on ancient knowledge he is not uprooting truths that are essential to their common religion. Nothing in those truths compels us to accept the plenary authority of Sayana or the ritualistic interpretation of the Vedas. The hymns of the Veda are, for us, inspired truth and therefore infallible; it follows that the only interpretative authority on them which can claim also to be infallible is one which itself works by the faculty of divine inspiration. The only works for which the ordinary tradition claims this equal authority are the Brahmanas, Aranyakas & Upanishads. Even among these authorities, if we accept them as all and equally inspired and authoritative, and on this point Hindus are not in entire agreement,the Brahmanas which deal with the ceremonial detail of Vedic sacrifice, are authoritative for the ritual only; for the inner sense the Upanishads are the fit authority. Sayana can lay claim to no such sanctity for his opinions. He is no ancient Rishi, nor even an inspired religious teacher, but a grammarian and scholar writing in the twelfth century after Christ several millenniums subsequent to the Rishis to whom Veda was revealed. By his virtues & defects as a scholar his interpretation must be judged. His erudition is vast, his industry colossal; he has so occupied the field that everyone who approaches the Veda must pass to it under his shadow; his commentary is a mine of knowledge about Vedic Sanscrit and full of useful hints for the interpretation of Veda. But there the tale of his merits ends. Other qualities are needed for a successful Vedic commentary which in Sayana are conspicuous by their absence; and his defects as a critic are almost as colossal as his industry and erudition. He is not a disinterested mind seeking impartially the truth of Veda but a professor of the ritualistic school of interpretation intent upon reading the traditional ceremonial sense into the sacred hymns; even so he is totally wanting in consistency, coherence and settled method. Not only is he frequently uncertain of himself, halts and qualifies his interpretation with an alternative or not having the full courage of his ritualistic rendering introduces it as a mere possibility,these would be meritorious failings,but he wavers in a much more extraordinary fashion, forcing the ritualistic sense of a word or passage where it cannot possibly hold, abandoning it unaccountably where it can well be sustained. The Vedas are masterpieces of flawless literary style and logical connection. But Sayana, like many great scholars, is guiltless of literary taste and has not the least sense of what is or is not possible to a good writer. His interpretation of any given term is seldom consistent even in similar passages of different hymns, but he will go yet farther and give two entirely different renderings to the same word though occurring in successive riks & in an obviously connected strain of thought. The rhythm and balance of a sentence is nothing to him, he will destroy it ruthlessly in order to get over a difficulty of interpretation; he will disturb the arrangement of a sentence sometimes in the most impossible manner, connecting absolutely disconnected words, breaking up inseparable connections, inserting a second and alien sentence in between the head & tail of the first, and creating a barbarous complexity & confusion where the symbolic movement of the Rishis, unequalled in its golden ease, lucidity and straightforwardness, demands an equal lucidity & straightforwardness in the commentator. A certain rough coherence of thought he attempts to keep, but his rendering makes oftenest a clumsy sense & not unoften no ascertainable sense at all; while he has no scruple in breaking up the coherence entirely in favour of his ritualism. These are, after all, faults common in a scholastic mentality, but even were they less prominent & persistent in him than I have found them to be, they liberate us from all necessity for an exaggerated deference to his authority as an interpreter. Nor, indeed, were Sayana an ideal commentator, could he possibly be relied upon to give us the true sense of Veda; for the language of these hymns, whatever the exact date of their Rishis, goes back to an immense antiquity and long before Sayana the right sense of many Vedic words and the right clue to many Vedic allusions and symbols were lost to the scholars of India. Much indeed survived in tradition, but more had been lost or disfigured, and the two master clues, intellectual & spiritual, on which we can yet rely for the recovery of these losses, a sound philology and the renewal in ourselves of the experiences which form the subject of the Vedic hymns, were the one entirely wanting, the other grown more & more inaccessible with time not only to the Pandit but to the philosopher. Even in our days the sound philology is yet wanting, though the seeds have been sown & even the first beginnings made; nor are the Vedic experiences any longer pursued in their entirety by the Indian Yogins who have learned to follow in this Kali Yuga less difficult paths and more modern systems.
But the ritualistic interpretation of the Rigveda does not stand on the authority of Sayana alone. It is justified by Shankaracharyas rigid division of karmakanda and jnanakanda and by a long tradition dating back to the propaganda of Buddha which found in the Vedic hymns a great system of ceremonial or effective sacrifice and little or nothing more. Even the Brahmanas in their great mass & minuteness seem to bear unwavering testimony to the pure ritualism of the Veda. But the Brahmanas are in their nature rubrics of directions to the priests for the right performance of the outward Vedic sacrifice,that system of symbolic & effective offerings to the gods of Soma-wine, clarified butter or consecrated animals in which the complex religion of the Veda embodied itself for material worship,rubrics accompanied by speculative explanations of old ill-understood details & the popular myths & traditions that had sprung up from obscure allusions in the hymns. Whatever we may think of the Brahmanas, they merely affirm the side of outward ritualism which had grown in a huge & cumbrous mass round the first simple rites of the Vedic Rishis; they do not exclude the existence of deeper meanings & higher purposes in the ancient Scripture. Not only so, but they practically affirm them by including in the Aranyakas compositions of a wholly different spirit & purpose, the Upanishads, compositions professedly intended to bring out the spiritual gist and drift of the earlier Veda. It is clear therefore that to the knowledge or belief of the men of those times the Vedas had a double aspect, an aspect of outward and effective ritual, believed also to be symbolical,for the Brahmanas are continually striving to find a mystic symbolism in the most obvious details of the sacrifice, and an aspect of highest & divine truth hidden behind these symbols. The Upanishads themselves have always been known as Vedanta. This word is nowadays often used & spoken of as if it meant the end of Veda, in the sense that here historically the religious development commenced in the Rigveda culminated; but obviously it means the culmination of Veda in a very different sense, the ultimate and highest knowledge & fulfilment towards which the practices & strivings of the Vedic Rishis mounted, extricated from the voluminous mass of the Vedic poems and presented according to the inner realisation of great Rishis like Yajnavalkya & Janaka in a more modern style and language. It is used much in the sense in which Madhuchchhandas, son of Viswamitra, says of Indra, Ath te antamnm vidyma sumatnm, Then may we know something of thy ultimate right thinkings, meaning obviously not the latest, but the supreme truths, the ultimate realisations. Undoubtedly, this was what the authors of the Upanishads themselves saw in their work, statements of supreme truth of Veda, truth therefore contained in the ancient mantras. In this belief they appeal always to Vedic authority and quote the language of Veda either to justify their own statements of thought or to express that thought itself in the old solemn and sacred language. And with regard to this there are spoken these Riks.
1.11 - The Reason as Governor of Life, #The Human Cycle, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The whole difficulty of the reason in trying to govern our existence is that because of its own inherent limitations it is unable to deal with life in its complexity or in its integral movements; it is compelled to break it up into parts, to make more or less artificial classifications, to build systems with limited data which are contradicted, upset or have to be continually modified by other data, to work out a selection of regulated potentialities which is broken down by the bursting of a new wave of yet unregulated potentialities. It would almost appear even that there are two worlds, the world of ideas proper to the intellect and the world of life which escapes from the full control of the reason, and that to bridge adequately the gulf between these two domains is beyond the power and province of the reason and the intelligent will. It would seem that these can only create either a series of more or less empirical compromises or else a series of arbitrary and practically inapplicable or only partially applicable systems. The reason of man struggling with life becomes either an empiric or a doctrinaire.
Reason can indeed make itself a mere servant of life; it can limit itself to the work the average normal man demands from it, content to furnish means and justifications for the interests, passions, prejudices of man and clo the them with a misleading garb of rationality or at most supply them with their own secure and enlightened order or with rules of caution and self-restraint sufficient to prevent their more egregious stumbles and most unpleasant consequences. But this is obviously to abdicate its throne or its highest office and to betray the hope with which man set forth on his journey. It may again determine to found itself securely on the facts of life, disinterestedly indeed, that is to say, with a dispassionate critical observation of its principles and processes, but with a prudent resolve not to venture too much forward into the unknown or elevate itself far beyond the immediate realities of our apparent or phenomenal existence. But here again it abdicates; either it becomes a mere critic and observer or else, so far as it tries to lay down laws, it does so within very narrow limits of immediate potentiality and it renounces mans drift towards higher possibilities, his saving gift of idealism. In this limited use of the reason subjected to the rule of an immediate, an apparent vital and physical practicality man cannot rest long satisfied. For his nature pushes him towards the heights; it demands a constant effort of self-transcendence and the impulsion towards things unachieved and even immediately impossible.
On the other hand, when it attempts a higher action reason separates itself from life. Its very attempt at a disinterested and dispassionate knowledge carries it to an elevation where it loses hold of that other knowledge which our instincts and impulses carry within themselves and which, however imperfect, obscure and limited, is still a hidden action of the universal KnowledgeWill inherent in existence that creates and directs all things according to their nature. True, even Science and Philosophy are never entirely dispassionate and disinterested. They fall into subjection to the tyranny of their own ideas, their partial systems, their hasty generalisations and by the innate drive of man towards practice they seek to impose these upon the life. But even so they enter into a world either of abstract ideas or of ideals or of rigid laws from which the complexity of life escapes. The idealist, the thinker, the philosopher, the poet and artist, even the moralist, all those who live much in ideas, when they come to grapple at close quarters with practical life, seem to find themselves something at a loss and are constantly defeated in their endeavour to govern life by their ideas. They exercise a powerful influence, but it is indirectly, more by throwing their ideas into Life which does with them what the secret Will in it chooses than by a direct and successfully ordered action. Not that the pure empiric, the practical man really succeeds any better by his direct action; for that too is taken by the secret Will in life and turned to quite other ends than the practical man had intended. On the contrary, ideals and idealists are necessary; ideals are the savour and sap of life, idealists the most powerful diviners and assistants of its purposes. But reduce your ideal to a system and it at once begins to fail; apply your general laws and fixed ideas systematically as the doctrinaire would do, and Life very soon breaks through or writhes out of their hold or transforms your system, even while it nominally exists, into something the originator would not recognise and would repudiate perhaps as the very contradiction of the principles which he sought to eternise.
The root of the difficulty is this that at the very basis of all our life and existence, internal and external, there is something on which the intellect can never lay a controlling hold, the Absolute, the Infinite. Behind everything in life there is an Absolute, which that thing is seeking after in its own way; everything finite is striving to express an infinite which it feels to be its real truth. Moreover, it is not only each class, each type, each tendency in Nature that is thus impelled to strive after its own secret truth in its own way, but each individual brings in his own variations. Thus there is not only an Absolute, an Infinite in itself which governs its own expression in many forms and tendencies, but there is also a principle of infinite potentiality and variation quite baffling to the reasoning intelligence; for the reason deals successfully only with the settled and the finite. In man this difficulty reaches its acme. For not only is mankind unlimited in potentiality; not only is each of its powers and tendencies seeking after its own absolute in its own way and therefore naturally restless under any rigid control by the reason; but in each man their degrees, methods, combinations vary, each man belongs not only to the common humanity, but to the Infinite in himself and is therefore unique. It is because this is the reality of our existence that the intellectual reason and the intelligent will cannot deal with life as its sovereign, even though they may be at present our supreme instruments and may have been in our evolution supremely important and helpful. The reason can govern, but only as a minister, imperfectly, or as a general arbiter and giver of suggestions which are not really supreme commands, or as one channel of the sovereign authority, because that hidden Power acts at present not directly but through many agents and messengers. The real sovereign is another than the reasoning intelligence. Mans impulse to be free, master of Nature in himself and his environment cannot be really fulfilled until his self-consciousness has grown beyond the rational mentality, become aware of the true sovereign and either identified itself with him or entered into constant communion with his supreme will and knowledge.
1.13 - THE HUMAN REBOUND OF EVOLUTION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
further increase of complexity in its material dwelling (thus en-
2 It should be noted here that by its very nature as a centered, "reflective" col-
--
pletion. Whereas the Biosphere in its essence is complexity linked but divergent
and diffused, the Noosphere combines in itself the properties of a planetary
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"in complexity and consciousness." With all respect to the material-
ist school, which still refuses to examine human biology, it is undeni-
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of complexity, must survive the ultimate dissolution from which
nothing can save the corporeal and planetary stem which bears it.
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joined, one of consciousness and the other of complexity. And
herein, if I am right, we may find a bridge of an experimental kind
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ity of Total Evolution, and beyond a certain degree of complexity and
Consciousness, each of necessity requires the other, because Matter,
1.14 - The Structure and Dynamics of the Self, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
in their complexity that some kind of organizing schema is abso-
lutely essential. As it is advisable to proceed historically, I have
1.14 - TURMOIL OR GENESIS?, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
ganized states of complexity 1 Thus considered, the era of the
Organic (living) which may have appeared so exceptional in Na-
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infinite) degree of complexity attained at its level.
Thus the World falls into order, it organizes itself, around Life,
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ter, when raised corpuscularly to a very high degree of complexity,
to become centered and interiorized that is to say, to endow itself
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b The Coiling of complexity which organizes elementary masses in ever
more elaborate structures.
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All Mass-Coilings certainly do not result in Coilings of complexity; but on
the other hand all Coilings of complexity seem to originate or be conditional
upon a Mass-Coiling for example, Life, which could only be achieved on the
1.15 - THE DIRECTIONS AND CONDITIONS OF THE FUTURE, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
axis of "greatest complexity" (i.e., increasing liberty) the World is
coiling upon itself with as much sureness as it is in other respects
--
means of a surplus of technical complexity. But, given the nature of
the reflexive phenomenon, what rule must this evolutionary process
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to be, at the other end of the spectrum of complexity. And surely
it is this kind of attraction, the necessary condition of our unity,
1.17 - DOES MANKIND MOVE BIOLOGICALLY UPON ITSELF?, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
a momentary complexity of circumstances, brought about by chance
at the present time, and later to be resolved by some other chance.
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etition, but of a formidable growth of complexity, increasing with
the passage of time and resulting in proteins, cells and living mat-
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tial "lapse" of the Universe into complexity. Yet, just as the shift to
red of the galactic spectra compels us to accept the centrifugal
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tained), as complexity. The fact may be hard to explain, but it is there before
our eyes.
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erties. In physicochemical terms a very high degree of complexity
begets consciousness: few laws of Nature are so sure, so consistent
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4 Effects, not of complexity, but of unorganized large numbers.
5 We must wait and see.
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of complexity," will be as generally accepted and utilized by our
successors as the idea of the earth's mechanical movement round
1.19 - ON THE PROBABLE EXISTENCE AHEAD OF US OF AN ULTRA-HUMAN, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
state of extreme complexity or (which seems to be
only another aspect of the same phenomenon)
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proportionately to their degree of complexity, how can we with-
hold the status of organisms (in the fullest sense) from the group-
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higher (and ever-rising) state of complexity and consciousness; but
also that this separate Human element cannot achieve its final
1.20 - The End of the Curve of Reason, #The Human Cycle, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The pity of it is that this excellent theory, quite as much as the individualist theory that ran before it, is sure to stumble over a discrepancy between its set ideas and the actual facts of human nature; for it ignores the complexity of mans being and all that that complexity means. And especially it ignores the soul of man and its supreme need of freedom, of the control also of his lower members, no doubt,for that is part of the total freedom towards which he is struggling,but of a growing self-control, not a mechanical regulation by the mind and will of others. Obedience too is a part of its perfection,but a free and natural obedience to a true guiding power and not to a mechanised government and rule. The collective being is a fact; all mankind may be regarded as a collective being: but this being is a soul and life, not merely a mind or a body. Each society develops into a sort of sub-soul or group-soul of this humanity and develops also a general temperament, character, type of mind, evolves governing ideas and tendencies that shape its life and its institutions. But the society has no discoverable common reason and will belonging alike to all its members; for the group-soul rather works out its tendencies by a diversity of opinions, a diversity of wills, a diversity of life, and the vitality of the group-life depends largely upon the working of this diversity, its continuity, its richness. Since that is so, government by the organised State must mean always government by a number of individuals,whether that number be in theory the minority or the majority makes in the end little fundamental difference. For even when it is the majority that nominally governs, in fact it is always the reason and will of a comparatively few effective men and not really any common reason and will of all that rules and regulates things with the consent of the half-hypnotised mass.1 There is no reason to suppose that the immediate socialisation of the State would at all alter, the mass of men not being yet thoroughly rationalised and developed minds, this practical necessity of State government.
In the old infrarational societies, at least in their inception, what governed was not the State, but the group-soul itself evolving its life organised into customary institutions and self-regulations to which all had to conform; for the rulers were only its executors and instruments. This entailed indeed a great subjection of the individual to the society, but it was not felt, because the individualistic idea was yet unborn and such diversities as arose were naturally provided for in one way or another,in some cases by a remarkable latitude of social variation which government by the State tends more and more to suppress. As State government develops, we have a real suppression or oppression of the minority by the majority or the majority by the minority, of the individual by the collectivity, finally, of all by the relentless mechanism of the State. Democratic liberty tried to minimise this suppression; it left a free play for the individual and restricted as much as might be the role of the State. Collectivism goes exactly to the opposite extreme; it will leave no sufficient elbow-room to the individual free-will, and the more it rationalises the individual by universal education of a highly developed kind, the more this suppression will be felt,unless indeed all freedom of thought is negated and the minds of all are forced into a single standardised way of thinking.
1.2.11 - Patience and Perseverance, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Whatever method is used, persistence and perseverance are essential. For whatever method is used, the complexity of the natural resistance will be there to combat it.
One who fears monotony and wants something new would not be able to do Yoga or at least this Yoga which needs an inexhaustible perseverance and patience. The fear of death shows a vital weakness which is also contrary to a capacity for Yoga.
1.21 - FROM THE PRE-HUMAN TO THE ULTRA-HUMAN, THE PHASES OF A LIVING PLANET, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
ing, in the event, those in which the degree of complexity is high-
est and therefore the state of indeterminacy the most advanced.
--
state of complexity (or, which amounts to the same thing, the "psy-
FROM. THE PRE-HUMAN TO THE ULTRA-HUMAN 293
1.21 - The Spiritual Aim and Life, #The Human Cycle, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
It may be suggested on the contrary and with some chance of knocking at the right door that the radical defect of all our systems is their deficient development of just that which society has most neglected, the spiritual element, the soul in man which is his true being. Even to have a healthy body, a strong vitality and an active and clarified mind and a field for their action and enjoyment, carries man no more than a certain distance; afterwards he flags and tires for want of a real self-finding, a satisfying aim for his action and progress. These three things do not make the sum of a complete manhood; they are means to an ulterior end and cannot be made for ever an aim in themselves. Add a rich emotional life governed by a well-ordered ethical standard, and still there is the savour of something left out, some supreme good which these things mean, but do not in themselves arrive at, do not discover till they go beyond themselves. Add a religious system and a widespread spirit of belief and piety, and still you have not found the means of social salvation. All these things human society has developed, but none of them has saved it from disillusionment, weariness and decay. The ancient intellectual cultures of Europe ended in disruptive doubt and sceptical impotence, the pieties of Asia in stagnation and decline. Modern society has discovered a new principle of survival, progress, but the aim of that progress it has never discovered,unless the aim is always more knowledge, more equipment, convenience and comfort, more enjoyment, a greater and still greater complexity of the social economy, a more and more cumbrously opulent life. But these things must lead in the end where the old led, for they are only the same thing on a larger scale; they lead in a circle, that is to say, nowhere: they do not escape from the cycle of birth, growth, decay and death, they do not really find the secret of self-prolongation by constant self-renewal which is the principle of immortality, but only seem for a moment to find it by the illusion of a series of experiments each of which ends in disappointment. That so far has been the nature of modern progress. Only in its new turn inwards, towards a greater subjectivity now only beginning, is there a better hope; for by that turning it may discover that the real truth of man is to be found in his soul. It is not indeed certain that a subjective age will lead us there, but it gives us the possibility, can turn in that direction, if used rightly, the more inward movement.
It will be said that this is an old discovery and that it governed the old societies under the name of religion. But that was only an appearance. The discovery was there, but it was made for the life of the individual only, and even for him it looked beyond the earth for its fulfilment and at earth only as the place of his preparation for a solitary salvation or release from the burden of life. Human society itself never seized on the discovery of the soul as a means for the discovery of the law of its own being or on a knowledge of the souls true nature and need and its fulfilment as the right way of terrestrial perfection. If we look at the old religions in their social as apart from their individual aspect, we see that the use society made of them was only of their most unspiritual or at any rate of their less spiritual parts. It made use of them to give an august, awful and would-be eternal sanction to its mass of customs and institutions; it made of them a veil of mystery against human questioning and a shield of darkness against the innovator. So far as it saw in religion a means of human salvation and perfection, it laid hands upon it at once to mechanise it, to catch the human soul and bind it on the wheels of a socio-religious machinery, to impose on it in the place of spiritual freedom an imperious yoke and an iron prison. It saddled upon the religious life of man a Church, a priesthood and a mass of ceremonies and set over it a pack of watchdogs under the name of creeds and dogmas, dogmas which one had to accept and obey under pain of condemnation to eternal hell by an eternal judge beyond, just as one had to accept and to obey the laws of society on pain of condemnation to temporal imprisonment or death by a mortal judge below. This false socialisation of religion has been always the chief cause of its failure to regenerate mankind.
1.22 - THE END OF THE SPECIES, #The Future of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
of, 123; see also complexity;
reflection; self-knowledge
--
universe: complexity of, o,8fF.;
conical structure of, 87;
1.23 - Improvising a Temple, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
Yet I have found pleasure in harnessing the winged horses of the Sun to the ploughshare of Reason, in showing the validity of this doctrine in detail. It satisfies my sense of rhythm and of symmetry to explain that every experience, no matter what, must of necessity be a gain of grandeur, of grip, of comprehension and enjoyment ever growing as complexity and simplicity succeed each other in sublime systole and diastole, in strophe and antistrophe chanting against each other to the stars of the Night and of the Morning!
Of course it is easy as pie to knock all this to pieces by "lunatic logic," saying: "Then toothache is really as pleasant as strawberry shortcake:" You are hereby referred to Eight Lectures on Yoga. None of the terms I am using have been, or can be defined. All my propositions amount to no more than tautology: A. is A. You may even quote The Book of the Law itself: "Now a curse upon Because and his kin! . . . . Enough of Because! Be he damned for a dog!" (AL II, 28-33). These things stink of Ignoratio Elenchi, or something painfully like it: as sort of slipping up a cog, of "confusing the planes" of willfully misunderstanding the gist of an argument. (All magicians, by the way, ought to be grounded solidly in Formal Logic.)
1.45 - Unserious Conduct of a Pupil, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
Because this course of conduct was so rigidly rational, it appeared to others irrational and incalculable; because it was so serenely simple, it appeared an insoluble mystery of a complexity utterly unfathomable!
But I fear that you are only too likely to ask is not this system (a) absurd, (b) wrong, as certain in the long run to defeat its own object.
1914 02 16p, #Prayers And Meditations, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
O supreme, sole Reality, true Consciousness, permanent Oneness, sovereign repose of perfect light, with what an intensity I aspire to be conscious of only Thee, to be only Thyself. This incessant whirl of unreal personalities, this multiplicity, this complexity, this excessive inextricable confusion of conflicting thoughts, struggling tendencies, battling desires, seems to me more and more frightful. I must emerge from this raging sea, land on Thy serene and peaceful shore. Give me the energy of an indefatigable swimmer. I would conquer Thee however great may be the effort needed for that. O Lord, ignorance must be vanquished, illusion dispelled, this sorrowful universe must come out of its hideous nightmare, end its terrible dream, and awaken at last to the consciousness of Thy sole Reality.
O immutable Peace, deliver men from ignorance; may Thy plenary and pure Light reign everywhere!
1914 03 13p, #Prayers And Meditations, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
This is, however, only a way of speaking, and a very incomplete one; for when the being becomes aware of Thy presence and is identified with Thy consciousness, it is conscious in all things and everywhere. But the fleeting duration of this supreme consciousness can be explained only by the complexity of the elements of the being, by their unequal illumination and by the fact that they enter into activity successively. It is, moreover, because of this successive activity that they can gradually become aware of themselves as a result of their experiences, both objective and subjective (which are really one and the same), that is, discover Thee in their unfathomable essence.
The subconscient is the intermediate zone between precise perception and ignorance, total darkness; it is probable that most beings, even human beings, live constantly in this subconscient; few emerge from it. This is the conquest that is to be made; for to be conscious in the true sense of the word is to be Thyself integrally; and is not this the very definition of the work to be accomplished, the mission to be fulfilled upon earth?
1914 06 13p, #Prayers And Meditations, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But those whom Thou hast appointed as Thy representatives upon earth cannot rest content with the result so obtained. To know Thee first and before all else, yes; but once Thy knowledge is acquired there remains all the work of Thy manifestation; and then there intervene the quality, force, complexity and perfection of this manifestation. Very often those who have known Thee, dazzled and rapt in ecstasy by this knowledge, have been content to see Thee for themselves and express Thee somehow or other in their outermost being. He who wants to be perfect in Thy manifestation cannot be satisfied with that; he must manifest Thee on all the planes, in all the states of being and thus turn the knowledge he has acquired to the best account for the whole universe.
Before the immensity of this programme, the entire being exults and sings a hymn of gladness to Thee.
1914 07 10p, #Prayers And Meditations, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But why art Thou so considerate with the animality of the body? Is it because it must be given time to adapt itself to the marvellous complexity, the powerful infinity of Thy Force? Is it Thy Will that makes itself gentle and patient, is unwilling to precipitate things, leaves to the elements leisure to adapt themselves? I meanis it better thus or is it impossible otherwise? Is there here a particular incapacity which Thou dost tolerate with magnanimity or is this a general law which is an inevitable portion of all that has to be transformed?
But it matters little what we think about it, since thus it is; the attitude alone is important: Should we fight, should we accept? And it is Thou who dictatest the attitude, it is Thy Will that determines it at each moment. Why foresee and contrive when it is enough to observe and to give a full adhesion?
1914 09 17p, #Prayers And Meditations, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
No longer can any impulse to action come from outside or from any particular world. It is Thou, Lord, who settest all things in motion from the depths of the being, it is Thy will which directs, Thy force which acts; and no longer in the limited field of a small individual consciousness but in the universal field of a consciousness which, in every state of being, is united with the whole. And the being has at once the conscious perception of all universal movements in their complexity and even their confusion, and the silent and perfect peace of Thy sovereign immutability.
***
1914 11 03p, #Prayers And Meditations, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
For quite a long time, Lord, my pen had fallen silent. Yet hast Thou given me hours of unforgettable illumination, hours in which the union between the most divine Consciousness and the most material grew perfect, hours when the identification of the individual being with the universal Mother and of the universal Mother with Thee was so complete that the individual consciousness could perceive simultaneously its own existence, the life of the entire universe and Thy eternity beyond all change. Beatitude was at its height in an ineffable and infinite peace, the consciousness luminous and immeasurable, complex and yet one, existence all-powerful, master of death. And this is no longer a fleeting state, attained after a long concentration, vanishing as soon as it is born; it is a state that can last long hours full of eternity, hours at once instantaneous and interminable, a state brought about at will, that is to say, one which is permanent, one with which the most external consciousness comes into contact as soon as any occasion allows it, as soon as it is no longer occupied with a definite intellectual or physical task. In all work, constantly, there is the perception of Thy invariable presence in Thy dual form of Non-Being and Being, but as though behind a fine veil woven by the indispensable concentration upon the work that is done; while in the hours of solitude the being is immediately enveloped by a marvellously powerful atmosphere, limpid, calm, divine; it lies merged within it, and then the life of splendour begins again in all its amplitude, all its complexity, all its sublimity; the physical body is glorified, supple, vigorous, energetic; the mind is superbly active in its calm lucidity, guiding and transmitting the forces of Thy divine Will; and all the being exults in an endless beatitude, a boundless love, a sovereign power, a perfect knowledge, an infinite consciousness. It is Thyself and Thou alone who livest, even in the least atom of the body-substance itself.
Thus the solid foundations of Thy terrestrial work are prepared, the substructure of the immense edifice built; in every corner of the world one of Thy divine stones is laid by the power of conscious and formative thought; and in the hour of realisations the earth, thus prepared, will be ready to receive the sublime temple of Thy new and more complete manifestation.
1914 11 17p, #Prayers And Meditations, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
And Thou repliest, ever smiling in Thy unwearying benevolence: This intellectual faculty which makes man proud and leads him into error is the very same which, once enlightened and purified, can also lead him farther, higher than universal nature, to a direct and conscious communion with our Lord, with That which is beyond all manifestation. This dividing intellect, which makes him stand apart from me, also enables him to scale rapidly the heights he must climb, without letting his progress be enchained and delayed by the totality of the universe, which, in its immensity and complexity, cannot effect so swift an ascent.
O Divine Mother, always Thy word comforts and blesses, calms and illumines, and Thy generous hand lifts a fold of the veil hiding the infinite knowledge.
1915 11 26p, #Prayers And Meditations, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Then was the physical body seized, first in its lower members and next the whole of it, by a sacred trembling which made all personal limits fall away little by little even in the most material sensation. The being grew in greatness progressively, methodically, breaking down every barrier, shattering every obstacle, that it might contain and manifest a force and a power which increased ceaselessly in immensity and intensity. It was as a progressive dilatation of the cells until there was a complete identification with the earth: the body of the awakened consciousness was the terrestrial globe moving harmoniously in ethereal space. And the consciousness knew that its global body was thus moving in the arms of the universal Being, and it gave itself, it abandoned itself to It in an ecstasy of peaceful bliss. Then it felt that its body was absorbed in the body of the universe and one with it; the consciousness became the consciousness of the universe, immobile in its totality, moving infinitely in its internal complexity. The consciousness of the universe sprang towards the Divine in an ardent aspiration, a perfect surrender, and it saw in the splendour of the immaculate Light the radiant Being standing on a many-headed serpent whose body coiled infinitely around the universe. The Being in an eternal gesture of triumph mastered and created at one and the same time the serpent and the universe that issued from him; erect on the serpent he dominated it with all his victorious might, and the same gesture that crushed the hydra enveloping the universe gave it eternal birth. Then the consciousness became this Being and perceived that its form was changing once more; it was absorbed into something which was no longer a form and yet contained all forms, something which, immutable, sees,the Eye, the Witness. And what It sees, is. Then this last vestige of form disappeared and the consciousness itself was absorbed into the Unutterable, the Ineffable.
The return towards the consciousness of the individual body took place very slowly in a constant and invariable splendour of Light and Power and Felicity and Adoration, by successive gradations, but directly, without passing again through the universal and terrestrial forms. And it was as if the modest corporeal form had become the direct and immediate vesture, without any intermediary, of the supreme and eternal Witness.1
1916 01 15p, #Prayers And Meditations, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
O thou whom I may call my God, Thou who art the personal form of the Transcendent Eternal, the Cause, Source and Reality of my individual being, Thou who hast through the centuries and millenniums slowly and subtly kneaded this Matter, so that one day it could become consciously identified with Thee, and be nothing but Thee; O Thou who hast appeared to me in all Thy divine splendourthis individual being in all its complexity offers itself to Thee in an act of supreme adoration; it aspires in its entirety to be identified with Thee, to be Thyself, eternally Thou, merged for ever in Thy Reality. But is it ready for that? Is Thy work fully accomplished? Is there in it no longer any shadow, ignorance, or limitation? Canst Thou at last definitively take possession of it and, in the sublimest, most integral transformation free it forever from the world of Ignorance and make it live in the world of Truth?
Or rather Thou art myself divested of all error and limitation. Have I become integrally this true self in all the atoms of my being? Wilt Thou bring about an overwhelming transformation, or will it still be a slow action in which cell after cell must be wrested from its darkness and its limits?
1916 12 09p, #Prayers And Meditations, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
By flashes one point or another suddenly appears distinctly, then fades away giving place to another. Each element of consciousness that acts is clearly conscious of its action; but a consciousness of the whole seems to be both impossible because of the extreme complexity it would entail and useless for the accomplishment of the work itself.
***
1920 06 22p, #Prayers And Meditations, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
After granting me the joy which surpasses all expression, Thou hast sent me, O my beloved Lord, the struggle, the ordeal and on this too I have smiled as on one of Thy precious messengers. Before, I dreaded the conflict, for it hurt in me the love of harmony and peace. But now, O my God, I welcome it with gladness: it is one among the forms of Thy action, one of the best means for bringing back to light some elements of the work which might otherwise have been forgotten, and it carries with it a sense of amplitude, of complexity, of power. And even as I have seen Thee, resplendent, exciting the conflict, so also it is Thou whom I see unravelling the entanglement of events and jarring tendencies and winning in the end the victory over all that strives to veil Thy light and Thy power: for out of the struggle it is a more perfect realisation of Thyself that must arise.
***
1953-04-08, #Questions And Answers 1953, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
How does it happen that theres error everywhere? Why do things go in opposition to the Divine and to what they ought to be? Because there are numerous elements which cross each other and intervene. Wills cross each other, the strongest gets the best of it. It is this complexity of norms that has created a determinism. The divine Will is completely veiled by this host of things. So I have said here (Mother takes her book): You must accept all thingsand only those things that come from the Divine. Because things can come from concealed desires. The desires work in the subconscious and attract things to you of which possibly you may not recognise the origin, but which do not come from the Divine but from disguised desires.
If you have a strong desire for something you cannot get, you project your desire outside yourself. It goes off like a tiny personality separated from you and roams about in the world. It will take a little round, more or less large, and return to you, perhaps when you have forgotten it. People who have a kind of passion, who want something,that goes out from them like a little being, like a little flame into the surroundings. This little being has its destiny. It roams about in the world, tossed around by other things perhaps. You have forgotten it, but it will never forget that it must bring about that particular result. For days you tell yourself: How much I would like to go to that place, to Japan, for instance, and see so many things, and your desire goes out from you; but because desires are very fugitive things, you have forgotten completely this desire you had thrown out with such a force. There are many reasons for your thinking about something else. And after ten years or more, or less, it comes back to you like a dish served up piping hot. Yes, like a piping-hot dish, well arranged. You say: This does not interest me any longer. It does not interest you ten or twenty years later. It was a small formation and it has gone and done its work as it could. It is impossible to have desires without their being realised, even if it be quite a tiny desire. The formation has done what it could; it took a lot of trouble, it has worked hard, and after years it returns. It is like a servant you have sent out and who has done his best. When he returns you tell him: What have you done?Why? But, sir, it was because you wanted it!
1953-05-27, #Questions And Answers 1953, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
But that depends upon the musician. This is just what I was saying. For example, here in India, the science of harmony does not exist much, so the thing is translated by melody. As soon as the vital intervenes, there comes a kind of harmonic complexity in the music. That gives it a richness, a plenitude which it did not have.
But is it the melody that comes?
1953-06-03, #Questions And Answers 1953, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Above these planes there are othersabove each plane there are others, following one another right up to the highest plane. The highest plane is the plane of absolute freedom. If in your consciousness you are capable of passing through all these planes, so to say in a vertical line, and reaching the highest plane and, by means of this connection, of bringing down this plane of perfect freedom into the material determinisms, you change everything. And all the intermediaries change everything. Then because of the very changes from level to level, it gives altogether the appearance of complete freedom; for the intervention or descent of one plane into another has unforeseen consequences for the other plane, the lower plane. The higher plane can foresee, but the lower ones cannot. So, as these consequences are unforeseen, that gives altogether the impression of the unexpected and of freedom. And it is only if you remain consciously and constantly on the highest level, that is, in the supreme Consciousness, that there you can see that, at the same time, all is absolutely determined but also, because of the complexity of the interlinking of these determinisms, all is absolutely free. It is the Plane where there are no more contradictions, where all things are and are in harmony without contradicting one another.
In the lower planes cant one say what will happen at a particular moment?
1955-06-22 - Awakening the Yoga-shakti - The thousand-petalled lotus- Reading, how far a help for yoga - Simple and complicated combinations in men, #Questions And Answers 1955, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Sweet Mother, here it is written: It is part of the foundation of Yoga to become conscious of the great complexity of our nature, see the different forces that move it and get over it a control of directing knowledge. Are these forces different for each person?
Yes. The composition is completely different, otherwise everybody would be the same. There are not two beings with an identical combination; between the different parts of the being and the composition of these parts the proportion is different in each individual. There are people, primitive men, people like the yet undeveloped races or the degenerated ones whose combinations are fairly simple; they are still complicated, but comparatively simple. And there are people absolutely at the top of the human ladder, the elite of humanity; their combinations become so complicated that a very special discernment is needed to find the relations between all these things.
There are beings who carry in themselves thousands of different personalities, and then each one has its own rhythm and alternation, and there is a kind of combination; sometimes there are inner conflicts, and there is a play of activities which are rhythmic and with alternations of certain parts which come to the front and then go back and again come to the front. But when one takes all that, it makes such complicated combinations that some people truly find it difficult to understand what is going on in themselves; and yet these are the ones most capable of a complete, coordinated, conscious, organised action; but their organisation is infinitely more complicated than that of primitive or undeveloped men who have two or three impulses and four or five ideas, and who can arrange all this very easily in themselves and seem to be very co-ordinated and logical because there is not very much to organise. But there are people truly like a multitude, and so that gives them a plasticity, a fluidity of action and an extraordinary complexity of perception, and these people are capable of understanding a considerable number of things, as though they had at their disposal a veritable army which they move according to circumstance and need; and all this is inside them. So when these people, with the help of yoga, the discipline of yoga, succeed in centralising all these beings around the central light of the divine Presence, they become powerful entities, precisely because of their complexity. So long as this is not organised they often give the impression of an incoherence, they are almost incomprehensible, one cant manage to understand why they are like that, they are so complex. But when they have organised all these beings, that is, put each one in its place around the divine centre, then truly they are terrific, for they have the capacity of understanding almost everything and doing almost everything because of the multitude of entities they contain, of which they are constituted. And the nearer one is to the top of the ladder, the more it is like that, and consequently the more difficult it is to organise ones being; because when you have about a dozen elements, you can quickly compass and organise them, but when you have thousands of them, it is difficult.
***
1956-02-08 - Forces of Nature expressing a higher Will - Illusion of separate personality - One dynamic force which moves all things - Linear and spherical thinking - Common ideal of life, microscopic, #Questions And Answers 1956, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It is the complexity which makes this perception difficult for our faculties of perception are quite linear and very one-sided; so when we want to understand, we are immediately assailed by countless things which are almost inconsistent with each other and intermix in such an intricate way that one can no longer make out the lines and follow thingsone suddenly enters a whirlwind.
But this is because For instance, most men think one thought after another, even as they have to say one word after another they cant say more than one word at the same time, you know, or else they stammer. Well, most people think like that, they think one thought after another, and so their whole consciousness has a linear movement. But one begins to perceive things only when one can see spherically, globally, think spherically, that is, have innumerable thoughts and perceptions simultaneously.
1956-04-04 - The witness soul - A Gita enthusiast - Propagandist spirit, Tolstoys son, #Questions And Answers 1956, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
If you arrive at the conception of the world as the expression of the Divine in all His complexity, then the necessity for complexity and diversity has to be recognised, and it becomes impossible for you to want to make others think and feel as you do.
Each one should have his own way of thinking, feeling and reaction; why do you want others to do as you do and be like you? And even granting that your truth is greater than theirsthough this word means nothing at all, for, from a certain point of view all truths are true; they are all partial, but they are true because they are truths but the minute you want your truth to be greater than your neighbours, you begin to wander away from the truth.
1956-10-03 - The Mothers different ways of speaking - new manifestation - new element, possibilities - child prodigies - Laws of Nature, supramental - Logic of the unforeseen - Creative writers, hands of musicians - Prodigious children, men, #Questions And Answers 1956, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I think all of you have studied enough mathematics to know the complexity of the combinations which may be produced by taking certain select elements of a set as a basis. I shall give you an example to make myself clear, for I cant use the terms which are employed in teaching you. For instance, the letters of the alphabet. There is a certain number of letters in the alphabet; well, if you want to calculate or know the number of combinations possible by taking all these letters togetherhow they may be organised, in how many ways they can be organisedyou have learnt how very fantastic the figure becomes. Good. But if you take the material world and go down to the most minute elementyou know, dont you, that they have come to absolutely invisible things, innumerable thingsif you take this element as the basis and the material world as the whole, and if you imagine a Consciousness or a Will playing with all these elements at making all the possible combinations without ever repeating a single one. Obviously In mathematics you are told that the number of elements is finite and that therefore the number of combinations is finite; but that is purely theoretical, for if you come down to practice and all these combinations had to follow each other, even if they went at so great a speed that the change would be almost imperceptible, it is quite obvious that the time needed to make all these combinations would be, apparently at least, infinite; that is to say, the number of combinations would be so immense that no limit could be assigned to itat least no practical limit; the theory is not interesting for us, but practically it would be like that.
So suppose that what I tell you is true, in this sense that there really is a Consciousness and a Will manifesting these combinations, successively, indefinitely, without ever repeating a single one twice; we come to the conclusion that the universe is new at each moment of eternity. And if the universe is new at each moment of eternity, we have to acknowledge that absolutely nothing is impossible; not only that, but that what we call logic is not necessarily true, and that the logic, one could almost say the fantasy of the Creator, is unlimited.
1957-08-07 - The resistances, politics and money - Aspiration to realise the supramental life, #Questions And Answers 1957-1958, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
It is relativelyvery relativelyeasier to change economic and social conditions than political and financial ones. There are certain general, global ideas from the economic and social point of view which are accessible to human thought: certain liberations, a certain widening, a certain collective organisation, which do not seem absolutely senseless and unrealisable; but as soon as you touch on the other two questions, which are however of capital importance, especially the political question, it is quite otherwise. For, one might imagine a life which would get rid of all financial complicationsalthough, without playing on words, it would be a veritable impoverishment. In what financial possibilities and processes bring, there is a very considerable wealth of possibilities, for if they were used in the right way and in the true spirit, that would simplify all human relations and undertakings to a very great extent and make possible a complexity of life which would be very difficult under other conditions. But I dont know whyexcept that the worst usually precedes the bestinstead of taking the way of simplification, men have followed the way of complication to such a point that, in spite of the aeroplanes which carry you from one end of the world to the other in two days, in spite of all the modern inventions which try to make life so small, so close that we could go round the world not in eighty days now but in a very few days, in spite of all that, the complications of exchange, for instance, are so great that many people cant get away from home I mean from the country they live inbecause they have no means of going to another one and if they ask for the money they need to live in another country they are told, Is it very important for you to go? You could perhaps wait a little, because it is very difficult for us at the moment. I am not joking, it is quite serious, this does happen. That means we are becoming more and more the prisoners of the place where we are born, while all the scientific trends are towards such a great proximity between countries that we could very easily belong to the universe or, at any rate, to the whole world.
There. This is the situation. It has grown considerably worse since the last war; it grows worse year by year, and one finds oneself in such a ridiculous situation that, unfortunately, as one is at the end of ones resources, to simplify what has been made so complicated, there is an idea in the earth-atmospherean idea which might be called preposterous, but unhappily it is much worse than preposterous, it is catastrophic the idea that if there were a great upheaval, perhaps it would be better afterwards. One is so jammed between prohibitions, impossibilities, interdictions, rules, the complications of every second, that one feels stifled and really gets the admirable idea that if everything were demolished perhaps it would be better afterwards!. It is in the air. And all the governments have put themselves in such impossible conditions; they have become so tied up that it seems to them they will have to break everything to be able to move forward. (Silence) This is unfortunately a little more than a possibility, it is a very serious threat. And it is not quite certain that life will not be made still more impossible because one feels incapable of emerging from the chaos the chaos of complicationsin which humanity has put itself. It is like the shadow but unfortunately a very active shadowof the new hope which has sprung up in the human consciousness, a hope and a need for something more harmonious; and the need becomes so much more acute as life, as it is at present organised, becomes more and more contrary to it. The two opposites are facing each other with such intensity that one can expect something like an explosion.
1957-09-04 - Sri Aurobindo, an eternal birth, #Questions And Answers 1957-1958, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Today I received a question about a phrase I used on the fourteenth of August, the eve of Sri Aurobindos birthday. And this question seemed interesting to me because it was about one of those rather cryptic phrases, that are almost ambiguous through simplification, and which was intended to be like that, so that each one might understand it according to his own plane of consciousness. I have already spoken to you several times of this possibility of understanding the same words on different planes; and these words were intentionally expressed with a simplification, a deliberate vagueness, precisely so that they would serve as a vehicle for the complexity of meaning they had to express.
This meaning is a little different on the different planes, but it is complementary, and it is only really complete when one is able to understand it on all these planes at once. True understanding is a simultaneous understanding in which all the meanings are perceived, grasped, understood at the same time; but to express them, as we have a very poor language at our disposal, we are obliged to say them one after another, with many words and many explanations. Thats what I am going to do now.
1958-03-19 - General tension in humanity - Peace and progress - Perversion and vision of transformation, #Questions And Answers 1957-1958, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Next, it may be conceded that each type or pattern of consciousness and being in the body, once established, has to be faithful to the law of being of that type, to its own design and rule of nature. But it may also very well be that part of the law of the human type is its impulse towards self-exceeding, that the means for a conscious transition has been provided for among the spiritual powers of man; the possession of such a capacity may be a part of the plan on which the creative Energy has built him. It may be conceded that what man has up till now principally done is to act within the circle of his nature, on a spiral of nature-movement, sometimes descending, sometimes ascending,there has been no straight line of progress, no indisputable, fundamental or radical exceeding of his past nature: what he has done is to sharpen, subtilise, make a more and more complex and plastic use of his capacities. It cannot truly be said that there has been no such thing as human progress since mans appearance or even in his recent ascertainable history; for however great the ancients, however supreme some of their achievements and creations, however impressive their powers of spirituality, of intellect or of character, there has been in later developments an increasing subtlety, complexity, manifold development of knowledge and possibility in mans achievements, in his politics, society, life, science, metaphysics, knowledge of all kinds, art, literature; even in his spiritual endeavour, less surprisingly lofty and less massive in power of spirituality than that of the ancients, there has been this increasing subtlety, plasticity, sounding of depths, extension of seeking. There have been falls from a high type of culture, a sharp temporary descent into a certain obscurantism, cessations of the spiritual urge, plunges into a barbaric natural materialism; but these are temporary phenomena, at worst a downward curve of the spiral of progress. This progress has not indeed carried the race beyond itself, into a self-exceeding, a transformation of the mental being. But that was not to be expected; for the action of evolutionary Nature in a type of being and consciousness is first to develop the type to its utmost capacity by just such a subtilisation and increasing complexity till it is ready for her bursting of the shell, the ripened decisive emergence, reversal, turning over of consciousness on itself that constitutes a new stage in the evolution. If it be supposed that her next step is the spiritual and supramental being, the stress of spirituality in the race may be taken as a sign that that is Natures intention, the sign too of the capacity of man to operate in himself or aid her to operate the transition. If the appearance in animal being of a type similar in some respects to the ape-kind but already from the beginning endowed with the elements of humanity was the method of the human evolution, the appearance in the human being of a spiritual type resembling mental-animal humanity but already with the stamp of the spiritual aspiration on it would be the obvious method of Nature for the evolutionary production of the spiritual and supramental being.
The Life Divine, SABCL, Vol. 19, pp. 841-42
1958-10-29 - Mental self-sufficiency - Grace, #Questions And Answers 1957-1958, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
As long as the mind is convinced that it is the summit of human consciousness, that there is nothing beyond and above it, it takes its own functioning to be a perfect one and is fully satisfied with the progress it can make within the limits of this functioning, and with an increase of clarity, precision, complexity, suppleness, plasticity in its movements.
It always has a spontaneous tendency to feel very satisfied with itself and with what it can do, and if there were no greater force than its own, a higher power which irrefutably shows it its own limitations, its poverty, it would never make any effort to find its way out of all that by the right door: liberation into a higher and truer mode of being.
1961 03 11 - 58, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Repeatedly, in different circumstances, several times, I have had the same memory. It was not exactly the same scene or the same images, because it was not something that I saw, it was a life that I was living. For some time, by night or by day, in a certain state of trance I went back to a life that I had lived and had the full consciousness that it was the outflowering of the human form on earth the first human forms capable of embodying the divine Being. It was that. It was the first time I could manifest in an earthly form, in a particular form, in an individual formnot a general life but an individual form that is to say, the first time that the Being above and the being below were joined by the mentalisation of this material substance. I lived this several times, but always in similar surroundings and with a very similar feeling of such joyful simplicity, without complexity, without problems, without all these questions; there was nothing, absolutely nothing of the kind! It was an outflowering of the joy of living, simply that, in universal love and harmonyflowers, minerals, animals: all were in harmony.
It was only long afterwards but this is a personal impressionlong afterwards that things went wrong. Probably because some mental crystallisations were necessary, inevitable for the general evolution, so that the mind might be prepared to move on to something else. This is where Faugh! It is like falling into a hole, into ugliness, into obscurity; everything becomes so dark afterwards, so ugly, so difficult, so painful, it is reallyit really feels like a fall.
--
It was very simple, very harmonious, very luminous, but not complex enough. And this complexity has spoilt everything, but it will bring a realisation that is infinitely more consciousinfinitely. And so when the earth again becomes so harmonious, simple, luminous, puresimple, pure, purely divine and with this complexity, then we shall be able to do something.
As the Mother was leaving she noticed a brilliant crimson Canna flower.
1963 05 15, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Now they are making discoveries like that. In anatomy, for example, they are discovering surgical treatments which are unbelievably complicated! It is like their classification of the elements of Matterwhat frightful complexity! And all this is for the purpose of in an effort to express Unity, the one Simplicity the divine state.
(Silence)
1f.lovecraft - At the Mountains of Madness, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
the probable complexity of the nest of apartments within, we decided
that we must begin our system of hare-and-hound trail-blazing. Hitherto
--
preserved. Labyrinthine complexity, involving curiously irregular
differences in floor levels, characterised the entire arrangement; and
--
further complexity should develop; for dust tracks, of course, could no
longer be expected. Upon resuming our direct progress we cast a beam of
1f.lovecraft - In the Walls of Eryx, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
the complexity of the hallways, and by the possibility that I had made
a fundamental error. Of the six openings leading out of the central
1f.lovecraft - The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
subtle introspectiveness and mental complexity they would have fared
ill indeed. President Manning was the most disturbed; but even he
1f.lovecraft - The Shadow out of Time, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
Statesand though of much complexity and indisputable newness, it
reproduced in every least particular the mystifying words of the
1f.lovecraft - The Whisperer in Darkness, #Lovecraft - Poems, #unset, #Zen
The complexity of my emotions upon reading, re-reading, and pondering
over this strange and unlooked-for letter is past adequate description.
1.jlb - Daybreak, #Borges - Poems, #Jorge Luis Borges, #Poetry
comparable to an army in complexity
is no more than a dream
1.ml - Realisation of Dreams and Mind, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
Lord Paindapa, you who practice yogic discipline! Your name has been prophesied by the devas; what a great wonder! Under the hand of glorious Advayalalita Are the vajra brothers and sisters whose minds do not differ. Headed by Sri Gunamati, Dakas who are sitting in the right hand row, listen to me! After them, the secret yoginis, Headed by the consort Sukhavajri, Dakinis who are sitting in the left hand row, listen to me! Generally, all Dharmas are illusion. Dreams are exalted as special illusion. Early in the night, dreams arise born from habitual patterns. There is nothing whatsoever to rely on there. At midnight, the deceptions of Mara appear. One should not trust in these. At dawn, there are prophecies by the devas. How wondrous, how great indeed! At the break of dawn this morning, The great lord master appeared And taught the Dharma which revealed the ultimate. This is the unforgettable memory of what Maitripa said: "In general, all Dharmas are mind. The Guru arises from mind. The Guru is nothing other than mind. Everything that appears is the nature of mind. This mind itself is primordially non-existent. In the natural state, unborn and innate, There is nothing to abandon by discursive effort. Rest at ease, naturally, without restriction. This can be shown by signs: A human corpse, an outcast, a dog, a pig, An infant, a madman, an elephant, A precious jewel, a blue lotus, Quicksilver, a deer, a lion, A Brahman, and a black antelope; did you see them?" Maitripa asked. The realization of the truth was shown by these signs: Not fixated on either samsara or Nirvana, Not holding acceptance or rejection in one's being, Not hoping for fruition from others, Mind free from occupation and complexity, Not falling into the four extremes, Nonmeditation and nonwandering, Free from thought and speech, Beyond any analogy whatsoever. Through the kindness of the Guru, I realised these. Since the experience of these realisations has dawned, Mind and mental events have ceased, And space and insight are inseparable. Faults and virtues neither increase nor decrease. Bliss, emptiness, and luminosity are unceasing. Therefore, luminosity dawns beyond coming or going. This transmission of the innate, the pith of the view Through the sign meanings which reveal the unborn, I heard from the great lord master. The reason why I sing these words Is the insistent request of the honourable lords. I could not refuse the Dharma brothers and sisters. Dakinis, do not be jealous! Thus, this song was sung for the Dharma brothers and sisters headed by Paindapa at the Rinchen Tsul monastery in Nepal to show the meaning of the signs of mahamudra as revealed by Maitripa's appearance in a dream.
1.poe - Eureka - A Prose Poem, #Poe - Poems, #unset, #Zen
Here let the reader pause with me, for a moment, in contemplation of the miraculous -of the ineffable -of the altogether unimaginable complexity of relation involved in the fact that each atom attracts every other atom -involved merely in this fact of the attraction, without reference to the law or mode in which the attraction is manifested -involved merely in the fact that each atom attracts every other atom at all, in a wilderness of atoms so numerous that those which go to the composition of a cannon-ball, exceed, probably, in mere point of number, all the stars which go to the constitution of the Universe.
Had we discovered, simply, that each atom tended to some one favorite point -to some especially attractive atom -we should still have fAllan upon a discovery which, in itself, would have sufficed to overwhelm the mind: -but what is it that we are actually called upon to comprehend? That each atom attracts -sympathizes with the most delicate movements of every other atom, and with each and with all at the same time, and forever, and according to a determinate law of which the complexity, even considered by itself solely, is utterly beyond the grasp of the imagination of man. If I propose to ascertain the influence of one mote in a sunbeam upon its neighboring mote, I cannot accomplish my purpose without first counting and weighing all the atoms in the Universe and defining the precise positions of all at one particular moment. If I venture to displace, by even the billionth part of an inch, the microscopical speck of dust which lies now upon the point of my finger, what is the character of that act upon which I have adventured? I have done a deed which shakes the Moon in her path, which causes the Sun to be no longer the Sun, and which alters forever the destiny of the multitudinous myriads of stars that roll and glow in the majestic presence of their Creator.
These ideas -conceptions such as these -unthought-like thoughts soul-reveries rather than conclusions or even considerations of the intellect: -ideas, I repeat, such as these, are such as we can alone hope profitably to entertain in any effort at grasping the great principle, Attraction.
But now, -with such ideas -with such a vision of the marvellous complexity of Attraction fairly in his mind -let any person competent of thought on such topics as these, set himself to the task of imagining a principle for the phaenomena observed -a condition from which they sprang.
Does not so evident a brotherhood among the atoms point to a common parentage? Does not a sympathy so omniprevalent, so ineradicable, and so thoroughly irrespective, suggest a common paternity as its source? Does not one extreme impel the reason to the other? Does not the infinitude of division refer to the utterness of individuality? Does not the entireness of the complex hint at the perfection of the simple? It is not that the atoms, as we see them, are divided or that they are complex in their relations -but that they are inconceivably divided and unutterably complex: -it is the extremeness of the conditions to which I now allude, rather than to the conditions themselves. In a word, not because the atoms were, at some remote epoch of time, even more than together -is it not because originally, and therefore normally, they were One -that now, in all circumstances -at all points -in all directions -by all modes of approach -in all relations and through all conditions -they struggle back to this absolutely, this irrelatively, this unconditionally one?
--
A very slight inspection of the Heavens assures us that the stars have a certain general uniformity, equability, or equidistance, of distribution through that region of space in which, collectively, and in a roughly globular form, they are situated: -this species of very general, rather than absolute, equability, being in full keeping with my deduction of inequidistance, within certain limits, among the originally diffused atoms, as a corollary from the evident design of infinite complexity of relation out of irrelation. I started, it will be remembered, with the idea of a generally uniform but particularly un uniform distribution of the atoms; -an idea, I repeat, which an inspection of the stars, as they exist, confirms.
But even in the merely general equability of distribution, as regards the atoms, there appears a difficulty which, no doubt, has already suggested itself to those among my readers who have borne in mind that I suppose this equability of distribution effected through irradiation from a centre. The very first glance at the idea, irradiation, forces us to the entertainment of the hitherto unseparated and seemingly inseparable idea of agglomeration about a centre, with dispersion as we recede from it -the idea, in a word, of in equability of distribution in respect to the matter irradiated.
--
In speaking, not long ago, of the repulsive or electrical influence, I remarked that "the important phaenomena of vitality, consciousness, and thought, whether we observe them generally or in detail, seem to proceed at least in the ratio of the heterogeneous. " I mentioned, too, that I would recur to the suggestion: -and this is the proper point at which to do so. Looking at the matter, first, in detail, we perceive that not merely the manifestation of vitality, but its importance, consequences, and elevation of character, keep pace, very closely, with the heterogeneity, or complexity, of the animal structure. Looking at the question, now, in its generality, and referring to the first movements of the atoms towards mass-constitution, we find that heterogeneousness, brought about directly through condensation, is proportional with it forever. We thus reach the proposition that the importance of the development of the terrestrial vitality proceeds equably with the terrestrial condensation.
See previous paragraph, "To electricity -so, for the present, continuing to call it"
--
That the demonstration does not prove the hypothesis, according to the common understanding of the word "proof," I admit, of course. To show that certain existing results -that certain established facts may be, even mathematically, accounted for by the assumption of a certain hypothesis, is by no means to establish the hypothesis itself. In other words: -to show that, certain data being given, a certain existing result might, or even must, have ensued, will fail to prove that this result did ensue, FR until such time as it shall be also shown that there are, and can be, no other data from which the result in question might equally have ensued. But, in the case now discussed, although all must admit the deficiency of what we are in the habit of terming "proof," still there are many intellects, and those of the loftiest order to which no proof could bring one iota of additional Conviction. Without going into details which might impinge upon the Cloud-Land of Metaphysics, I may as well here observe that the force of conviction, in cases such as this, will always, with the right-thinking, be proportional to the amount of complexity intervening between the hypothesis and the result. To be less abstract: -The greatness of the complexity found existing among cosmical conditions, by rendering great in the same proportion the difficulty of accounting for all these conditions at once, strengthens, also in the same proportion, our faith in that hypothesis which does, in such manner, satisfactorily account for them: -and as no complexity can well be conceived greater than that of the astronomical conditions, so no conviction can be stronger -to my mind at least -than that with which I am impressed by an hypothesis that not only reconciles these conditions, with mathematical accuracy, and reduces them into a consistent and intelligible whole, but is, at the same time, the sole hypothesis by means of which the human intellect has been ever enabled to account for them at all.
A most unfounded opinion has been latterly current and even in scientific circles -the opinion that the so-called Nebular Cosmogony has been overthrown. This fancy has arisen from the report of late observations made, among what hitherto have been termed the "nebulae," through the large telescope of Cincinnati, and the world-renowned instrument of Lord Rosse. Certain spots in the firmament which presented, even to the most powerful of the old telescopes, the appearance of nebulosity, or haze, had been regarded for a long time as confirming the theory of Laplace. They were looked upon as stars in that very process of condensation which I have been attempting to describe. Thus it was supposed that we "had ocular evidence" -an evidence, by the way, which has always been found very questionable of the truth of the hypothesis; and, although certain telescopic improvements, every now and then, enabled us to perceive that a spot, here and there, which we had been classing among the nebulae, was, in fact, but a cluster of stars deriving its nebular character only from its immensity of distance -still it was thought that no doubt could exist as to the actual nebulosity of numerous other masses, the strong-holds of the nebulists, bidding defiance to every effort at segregation. Of these latter the most interesting was the great "nebulae" in the constellation Orion: -but this, with innumerable other miscalled "nebulae," when viewed through the magnificent modern telescopes, has become resolved into a simple collection of stars. Now this fact has been very generally understood as conclusive against the Nebular Hypothesis of Laplace; and, on announcement of the discoveries in question, the most enthusiastic defender and most eloquent popularizer of the theory, Dr. Nichol, went so far as to "admit the necessity of abandoning" an idea which had formed the material of his most praiseworthy book.
1.wby - Byzantium, #Yeats - Poems, #William Butler Yeats, #Poetry
Break bitter furies of complexity,
Those images that yet
2.01 - On Books, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
All this criticism by the intellectuals does not take into consideration the immense complexity of the problem.
Disciple: He says that war is avoidable.
--
Disciple: Sir Arthur Eddington in his Gifford Lectures (1934) says that science began with the aim of reducing the complexity of the material world to a great simplicity. But now, it seems, science has not been able to keep its promise and no model of the material universe is possible. A good deal of mathematics and specialisation is necessary now to understand what science says about the material world. Eddington says that the table on which he is writing is not merely a piece of wood. Scientifically speaking, it is a conglomeration of electrical particles, called electrons, moving at a very great velocity, and even though the particles are moving, his hands can rest on the surface and not go through.
He has also argued against the scientists who insist that the so-called objective view is the only view that is permissible or intended. The rainbow is not intended only to give man the knowledge or experience of the difference in the wave-lengths of light. The poet is equally entided to his experience when he says, "My heart leaps up when I behold a rainbow in the sky."
2.01 - THE ADVENT OF LIFE, #The Phenomenon of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
matted complexity came to form the last (or rather the last but
one) of the envelopes of our planet : the biosphere.
--
extraordinary complexity of its structure and the no less extra-
ordinary fixity of its fundamental type.
--
First the complexity. Chemistry teaches us that the cellular
edifice is based on albuminoids, nitrogenous organic substances
--
it has reached a higher rung of complexity and thus, by the same
stroke (if our hypothesis be well founded), advanced still further
--
(initial complexity and ' expansiveness ') present in both cases.
Both, moreover, imply a close relationship of an evolutive kind
--
been the complexity of its original impetus, it exhausts only a
95
--
ocean, it was no doubt because the complexity of die earth's
elements and their distribution had reached the general privileged
2.01 - The Attributes of Omega Point - a Transcendent God, #Let Me Explain, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
It is impossible to justify evolution through increasing complexity -
the laborious climb towards the improbable - without imagining that
2.01 - The Picture, #Hymn of the Universe, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
gled to master it, into an inexhaustible complexity
wherein were gathered all the glances that have
2.02 - Brahman, Purusha, Ishwara - Maya, Prakriti, Shakti, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
An instinct, an intuition is needed which the intellect has not at its comm and and does not always listen to when it comes in of itself to help the mental working. But still more difficult must it be for our reason to understand and deal with the suprarational; the suprarational is the realm of the spirit, and in the largeness, subtlety, profundity, complexity of its movement the reason is lost; here intuition and inner experience alone are the guide, or, if there is any other, it is that of which intuition is only a sharp edge, an intense projected ray, - the final enlightenment must come from the suprarational Truth-consciousness, from a supramental vision and knowledge.
But the being and action of the Infinite must not be therefore regarded as if it were a magic void of all reason; there is, on the contrary, a greater reason in all the operations of the Infinite, but it is not a mental or intellectual, it is a spiritual and supramental reason: there is a logic in it, because there are relations and connections infallibly seen and executed; what is magic to our finite reason is the logic of the Infinite. It is a greater reason, a greater logic because it is more vast, subtle, complex in its operations: it comprehends all the data which our observation fails to seize, it deduces from them results which neither our deduction nor
2.02 - Evolutionary Creation and the Expectation of a Revelation, #Let Me Explain, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
able states of complexity. Now we see that this paradoxical
movement is sustained by a prime mover ahead. The branch
2.02 - THE EXPANSION OF LIFE, #The Phenomenon of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
its final complexity, it must be assumed to have lasted at least
as long. Anyhow, it disappears into the depths in die same way.
--
formes) are an assembly of monstrous complexity. We seem
to find here more than anywhere numbers of layers accumulated
--
enormous complexity of the world we were attempting to
resuscitate. It remains for us, by a final effort of vision and
--
As we look closer at the bewildering complexity of the mechan-
ism, our brains begin to reel. How arc we to reconcile this
--
of involution on an ever-greater complexity and consciouness. But wc shall
return to this at the conclusion of this book.
2.03 - DEMETER, #The Phenomenon of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
complication, let us try to find an order in the complexity.
Contemplated without any guiding thread, it must be
--
sent the very essence of complexity, of essential metamorphosis.
There is every chance that they will lead us somewhere.
2.03 - Karmayogin A Commentary on the Isha Upanishad, #Isha Upanishad, #unset, #Zen
with it, as increased complexity of motion necessarily must do,
increased differentiation and complexity of substance. All the
variety and evolutions of gaseous matter with their peculiar
--
result of this infinite complexity of motion is an infinite mutability. Wherever we turn our eyes, there is something evolving and
developing, something decaying and disintegrating. Nothing at
--
with it, involve an increasing complexity of the social organization. Specialization of function becomes pronounced, for the
larger needs of the community demand an increasing division of
--
occupation can bring difference of experience and develop individuality. The increasing complexity of the community means
the growth of individuality and the liberation of rajas in the
2.03 - The Pyx, #Hymn of the Universe, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
duced a new differentiation, a new complexity, so
that each time I thought to have encompassed it I
2.04 - The Living Church and Christ-Omega, #Let Me Explain, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
upon total, supremely organized, complexity. And since he,
Christ, is the organic principle of this harmonizing process,
2.04 - The Secret of Secrets, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
There is a spirit within us calm, superior to works, equal, not bound in this external tangle, surveying it as its supporter, source, immanent witness, but not involved in it. Infinite, containing all, one self in all, it surveys impartially the whole action of nature and it sees that it is only the action of Nature, not its own action. It sees that the ego and its will and its intelligence are all a machinery of Nature and that all their activities are determined by the complexity of her triple modes and qualities.
The eternal spirit itself is free from these things. It is free from them because it knows; it knows that Nature and ego and the personal being of all these creatures do not make up the whole of existence. For existence is not merely a glorious or a vain, a wonderful or a dismal panorama of a constant mutation of becoming. There is something eternal, immutable, imperishable, a timeless self-existence; that is not affected by the mutations of Nature. It is their impartial witness, neither affecting nor affected, neither acting nor acted upon, neither virtuous nor sinful, but always pure, complete, great and unwounded. Neither grieving nor rejoicing at all that afflicts and attracts the egoistic being, it is the friend of none, the enemy of none, but one equal self of all. Man is not now conscious of this self, because he is wrapped up in his outward-going mind, because he will not learn or has not learned to live within; he does not detach himself, draw back from his action and observe it as the work of Nature. Ego is the obstacle, the linch-pin of the wheel of delusion, the loss of the ego in the soul's self the first condition of freedom. To become spirit, no longer merely a mind and ego, is the opening word of this message of liberation.
2.06 - Revelation and the Christian Phenomenon, #Let Me Explain, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
the completion of the process of complexity-consciousness,
at the same time it is equally true (how true, you have only
2.08 - The Sword, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
The Magick Sword is the analytical faculty; directed against any demon it attacks his complexity.
Only the simple can withstand the sword. As we are below the Abyss, this weapon is then entirely destructive: it divides Satan against Satan. It is only in the lower forms of Magick, the purely human forms, that the Sword has become so important a weapon. A dagger should be sufficient.
--
"Whoso taketh the sword shall perish by the sword," is not a mystical threat, but a mystical promise. It is our own complexity that must be destroyed.
Here is another parable. Peter, the Stone of the Philosophers, cuts off the ear of Malchus, the servant of the High Priest the ear is the organ of Spirit). In analysis the spiritual part of Malkuth must be separated from it by the philosophical stone, and then Christus, the
2.09 - On Sadhana, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Sri Aurobindo: It is true that all Adhars have not got the capacity to hold the Divine Consciousness and they don't make any effort to increase the capacity of the natural instrument. Once you come down from the Divine Consciousness you are again like an ordinary man. One ought to go on increasing the capacities of his natural instruments in complexity and many-sidedness so as to hold the Divine when it comes down.
Disciple: They speak of Samadhi in which one enters into Turiya the fourth state.
2.1.01 - The Parts of the Being, #Letters On Yoga I, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Yoga to become conscious of the great complexity of our nature, see the different forces that move it and get over it a control of directing knowledge. We are composed of many parts each of which contri butes something to the total movement of our consciousness, our thought, will, sensation, feeling, action, but we do not see the origination or the course of these impulsions; we are aware only of their confused pell-mell results on the surface upon which we can at best impose nothing better than a precarious shifting order.
The remedy can only come from the parts of the being that are already turned towards the Light. To call in the light of the
2.10 - Knowledge by Identity and Separative Knowledge, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
feels and acts upon life through us, the subtle-physical being that secretly receives and responds to the contacts of things through our body and its organs. Our surface thought, feeling, emotion is a complexity and confusion of impulsions from within and impacts from outside us; our reason, our organising intelligence can impose on it only an imperfect order: but here within we find the separate sources of our mental, our vital and our physical energisms and can see clearly the pure operations, the distinct powers, the composing elements of each and their interplay in a clear light of self-vision. We find that the contradictions and the struggles of our surface consciousness are largely due to the contrary or mutually discordant tendencies of our mental, vital and physical parts opposing and unreconciled with each other and these again to the discord of many different inner possibilities of our being and even of different personalities on each level in us which are behind the intermixed disposition and differing tendencies of our surface nature. But while on the surface their action is mixed together, confused and conflicting, here in our depths they can be seen and worked upon in their independent and separate nature and action and a harmonisation of them by the mental being in us, leader of the life and body,5 - or, better, by the central psychic entity, - is not so difficult, provided we have the right psychic and mental will in the endeavour: for if it is with the vital-ego motive that we make the entry into the subliminal being, it may result in serious dangers and disaster or at the least an exaggeration of ego, self-affirmation and desire, an enlarged and more powerful ignorance instead of an enlarged and more powerful knowledge. Moreover, we find in this inner or subliminal being the means of directly distinguishing between what rises from within and what comes to us from outside, from others or from universal Nature, and it becomes possible to exercise a control, a choice, a power of willed reception, rejection and selection, a clear power of self-building and harmonisation which we do not possess or can operate very imperfectly in our composed surface personality but which is the prerogative of
5 manomayah pranasarraneta - Mundaka Upanishad, 2. 2. 7.
--
It should be noted, however, that owing to this complexity the action of the subliminal sense can be confusing or misleading, especially if it is interpreted by the outer mind to which the secret of its operations is unknown and its principles of sign construction and symbolic figure-languages foreign; a greater inner power of intuition, tact, discrimination is needed to judge and interpret rightly its images and experiences. It is still the fact that they add immensely to our possible scope of knowledge and widen the narrow limits in which our sense-bound outer physical consciousness is circumscribed and imprisoned.
But more important is the power of the subliminal to enter into a direct contact of consciousness with other consciousness or with objects, to act without other instrumentation, by an essential sense inherent in its own substance, by a direct mental vision, by a direct feeling of things, even by a close envelopment and intimate penetration and a return with the contents of what is enveloped or penetrated, by a direct intimation or impact on the substance of mind itself, not through outward signs or figures, - a revealing intimation or a self-communicating impact of thoughts, feelings, forces. It is by these means that the inner being achieves an immediate, intimate and accurate spontaneous knowledge of persons, of objects, of the occult and to us intangible energies of world-Nature that surround us and impinge upon our own personality, physicality, mindforce and life-force. In our surface mentality we are sometimes aware of a consciousness that can feel or know the thoughts and inner reactions of others or become aware of objects or happenings without any observable sense-intervention or otherwise exercise powers supernormal to our ordinary capacity; but these capacities are occasional, rudimentary, vague. Their possession is proper to our concealed subliminal self and, when they emerge, it is by a coming to the surface of its powers or operations. These emergent operations of the subliminal being or some of them are now fragmentarily studied under the name of psychic phenomena, - although they have ordinarily nothing to do with the psyche, the soul, the inmost entity in us, but only with the inner mind, the inner vital, the subtle-physical parts
2.10 - The Lamp, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
4:This Lamp hangeth above the Altar, it has no support from below; its light illumines the whole Temple, yet upon it are cast no shadows, no reflections. It cannot be touched, it cannot be extinguished, in no way can it change; for it is utterly apart from all those things which have complexity, which have dimension, which change and may be changed.
5:When the eyes of the Magus are fixed upon this Lamp naught else exists.
2.13 - On Psychology, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Sri Aurobindo: What is man's mental knowledge before those beings? What does man know? Practically nothing. They know the complexity of forces at work, while man knows nothing of it. Man has a great destiny if he goes along the right lines, but as he is, he is shut up in the physical consciousness which is a very inferior plane. Even his reason requires data for its knowledge, and argument or reasoning can justify anything. Two quite opposite conclusions can be supported by the aid of the same reasoning, and your preferences determine which one you accept. For the data of reasoning, again, you require to depend upon what you see and hear on your senses. The vital beings are not so foolish as all that, they are not so limited.
22 JUNE 1926
2.15 - On the Gods and Asuras, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Sri Aurobindo: There is the old idea of Devas and Asuras struggling to control human evolution. The Asuras are responsible for the great complexity of the world, but in my opinion they are not a necessity. They realise themselves through revolt, suffering, struggle, and difficulty. But the world could have evolved differently more like a flower blooming from within outwards. But the forces of the Asura-type entered the universal play of forces and perverted it. This is the truth known to almost all the religions: for instance, the snake, the Evil, tempting Eve Prakriti. Eve deceiving Adam Purusha. Adam consenting and their fall: this they speak of as the fall of the cosmic man.
In India this struggle as to who should control the course of human evolution, between the Devas and the Asuras, expresses the same truth.
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It is possible that there may be a great complexity in manifestation one can manifest different godheads in different pans of the being. It is necessary to take these inner truths simply and in a straightforward manner without making any fuss. The external, human personality must not be disturbed; it often tries to cinematograph the thing like some modern organisations. That is exactly the way to frustrate it. Making noise is another thing one must avoid. The vital desire for name and fame, the cinematographic tendency, all should be washed away clean. There should be no ego if there is to be a divine manifestation. All noise should only be incidental. I spoke about the world of the Gods because not to speak of it would be dangerous. I spoke of it so that the mind may understand the thing if it comes down. I am trying to bring it down into the physical as it can no longer be delayed and then things may happen. Formerly, to speak of it would have been undesirable, but now not to speak might be dangerous.
Disciple: Can it, in any way, be retarded by us?
2.16 - The Integral Knowledge and the Aim of Life; Four Theories of Existence, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
These are the three fundamental ways of seeing, each with its mental attitude towards life, that can be adopted with regard to our existence; the rest are usually midway stations or else variations or composites which attempt to adapt themselves more freely to the complexity of the problem. For, practically, it is impossible for man taken as a race, whatever a few individuals may succeed in doing, to guide his life permanently or wholly by the leading motive of any of these three attitudes, uniquely, to the exclusion of the others' claim upon his nature. A confused amalgam of two or more of them, a conflict or division of his lifemotives between them or some attempt at synthesis is his way of dealing with the various impulses of his complex being and the intuitions of his mind to which they appeal for their sanction.
Almost all men normally devote the major part of their energy to the life on earth, to the terrestrial needs, interests, desires, ideals of the individual and the race. It could not be otherwise; for the care of the body, the sufficient development and satisfaction of the vital and the mental being of man, the pursuit of high individual and large collective ideals which start from the idea of an attainable human perfection or nearer approach to perfection through his normal development, are imposed upon us by the very character of our terrestrial being; they are part of its law, its natural impulse and rule, its condition of growth, and without these things man could not attain to his full manhood.
2.17 - The Progress to Knowledge - God, Man and Nature, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Intellectual knowledge and practical action are devices of Nature by which we are able to express so much of our being, consciousness, energy, power of enjoyment as we have been able to actualise in our apparent nature and by which we attempt to know more, express and actualise more, grow always more into the much that we have yet to actualise. But our intellect and mental knowledge and will of action are not our only means, not all the instruments of our consciousness and energy: our nature, the name which we give to the Force of being in us in its actual and potential play and power, is complex in its ordering of consciousness, complex in its instrumentation of force. Every discovered or discoverable term and circumstance of that complexity which we can get into working order, we need to actualise in the highest and finest values possible to us and to use in its widest and richest powers for the one object.
That object is to become, to be conscious, to increase continually in our realised being and awareness of self and things, in our actualised force and joy of being, and to express that becoming dynamically in such an action on the world and ourselves that we and it shall grow more and always yet more towards the highest possible reach, largest possible breadth of universality and infinity. All man's age-long effort, his action, society, art, ethics, science, religion, all the manifold activities by which he expresses and increases his mental, vital, physical, spiritual existence, are episodes in the vast drama of this endeavour of Nature and have behind their limited apparent aims no other true sense or foundation. For the individual to arrive at the divine universality and supreme infinity, live in it, possess it, to be, know, feel and express that alone in all his being, consciousness, energy, delight of being is what the ancient seers of the Veda meant by the Knowledge; that was the Immortality which they set before man as his divine culmination.
2.17 - The Soul and Nature, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
This duality is self-evident. Without any philosophy at all, by the mere force of experience it is what we can all perceive, although we may not take the trouble to define. Even the most thoroughgoing materialism which denies the soul or resolves it into a more or less illusory result of natural phenomena acting upon some ill-explained phenomenon of the physical brain which we call consciousness or the mind, but which is really no more than a sort of complexity of nervous spasms, cannot get rid of the practical fact of this duality. It does not matter at all how it came about; the fact is not only there, it determines our whole existence, it is the one fact which is really important to us as human beings with a will and an intelligence and a subjective existence which makes all our happiness and our suffering. The whole problem of life resolves itself into this one question, -- "What are we to do with this soul and nature set face to face with each other, this Nature, this personal and cosmic activity, which tries to impress itself upon the soul, to possess, control, determine it, and this soul which feels that in some mysterious way it has a freedom, a control over itself, a responsibility for what it is and does, and tries therefore to turn upon Nature, its own and the world's, and to control, possess, enjoy, or even, it may be, reject and escape from her?" In order to answer that question we have to know, -- to know what the soul can do, to know what it call do with itself, to know too what it can do with Nature and the world. The whole of human philosophy, religion, science is really nothing but an attempt to get at the right data upon which it will be possible to answer the question and solve, as satisfactorily as our knowledge will allow, the problem of our existence.
The hope of a complete escape from our present strife with and subjection to our lower and troubled nature and existence arises when we perceive what religion and philosophy affirm, but modern thought has tried to deny, that there are two poises of our soul-existence, a lower, troubled and subjected, a higher, supreme, untroubled and sovereign, one vibrant in Mind, the other tranquil in Spirit. The hope not only of an escape, but of a completely satisfying and victorious solution comes when we perceive what some religions and philosophies affirm, but others seem to deny, that there is also in the dual unity of soul and nature a lower, an ordinary human status and a higher, a divine in which the conditions of the duality are reversed and the soul becomes that which now it only struggles and aspires to be, master of its nature, free and by union with the Divine possessor also of the world-nature. According to our idea of these possibilities will be the solution we shall attempt to realise.
2.2.03 - The Psychic Being, #Letters On Yoga I, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
personality and it has no name or form. But it is best for you not to speculate too much about these subtle things at present; you have not sufficient experience to grasp correctly the complexity of the truth. The one thing you are concerned with is that you have a soul, a psychic being, which stands for your centre of existence, a part of the Divine. Become aware of that and put all your mental, vital and physical nature in relation to it, in order that they may become purified, harmonised, divinised, and the supramental being and nature may descend and be manifested in you - for until this is done, this conscious linking and relation with the psychic centre, there can be no supramental descent.
The Words "Soul" and "Psychic"
2.2.03 - The Science of Consciousness, #Essays Divine And Human, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Once it has attained a certain complexity of physical instrumentation, life seems able indefinitely to refine in some subtle way its action of nervous power so as to support a more and more fine and complex action of mentality.
How far this development of mentality can go and how far it is dependent on the physical apparatus and the nervous action is one of the capital questions of psychology.
2.22 - Rebirth and Other Worlds; Karma, the Soul and Immortality, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Even at his lowest normality the human individual is still a soul acting through a distinct mental being, however ill-formed his mind may be, however limited and dwarfed, however engrossed and encased in the physical and vital consciousness and unable or unwilling to detach itself from its lower formations. Yet we may suppose that there is a downward attachment so strong as to compel the being to hasten at once to a resumption of the physical life because his natural formation is not really fit for anything else or at home on any higher plane. Or, again, the lifeexperience might be so brief and incomplete as to compel the soul to an immediate rebirth for its continuance. Other needs, influences or causes there may be in the complexity of Natureprocess, such as a strong will of earthly desire pressing for fulfilment, which would enforce an immediate transmigration of the same persistent form of personality into a new body. But still the alternative process of a reincarnation, a rebirth of the Person not only into a new body but into a new formation of the personality, would be the normal line taken by the psychic entity once it had reached the human stage of its evolutionary cycle.
For the soul personality, as it develops, must get sufficient power over its own nature-formation and a sufficient selfexpressive mental and vital individuality to persist without the support of the material body, as well as to overcome any excessive detaining attachment to the physical plane and the physical life: it would be sufficiently evolved to subsist in the subtle body which we know to be the characteristic case or sheath and the proper subtle-physical support of the inner being. It is the soul-person, the psychic being, that survives and carries mind and life with it on its journey, and it is in the subtle body that it passes out of its material lodging; both then must be sufficiently developed for the transit. But a transference to planes of mind existence or life existence implies also a mind and life sufficiently formed and developed to pass without disintegration and exist for a time on these higher levels. If these conditions were satisfied, a sufficiently developed psychic personality and subtle body and a sufficiently developed mental and vital personality, survival of the soul-person without an immediate new-birth would be secured and the pull of the other worlds would become operative. But this by itself would mean a return to earth with the same mental and vital personality and there would be no free evolution in the new birth. There must be an individuation of the psychic person itself sufficient for it not to depend on its past mind and life formations any more than on its past body, but to shed them too in time and proceed to a new formation for new experience. For this discarding of the old and preparation of new forms the soul must dwell for some time between two births somewhere else than on the entirely material plane in which we now move; for here there would be no abiding place for a disembodied spirit. A brief stay might indeed be possible if there are subtle envelopes of the earth-existence which belong to earth but are of a vital or mental character: but even then there would be no reason for the soul to linger there for a long period, unless it is still burdened with an overpowering attachment to the earth-life.
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Where then would the temporary dwelling in the supraphysical take place? what would be the soul's other habitat? It might seem that it ought to be on a mental plane, in mental worlds, both because on man the mental being the attraction of that plane, already active in life, must prevail when there is not the obstacle of the attachment to the body, and because the mental plane should be, evidently, the native and proper habitat of a mental being. But this does not automatically follow, because of the complexity of man's being; he has a vital as well as a mental existence, - his vital part often more powerful and prominent than the mental, - and behind the mental being is a soul of which it is the representative. There are, besides, many planes or levels of world-existence and the soul has to pass through them to reach its natural home. In the physical plane itself or close to it there are believed to be layers of greater and greater subtlety which may be regarded as sub-planes of the physical with a vital and a mental character; these are at once surrounding and penetrating strata through which the interchange between the higher worlds and the physical world takes place. It might then be possible for the mental being, so long as its mentality is not sufficiently developed, so long as it is restricted mainly to the more physical forms of mind and life activity, to be caught and delayed in these media. It might even be obliged to rest there entirely between birth and birth; but this is not probable and could only happen if and in so far as its attachment to the earth-forms of its activity was so great as to preclude or hamper the completion of the natural upward movement. For the postmortal state of the soul must correspond in some way to the development of the being on earth, since this after-life is not a free upward return from a temporary downward deviation into mortality, but a normal recurrent circumstance which intervenes to help out the process of a difficult spiritual evolution in the physical existence. There is a relation which the human being in his evolution on earth develops with higher planes of existence, and that must have a predominant effect on his internatal dwelling in these planes; it must determine his direction after death and determine too the place, period and character of his self-experience there.
It may be also that he may linger for a time in one of those annexes of the other worlds created by his habitual beliefs or by the type of his aspirations in the mortal body. We know that he creates images of these superior planes, which are often mental translations of certain elements in them, and erects his images into a system, a form of actual worlds; he builds up also desire worlds of many kinds to which he attaches a strong sense of inner reality: it is possible that these constructions may be so strong as to create for him an artificial post-mortal environment in which he may linger. For the image-making power of the human mind, its imagination, which is in his physical life only an indispensable aid to his acquisition of knowledge and his life-creation, may in a higher scale become a creative force which would enable the mental being to live for a while amid its own images until they were dissolved by the soul's pressure. All these buildings are of the nature of larger life constructions; in them his mind translates some of the real conditions of the greater mental and vital worlds into terms of his physical experience magnified, prolonged, extended to a condition beyond physicality: he carries by this translation the vital joy and vital suffering of the physical being into supraphysical conditions in which they have a greater scope, fullness and endurance. These constructive environments must therefore be considered, so far as they have any supraphysical habitat, as annexes of the vital or of the lower mental planes of existence.
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In each return to earth the Person, the Purusha, makes a new formation, builds a new personal quantum suitable for a new experience, for a new growth of its being. When it passes from its body, it keeps still the same vital and mental form for a time, but the forms or sheaths dissolve and what is kept is only the essential elements of the past quantum, of which some will but some may not be used in the next incarnation. The essential form of the past personality may remain as one element among many, one personality among many personalities of the same Person, but in the background, in the subliminal behind the veil of the surface mind and life and body, contri buting from there whatever is needed of itself to the new formation; but it will not itself be the whole formation or build anew the old unchanged type of nature. It may even be that the new quantum or structure of being will exhibit a quite contrary character and temperament, quite other capacities, other very different tendencies; for latent potentials may be ready to emerge, or something already in action but inchoate may have been held back in the last life which needed to be worked out but was kept over for a later and more suitable combination of the possibilities of the nature. All the past is indeed there, with its accelerated impetus and potentialities for the formation of the future, but all of it is not ostensibly present and active. The greater the variety of formations that have existed in the past and can be utilised, the more rich and multitudinous the accumulated buildings of experience, the more their essential result of capacity for knowledge, power, action, character, manifold response to the universe can be brought forward and harmonised in the new birth, the more numerous the veiled personalities mental, vital, subtle-physical that combine to enrich the new personality on the surface, the greater and more opulent will be that personality and the nearer to the possible transition out of the completed mental stage of evolution to something beyond it. Such a complexity and gathering up of many personalities in one person can be a sign of a very advanced stage of the individual's evolution when there is a strong central being that holds all together and works towards harmonisation and integration of the whole many-sided movement of the nature. But this opulent taking up of the past would not be a repetition of personality; it would be a new formation and large consummation. It is not as a machinery for the persistent renewal or prolongation of an unchanging personality that rebirth exists, but as a means for the evolution of the spiritual being in Nature.
It becomes at once evident that in this plan of rebirth the false importance which our mind attaches to the memory of past lives disappears altogether. If indeed rebirth were governed by a system of rewards and punishments, if life's whole intention were to teach the embodied spirit to be good and moral, - supposing that that is the intention in the dispensation of Karma and it is not what it looks like in this presentation of it, a mechanical law of recompense and retri bution without any reformatory meaning or purpose, - then there is evidently a great stupidity and injustice in denying to the mind in its new incarnation all memory of its past births and actions. For it deprives the reborn being of all chance to realise why he is rewarded or punished or to get any advantage from the lesson of the profitableness of virtue and the unprofitableness of sin vouchsafed to him or inflicted on him. Even, since life seems often to teach the opposite lesson, - for he sees the good suffer for their goodness and the wicked prosper by their wickedness, - he is rather likely to conclude in this perverse sense, because he has not the memory of an assured and constant result of experience which would show him that the suffering of the good man was due to his past wickedness and the prosperity of the sinner due to the splendour of his past virtues, so that virtue is the best policy in the long run for any reasonable and prudent soul entering into this dispensation of Nature. It might be said that the psychic being within remembers; but such a secret memory would seem to have little effect or value on the surface. Or it may be said that it realises what has happened and learns its lesson when it reviews and assimilates its experiences after issuing from the body: but this intermittent memory does not very apparently help in the next birth; for most of us persist in sin and error and show no tangible signs of having profited by the teaching of our past experience.
2.23 - Man and the Evolution, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Next, it may be conceded that each type or pattern of consciousness and being in the body, once established, has to be faithful to the law of being of that type, to its own design and rule of nature. But it may also very well be that part of the law of the human type is its impulse towards self-exceeding, that the means for a conscious transition has been provided for among the spiritual powers of man; the possession of such a capacity may be a part of the plan on which the creative Energy has built him. It may be conceded that what man has up till now principally done is to act within the circle of his nature, on a spiral of nature movement, sometimes descending, sometimes ascending, - there has been no straight line of progress, no indisputable, fundamental or radical exceeding of his past nature: what he has done is to sharpen, subtilise, make a more and more complex and plastic use of his capacities. It cannot truly be said that there has been no such thing as human progress since man's appearance or even in his recent ascertainable history; for however great the ancients, however supreme some of their achievements and creations, however impressive their powers of spirituality, of intellect or of character, there has been in later developments an increasing subtlety, complexity, manifold development of knowledge and possibility in man's achievements, in his politics, society, life, science, metaphysics, knowledge of all kinds, art, literature; even in his spiritual endeavour, less surprisingly lofty and less massive in power of spirituality than that of the ancients, there has been this increasing subtlety, plasticity, sounding of depths, extension of seeking. There have been falls from a high type of culture, a sharp temporary descent into a certain obscurantism, cessations of the spiritual urge, plunges into a barbaric natural materialism; but these are temporary phenomena, at worst a downward curve of the spiral of progress. This progress has not indeed carried the race beyond itself, into a self-exceeding, a transformation of the mental being. But that was not to be expected; for the action of evolutionary Nature in a type of being and consciousness is first to develop the type to its utmost capacity by just such a subtilisation and increasing complexity till it is ready for her bursting of the shell, the ripened decisive emergence, reversal, turning over of consciousness on itself that constitutes a new stage in the evolution. If it be supposed that her next step is the spiritual and supramental being, the stress of spirituality in the race may be taken as a sign that that is Nature's intention, the sign too of the capacity of man to operate in himself or aid her to operate the transition. If the appearance in animal being of a type similar in some respects to the ape-kind but already from the beginning endowed with the elements of humanity was the method of the human evolution, the appearance in the human being of a spiritual type resembling mental-animal humanity but already with the stamp of the spiritual aspiration on it would be the obvious method of Nature for the evolutionary production of the spiritual and supramental being.
It is pertinently suggested that if such an evolutionary culmination is intended and man is to be its medium, it will only be a few especially evolved human beings who will form the new type and move towards the new life; that once done, the rest of humanity will sink back from a spiritual aspiration no longer necessary for Nature's purpose and remain quiescent in its normal status. It can equally be reasoned that the human gradation must be preserved if there is really an ascent of the soul by reincarnation through the evolutionary degrees towards the spiritual summit; for otherwise the most necessary of all the intermediate steps will be lacking. It must be conceded at once that there is not the least probability or possibility of the whole human race rising in a block to the supramental level; what is suggested is nothing so revolutionary and astonishing, but only the capacity in the human mentality, when it has reached a certain level or a certain point of stress of the evolutionary impetus, to press towards a higher plane of consciousness and its embodiment in the being. The being will necessarily undergo by this embodiment a change from the normal constitution of its nature, a change certainly of its mental and emotional and sensational constitution and also to a great extent of the body-consciousness and the physical conditioning of our life and energies; but the change of consciousness will be the chief factor, the initial movement, the physical modification will be a subordinate factor, a consequence. This transmutation of the consciousness will always remain possible to the human being when the flame of the soul, the psychic kindling, becomes potent in heart and mind and the nature is ready. The spiritual aspiration is innate in man; for he is, unlike the animal, aware of imperfection and limitation and feels that there is something to be attained beyond what he now is: this urge towards selfexceeding is not likely ever to die out totally in the race. The human mental status will be always there, but it will be there not only as a degree in the scale of rebirth, but as an open step towards the spiritual and supramental status.
2.23 - The Core of the Gita.s Meaning, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
All the problems of human life arise from the complexity of our existence, the obscurity of its essential principle and the secrecy of the inmost power that makes out its determinations and governs its purpose and its processes. If our existence were of one piece, solely material-vital or solely mental or solely spiritual, or even if the others were entirely or mainly involved in one of these or were quite latent in our subconscient or our superconscient parts, there would be nothing to perplex us; the material and vital law would be imperative or the mental would be clear to its own pure and unobstructed principle or the spiritual selfexistent and self-sufficient to spirit. The animals are aware of no problems; a mental god in a world of pure mentality would admit none or would solve them all by the purity of a mental rule or the satisfaction of a rational harmony; a pure spirit would be above them and self-content in the infinite. But the existence of man is a triple web, a thing mysteriously physicalvital, mental and spiritual at once, and he knows not what are
The Core of the Gita's Meaning
2.24 - Gnosis and Ananda, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The gnosis does not reject the realisations of the lower planes; for it is not an annihilation or extinction, not a Nirvana but a sublime fulfilment of our manifested Nature. It possesses the first realisations under its own conditions after it has transformed them and made them elements of a divine order. The gnostic soul is the child, but the king-child;482 here is the royal and eternal childhood whose toys are the worlds and all universal Nature is the miraculous garden of the play that tires never. The gnosis takes up the condition of divine inertia; but this is no longer the inertia of the subject soul driven by Nature like a fallen leaf in the breath of the Lord. It is the happy passivity bearing an unimaginable intensity of action and Ananda of the Nature-Soul at once driven by the bliss of the mastering Purusha and aware of herself as the supreme shakti above and around him and mastering and carrying him blissfully on her bosom for ever. This biune being of Purusha-prakriti is as if a flaming Sun and body of divine Light self-carried in its orbit by its own inner consciousness and power at one with the universal, at one with a supreme Transcendence. Its madness is a wise madness of Ananda, the incalculable ecstasy of a supreme consciousness and power vibrating with an infinite sense of freedom and intensity in its divine life-movements. Its action is supra-rational and therefore to the rational mind which has not the key it seems a colossal madness. And yet this that seems madness is a wisdom in action that only baffles the mind by the liberty and richness of its contents and the infinite complexity in fundamental simplicity of its motions, it is the very method of the Lord of the worlds, a thing no intellectual interpretation can fathom, -- a dance this also, a whirl of mighty energies, but the Master of the dance holds the hands of His energies and keeps them to the rhythmic order, the self-traced harmonic circles of his Rasa-Lila. The gnostic soul is not bound any more than the divine demoniac by the petty conventions and proprirties of the normal human life or the narrow rules through which it makes some shift to accommodate itself with the perplexing dualities of the lower nature and tries to guide its steps among the seeming contradictions of the world, to avoid its numberless stumbling-blocks and to foot with gingerly care around its dangers and pitfalls. The gnostic supramental life is abnormal to us because it is free to all the hardi-hoods and audacious delights of a soul dealing fearlessly and even violently with Nature, but yet it is the very normality of the infinite and all governed by the law of the Truth in its exact unerring process. It obeys the law of a self-possessed Knowledge, Love, Delight in an innumerable Oneness. It seems abnormal only because its rhythm is not measurable by the faltering beats of the mind, but yet it steps in a wonderful and transcendent measure.
And what then is the necessity of a still higher step and what difference is there between the soul in gnosis and the soul in the Bliss? There is no essential difference, but yet a difference, because there is a transfer to another consciousness and a certain reversal in position, -- for each step of the ascent from Matter to the highest Existence there is a reversal of consciousness. The soul no longer looks up to something beyond it, but is in it and from it looks down on all that it was before. On all planes indeed the Ananda can be discovered because everywhere it exists and is the same. Even there is a repetition of the Ananda plane on each lower world of consciousness. But in the lower planes not only is it reached by a sort of dissolution into it of the pure mind or the life-sense or the physical awareness, but it is, as it were, itself diluted by the dissolved form of mind, life or matter held in the dilution and turned into a poor thinness wonderful to the lower consciousness but not comparable to its true intensities. The gnosis has on the contrary a dense light of essential consciousness483a in which the intense fullness of the Ananda can be. And when the form of gnosis is dissolved into the Ananda, it is not annulled altogether, but undergoes a natural change by which the soul is carried up into its last and absolute freedom; for it casts itself into the absolute existence of the spirit and is enlarged into its own entirely self-existent bliss infinitudes. The gnosis has the infinite and absolute as the conscious source, accompaniment, condition, standard, field and atmosphere of all its activities, it possesses it as its base, fount, constituent material, indwelling and inspiring Presence; but in its action it seems to stand out from it as its operation, as the rhythmical working of its activities, as a divine Maya483b or Wisdom-Formation of the Eternal. Gnosis is the divine Knowledge-Will of the divine Consciousness-Force; it is harmonic consciousness and action of prakriti-Purusha -- full of the delight of the divine existence. In the Ananda the knowledge goes back from these willed harmonies into pure self-consciousness, the will dissolves into pure transcendent force and both are taken up into the pure delight of the Infinite. The basis of the gnostic existence is the self-stuff and self-form of the Ananda.
2.26 - The Ascent towards Supermind, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
When the higher descends into the lower consciousness, it alters the lower but is also modified and diminished by it; when the lower ascends, it is sublimated but at the same time qualifies the sublimating substance and power. This interaction creates an abundant number of different intermediate and interlocked degrees of the force and consciousness of being, but it also makes it difficult to bring about a complete integration of all the powers under the full control of any one power. For this reason there is not actually a series of simple clear-cut and successive stages in the individual's evolution; there is instead a complexity and a partly determinate, partly confused comprehensiveness of the movement. The soul may still be described as a traveller and climber who presses towards his high goal by step on step, each of which he has to build up as an integer but must frequently redescend in order to rebuild and make sure of the supporting stair so that it may not crumble beneath him: but the evolution of the whole consciousness has rather the movement of an ascending ocean of Nature; it can be compared to a tide or a mounting flux, the leading fringe of which touches the higher degrees of a cliff or hill while the rest is still below. At each stage the higher parts of the nature may be provisionally but incompletely organised in the new consciousness while the lower are in a state of flux or formation, partly moving in the old way though influenced and beginning to change, partly belonging to the new kind but still imperfectly achieved and not yet firm in the change. Another image might be that of an army advancing in columns which annexes new ground, while the main body is still behind in a territory overrun but too large to be effectively occupied, so that there has to be a frequent halt and partial return to the traversed areas for consolidation and assurance of the hold on the occupied country and assimilation of its people. A rapid conquest might be possible, but it would be of the nature of an encampment or a domination established in a foreign country; it would not be the assumption, total assimilation, integration needed for the entire supramental change.
This entails certain consequences which modify the clear successions of the evolution and prevent it from following the cleanly determined and firmly arranged course which our logical intelligence demands from Nature but seldom gets from her. As life and mind begin to appear when the organisation of Matter is sufficient to admit them but the more complex and perfect organisation of Matter comes with the evolution of life and mind, as mind appears when life is sufficiently organised to admit of a developed vibration of consciousness but life receives its full organisation and development only after mind can act upon it, as the spiritual evolution begins when man as mind is capable of the movements of spirituality but mind also rises to its own highest perfection by the growth of the intensities and luminosities of the spirit, so it is with this higher evolution of the ascending powers of the Spirit. As soon as there is a sufficient spiritual development, something of intuition, illumination of the being, the movements of the higher spiritual grades of Consciousness begins to manifest, - sometimes one, sometimes the other or all together, and they do not wait for each power in the series to complete itself before a higher power comes into action. An Overmind light and power may descend in some sort, create a partial form of itself in the being and take a leading part or supervise or intervene while the intuitive and illumining mind and higher mind are still incomplete; these would then remain in the whole, acting along with the greater Power, often penetrated or sublimated by it or rising into it to form a greater or overmind intuition, a greater or overmind illumination, a greater or overmind spiritual thinking. This intricate action takes place because each descending power by its intensity of pressure on the nature and uplifting effect makes the being already capable of a still higher invasion before that earlier power itself is complete in its self-formation; but also it happens because the work of assumption and transformation of the lower nature can with difficulty be done if a higher and higher intervention does not take place. The illumination and the higher thought need the help of the intuition, the intuition needs the help of the overmind to combat the darkness or ignorance in which they labour and to give them their own fullness. Still, it is not possible in the end for the overmind status and integration to be complete until the higher mind and the illumined mind have been integrated and taken up into the intuition and the intuition itself subsequently integrated and taken up into the all-enlarging and all-sublimating overmind energy. The law of the gradation has to be satisfied even in the complexity of the process of evolutionary Nature.
A further cause of complexity arises from the need of integration itself; for the process is not only an ascent of the soul to a higher status, but a descent of the higher consciousness so gained to take up and transform the inferior nature. But this nature has a density of previous formation which resists and obstructs the descent; even when the higher power has broken the barrier and descended and is at work, we have seen that the nature of the Ignorance resists and obstructs the working, that it either strives to refuse transformation altogether or tries to modify the new power into some conformity with its own workings, or even throws itself upon it to seize and degrade and enslave it to its own way of action and lower purpose. Ordinarily, in their task of assumption and assimilation of this difficult stuff of Nature, the higher powers descend first into the mind and occupy the mind centres because these are nearest to themselves in intelligence and knowledge-power; if they descend first into the heart or into the vital being of force and sensation, as they sometimes do because these happen to be in some individuals more open and call them first, the results are more mixed and dubious, imperfect and insecure than if things happen in the logical order. But, even in its normal working when it takes up the being part by part in the natural order of descent, the descending power is not able to bring about a total occupation and transformation of each before it goes farther. It can only effect a general and incomplete occupation, so that the workings of each remain still partly of the new higher, partly of a mixed, partly of the old unchanged lower order. All the mind in its whole range cannot be transmuted at once, for the mind centres are not a region isolated from the rest of the being; the mind action is penetrated by the action of the vital and physical parts, and in those parts themselves are lower formations of mind, a vital mind, a physical mind, and these have to be changed before there can be an entire transformation of the mental being. The higher transforming power has, therefore, to descend, as soon as may be and without waiting for an integral mental change, into the heart so as to occupy and change the emotional nature, and afterwards into the inferior vital centres to occupy and change the whole vital and kinetic and sensational nature, and, finally, into the physical centres so as to occupy and change the whole physical nature. But even this finality is not final, for there are still left the subconscient parts and the inconscient foundation.
The intricacy, the interwoven action of these powers and parts of the being is so great that it may almost be said that in this change nothing is accomplished until all is accomplished. There is a tide and ebb, the forces of the old nature receding and again partially occupying their old dominions, effectuating a slow retreat with rear-line actions and return attacks and aggressions, the higher influx occupying each time more conquered territory but imperfectly sure of sovereignty so long as anything is left that has not become part of its luminous regime.
A third complexity is brought in by the power of the consciousness to live in more than one status at a time; especially, a difficulty is created by the division of our being into an inner and an outer or surface nature and the farther intricacy of a secret circumconscient or environmental consciousness in which are determined our unseen connections with the world outside us. In the spiritual opening, it is the awakened inner being that readily receives and assimilates the higher influences and puts on the higher nature; the external surface self, more entirely moulded by the forces of the Ignorance and Inconscience, is slower to awake, slower to receive, slower to assimilate. There is therefore a long stage in which the inner being is sufficiently transformed but the outer is still involved in a mixed and difficult movement of imperfect change. This disparity repeats itself at each step of the ascent; for in each change the inner being follows more readily, the outer limps after, reluctant or else incompetent in spite of its aspiration and desire: this necessitates a constantly repeated labour of assumption, adaptation, orientation, a labour reproduced in new terms always but always the same in principle. But even when the outer and the inner nature of the individual are unified in a harmonised spiritual consciousness, that still more external but occult part of him in which his being mixes with the being of the outside world and through which the outside world invades his consciousness remains a field of imperfection. There is necessarily a commerce here between disparate influences: the inner spiritual influence is met by quite opposite influences strong in their control of the present world-order; the new spiritual consciousness has to bear the shock of the dominant and established unspiritualised powers of the Ignorance. This creates a difficulty which is of capital importance in all stages of the spiritual evolution and its urge towards a change of the nature.
A subjective spirituality can be established which refuses or minimises commerce with the world or is content to witness its action and throw back or throw out its invading influences without allowing any reaction to them or admitting their intrusion: but if the inner spirituality is to be objectivised in a free worldaction, if the individual has to project himself into the world and in a sense take the world into himself, this cannot be dynamically done without receiving the world influences through one's own circumconscient or environmental being. The spiritual inner consciousness has then to deal with these influences in such a way that, as soon as they approach or enter, they become either obliterated and without result or transformed by their very entry into its own mode and substance. Or it may force them to receive the spiritual influence and return with a transforming power on the world they come from, for such a compulsion on the lower universal Nature is part of a perfect spiritual action. But for that the circumconscient or environmental being must be so steeped in the spiritual light and spiritual substance that nothing can enter into it without undergoing this transformation: the invading external influences have not to bring in at all their lower awareness, their lower sight, their lower dynamism. But this is a difficult perfection, because ordinarily the circumconscient is not wholly our own formed and realised self but ourself plus the external world-nature. It is, for this reason, always easier to spiritualise the inner self-sufficient parts than to transform the outer action; a perfection of introspective, indwelling or subjective spirituality aloof from the world or self-protected against it is easier than a perfection of the whole nature in a dynamic, kinetic spirituality objectivised in the life, embracing the world, master of its environment, sovereign in its commerce with world-nature. But since the integral transformation must embrace fully the dynamic being and take up into it the life of action and the world-self outside us, this completer change is demanded of the evolving nature.
2.28 - The Divine Life, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
57: But, in addition to the imperfect accommodation of the minds, hearts, lives of the constituting individuals in a human society, the mind and the life of the individual himself are actuated by forces that are not in accord with each other; our attempts to accord them are imperfect, and still more imperfect is our force to put any one of them into integral or satisfying execution in life. Thus the law of love and sympathy is natural to our consciousness; as we grow in spirit, its demand on us increases: but there is also the demand of the intellect, the push of the vital force and its impulses in us, the claim and pressure of many other elements that do not coincide with the law of love and sympathy, nor do we know how to fit them all into the whole law of existence or to render any or all of them either justly and entirely effective or imperative. In order to make them concordant and actively fruitful in the whole being and whole life, we have to grow into a more complete spiritual nature; we have, by that growth, to live in the light and force of a higher and larger and more integral consciousness of which knowledge and power, love and sympathy and play of life-will are all natural and ever-present accorded elements; we have to move and act in a light of Truth which sees intuitively and spontaneously the thing to be done and the way to do it and intuitively and spontaneously fulfils itself in the act and the force, - taking up into that intuitive spontaneity of their truth, into its simple spiritual and supreme normality, the complexity of our forces of being and suffusing with their harmonised realities all the steps of Nature.
58: It should be evident that no rationalised piecing together or ingenuity of mental construction can accord or harmonise this complexity; it is only the intuition and self-knowledge of an awakened spirit that can do it. That would be the nature of the evolved supramental being and his existence; his spiritual sight and sense would take up all the forces of the being in a unifying consciousness and bring them into a normality of accorded action: for this accord and concord are the true normality of the spirit; the discord, the disharmony of our life and nature is abnormal to it although it is normal to the life of the Ignorance. It is indeed because it is not normal to the spirit that a knowledge within us is dissatisfied and strives towards a greater harmony in our existence. This accord and concord of the whole being, which is natural to the gnostic individual, would be equally natural to a community of gnostic beings; for it would rest on a union of self with self in the light of a common and mutual self-awareness. It is true that in the total terrestrial existence of which the gnostic life would be a part, there would be still continuing within it a life belonging to a less evolved order; the intuitive and gnostic life would have to fit into this total existence and carry into it as much of its own law of unity and harmony as may be possible. Here the law of spontaneous harmony might seem to be inapplicable, since the relation of the gnostic life with the ignorant life around it would not be founded on a mutuality of self-knowledge and a sense of one being and common consciousness; it would be a relation of action of knowledge to action of ignorance. But this difficulty need not be so great as it seems now to us; for the gnostic knowledge would carry in it a perfect understanding of the consciousness of the Ignorance, and it would not be impossible, therefore, for an assured gnostic life to harmonise its existence with that of all the less developed life coexistent with it in the earth-nature.
59: If this is our evolutionary destiny, it remains for us to see where we stand at this juncture in the evolutionary progression, - a progression which has been cyclic or spiral rather than in a straight line or has at least journeyed in a very zigzag swinging curve of advance, - and what prospect there is of any turn towards a decisive step in the near or measurable future. In our human aspiration towards a personal perfection and the perfection of the life of the race the elements of the future evolution are foreshadowed and striven after, but in a confusion of half-enlightened knowledge; there is a discord between the necessary elements, an opposing emphasis, a profusion of rudimentary unsatisfying and ill-accorded solutions. These sway between the three principal preoccupations of our idealism, - the complete single development of the human being in himself, the perfectibility of the individual, a full development of the collective being, the perfectibility of society, and, more pragmatically restricted, the perfect or best possible relations of individual with individual and society and of community with community.
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69: Our nature is complex and we have to find a key to some perfect unity and fullness of its complexity. Its first evolutionary basis is the material life: Nature began with that and man also has to begin with it; he has first to affirm his material and vital existence. But if he stops there, there can be for him no evolution; his next and greater preoccupation must be to find himself as a mental being in a material life - both individual and social - as perfected as possible. This was the direction which the Hellenic idea gave to European civilisation, and the Roman reinforced - or weakened - it with the ideal of organised power: the cult of reason, the interpretation of life by an intellectual thought critical, utilitarian, organising and constructive, the government of life by Science are the last outcome of this inspiration. But in ancient times the higher creative and dynamic element was the pursuit of an ideal truth, good and beauty and the moulding of mind, life and body into perfection and harmony by this ideal. Beyond and above this preoccupation, as soon as mind is sufficiently developed, there awakes in man the spiritual preoccupation, the discovery of a self and inmost truth of being and the release of man's mind and life into the truth of the Spirit, its perfection by the power of the Spirit, the solidarity, unity, mutuality of all beings in the Spirit. This was the Eastern ideal carried by Buddhism and other ancient disciplines to the coasts of Asia and Egypt and from there poured by Christianity into Europe.
70: But these motives, burning for a time like dim torchlights in the confusion and darkness created by the barbaric flood that had submerged the old civilisations, have been abandoned by the modern spirit which has found another light, the light of Science. What the modern spirit has sought for is the economic social ultimate, - an ideal material organisation of civilisation and comfort, the use of reason and science and education for the generalisation of a utilitarian rationality which will make the individual a perfected social being in a perfected economic society. What remained from the spiritual ideal was - for a time - a mentalised and moralised humanitarianism relieved of all religious colouring and a social ethicism which was deemed allsufficient to take the place of a religious and individual ethic. It was so far that the race had reached when it found itself hurried forward by its own momentum into a subjective chaos and a chaos of its life in which all received values were overthrown and all firm ground seemed to disappear from its social organisation, its conduct and its culture.
71: For this ideal, this conscious stress on the material and economic life was in fact a civilised reversion to the first state of man, his early barbaric state and its preoccupation with life and matter, a spiritual retrogression with the resources of the mind of a developed humanity and a fully evolved Science at its disposal. As an element in the total complexity of human life this stress on a perfected economic and material existence has its place in the whole: as a sole or predominant stress it is for humanity itself, for the evolution itself full of danger. The first danger is a resurgence of the old vital and material primitive barbarian in a civilised form; the means Science has put at our disposal eliminates the peril of the subversion and destruction of an effete civilisation by stronger primitive peoples, but it is the resurgence of the barbarian in ourselves, in civilised man, that is the peril, and this we see all around us. For that is bound to come if there is no high and strenuous mental and moral ideal controlling and uplifting the vital and physical man in us and no spiritual ideal liberating him from himself into his inner being. Even if this relapse is escaped, there is another danger, - for a cessation of the evolutionary urge, a crystallisation into a stable comfortable mechanised social living without ideal or outlook is another possible outcome. Reason by itself cannot long maintain the race in its progress; it can do so only if it is a mediator between the life and body and something higher and greater within him; for it is the inner spiritual necessity, the push from what is there yet unrealised within him that maintains in him, once he has attained to mind, the evolutionary stress, the spiritual nisus. That renounced, he must either relapse and begin all over again or disappear like other forms of life before him as an evolutionary failure, through incapacity to maintain or to serve the evolutionary urge. At the best he will remain arrested in some kind of mediary typal perfection, like other animal kinds, while Nature pursues her way beyond him to a greater creation.
72: At present mankind is undergoing an evolutionary crisis in which is concealed a choice of its destiny; for a stage has been reached in which the human mind has achieved in certain directions an enormous development while in others it stands arrested and bewildered and can no longer find its way. A structure of the external life has been raised up by man's ever-active mind and life-will, a structure of an unmanageable hugeness and complexity, for the service of his mental, vital, physical claims and urges, a complex political, social, administrative, economic, cultural machinery, an organised collective means for his intellectual, sensational, aesthetic and material satisfaction.
73: Man has created a system of civilisation which has become too big for his limited mental capacity and understanding and his still more limited spiritual and moral capacity to utilise and manage, a too dangerous servant of his blundering ego and its appetites. For no greater seeing mind, no intuitive soul of knowledge has yet come to his surface of consciousness which could make this basic fullness of life a condition for the free growth of something that exceeded it. This new fullness of the means of life might be, by its power for a release from the incessant unsatisfied stress of his economic and physical needs, an opportunity for the full pursuit of other and greater aims surpassing the material existence, for the discovery of a higher truth and good and beauty, for the discovery of a greater and diviner spirit which would intervene and use life for a higher perfection of the being: but it is being used instead for the multiplication of new wants and an aggressive expansion of the collective ego. At the same time Science has put at his disposal many potencies of the universal Force and has made the life of humanity materially one; but what uses this universal Force is a little human individual or communal ego with nothing universal in its light of knowledge or its movements, no inner sense or power which would create in this physical drawing together of the human world a true life unity, a mental unity or a spiritual oneness. All that is there is a chaos of clashing mental ideas, urges of individual and collective physical want and need, vital claims and desires, impulses of an ignorant life-push, hungers and calls for life satisfaction of individuals, classes, nations, a rich fungus of political and social and economic nostrums and notions, a hustling medley of slogans and panaceas for which men are ready to oppress and be oppressed, to kill and be killed, to impose them somehow or other by the immense and too formidable means placed at his disposal, in the belief that this is his way out to something ideal. The evolution of human mind and life must necessarily lead towards an increasing universality; but on a basis of ego and segmenting and dividing mind this opening to the universal can only create a vast pullulation of unaccorded ideas and impulses, a surge of enormous powers and desires, a chaotic mass of unassimilated and intermixed mental, vital and physical material of a larger existence which, because it is not taken up by a creative harmonising light of the spirit, must welter in a universalised confusion and discord out of which it is impossible to build a greater harmonic life.
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94: It is almost universally supposed that spiritual life must necessarily be a life of ascetic spareness, a pushing away of all that is not absolutely needed for the bare maintenance of the body; and this is valid for a spiritual life which is in its nature and intention a life of withdrawal from life. Even apart from that ideal, it might be thought that the spiritual turn must always make for an extreme simplicity, because all else would be a life of vital desire and physical self-indulgence. But from a wider standpoint this is a mental standard based on the law of the Ignorance of which desire is the motive; to overcome the Ignorance, to delete the ego, a total rejection not only of desire but of all the things that can satisfy desire may intervene as a valid principle. But this standard or any mental standard cannot be absolute nor can it be binding as a law on the consciousness that has arisen above desire; a complete purity and self-mastery would be in the very grain of its nature and that would remain the same in poverty or in riches: for if it could be shaken or sullied by either, it would not be real or would not be complete. The one rule of the gnostic life would be the self-expression of the Spirit, the will of the Divine Being; that will, that self-expression could manifest through extreme simplicity or through extreme complexity and opulence or in their natural balance, - for beauty and plenitude, a hidden sweetness and laughter in things, a sunshine and gladness of life are also powers and expressions of the Spirit. In all directions the Spirit within determining the law of the nature would determine the frame of the life and its detail and circumstance. In all there would be the same plastic principle; a rigid standardisation, however necessary for the mind's arrangement of things, could not be the law of the spiritual life. A great diversity and liberty of self-expression based on an underlying unity might well become manifest; but everywhere there would be harmony and truth of order.
95: A life of gnostic beings carrying the evolution to a higher supramental status might fitly be characterised as a divine life; for it would be a life in the Divine, a life of the beginnings of a spiritual divine light and power and joy manifested in material Nature. That might be described, since it surpasses the mental human level, as a life of spiritual and supramental supermanhood. But this must not be confused with past and present ideas of supermanhood; for supermanhood in the mental idea consists of an overtopping of the normal human level, not in kind but in degree of the same kind, by an enlarged personality, a magnified and exaggerated ego, an increased power of mind, an increased power of vital force, a refined or dense and massive exaggeration of the forces of the human Ignorance; it carries also, commonly implied in it, the idea of a forceful domination over humanity by the superman. That would mean a supermanhood of the Nietzschean type; it might be at its worst the reign of the "blonde beast" or the dark beast or of any and every beast, a return to barbaric strength and ruthlessness and force: but this would be no evolution, it would be a reversion to an old strenuous barbarism. Or it might signify the emergence of the Rakshasa or Asura out of a tense effort of humanity to surpass and transcend itself, but in the wrong direction. A violent and turbulent exaggerated vital ego satisfying itself with a supreme tyrannous or anarchic strength of self-fulfilment would be the type of a Rakshasic supermanhood: but the giant, the ogre or devourer of the world, the Rakshasa, though he still survives, belongs in spirit to the past; a larger emergence of that type would be also a retrograde evolution. A mighty exhibition of an overpowering force, a self-possessed, self-held, even, it may be, an ascetically self-restrained mind-capacity and life-power, strong, calm or cold or formidable in collected vehemence, subtle, dominating, a sublimation at once of the mental and vital ego, is the type of the Asura. But earth has had enough of this kind in her past and its repetition can only prolong the old lines; she can get no true profit for her future, no power of self-exceeding, from the Titan, the Asura: even a great or supernormal power in it could only carry her on larger circles of her old orbit. But what has to emerge is something much more difficult and much more simple; it is a self-realised being, a building of the spiritual self, an intensity and urge of the soul and the deliverance and sovereignty of its light and power and beauty, - not an egoistic supermanhood seizing on a mental and vital domination over humanity, but the sovereignty of the Spirit over its own instruments, its possession of itself and its possession of life in the power of the spirit, a new consciousness in which humanity itself shall find its own self-exceeding and self-fulfilment by the revelation of the divinity that is striving for birth within it. This is the sole true supermanhood and the one real possibility of a step forward in evolutionary Nature.
24.05 - Vision of Dante, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 06, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The moving circles and the glorious figures wove a beautiful faultless pattern - a perfect geometrical kaleidoscope, gleaming and glittering. Dante tries to give an accurate comprehensive description: he says, his mathematical mind sought to arrange all that he saw in a seizable sizeable pattern. The complexity and the enormousness of the content escaped all measures and counts. His brain reeled and got confused. In the end he seems to have lapsed into a blank unconsciousness and forgetfulness. When he woke up what a refreshing calmness and clarity was there! What once was complex and incomprehensible has now become crystal clear and beautiful. What was a baffling mystery revealed a simple fact, a self-evident Truth and in ecstasy he chanted his hymn of thanksgiving to his divine beloved:
O donna in cui la mia speranza vige,
30.11 - Modern Poetry, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Let alone wit and humour. The real problem is not perhaps with the style and trend of colloquialism, but with something deeper. The question, no doubt, raises a special aspect, but that is a mere symptom or complexity of the disease. For the composition of all ancient poetry was neither artificial nor unnatural. Rather, the reverse is the truth. Matthew Arnold has given proof of the grand style in poetry. For example, Milton's
Fall'n cherub! to be weak is miserable
30.15 - The Language of Rabindranath, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Tagore's Goddess of speech is a pinnacled exquisiteness of beauty, harmony, balance and skill. Bankim's language also is beautiful and graceful - it is not rough and masculine; it is also charming but there is not in it such profusion, intensity and almost exclusiveness of grace, sweetness, beauty and tenderness as are found in Rabindranath. Prodigality, luxuriance and even complexity are hall-marks of Tagore's style. Bankim's is more simple and straight and transparent, less decorating and ambulating. There is in Bankim what is called decorum, restraint, stability and clarity, qualities of the classics; he reminds us of the French language - the French of Racine and Voltaire. In Rabindranath's nature and atmosphere we find the blossoming heart of the Romantics. That is why the manner of his expression is not so much simple arid straight as it is skillful and ornamental. There is less of transparency than the play of hues. Eloquence overweighs reticence. Echoes and pitches of many kinds of different thoughts, sentiments and emotions intermingle - his language moves on spreading all around, sparkling at every step. Subtlety of suggestion, irony and obliquity, a lilting grace of movement carry us over, almost without our knowing it, to the threshold of some other world. Rabindranath's style is neither formed nor regulated by the laws and patterns of reason, the arguments and counter-arguments of logic. It is an inherent discernment, the choice of a deep and aspiring idealism, the poignant power of an intuition welling out of a sensitive heart, that have given form and pace to his language. Reason or argument in itself finds no room here. That is only an indirect support of a direct feeling, a throb in vitality. This language has no love, no need for set rules, for a prescribed technique, so that it may attain to a tranquil and peaceful gait. It has need of emotion, impetus and sharpness. It is like the free stepping of a lightning flare, as if an Urvasie dancing in Tagore's own hall of music.
But it does not mean that this language is overflowing with mere emotion. Here too there is a regulated order and restraint. The ultimate growth and perfection of a language has something of the rhythm of an athlete's body in movement - in the steadied measure of the strides of a sprinter, for example. The transparency of intelligence as reflected in the classical manner, the firmness and fixity delivered by reason, the simplicity of syllogistic orderliness are not to be found here. But in our poet's creation, even in his prose the logic of intelligence may not be evident but there is a logic of feeling which is still, cogent and convincing, yet more living and dynamic.
3.01 - THE BIRTH OF THOUGHT, #The Phenomenon of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
beneath their complexity, a growing system. They form as a
whole a kind of fan-like structure in which the higher terms
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experimental relations between consciousness and complexity, without pre-
judging the deeper causes which govern the whole issue ? In virtue of the limi-
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degree, another order of complexity. The phylum does not
break like a fragile jet just because henceforward it is fraught
--
A moment ago I referred to the unparalleled complexity of
the human group all those races, those nations, those states
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not at any rate guess indirectly at its complexity and initial
structure ? On these points palaeanthropology has not yet made
3.02 - THE DEPLOYMENT OF THE NOOSPHERE, #The Phenomenon of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
increasing complexity and differentiation, but essentially follow-
ing the same lines and on the same plane.
31.08 - The Unity of India, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
So it comes to this that the unity of India is vaster and more complex than the unity of any of the nations of Europe. But for that reason it cannot be concluded that this unity is no unity. Rather we know that science is proving the fact that the higher the being rises in the scale of evolution the greater complexity does its individuality acquire. Such diversity and variety are visible in India because a higher and greater synthesis is thus worked out or about to be wrought in a distinct manner and on a larger scale.
The collective union of Europe, its living truth, is not the unity that exists among the countries or nations of Europe. Of course an attempt is being made to bring about a sort of oneness through the length and breadth of Europe; but that oneness is still a conception, still an ideal, not even a living ideal yet. The inner being has not as yet become conscious and alert about its own personality. But in the case of India the awakening of her inner being has stood by far the first. India's personality of collective existence is indeed a living truth. The unity of the whole of India is, as it were, axiomatic and God-given. The oneness that is trying to become awake and conscious in India is not the unity and the personality of the whole of India, but rather, the oneness of the different personalities of the states of India. Therefore we notice contrary ways of life-manifestation in India and in Europe. In Europe the collective personality has awakened and the sense of unity has been established first within the limited areas of different countries. Having established these two things Europe is progressing towards the larger unity in its totality. The trend of Europe is the gradual ascension to the total consciousness of the inner being from the consciousness of the external physical parts. But in India what happened is the gradual descent to the external physical parts from the total consciousness of the inner subtle being. India first discovered her own inner being. This being of India is ever awake, so in India the manifestation of that being and the descent of her power are making the different states gradually become conscious and discover their own individualities. Perhaps Europe has had to start from a political union or oneness in order gradually and finally to attain to the unity-of the soul, and achieve her own individuality. India has long acquired the unity of the soul and this self-conscious individuality is the last word of India's oneness.
3.2.05 - Our Ideal, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
to develop the most profound and vital methods of psychological self-discipline and self-development so that the mental and psychical life of man may express the spiritual life through the utmost possible expansion of its own richness, power and complexity; and to seek for the means and motives by which his external life, his society and his institutions may remould themselves progressively in the truth of the spirit and develop towards the utmost possible harmony of individual freedom and social unity.
This is our ideal and our search. Throughout the world there are plenty of movements inspired by the same drift, but there is room for an effort of thought which shall frankly acknowledge the problem in its integral complexity and not be restrained in the flexibility of its search by attachment to any cult, creed or extant system of philosophy.
The effort involves a quest for the Truth that underlies existence and the fundamental Law of its self-expression in the universe - the work of metaphysical philosophy and religious thought; the sounding and harmonising of the psychological methods of discipline by which man purifies and perfects himself
3.3.01 - The Superman, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
a squire or even a groom of Force. Or we cultivate Knowledge with a severe aloofness and austerity to find at last the lotus of the heart dulled and fading - happy if its more divine faculties are not already atrophied - and ourselves standing impotent with our science while the thunders of Rudra crash through and devastate the world we have organised so well by our victorious and clear-minded efficiency. Or we run after a vague and mechanical zero we call unity and when we have sterilised our secret roots and dried up the wells of Life within us, discover, unwise unifiers, that we have achieved death and not a greater existence. And all this happens because we will not recognise the complexity of the riddle we are set here to solve. It is a great and divine riddle; but it is no knot of Gordius, nor is its allwise Author a dead king that he should suffer us to mock his intention and cut through to our will with the fierce impatience of the hasty mortal conqueror.
None of these oppositions is more constant than that of
33.13 - My Professors, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The great men with whom we studied had this gift in large measure, at least many of them. Percival taught us Shakespeare. He never expounded in full the meaning of words and phrases. This was done in detail by Manomohan Ghose, although he too did this only during the first two years of college; for we were then just fresh from school and he had to explain everything in detail, so that we had no need of any other help, not even of a dictionary. But, from this point of view, there was no one, the students thought, who could match 'Professor J. N. Dasgupta. He was actually a History man, but he was given to teach English as well. The boys would say, the naughty ones perhaps, that Dasgupta left us in no doubt or uncertainty as to the meaning anywhere, so he would dictate, "father means the male parent'.'! Percival did not act as a lexicon. He, dwelt only on such passages as had any complexity or dramatic intent, and he would convey the inner sense by his manner of reading. I remember a passage in King
John,where a single monosyllable, "O!" is uttered by a character. Percival omitted to read it, his only comment was, "Only a great actor can utter this word." We read Burke with him. He would turn over pages after pages of the huge volume, with occasional sentences as to the writer's drift; this would help bring out the
3-5 Full Circle, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
Another important capability of this mental transport medium is that it can provide a basis for crisis prevention as distinct from post-crisis administration of the process of educational change. Because of today's "explosion of explosions"--information, population, technology, interdependencies, pollution, crime, protests, and urban decay--this need is especially acute and seems to be destined to become still more critical in the immediate future. If we are to avoid letting trends toward complexity, rapidly rising expectations, and rapid change lock our society into an irreversible trend toward some highly regimented form of totalitarianism, we must somehow transcend the disciplinary barriers and create a new society. This new society would be based more on cooperation than on competition and, as is suggested in Figure 1, could make it possible to achieve ever higher and more meaningful forms of freedom.
FIGURE III-1
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We know much of what the future will bring in terms of problems. We know they will be big, complex, and serious... These problems represent the givens. We know they will be there--and we know they will overwhelm us if we do not find the means of coping with them. What we lack, thus far, is conviction that there is a means of getting hold of them. They seem so staggering in their size and complexity--so far beyond the capability of a single institutional segment of the community, public or private... And they are so interrelated that to proceed to try to solve any one of them in isolation from the other is often to create more problems than are solved by the effort. The dilemma thus presented has so far frustrated most efforts to come to grips with these problems. This condition of paralysis need not obtain. None of the . . . challenges lies beyond our already existing capacity for coping with them. The tools are already at hand; and included in those tools are not only the technological capabilities but experience in systems management and systems analysis as well as proven patterns of joint public and private effort.4
2. APPLYING UNIFIED SCIENCE MODELS TO
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Each discipline has, and must have, a certain vocabulary of its own: thousands of words that refer to its data on the lowest level of abstraction. These represent the "concrete manipulable objects" mentioned on page 82 of Mr. Koler's article. (For psychology and the humanities they include emotions, feelings, values.) The point however is, first, that each discipline now has, but in most cases does not need to have, a set of words which represents the grouping, the classification of its low-level words. These are the "abstract words" in the reference above, comprising part of each discipline's vocabulary. These many diverse abstract vocabularies cause the disorganized complexity of modern education and thought, producing much of the confusion in the students' minds. They require a vast amount of memorization, conceal meaning, and prevent understanding.
Our model of unified science corrects this situation: It accepts the data of each of the sciences and humanities, and the vocabularies which denotate them. It also accepts many "game tree" classifications such as the taxonomic series, and all others which are logically compatible with each other. It then classifies these diverse sets of data and classifications in a single manner and vocabulary: The manner and vocabulary in which the chemical elements were classified by Mendeleyev and Maier a century ago, and which have since been improved by many others . . . (See fold-out chart and Figure IV-11).
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Our paradigmatic example, Mendeleev's Periodic Table, seems superficially to be constructed in terms of increasing atomic weights or atomic numbers. What this means on the higher level of background theory, however, is increasing control-capability in the nucleus with corresponding increases in the organized complexity of the electron cloud, and of the atom, the system they jointly constitute. So also with the Periodic Table of Human Cultures.
FIGURE IV-1 The kingdom of human cultures: Periods and Strata.
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Are there qualitative as well as quantitative differences in the behavioral adaptive capabilities of animals at different levels of the phyletic evolutionary sequence? That is to say, are there differences not only in the speed of learning but also in the complexity of what the organism can learn at all, given any amount of time and training? Are there discontinuities as well as continuities in capacities to perceive, to learn, and to manipulate the environment as we ascend the phyletic scale?
The answer to these questions is now empirically quite clear. There are indeed discontinuities and qualitative differences in learning (i.e. behaviorally adaptive) capabilities as we go from one phyletic level to another. Behaviorally, the phylogenetic hierarchy is best characterized in terms of an increasing complexity of adaptive capabilities and an increasing breadth of transfer and generalization of learning, as we move from lower to higher phyla. It is a fact that every animal, at least above the level of worms, has the capacity to learn; that is, to form stimulus-response associations or conditioned responses. But the degree of complexity and abstractness of what can be learned shows distinct "quantum jumps" going from lower to higher phyla. Simpler capacities, and their neural substrate, persist as we move from lower to higher levels, but new adaptive capacities emerge in hierarchical layers as we ascend the phyletic scale. Each phyletic level possesses all the learning capacities (although not necessarily the same sensory and motor capacities) of the levels below itself in addition to new emergent abilities, which can be broadly conceived as an increase in the complexity of information processing. For example, studies by Bitterman (1965) of animals at various levels of the phyletic scale (earthworms, crabs, fishes, turtles, pigeons, rats and monkeys) have clearly demonstrated discontinuities in learning ability among different species and the emergence of more complex abilities corresponding to the phylogenetic hierarchy. In the experimental procedure known as habit reversal, a form of learning-to-learn in which the animal is trained to make a discriminative response to a pair of stimuli and then has to learn the reverse discrimination and the two are alternated repeatedly, a fish does not show any sign of learning-to-learn (i.e. each reversal is like a completely new problem and takes as long to learn as the previous problems), while a rat improves markedly in its speed of learning from one reversal to the next. When portions of the rat's cerebral cortex are removed, thereby reducing the most prominent evolutionary feature of the mammalian brain, the learning ability of the decorticate rat is exactly like that of the turtle, an animal with little cortex, and would probably be like that of the fish, if all of the rat's cortex could be removed. Harlow and Harlow (1962) have noted similar discontinuities at high levels of learning among rhesus monkeys, chimpanzees, and humans. Again, situations that involve some form of learning-to-learn are most sensitive to differences in capacity. No animals below primates have ever learned the so-called oddity--non-oddity problem no matter how much training they are given, and more complex variations of this type of problem similarly differentiate between rhesus monkeys and chimpanzees. The species differences are not just in speed of learning, but in whether the problem can be learned at all, given any amount of training. This is essentially what is meant by a hierarchical conception of learning ability. There is much evidence for this conception, which Jensen (in press) has summarized more extensively elsewhere. The evolution of humans from more primitive forms is now believed to be intimately related to the use of tools and weapons (Ardry, 1961). The mental capabilities involved in the use of implements for gaining ever greater control of the environment, in lieu of sheer physical strength, were just as subject to the evolutionary effects of natural selection as are any genetically mutated organs. More specifically, according to Haskell (1968, p. 475), "What primarily evolves in man is the nerve structure which confers the capacity to invent, to borrow, and to adapt culture traits."
Ontogeny of Human Mental Abilities.
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Organization This property of systems is so fundamental as to be logically undefinable. It is the condition whose satisfaction by any set of system-components results in the next higher member of the System-hierarchy (q.v.); and whose non-satisfaction breaks it down into component systems lower in the hierarchy. Hence its theoretical maximum and minimum--called Alpha and Omega (q.v.)--constitute the limits of the Periodic coordinate system (q.v.), the framework of Unified Science--Often confused with complexity, q.v.
Parasitism (n.) As used in Unified Science, the coaction in which the activity of the system's work component (q.v.) is increased while that of its controller (q.v.) is decreased. Parasitism, written ( + , - ), is the characteristic of Group II in all Periodic Tables. Noisy Synonym (c.f. Noise): exploitation.
3.7.1.01 - Rebirth, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The soul needs no proof of its rebirth any more than it needs proof of its immortality. For there comes a time when it is consciously immortal, aware of itself in its eternal and immutable essence. Once that realisation is accomplished, all intellectual questionings for and against the immortality of the soul fall away like a vain clamour of ignorance around the self-evident and ever-present truth. Tato na vicikitsate. That is the true dynamic belief in immortality when it becomes to us not an intellectual dogma but a fact as evident as the physical fact of our breathing and as little in need of proof or argument. So also there comes a time when the soul becomes aware of itself in its eternal and mutable movement; it is then aware of the ages behind that constituted the present organisation of the movement, sees how this was prepared in an uninterrupted past, remembers something of the bygone soul-states, environments, particular forms of activity which built up its present constituents and knows to what it is moving by development in an uninterrupted future. This is the true dynamic belief in rebirth, and there too the play of the questioning intellect ceases; the souls vision and the souls memory are all. Certainly, there remains the question of the mechanism of the development and of the laws of rebirth where the intellect and its inquiries and generalisations can still have some play. And here the more one thinks and experiences, the more the ordinary, simple, cut-and-dried account of reincarnation seems to be of doubtful validity. There is surely here a greater complexity, a law evolved with a more difficult movement and a more intricate harmony out of the possibilities of the Infinite. But this is a question which demands long and ample consideration; for subtle is the law of it Aur hyea dharma.
This was written in pre-Einsteinian days.
3.7.1.06 - The Ascending Unity, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Our reason acts by divisions, even our ordinary illogical thought is a stumbling and bungling summary analysis and arrangement of the experience that offers itself to us with such unending complexity. But the cleanest and clearest division is that which sets us most at ease, because it impresses on our still childlike intelligence a sense of conclusive and luminous simplicity.
But the average mind enamoured of a straight and plain thinking, for which, for a famous instance, that great doctor
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But after all perhaps when we come to think more at large about the matter, we may find that Nature and Existence are not of the same mind as man in this respect, that there is here a great complexity which we must follow with patience and that those ways of thinking have most chance of a fruitful truth-yielding, which like the inspired thinking of the Upanishads take in many sides at once and reconcile many conflicting conclusions. One can hew material for a hundred philosophies out of the Upanishads as if from some bottomless Titans' quarry and yet no more exhaust it than one can exhaust the opulent bosom of our mother Earth or the riches of our father Ether.
Man began this familiar process of simple cuttings by emphasising his sense of himself as man; he made of himself a being separate, unique and peculiar in this world, for whom or round whom everything else was supposed to be created, - and all the rest, the subhuman existence, animal, plant, inanimate object, everything to the original atom seemed to him a creation different from himself, separate, of another nature; he condemned all to be without a soul, he was the one ensouled being. He saw life, defined it by certain characters that struck his mind, and set apart all other existence as non-living, inanimate. He looked at his earth, made it the centre of the universe, because the one inhabited scene of embodied souls or living beings; but the innumerable other heavenly bodies were only lights to illumine earth's day or to relieve her night. He perceived the insufficiency of this one earthly life only to create another opposite definition of a perfect heavenly existence and set it in the skies he saw above him. He perceived his "I" or self and conceived of it as a
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This is a way of seeing things, harmonious at least in its complexity, supple and capable of a certain all-embracing scope, which we can take as a basis for our ideas of rebirth, - an ascending unity, a spirit involved in material existence which scales wonderfully up many gradations through life to organised mind and beyond mind to the evolution of its own complete self-conscience, the individual following that gradation and the power for its self-crowning. If human mind is the last word of its possibility on earth, then rebirth must end in man and proceed by some abrupt ceasing either to an existence on other planes or to an annulment of its spiritual circle. But if there are higher powers of the spirit which are attainable by birth, then the ascent is not finished, greater assumptions may lie before the soul which has now reached and is lifted to a perfecting of the high scale of humanity. It may even be that this ascending rebirth is not the long upward rocket shooting of a conscious being out of matter or its whirling motion in mind destined to break up and dissolve in some high air of calm nothingness or of silent timeless infinity, but a progress to some great act and high display of the
Divinity which shall give a wise and glorious significance to his persistent intention in an eternal creation. Or that at least may be one power of the Eternal's infinite potentiality.
3.7.1.12 - Karma and Justice, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
What are the lines of Karma? What is the intrinsic character and active law of this energy of the soul and its will and development of consequence? To ask that question is to ask what is the form taken here by the dynamic meaning of our existence and what the curves of guidance of its evolving self-creation and action. And such a question ought not to be answered in a narrow spirit or under the obsession of some single idea which does not take into account the many-sidedness and rich complexity of this subtle world of Nature. The law of Karma can be no rigid and mechanical canon or rough practical rule of thumb, but rather its guiding principle should be as supple a harmonist as the Spirit itself whose will of self-knowledge it embodies and should adapt itself to the need of self-development of the variable individual souls who are feeling their way along its lines towards the right balance, synthesis, harmonies of their action. The karmic idea cannot be for spirit and not mind is its causea cosmic reflection of our limited average human intelligence, but rather the law of a greater spiritual wisdom, a means which behind all its dumb occult appearances embodies an understanding lead and a subtle management towards our total perfection.
The ordinary current conception of law of Karma is dominantly ethical, but ethical in no very exalted kind. Its idea of karma is a mechanical and materialistic ethics, a crudely exact legal judgment and administration of reward and punishment, an external sanction to virtue and prohibition of sin, a code, a balance. The idea is that there must be a justice governing the award of happiness and misery on the earth, a humanly intelligible equity and that the law of Karma represents it and gives us its formula. I have done so much good, puya. It is my capital, my accumulation and balance. I must have it paid out to me in so much coin of prosperity, the legal currency of this sovereign and divine Themis, or why on earth should I at all do good? I have done so much evil. That too must come back to me in so much exact and accurate punishment and misfortune. There must be so much outward suffering or an inward suffering caused by outward event and pressure; for if there were not this physically sensible, visible, inevitable result, where would be any avenging justice and where could we find any deterrent sanction in Nature against evil? And this award is that of an exact judge, a precise administrator, a scrupulous merchant of good for good and evil for evil who has learned nothing and will never learn anything of the Christian or Buddhistic ideal rule, has no bowels of mercy or compassion, no forgiveness for sin, but holds austerely to an eternal Mosaic law, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, a full, slow or swift, but always calm and precisely merciless lex talionis.
3.7.2.02 - The Terrestial Law, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
But the question is whether this is not a rather childish and impatient mood and whether these solutions come anywhere near solving the whole complexity of the problem. Let us grant that a dominant moral law governs, not action,for that is either free or, if not free, compelled to be of all kinds,but the result of action in the world and that a supreme good will work itself out in the end. The difficulty remains why that good should use evil as one and almost the chief of its means or the dominant moral law, sovereign, unescapable, categorical, imperative, the practical governor, if not the reason of our existence, should be compelled to fulfil itself through so much that is immoral and by the agency of a non-moral force, through hell on earth and hell beyond, through petty cruelty of punishment and huge fury of avenging calamity, through an immeasurable and, as it seems, never ending sequence of pain and suffering and torture. It must surely be because there are other things in the Infinite and therefore other laws and forces here and of these the moral law, however great and sovereign to itself, has to take account and is compelled to accommodate its own lines to their curve of movement. And if that is so our plain course, if we are to see the true connections, is to begin by studying the separate law and claim of these other forces: for till it is done we cannot know rightly how they act upon and condition or are acted upon and utilised by any moral rule that we may distinguish intervening in the complex of the world action. And first let us look at the terrestrial law as it is apart from any question of rebirth, the joining, the play, the rule, the intention of the forces here: for it may be that the whole principle is already there and that rebirth does not so much correct or change as complete its significance.
But on earth the first energy is the physical; the lines of the physical energy creating the forms, deploying the forces of the material universe are the first apparent conditions of our birth and create the practical basis and the original mould of our earthly existence. And what is the law of this first energy, its self-nature, swabhava and swadharma? It is evidently not moral in the human sense of the word: the elemental gods of the physical universe know nothing about ethical distinctions, but only the bare literal rule of energy, the right track and circuit of the movement of a force, its right action and reaction, the just result of its operation. There is no morality, no hesitation of conscience in our or the worlds elements. The fire is no respecter of persons and if the saint or the thinker is cast into it, it will not spare his body. The sea, the stormwind, the rock on which the ship drives do not ask whether the just man drowned in the waters deserved his fate. If there is a divine or a cosmic justice that works in these cruelties, if the lightning that strikes impartially tree or beast or man, is but it would appear in the case of the man alone, for the rest is accident,the sword of God or the instrument of Karma, if the destruction wrought by the volcano, the typhoon or the earthquake is a punishment for the sins of the community or individually of the sins in a past life of each man there that suffers or perishes, at least the natural forces know it not and care nothing about it and rather they conceal from us in the blind impartiality of their rage all evidence of any such intention. The sun shines and the rain falls on the just and the unjust alike; the beneficence and the maleficence of Nature, the gracious and dreadful Mother, her beauty and terror, her utility and her danger are bestowed and inflicted without favour or disfavour on all her children and the good man is no more her favourite than the sinner. If a law of moral punishment is imposed through the action of her physical forces, it must be by a Will from above her or a Force acting unknown to her in her inconscient bosom.
3.7.2.04 - The Higher Lines of Karma, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
This kind of high absoluteness in the ethical demand is appalling to the flesh and the ego, for it admits of no comfortable indulgence and compromise, no abating reserves or conditions, no profitable compact between the egoistic life and virtue. It is offensive too to the practical reason, for it ignores the complexity of the world and of human nature and seems to savour of an extremism and exclusive exaggeration as dangerous to life as it is exalted in ideal purpose. Fiat justitia ruat coelum, let justice and right be done though the heavens fall, is a rule of conduct that only the ideal mind can accept with equanimity or the ideal life tolerate in practice. And even to the larger ideal mind this absoluteness becomes untrustworthy if it is an obedience not to the higher law of the soul, but to an outward moral law, a code of conduct. For then in place of a lifting enthusiasm we have the rigidity of the Pharisee, a puritan fierceness or narrowness or the life-killing tyranny of a single insufficient side of the nature. This is not yet that higher mental movement, but a straining towards it, an attempt to rise above the transitional law and the vitalistic compromise. And it brings with it an artificiality, a tension, a coercion, often a repellent austerity which, disregarding as it does sanity and large wisdom and the simple naturalness of the true ethical mind and the flexibilities of life, tyrannising over but not transforming it, is not the higher perfection of our nature. But still even here there is the feeling out after a great return to the output of moral energy, an attempt well worth making, if the aim can indeed so be accomplished, to build up by the insistence on a rigid obedience to a law of moral action that which is yet non-existent or imperfectly existent in us but which alone can make the law of our conduct a thing true and living,an ethical being with an inalienably ethical nature. No rule imposed on him from outside, whether in the name of a supposed mechanical or impersonal law or of God or prophet, can be, as such, true or right or binding on man: it becomes that only when it answers to some demand or aids some evolution of his inner being. And when that inner being is revealed, evolved, at each moment naturally active, simply and spontaneously imperative, then we get the true, the inner and intuitive Law in its light of self-knowledge, its beauty of self-fulfilment, its intimate life significance. An act of justice, truth, love, compassion, purity, sacrifice becomes then the faultless expression, the natural outflowering of our soul of justice, our soul of truth, our soul of love and compassion, our soul of purity or sacrifice. And before the greatness of its imperative mandate to the outer nature the vital being and the practical reason and surface seeking intelligence must and do bow down as before something greater than themselves, something that belongs directly to the divine and the infinite.
Meanwhile we get the clue to the higher law of Karma, of the output and returns of energy, and see it immediately and directly to be, what all law of Karma, really and ultimately, if at first covertly, is for man, a law of his spiritual evolution. The true return to the act of virtue, to the ethically right output of his energyhis reward, if you will, and the sole recompense on which he has a right to insist,is its return upon him in a growth of the moral strength within him, an upbuilding of his ethical being, a flowering of the soul of right, justice, love, compassion, purity, truth, strength, courage, self-giving that he seeks to be. The true return to the act of evil, to the ethically wrong output of energyhis punishment, if you will, and the sole penalty he has any need or right to fear,is its return upon him in a retardation of the growth, a demolition of the upbuilding, an obscuration, tarnishing, impoverishing of the soul, of the pure, strong and luminous being that he is striving to be. An inner happiness he may gain by his act, the calm, peace, satisfaction of the soul fulfilled in right, or an inner calamity, the suffering, disturbance, unease and malady of its descent or failure, but he can demand from God or moral Law no other. The ethical soul,not the counterfeit but the real,accepts the pains and sufferings and difficulties and fierce intimidations of life, not as a punishment for its sins, but as an opportunity and trial, an opportunity for its growth, a trial of its built or native strength, and good fortune and all outer success not as a coveted reward of virtue, but as an opportunity also and an even greater more difficult trial. What to this high seeker of Right can mean the vital law of Karma or what can its gods do to him that he can fear or long for? The ethical-vitalistic explanation of the world and its meaning and measures has for such a soul, for man at this height of his evolution no significance. He has travelled beyond the jurisdiction of the Powers of the middle air, the head of his spirits endeavour is lifted above the dull grey-white belt that is their empire.
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The intention of Nature, the spiritual justification of her ways appears at last in this turn of her energies leading the conscious soul along the lines of truth and knowledge. At first she is physical Nature building her firm field according to a base of settled truth and law but determined by a subconscient knowledge she does not yet share with her creatures. Next she is Life growing slowly self-conscious, seeking out knowledge that she may move seeingly in them along her ways and increase at once the complexity and the efficacy of her movements, but developing slowly too the consciousness that knowledge must be pursued for a higher and purer end, for truth, for the satisfaction, as the life expression and as the spiritual self-finding of the soul of knowledge. But, last, it is that soul itself growing in the truth and light, growing into the absolute truth of itself which is its perfection, that becomes the law and high end of her energies. And at each stage she gives returns according to the development of the aim and consciousness of the being. At first there is the return of skill and effectual intelligence and her own need explains sufficiently why she gives the rewards of life not, as the ethical mind in us would have it, to the just, not chiefly to moral good, but to the skilful and to the strong, to will and force and intelligence, and then, more and more clearly disengaged, the return of enlightenment and the satisfaction of the mind and the soul in the conscious use and wise direction of its powers and capacities and, last of all, the one supreme return, the increase of the soul in light, the satisfaction of its perfection in knowledge, its birth into the highest consciousness and the pure fulfilment of its own innate imperative. It is that growth, a divine birth or spiritual self-exceeding its supreme reward, which for the Eastern mind has been always the highest gain,the growth out of human ignorance into divine self-knowledge.
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3.7.2.05 - Appendix I - The Tangle of Karma, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
For what we understand by law is a single immutably habitual movement or recurrence in Nature fruitful of a determined sequence of things and that sequence must be clear, precise, limited to its formula, invariable. If it is not that, if there is too much flexibility of movement, if there intervenes too embarrassing a variety or criss-cross of action and reaction, a too rich complex of forces, the narrow uncompromising incompetence of our logical intelligence finds there not law but an incertitude and a chaos. Our reason must be allowed to cut and hew and arbitrarily select its suitable circumstances, isolate its immutable data, skeletonise or mechanise life; otherwise it stands open-mouthed at a loss unable to think with precision or act with effect in a field of subtle and indefinite measures. It must be allowed to deal with mighty Nature as it deals with human society, politics, ethics, conduct; for it can understand and do good work only where it is licensed to build and map out its own artificial laws, erect a clear, precise, rigid, infallible system and leave as little room as possible for the endless flexibility and variety and complexity that presses from the Infinite upon our mind and life. Moved by this need we endeavour to forge for our own souls and for the cosmic Spirit even such a single and inflexible law of Karma as we would ourselves have made, had the rule of the world been left to us.Not this mysterious universe would we have made, but the pattern of a rational cosmos fitted to our call for a simple definite guidance in action and for a well-marked thumb rule facile and clear to our limited intelligence. But this force we call Karma turns out to be no such precise and invariable mechanism as we hoped; it is rather a thing of many planes that changes its face and walk and very substance as it mounts from level to higher level, and on each plane even it is not one movement but an indefinite complex of many spiral movements hard enough for us to harmonise together or to find out whatever secret harmony unknown to us and incalculable these complexities are weaving out in this mighty field of the dealings of the soul with Nature.
Let us then call Karma no longer a Law, but rather the many-sided dynamic truth of all action and life, the organic movement here of the Infinite. That was what the ancient thinkers saw in it before it was cut and shredded by lesser minds and turned into an easy and misleading popular formula. Action of Karma follows and takes up many potential lines of the spirit into its multitudinous surge, many waves and streams of combining and disputing world-forces; it is the processus of the creative Infinite; it is the long and multiform way of the progression of the individual and the cosmic soul in Nature. Its complexities cannot be unravelled by our physical mind ever bound up in the superficial appearance, nor by our vital mind of desire stumbling forward in the cloud of its own instincts and longings and rash determinations through the maze of these myriad favouring and opposing forces that surround and urge and drive and hamper us from the visible and invisible worlds. Nor can it be perfectly classified, accounted for, tied up in bundles by the precisions of our logical intelligence in its inveterate search for clear-cut dogmas. On that day only shall we perfectly decipher what is now to us Natures obscure hieroglyph of Karma when there rises in our enlarged consciousness the supramental way of knowledge. The supramental eye can see a hundred meeting and diverging motions in one glance and envelop in the largeness of its harmonising vision of Truth all that to our minds is clash and opposition and the collision and interlocked strife of numberless contending truths and powers. Truth to the supramental sight is at once single and infinite and the complexities of its play serve to bring out with an abundant ease the rich significance of the Eternals many-sided oneness.
The complexity of the lines of Karma is much greater than we have yet seen in the steps of thought that we have been obliged to cut in order to climb to the summits where they converge. For the convenience of the mind we have chosen to speak as if there were four quite separate planes each with its separate lines of Karma,the physical with its fixed law and very easily perceptible return to our energies, the life plane, complex, full of doubtful rewards and dangerous rebounds, rich promise and dark menace, the mind plane with its high trenchant unattainable absolutes each in its separateness so difficult to embody and all so hard to reconcile and combine and the supramental where Natures absolutes are reached, her relativities ordered to their place and all these lower movements delivered and harmonised because they have found luminously their inner spiritual reason for existence. That division is not false in itself, but its truth is subject to two capital provisos which at once give them a complexity not apparent in the first formula. There are above and behind our human existence the four levels but there each plane contains in itself the others, although in each these others are subject to the dominant law of the plane,life for instance obeys on the mental level the law of mind and turns its movements into an instrumentation of the free intelligence. Again man exists here in the body and the physical world; he is open more or less to the vast movements of a life plane and the free movements of a mental world that are far vaster and freer in their potentialities than anything that we call here life and mind, but he does not live in that free mental light or in that vast vital force. His business is to bring down and embody here as much of that greater life and greater mind as can be precipitated into matter and equipped with a form and organised in the physical formula. In proportion as he ascends he does indeed rise above the physical and vital into the higher mental lines of Karma, but he cannot leave them entirely behind him. The saint, the intellectual man, scientist, thinker or creator, the seeker after beauty, the seeker after any mental absolute is not that alone; he is also, even if less exclusively than others, the vital and physical man; subject to the urgings of the life and the body, he participates in the vital and physical motives of Karma and receives the perplexed and intertwined return of these energies. It is not intended in his birth that he shall live entirely in mind, for he is here to deal with life and Matter as well and to bring as best he can a higher law into life and Matter. And since he is not a mental being in a mental world, it is not easy and in the end, we may suspect, not possible for him to impose entirely and perfectly the law of the mental absolutes, a mental good, beauty, love, truth and power on his lower parts. He has to take this other difficult truth into account that life and Matter have absolutes of their own armed with an equal right to formulation and persistence and he has to find some light, some truth, some spiritual and supramental power that can take up these imperatives also no less than the minds imperatives and harmonise all in a grand and integral transformation. But the difficulty is again that if he is not open to the world of free intelligence, he is still less open to the deeper and vaster spiritual and supramental levels. There can indeed be great descents of spiritual light, purity, power, love, delight into the earth consciousness in its human formula; but man as he is now can hold only a little of these things and he can give them no adequate organisation and shape and body in his mental movements or his life-action or his physical and material consciousness and dynamis. The moment he tries to get at the absolute of the spirit, he feels himself obliged to reject body, to silence mind, and to draw back from life. It is that urgent necessity, that inability of mind and life and body to hold and answer to the spirit that is the secret of asceticism, the philosophical justification of the illusionist, the compulsion that moves the eremite and the recluse. If on the other hand he tries to spiritualise mind and life and the body he finds in the end that he has only brought down the spirit to a lower formulation that cannot give all its truth and purity and power. He has to some extent spiritualised mind, but much more has he mentalised the spiritual and to mentalise the spiritual is to falsify and obscure it or at the very least to dilute its truth, to imprison its force, to limit and alter its potentialities. He has perhaps to a much less extent spiritualised his life, but much more has he vitalised the spiritual and to vitalise the spiritual is to degrade it. He has never yet spiritualised the body, at most he has minimised the physical by a spiritual refusal and abstinence or brought down some mental and vital powers mistaken for spiritual into his physical force and physical frame. More has not been done in the human past so far as we can discover, or if anything greater was done it was a transitory gain from the superconscient and has returned again into our superconscience.
The secret reason of mans failure to rise truly beyond himself is a fundamental incapacity in the mind, the life and the body to organise the highest integral truth and power of the spirit. And this incapacity exists because mind and life and matter are in their nature depressed and imperfect powers of the Infinite that need to be transformed into something greater than themselves before they can escape from their depression and imperfection; in their very nature they are a system of partial and separated values and cannot adequately express or embody the integral and the one, a movement of many divergent and mutually non-understanding or misunderstanding lines they cannot arrive of themselves at any but a provisional, limited and imperfect harmony and order. There is no doubt a material Infinite, a vital Infinite, a mental Infinite in which we feel a perfection, a delight, an essential harmony, an inexpressible completeness which, when we experience it, makes us disregard the discords and imperfections and obscurities we see and even perceive them as elements of the infinite perfection. In other words the Spirit, the Infinite supports these depressed values and elicits from them a certain joy of his manifestation that is complete and illimitable enough in its own manner. But there is more behind and above, there are greater more unmistakably harmonious values, greater truly perfect powers of the Spirit than mind, life and matter and these wait for their expression and only when they are expressed can we escape from this system of harmony through discords and of a perfection on the whole that subsists by imperfection in the detail. And as we open to a greater knowledge, we find that even for such harmonies, stabilities, perfections as the energies of Mind, Life and Matter can realise, they depend really not on their own delegated and inferior power which is at best a more or less ignorant instrument but on a greater deeper organising force and knowledge of which they are the inadequate derivations. That force and knowledge is the self-possessed supramental power and will and the perfect and untrammelled supramental gnosis of the Infinite. It is that which has fixed the precise measures of Matter, regulates the motive instincts and impulsions of Life, holds together the myriad seekings of Mind; but none of these things are that power and gnosis and nothing therefore mental, vital or physical is final or can even find its own integral truth and harmony nor all these together their reconciliation until they are taken up and transformed in a supramental manifestation. For this supermind or gnosis is the entire organising will and knowledge of the spiritual, it is the Truth Consciousness, the Truth Force, the organic instrumentation of divine Law, the all-seeing eye of the divine Vision, the freely selecting and generating harmony of the eternal Ananda.
4.01 - Conclusion - My intellectual position, #Let Me Explain, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
the law of complexity-consciousness, by which, within
life, the stuff of the cosmos folds in upon itself continually
--
continue its ascent towards complexity-consciousness unless
it realizes two things about 'vital involution - that, looking
4.01 - Prayers and Meditations, #Words Of Long Ago, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
There are innumerable categories of successful people; these categories are determined by the greater or lesser breadth, nobility, complexity, purity and luminosity of their ideal. One may succeed as a rag-picker or succeed as master of the world or even as a perfect ascetic; in all three cases, although on very different levels, it is ones more or less integral and extensive self-mastery which makes the success possible.
On the other hand, there is only one way of being a failure; and that happens to the greatest, to the most sovereign intelligence, as well as to the smallest, the most limited, to all those who are unable to subordinate the sensation of the present moment to the ideal they wish to achieve, but without having the strength to take up the pathidentical for all in nature if not in extent and complexity that leads to this achievement.
Between the extreme of an individual who has fully and perfectly realised all he had conceived and that of one who has been incapable of realising anything at all, there is, of course, an almost unlimited range of intermediate cases; this range is remarkably complex, because not only is there a difference in the degree of realisation of the ideal, but there is also a difference between the varied qualities of the ideal itself. There are ambitions which pursue mere personal interests, material, sentimental or intellectual, others which have more general, more collective or higher aims, and yet others which are superhuman, so to say, and strive to scale the peaks that open on the splendours of eternal Truth, eternal Consciousness and eternal Peace. It is easy to understand that the power of ones effort and renunciation must be commensurate with the breadth and height of the goal one has chosen.
4.01 - THE COLLECTIVE ISSUE, #The Phenomenon of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
level of complexity, the elements of the world are able to influ-
ence and mutually to penetrate each other by their within, so
--
evolution : ever more complexity and thus ever more con-
sciousness. If that is what really happens, what more do we
4.01 - The Presence of God in the World, #Hymn of the Universe, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
which this complexity gives to your appearance
and to your activity, that my heart, enamoured of
4.02 - BEYOND THE COLLECTIVE - THE HYPER-PERSONAL, #The Phenomenon of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
paroxysm of harmonised complexity. Thus it would be mistaken
to represent Omega to ourselves simply as a centre born of the
4.03 - Prayer to the Ever-greater Christ, #Let Me Explain, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
Matter: 'True' and 'False' complexity
3. The Curve of 'Corpusculization': Life and complexity
4. The Mechanism of Corpusculization: the Transit to Life
--
65. See complexity-conscious-
ness
4.03 - The Meaning of Human Endeavor, #Hymn of the Universe, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
nuance in human love, the exquisite complexity of
a smile or a glance, every new embodiment of
4.03 - The Psychology of Self-Perfection, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
First of all we have to know the central secret of the psychological complexity which creates the problem and all its difficulties. But an ordinary psychology which only takes mind and its phenomena at their surface values, will be of no help to us; it will not give us the least guidance in this line of self-exploration and self-conversion. Still less can we find the clue in a scientific psychology with a materialistic basis which assumes that the body and the biological and physiological factors of our nature are not only the starting-point but the whole real foundation and regards human mind as only a subtle development from the life and the body. That may be the actual truth of the animal side of human nature and of the human mind in so far as it is limited and conditioned by the physical part of our being. But the whole difference between marl and the animal is that the animal mind, as we know it, cannot get for one moment away from its origins, cannot break out from the covering, the close chrysalis which the bodily life has spun round the soul, and become something greater than its present self, a more free, magnificent and noble being; but in man mind reveals itself as a greater energy escaping from the restrictions of the vital and physical formula of being. But even this is not all that man is or can be: he has in him the power to evolve and release a still greater ideal energy which in its turn escapes out of the restrictions of the mental formula of his nature and discloses the supramental form, the ideal power of a spiritual being. In Yoga we have to travel beyond the physical nature and the superficial man and to discover the workings of the whole nature of the real man. In other words, we must arrive at and use a psycho-physical knowledge with a spiritual foundation.
Man is in his real nature, -- however obscure now this truth may be to our present understanding and self-consciousness, we must for the purposes of Yoga have faith in it, and we shall then find that our faith is justified by an increasing experience and a greater self-knowledge, --a spirit using the mind, life and body for an individual and a communal experience and self-manifestation in the universe. This spirit is an infinite existence limiting itself in apparent being for individual experience. It is an infinite consciousness which defines itself in finite forms of consciousness for joy of various knowledge and various power of being. It is an infinite delight of being expanding and contracting itself and its powers, concealing and discovering, formulating many terms of its joy of existence, even to an apparent obscuration arid denial of its own nature. In itself it is eternal Sachchidananda, but this complexity, this knotting up and unravelling of the infinite in the finite is the aspect we see it assume in universal and in individual nature. To discover the eternal Sachchidananda, this essential self of our being within us, and live in it is the stable basis, to make its true nature evident and creative of a divine way of living in our instruments, supermind, mind, life and body, the active principle of a spiritual perfection. Supermind, mind, life and body are the four instruments which the spirit uses for its manifestation in the workings of Nature. Supermind is spiritual consciousness acting as a self-luminous knowledge, will, sense, aesthesis, energy, self-creative and unveiling power of its own delight and being. Mind is the action of the same powers, but limited and only very indirectly and partially illumined. Supermind lives in unity though it plays with diversity; mind lives in a separative action of diversity, though it may open to unity. Mind is not only capable of ignorance, but, because it acts always partially and by limitation, it works characteristically as a power of ignorance : it may even and it does forget itself in a complete inconscience, or nescience, awaken from it to the ignorance of a partial knowledge and move from the ignorance towards a complete knowledge, -- that is its natural action in the human being, -- but it can never have by itself a complete knowledge. supermind is incapable of real ignorance; even if it puts full knowledge behind it in the limitation of a particular working, yet all its working refers back to what it has put behind it and all is instinct with self-illumination; even if it involves itself in material nescience, it yet does there accurately the works of a perfect will and knowledge. supermind lends itself to the action of the inferior instruments; it is always there indeed at the core as a secret support of their operations. In matter it is an automatic action and effectuation of the hidden idea in things; in life its most seizable form is instinct, an instinctive, subconscious or partly subconscious knowledge and operation; in mind it reveals itself as intuition, a swift, direct and self-effective illumination of intelligence, will, sense and aesthesis. But these are merely irradiations of the supermind which accommodate themselves to the limited functioning of the obscurer instruments: its own characteristic nature is a gnosis superconscient to mind, life and body. Supermind or gnosis is the characteristic, illumined, significant action of spirit in its own native reality.
Life is an energy of spirit subordinated to action of mind and body, which fulfils itself through mentality and physicality and acts as a link between them. It has its own characteristic operation but nowhere works independently of mind and body. All energy of the spirit in action works in the two terms of existence and consciousness, for the self-formation of existence and the play and self-realisation of consciousness, for the delight of existence and the delight of consciousness. In this inferior formulation of being in which we at present live, the spirit's energy of life works between the two terms of mind and matter, supporting and effecting the formulations of substance of matter and working as a material energy, supporting the formulations of consciousness of mind and the workings of mental energy, supporting the interaction of mind and body and working as a sensory and nervous energy. What we call vitality is for the purposes of our normal human existence power of conscious being emerging in matter, liberating from it and in it mind and the higher powers and supporting their limited action in the physical life, --just as what we call mentality is power of conscious being awaking in body to light of its own consciousness and to consciousness of all the rest of being immediately around it and working at first in the limited action set for it by life and body, but at certain points and at a certain height escaping from it to a partial action beyond this circle. But this is not the whole power whether of life or mentality; they have planes of conscious existence of their own kind, other than this material level, where they are freer in their characteristic action. Matter or body itself is a limiting form of substance of spirit in which life and mind and spirit are involved, self-hidden, self-forgetful by absorption in their own externalising action, but bound to emerge from it by a self-compelling evolution. But matter too is capable of refining to subtler forms of substance in which it becomes more apparently a formal density of life, of mind, of spirit. Man himself has, besides this gross material body, an encasing vital sheath, a mental body, a body of bliss and gnosis. But all matter, all body contains within it the secret powers of these higher principles; matter is a formation of life that has no real existence apart from the informing universal spirit which gives it its energy and substance.
4.03 - THE ULTIMATE EARTH, #The Phenomenon of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
law of complexity and consciousness.
Now when sufficient elements have sufficiently agglomerated,
--
the uttermost limit of its complexity and its ccntrality.
The end of the world : the overthrow of equilibrium,
4.04 - Conclusion, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
organic thing in all its complexity and not try to examine the
anatomy of its corpse in the manner of the scientist, or the
--
308 i n view of the enormous complexity of psychic phenomena,
a purely phenomenological point of view is, and will be for a
4.06 - Purification-the Lower Mentality, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
To rid the Prana of desire and incidentally to reverse the ordinary poise of our nature and turn the vital being from a troublesomely dominant power into the obedient instrument of a free and unattached mind, is then the first step in purification. As this deformation of the psychical Prana is corrected, the purification of the rest of the intermediary parts of the antahkarana is facilitated, and when that correction is completed, their purification too can be easily made absolute. These intermediary parts are the emotional mind, the receptive sensational mind and the active sensational mind or mind of dynamic impulse. They all hang together in a strongly knotted interaction. The deformation of the emotional mind hinges upon the duality of liking and disliking, raga-dvesa, emotional attraction and repulsion. All the complexity of our emotions and their tyranny over the soul arise from the habitual responses of the soul of desire in the emotions and sensations to these attractions and .repulsions. Love and hatred, hope and fear, grief and joy all have their founts in this one source. We like, love, welcome, hope for, joy in whatever our nature, the first habit of our being, or else a formed (often perverse) habit, the second nature of our being, presents to the mind as pleasant, priyam; we hate, dislike, fear, have repulsion from or grief of whatever it presents to us as unpleasant, apriyam. This habit of the emotional nature gets into the way of the intelligent will and makes it often a helpless slave of the emotional being or at least prevents it from exercising a free judgment and government of the nature. This deformation has to be corrected. By getting rid of desire in the psychic Prana and its intermiscence in the emotional mind, we facilitate the correction. For then attachment, which is the strong bond of the heart, falls away from the heart-strings; the involuntary habit of ragadvesa remains, but, not being made obstinate by attachment, it can be dealt with more easily by the will and the intelligence. The restless heart can be conquered and get rid of the habit of attraction and repulsion.
But then if this is done, it may be thought, as with regard to desire, that this will be the death of the emotional being. It will certainly be so, if the deformation is eliminated but not replaced by the right action of the emotional mind; the mind will then pass into a neutral condition of blank indifference or into a luminous state of peaceful impartiality with no stir or wave of emotion. The former state is in no way desirable; the latter may be the perfection of a quietistic discipline, but in the integral perfection which does not reject love or shun various movement of delight, it can be no more than a stage which has to be overpassed, a preliminary passivity admitted as a first basis for a right activity. Attraction and repulsion, liking and disliking are a necessary mechanism for the normal man, they form a first principle of natural instinctive selection among the thousand flattering and formidable, helpful and dangerous impacts of the world around him. The Buddhi starts with this material to work on and tries to correct the natural and instinctive by a wiser reasoned and willed selection; for obviously the pleasant is not always the right thing, the object to be preferred and selected, nor the unpleasant the wrong thing, the object to be shunned and rejected; the pleasant and the good, preyas and sreyas, have to be distinguished, and right reason has to choose and not the caprice of emotion. But this it can do much better when the emotional suggestion is withdrawn and the heart rests in a luminous passivity. Then too the right activity of the heart can be brought to the surface; for we find then that behind this emotion-ridden soul of desire there was waiting all the while a soul of love and lucid joy and delight, a pure psyche, which was clouded over by the deformations of anger, fear, hatred, repulsion and could not embrace the world with an impartial love and joy. But the purified heart is rid of anger, rid of fear, rid of hatred, rid of every shrinking and repulsion: it has a universal love, it can receive with an untroubled sweetness and clarity the various delight which God gives it in the world. But it is not the lax slave of love arid delight; it does not desire, does not attempt to impose itself as the master of the actions. The selective process necessary to action is left principally to the Buddhi and, when the Buddhi has been overpassed, to the spirit in the supramental will, knowledge and Ananda.
4.07 - Purification-Intelligence and Will, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
This sensational thought-mind which is based upon sense, memory, association, first ideas and resultant generalisations or secondary ideas, is common to all developed animal life and mentality. Man indeed has given it an immense development and range and complexity impossible to the animal, but still, if he stopped there, he would only be a more highly effective animal. He gets beyond the animal range and height because he has been able to disengage and separate to a greater or less extent his thought action from the sense mentality, to draw back from the latter and observe its data and to act on it from above by a separated and partially freed intelligence. The intelligence and will of the animal are involved in the sense-mind and therefore altogether governed by it and carried on its stream of sensations, sense-perceptions, impulses; it is instinctive. Man is able to use a reason and will, a self-observing, thinking and all-observing, an intelligently willing mind which is no longer involved in the sense-mind, but acts from above and behind it in its own right, with a certain separateness and freedom. He is reflective, has a certain relative freedom of intelligent will. He has liberated in himself and has formed into a separate power the Buddhi.
But what is this Buddhi? From the point of view of Yogic knowledge we may say that it is that instrument of the soul, of the inner conscious being in nature, of the Purusha, by which it comes into some kind of conscious and ordered possession both of itself and its surroundings. Behind all the action of the Chitta and Manas there is this soul, this Purusha; but in the lower forms of life it is mostly subconscient, asleep or half-awake, absorbed .in the mechanical action of Nature; but it becomes more and more awake and comes more and more forward as it rises in the scale of life. By the activity of the Buddhi it begins the process of an entire awakening. In the lower actions of the mind the soul suffers Nature rather than possesses her; for it is there entirely a slave to the mechanism which has brought it into conscious embodied experience. But in the Buddhi we get to something, still a natural instrumentation, by which yet Nature seems to be helping and arming the Purusha to understand, possess and master her.
4.1.3 - Imperfections and Periods of Arrest, #Letters On Yoga IV, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
A difficulty comes or an arrest in some movement which you have begun or have been carrying on for some time. How is it to be dealt with?for such arrests are inevitably frequent enough, not only for you, but for everyone who is a seeker; one might almost say that every step forward is followed by an arrestat least, that is a very common, if not a universal experience. It is to be dealt with by becoming always more quiet, more firm in the will to go through, by opening oneself more and more so that any obstructing non-receptivity in the nature may diminish or disappear, by an affirmation of faith even in the midst of the obscurity, faith in the presence of a Power that is working behind the cloud and the veil, in the guidance of the Guru, by an observation of oneself to find any cause of the arrest, not in a spirit of depression or discouragement but with the will to find out and remove it. This is the only right attitude and, if one is persistent in taking it, the periods of arrest are not abolished,for that cannot be at this stage,but greatly shortened and lightened in their incidence. Sometimes these arrests are periods, long or short, of assimilation or unseen preparation, their appearance of sterile immobility is deceptive: in that case, with the right attitude, one can after a time, by opening, by observation, by accumulated experience, begin to feel, to get some inkling of what is being prepared or done. Sometimes it is a period of true obstruction in which the Power at work has to deal with the obstacles in the way, obstacles in oneself, obstacles of the opposing cosmic forces or any other or of all together, and this kind of arrest may be long or short according to the magnitude or obstinacy or complexity of the impediments that are met. But here too the right attitude can alleviate or shorten and, if persistently taken, help to a more radical removal of the difficulties and greatly diminish the necessity of complete arrests hereafter.
On the contrary, an attitude of depression or unfaith in the help or the guidance or in the certitude of the victory of the guiding Power, a shutting up of yourself in the sense of the difficulties impedes the recovery, prolongs the difficulties, helps the obstructions to recur with force instead of progressively diminishing in their incidence. It is an attitude whose persistence or recurrence you must resolutely throw aside if you want to get over the obstruction which you feel so muchwhich the depressed attitude only makes, while it lasts, more acute.
4.15 - Soul-Force and the Fourfold Personality, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The Godhead, the spirit manifested in Nature appears in a sea of infinite quality, Ananta-guna. But the executive or mechanical prakriti is of the threefold Guna, Sattwa, Rajas, Tamas, and the Ananta-guna, the spiritual play of infinite quality, modifies itself in this mechanical nature into the type of these three gunas. And in the soul-force in man this Godhead in Nature represents itself as a fourfold effective Power, caturvyuha, a Power for knowledge, a Power for strength, a Power for mutuality and active and productive relation and interchange, a Power for works and labour and service, and its presence casts all human life into a nexus and inner and outer operation of these four things. The ancient thought of India conscious of this fourfold type of active human personality and nature, built out of it the four types of the Brahmana, Kshatriya, Vaishya and Sudra, each with its spiritual turn, ethical ideal, suitable upbringing, fixed function in society and place in the evolutionary scale of the spirit. As always tends to be the case when we too much externalise and mechanise the more subtle truths of our nature, this became a hard and fast system inconsistent with the freedom and variability and complexity of the finer developing spirit in man. Nevertheless the truth behind it exists and is one of some considerable importance in the perfection of our power of nature; but we have to take it in its inner aspects, first, personality, character, temperament, soul-type, then the soul-force which lies behind them and wears these forms, and lastly the play of the free spiritual shakti in which they find their culmination and unity beyond all modes. For the crude external idea that a man is born as a Brahmana, Kshatriya, Vaishya or Sudra and that alone, is not a psychological truth of our being. The psychological fact is that there are these four active powers and tendencies of the Spirit and its executive shakti within us and the predominance of one or the other in the more well-formed part of our personality gives us our main tendencies, dominant qualities and capacities, effective turn in action and life. But they are more or less present in an men, here manifest, there latent, here developed, there subdued and depressed or subordinate, and in the perfect man will be raised up to a fullness and harmony which in the spiritual freedom will burst out into the free play of the infinite quality of the spirit in the inner and outer life and in the self-enjoying creative play of the Purusha with his and the world's Nature-Power.
The most outward psychological form of these things is the mould or trend of the nature towards certain dominant tendencies, capacities, characteristics, form of active power, quality of the mind and inner life, cultural personality or type. The turn is often towards the predominance of the intellectual element and the capacities which make for the seeking and finding of knowledge and an intellectual creation or formativeness and a preoccupation with ideas and the study of ideas or of life and the information and development of the reflective intelligence. According to the grade of the development there is produced successively the make and character of the man of active, open, inquiring intelligence, then the intellectual and, last, the thinker, sage, great mind of knowledge. The soul-powers which make their appearance by a considerable development of this temperament, personality, soul-type, are a mind of light more and more open to all ideas and knowledge and incomings of Truth; a hunger and passion for knowledge, for its growth in ourselves, for its communication to others, for its reign in the world, the reign of reason and right and truth and justice and, on a higher level of the harmony of our greater being, the reign of the spirit and its universal unity and light and love; a power of this light in the mind and will which makes all the life subject to reason and its right and truth or to the spirit and spiritual right and truth and subdues the lower members to their greater law; a poise in the temperament turned from the first to patience, steady musing and calm, to reflection, to meditation, which dominates and quiets the turmoil of the will and passions and makes for high thinking and pure living, founds the self-governed sattwic mind, grows into a more and more mild, lofty, impersonalised and universalised personality. This is the ideal character and soul-power of the Brahmana, the priest of knowledge. If it is not there in all its sides, we have the imperfections or perversions of the type, a mere intellectuality or curiosity for ideas without ethical or other elevation, a narrow concentration on some kind of intellectual activity without the greater needed openness of mind, soul and spirit, or the arrogance and exclusiveness of the intellectual shut up in his intellectuality, or an ineffective idealism without any hold on life, or any other of the characteristic incompletenesses and limitations of the intellectual, religious, scientific or philosophic mind. These are stoppings short on the way or temporary exclusive concentrations, but a fullness of the divine soul and power of truth and knowledge in man is the perfection of this Dharma or Swabhava, the accomplished Brahminhood of the complete Brahmana.
4.23 - The supramental Instruments -- Thought-process, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Thus there is no discord, disparity or difficulty of adjustment in the complex motion of the supramental jnana, but a simplicity in the complexity, an assured ease in a many-sided abundance that comes from the spontaneous sureness and totality of the self-knowledge of the spirit. Obstacle, inner struggle, disparity, difficulty, discord of parts and movements continues in the transformation of mind to supermind only so long as the action, influence or pressure of the mind insisting on its own methods of construction continues or its process of building knowledge or thought and will of action on the foundation of a primal ignorance resists the opposite process of supermind organising all as a luminous manifestation out of the self and its inherent and eternal self-knowledge. It is thus that the supermind acting as a representative, interpretative, revealingly imperative power of the spirit's knowledge by identity, turning the light of the infinite consciousness freely and inimitably into substance and form of real-idea, creating out of power of conscious being and power of real-idea, stabilising a movement which obeys its own law but is still a supple and plastic movement of the infinite, uses its thought and knowledge and a will identical in substance and light with the knowledge to organise in each supramental being his own right manifestation of the one self and spirit.
The action of the supramental jnarta so constitued evidently surpasses the action of the mental reason and we have to see what replaces the reason in the supramental transformation. The thinking mind of man finds its most clear and characteristic satisfaction and its most precise and effective principle of organisation in the reasoning and logical intelligence. It is true that man is not and cannot be wholly governed either in his thought or his action by the reason alone. His mentality is inextricably subjected to a joint, mixed and intricate action of the reasoning intelligence with two other powers, an intuition, actually only half luminous in the human mentality, operating behind the more visible action of the reason or veiled and altered in the action of the normal intelligence, and the life-mind of sensation, instinct, impulse, which is in its own nature a sort of obscure involved intuition and which supplies the intelligence from below with its first materials and data. And each of these other powers is in its own kind an intimate action of the spirit operating in mind and life and has a more direct and spontaneous character and immediate power for perception and action than the reasoning intelligence. But yet neither of these powers is capable of organising for man his mental existence.
4.24 - The supramental Sense, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The range of the psychic consciousness and its experiences is almost illimitable and the variety and complexity of its phenomena almost infinite. Only some of the broad lines and main features can be noted here. The first and most prominent is the activity of the psychic senses of which the sight is the most developed ordinarily arid the first to manifest itself with ally largeness when the veil of the absorption in the surface consciousness which prevents the inner vision is broken. But all the physical senses have their corresponding powers in the psychical being, there is a psychical hearing, touch, smell, taste: indeed the physical senses are themselves in reality only a projection of the inner sense into limited and externalised operation in and through and upon the phenomena of gross matter. The psychical sight receives characteristically the images that are formed in the subtle matter of the mental or psychical ether, cittakasa. These may be transcriptions there or impresses of physical things, persons, scenes, happenings, whatever is, was or will be or may be in the physical universe. These images are very variously seen and under all kinds of conditions; in Samadhi or in the waking state, and in the latter with the bodily eyes closed or open, projected on or into a physical object or medium or seen as if materialised in the physical atmosphere or only in a psychical ether revealing itself through this grosser physical atmosphere; seen through the physical eyes themselves as a secondary instrument and as if under the conditions of the physical vision or by the psychical vision alone and independently of the relations of our ordinary sight to space. The real agent is always the psychical sight and the power indicates that the consciousness is more or less awake, intermittently or normally and more or less perfectly, in the psychical body. It is possible to see in this way the transcriptions or impressions of things at any distance beyond the range of the physical vision or the images of the past or the future.
Besides these transcriptions or impresses the psychical vision receives thought images and other forms created by constant activity of consciousness in ourselves or in other human beings, and these may be according to the character of the activity images of truth or falsehood or else mixed things, partly true, partly false, and may be too either mere shells and representations or images inspired with a temporary life and consciousness and, it may be, carrying in them in one way or another some kind of beneficent or maleficent action or some willed or unwilled effectiveness on our minds or vital being or through them even on the body. These transcriptions, impresses, thought images, life images, projections of the consciousness may also be representations or creations not of the physical world, but of vital, psychic or mental worlds beyond us, seen in our own minds or projected from other than human beings. And as there is this psychical vision of which some of the more external and ordinary manifestations are well enough known by the name of clairvoyance, so there is a psychical hearing and psychical touch, taste, smell, -- clairaudience, clairsentience are the more external manifestations, -- with precisely the same range each in its own kind, the same fields and manner and conditions and varieties of their phenomena.
4.3.3 - Dealing with Hostile Attacks, #Letters On Yoga IV, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
These attacks should not discourage you. There are always momentsso long as there is not the complete basis in the physical when old movements seem to revive. But so long as it is only a rush of an outside force churning up the subconscient and it does not last, it does not at all mean that the progress is not there. We have to deal with all the complexity of the human consciousness in its hidden parts as well as on its surface and there are layers on layers of the consciousness in which something may lurk of the old reactions, but each conquest makes the control stronger and brings the full purification nearer.
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5.01 - EPILOGUE, #The Phenomenon of Man, #Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, #Christianity
OF complexity-CONSCIOUSNESS
The astronomers have lately been making us familiar with the
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this particular involution ' of complexity ' is experimentally
bound up with a correlative increase in interiorisation, that is to
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between complexity and consciousness is experimentally incon-
testable and has always been known. What gives the standpoint
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experimentally as the specific effect of organised complexity)
transcends by far the ridiculously narrow limits within which
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in those (the mega-molecules and below) whose complexity is
301
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Regarded along its axis of complexity, the universe is, both
on the whole and at each of its points, in a continual tension of
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to units of ever increasing complexity, the involuting universe,
considered in its pre-reflective zones, 1 proceeds step by step by
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lessly and to the bitter end the experimental law of complexity-
Consciousness to the global evolution of the entire group.
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an ' effect ', as the ' specific effect ' of complexity.
1 This for instance; that nothing could stop man in his advance to social
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in beings, manifests, in relation to its matrix of ' complexity ',
a growing tendency to mastery and autonomy. At the origins
5.06 - Supermind in the Evolution, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
In this vision of things the universe will reveal itself in its unity and totality as a manifestation of a single Being, Nature as its power of manifestation, evolution as its process of gradual self-revelation here in Matter. We would see the divine series of the worlds as a ladder of ascent from Matter to supreme Spirit; there would reveal itself the possibility, the prospect of a supreme manifestation by the conscious and no longer a veiled and enigmatic descent of the Spirit and its powers in their fullness even into this lowest world of Matter. The riddle of the universe need be no longer a riddle; the dubious mystery of things would put off its enigma, its constant ambiguity, the tangled writings would become legible and intelligible. In this revelation, supermind would take its natural place and no longer be a matter of doubt or questioning to an intelligence bewildered by the complexity of the world; it would appear as the inevitable consequence of the nature of mind, life and Matter, the fulfilment of their meaning, their inherent principle and tendencies, the necessary perfection of their imperfection, the summit to which all are climbing, the consummation of divine existence, consciousness and bliss to which it is leading, the last result of the birth of things and supreme goal of this progressive manifestation which we see here in life.
The full emergence of supermind may be accomplished by a sovereign manifestation, a descent into earth-consciousness and a rapid assumption of its powers and disclosing of its forms and the creation of a supramental race and a supramental life: this must indeed be the full result of its action in Nature. But this has not been the habit of evolutionary Nature in the past upon earth and it may well be that this supramental evolution also will fix its own periods, though it cannot be at all a similar development to that of which earth has hitherto been the witness. But once it has begun, all must unavoidably and perfectly manifest and all parts of Nature must tend towards a greatest possible luminousness and perfection. It is this certainty that authorises us to believe
5.4.01 - Occult Knowledge, #Letters On Yoga I, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
What X said is true, the play of the forces is very complex and one has to be conscious of them and, as it were, see and watch how they work before one can really understand why things happen as they do. All action is surrounded by a complexity of forces and if one puts a force for one of them to succeed, one must be careful to do it thoroughly and maintain it and not leave doors open for the other contrary ones to find their way in. I left at least two doors open and the forces that wanted him [a sadhak] here pushed in through them. As for what they were, it can only be said that it was probably a mixture. Each man is himself a field of many forces - some were working for his sadhana, some were working for his ego and desires. There are besides powers which seek to make a man an instrument for purposes not his own without his knowing it. All of these may combine to bring about a particular result. These forces work each for the fulfilment of its own drive - they need not be at all what we call hostile forces, - they are simply forces of Nature.
It is not a fact however that hostile forces cannot bring a man here - e.g. when Y came back and wanted to enter the Asram, there was clearly a hostile force working that wanted to create trouble, but it was not strong enough to do it.
7.02 - The Mind, #Words Of The Mother II, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Aspiration of the mind for the supramental guidance: the mind feels that its complexity is powerless and asks for a greater light to illumine it.
Response of the mind to the supramental light: represents an important step towards realisation.
Blazing P2 - Map the Stages of Conventional Consciousness, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
conceptual complexity of the next stage. For example, at this level a person might say that
people should not have children unless they are married, or unless they are old enough. At
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An aspect of the characteristic conceptual complexity is that distinctions are made between,
say, moral standards and social manners or between moral and esthetic standards. Things are
Blazing P3 - Explore the Stages of Postconventional Consciousness, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
contradiction leads to greater conceptual complexity, shown by awareness of the
discrepancies between inner reality and outward appearances, between psychological and
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due to awareness of lifes complexity and individual differences; questions old identities;
more interested in personal accomplishments independent of socially sanctioned rewards;
increased understanding of complexity, systemic connections, and unintended effects of
actions; begins to question own assumptions and those of others; talks of interpretations
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Conceptual complexity is an outstanding sign of both the Autonomous and the Integrated
stages.
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construction of reality, complexity and interrelationships; problem finding not just creative
problem solving; aware of paradox and contradiction in system and self; sensitive to unique
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Brief History of Time; chaos and complexity theories; eco-industrial parks (using each others
outflows as raw materials)46
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solve tasks of this complexity. It may also take a certain amount of time and perspective to
realize that behavior or findings were crossparadigmatic. All that can be done at this time is
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becoming aware of the absurdities to which unbridled complexity and logical arguments can
lead.56
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Qualities: Highly aware of complexity of meaning making, systemic interactions, and
dynamic processes; seeks personal and spiritual transformation and supports others in their
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(not merely linear, digital, literal); may feel rarely understood in their complexity by others64
How influences others: Reframes, turns inside-out, upside-down, clowning, holding up
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in complexity; committed individualism; wounded healer 70
Truth: No matter what level of abstraction and what level of cognitive insight one gains, one
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during ordinary states, as well as the cognitive complexity that integrates altered-state
material into the intervals of ordinary awareness, are key distinguishers of Transcendent
BOOK II. -- PART III. ADDENDA. SCIENCE AND THE SECRET DOCTRINE CONTRASTED, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
degrees of complexity appear from time to time with comparative suddenness, being
evolved according to laws in part depending on surrounding conditions, in part internal - similar to the way in which crystals (and perhaps from recent researches the lowest
BOOK I. -- PART I. COSMIC EVOLUTION, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
intensity, complexity, etc. -- all, in the ultimate, resting on sensation, which is again Maya. Sensation,
again, necessarily postulates limitation. The personal God of orthodox Theism perceives, thinks, and
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stage of complexity. Again, apart from Cosmic Ideation, Cosmic Substance would remain an empty
abstraction, and no emergence of consciousness could ensue.
BS 1 - Introduction to the Idea of God, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
I think part of the reason that Islam has its back up with regards to the West, to such a degree theres many reasons, and not all of them are validis that, being still grounded in a dream, they can see that the rootless, questioning mind of the West poses a tremendous danger to the integrity of their culture, and it does. Westerners, uswe undermine ourselves all the time with our searching intellect. Im not complaining about that. There isnt anything easy that can be done about it. But its still a sort of fruitful catastrophe, and it has real effects on peoples lives. Its not some abstract thing. Lots of times when Ive been treating people with depression, for example, or anxiety, they have existential issues. Its not just some psychiatric condition. Its not just that theyre tapped off of normal because their brain chemistry is faultyalthough, sometimes that happens to be the case. Its that they are overwhelmed by the suffering and complexity of their life, and theyre not sure why its reasonable to continue with it. They can feel the terrible, negative meanings of life, but they are sceptical beyond belief about any of the positive meanings of it.
I had one client whos a very brilliant artist. As long as he didnt think, he was fine. Hed go and create, and he was really good at being an artist. He had that personality that was continually creating, and quite brilliant, although he was self-denigrating. But he sawed the branch off that he was sitting on, as soon as he started to think about what he was doing. Hed start to criticize what he was doing the utility of iteven though it was self-evidently useful. Then it would be very, very hard for him to even motivate himself to create. He always struck me as a good example of the consequences of having your rational intellect divorced, in some way, from your Beingdivorced enough so that it actually questions the utility of your Being. Its not a good thing.
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I want to understand why we are the way we are, looking at life in its continual complexity right from the beginning of life itself. Theres some real utility in that, because we share attri butes with other animalseven animals as simple as crustaceans, for example. Crustaceans have nervous system properties that are very much like ours, and its very much worth knowing that. I think in an evolutionary way. I think its a grand and remarkable way to think, because it has this incredible time span. Its this amazing I mean, people at the end of the 19th century, middle of the 19th century, really thought the world was about 6,000 years old. 15 billion years old is a lot more. Its a lot grander and bigger, but its also a lot more frightening and alienating, in some sense, because the cosmos has become so vast. Its easy for human beings to think of themselves as trivial specs on a trivial spec out some misbegotten hellhole-end-of-the-galaxy among hundreds of millions of galaxies.
Its very easy to see yourself as nothing in that span of time. Thats a real challenge for people. I think its a mistake to think that way, because I think consciousness is far more than we think it is. Its still something that we have to grapple with. Im a psychoanalytic thinker. What that means is that I believe that people are collections of subpersonalities, and that those subpersonalities are alive, not machines. They have their viewpoint; they have their wants; they have their perceptions; they have their arguments; they have their emotions. Theyre like low resolution representations of you.
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It seems, to me, tied into what I just mentioned. You destabilize yourself and things become chaotic, and that's not good. If you do not have a noble aim, you have nothing but shallow trivial pleasures, and they dont sustain you. Thats not good, because life is difficult. Theres so much suffering and complexity. It ends, everyone dies, and its painful. Without a noble aim, how can you withstand any of that? You cant; you become desperate. Things go from bad to worse very rapidly, when you become desperate. And so theres the idea of the noble aim, and its something thats necessary. Its the bread that people cannot live without. Its not mystical bread: its the noble aim. And what is that? It was encapsulated, in part, in the story of Marduk: its to pay attention, speak properly, confront chaos, and to make a better world. Its something like that. Thats enough of a noble aim so that you can stand up without cringing at the very thought of your own existenceso that you can do something thats worthwhile, to justify your wretched position on the planet.
The literary issue is that you can interpret a text in a variety of ways, but that's not right. This is where the postmodernists went wrong. What youre looking for in a textand in the world, for that matteris sufficient order and direction. We have to think, what does sufficient order and direction mean? You dont want to suffer so much that your life is unbearable. That just seems self-evident. Pain argues for itself. I think of pain as the fundamental reality, because no one disputes it. Even if you say that you don't believe in pain, it doesnt help when youre in pain. You still believe in it. You cant pry it up with logic and rationality. It just stands forth as the fundament of existence, and thats actually quite useful to knowto say you dont want any more of that than is absolutely necessary. I think thats self-evident.
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Ive already given you some hints about it. Weve extracted it in part from observations of our own behaviour and other peoples behaviour, and weve extracted it in part by the nature of our embodiment, thats been shaped over hundreds of millions of years. We see the infinite plane of facts, and we impose a moral interpretation on it. The moral interpretation is what to do about what is. Thats associated both with securitybecause you just dont need too much complexity and also with aim. Were mobile creatures, and we need to know where were going. All were ever concerned about, roughly speaking, is where were going. Thats what we need to know: where we are we going, what we are doing, and why. Thats not the same question as, what is the world made of, objectively? Its a different question. It requires different answers. Thats the domain of the moral, as far as Im concerned, which is, what are you aiming at? Thats the question of the ultimate ideal, in some sense. Even if you have trivial little fragmentary ideals, theres something trying to emerge out of that thats more coherent and more integrated and more applicable and more practical. And thats the other thing: you think about literature, and you think about art, and you think those arent very tightly tied to the earth. Theyre empyrean, airy, spiritual, and they dont seem practical. But Im a practical person.
Part of the reason that I want to assess these books from a literary, aesthetic, and evolutionary perspective is to extract out something of value thats practical. One of the rules that I have when Im lecturing is that I dont want to tell anybody anything that they cant use. I think of knowledge as a tool. Its something to implement in the world. Were tool-using creatures, and our knowledge is tools. We need tools to work in the world. We need tools to regulate our emotions, to make things better, to put an end to suffering to the degree that we can, to live with ourselves properly, and to stand up properly. You need the tools to do that. So I dont want to do anything in this lecture series that isnt practical. I want you to come away having things put together in a way that you can immediately apply. Im not interested in abstraction for the sake of abstraction. Its gotta make sense, because the more restrictions on your theory, the better. I want it all laid out causally, so that B follows A and B precedes C. That way its understandable and doesn't require any unnecessary leap of faith.
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To know that the Biblical stories have a phenomenological truth is really worth knowing. The poor fundamentalists are trying to cling to their moral structure. I understand why, because it does organize their societies and their psyche. So they've got something to cling to, but they don't have a very sophisticated idea of the complexity of what constitutes truth. They try to gerrymander the Biblical stories into the domain of scientific theorypromoting creationism, for example, as an alternative scientific theory. Its like, that just isnt going to go anywhere. The people who wrote these damned stories weren't scientists to begin with. There werent any scientists back thentheres hardly any scientists, now.
Really, its hard to think scientifically. Man, it takes a lot of training, and even scientists dont think scientifically once you get them out of the lab, and hardly even when theyre in the lab. You have to get peer-reviewed and criticized. Its hard to think scientifically. However, the people who wrote these stories thought more like how dramatists thinkmore like how Shakespeare thought but that doesnt mean there isnt truth in it. It just means you have to be a little bit more sophisticated about your ideas of truth, and thats ok. There are truths to live by. Ok, fine. We want to figure out what those are, because we need to live and maybe not to suffer so much. And so if you know that what the Bible stories, and stories in general, are trying to represent is the structure of the lived experience of conscious individuals, you open up the possibility of a whole different realm of understanding. It eliminates the contradiction thats been painful for people, between the objective world and the claims of religious stories.
ENNEAD 05.04 - How What is After the First Proceeds Therefrom; of the One., #Plotinus - Complete Works Vol 01, #Plotinus, #Christianity
1. Everything that exists after the First is derived therefrom, either directly or mediately, and constitutes a series of different orders such that the second can be traced back to the First, the third to the second, and so forth. Above all beings there must be Something simple and different from all the rest which would exist in itself, and which, without ever mingling with anything else, might nevertheless preside over everything, which might really be the One, and not that deceptive unity which is only the attribute of essence, and which would be a principle superior even to being, unreachable by speech, reason, or science. For if it be not completely simple, foreign to all complexity and composition, and be not really one, it could not be a principle. It is sovereignly absolute only because it is simple and first. For what is not first, is in need of superior things; what is not simple has need of being constituted by simple things. The Principle of everything must therefore be one and only. If it were admitted that there was a second principle of that kind, both would constitute but a single one. For we do not say that they are bodies, nor that the One and First is a body; for every body is composite and begotten, and consequently is not a principle; for a principle cannot be begotten.186 Therefore, since the135 principle of everything cannot be corporeal, because it must be essentially one, it must be the First.
THE FIRST NECESSARILY BEGETS A SECOND, WHICH MUST BE PERFECT.
Liber 111 - The Book of Wisdom - LIBER ALEPH VEL CXI, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
the Destruction of every complexity by Explosion of Ecstasy, as every
Element thereof is fulfilled by its Correlative, and is annihilated
Liber 71 - The Voice of the Silence - The Two Paths - The Seven Portals, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
this complexity is better than the Way of the Tao. It is probably a
perversion of taste, a spiritual caviar. But as the poet says:
LUX.02 - EVOCATION, #Liber Null, #Peter J Carroll, #Occultism
Theurgic Ritual depends solely on visualization and concentration on complex ceremonial to achieve focus. However the effect of increasing the complexity is often to create more distraction rather than draw attention to the matter at hand. Will becomes multiple and the result is often disappointing. Conjuration by prayer, supplication or comm and is rarely effective unless the appeal be desperate or prolonged till exhaustion ensues. This type of ritual can be improved by the use of poetic exaltation, chanting, ecstatic dancing, and drumming.
The Goetic tradition of the grimoires uses an additional technique. Terror. The grimoires were compiled by Catholic priests, and much of what they wrote was deliberate abomination in their own terms. Transport the whole rite to a graveyard or crypt at midnight and one has compounded a powerful mechanism for concentrating the Kia by paralyzing the peripheral functions of the mind by fear. If the magician can maintain control under these conditions his will is singular and mighty.
r1914 03 24, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
In the trikaldrishti a qualified authority is now enjoyed by the lipi, the written script, the articulate thought, & from today by the Vani & the unwritten Script; the perceptive thought is struggling towards this authority, but still hampered by inert & by tapasic suggestions which overstress a perception or which overshoot their mark. Today a more powerful movement of the perceptive thought, more readily, widely & accurately perceptive of the complex truth of forces & their results. If this tendency prevails, the lipi Tuesday & its interpretation will be amply justified. In any case, the claim of the tapasic devatas to be rendered effective before the knowledge is effective as knowledge, is from today rejected. As yet knowledge & force cannot become identical. Another attempt is also being made to cast out the relics of self from the environmental will. It is now evident that the whole difficulty which refuses to be still evicted, is the persistent survival of [Bhuvarmaya]1 Tapas and its attempt to profit by the vijnana instead of allowing the Swarvati Shakti to illumine itself in a pure desirelessness from the Mahas. Lipsa has been the excuse for this persistence & its distinction from Kama. But the lipsa must be a samalipsa ready entirely to take defeat as well as success and not choosing its will but leaving that to a higher Shakti than the Bhuvarmayi or manomayi. The whole trikaldrishti is still regulated by the idea of success & failure & therefore cannot free itself from overstress. The reason is that man is at present the Asura Rakshasa & seeks from the buddhi the satisfaction of the heart & senses. Therefore this particular nodus is so hard to unloose; because it is always this Asura Rakshasa who has to be liberated & fulfilled & the difficulty cannot be solved by casting him out & rising entirely into a higher principle. The Devasura variety of the Asura Rakshasa has to be established, not the pure Deva or even the pure Devasura. The crux is here, in the right solution of this complexity. There is a pull which would carry too high, there is a pull which would keep too low. Both have to be avoided.
Sortilege (1) (2) (3) . That is, the Ten Kumaras = the ten Purushas from Pashu to Siddhadeva. The present that is drawing to an end is the Rakshasa, whose typeis that of not . It is the species, long necked = eager, purified in body, mahat in the prana element, therefore with a mind that listens in the ananta dasha dishah for the sruti from the vijnana. The other that is coming is Anandamaya, born of the full enjoyment of the Prakriti, ie the Devasura. Balaka also means in the sortilege the young unfulfilled Prakriti. The Anandamaya Devasura has been prepared in the Rakshasa by the Gandharva type of Rakshasa who is also , born not of Prakritis full act of enjoyment, but of her full mood of enjoyment (the Gandharvi bhava in Mahasaraswati).
r1914 07 07, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Tertiary dasya is being resumed on a larger scale, in its full complexity.
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Sophist, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
Hence the importance of familiarizing the mind with forms which will assist us in conceiving or expressing the complex or contrary aspects of life and nature. The danger is that they may be too much for us, and obscure our appreciation of facts. As the complexity of mechanics cannot be understood without mathematics, so neither can the many-sidedness of the mental and moral world be truly apprehended without the assistance of new forms of thought. One of these forms is the unity of opposites. Abstractions have a great power over us, but they are apt to be partial and one-sided, and only when modified by other abstractions do they make an approach to the truth. Many a man has become a fatalist because he has fallen under the dominion of a single idea. He says to himself, for example, that he must be either free or necessaryhe cannot be both. Thus in the ancient world whole schools of philosophy passed away in the vain attempt to solve the problem of the continuity or divisibility of matter. And in comparatively modern times, though in the spirit of an ancient philosopher, Bishop Berkeley, feeling a similar perplexity, is inclined to deny the truth of infinitesimals in mathematics. Many difficulties arise in practical religion from the impossibility of conceiving body and mind at once and in adjusting their movements to one another. There is a border ground between them which seems to belong to both; and there is as much difficulty in conceiving the body without the soul as the soul without the body. To the 'either' and 'or' philosophy ('Everything is either A or not A') should at least be added the clause 'or neither,' 'or both.' The double form makes reflection easier and more conformable to experience, and also more comprehensive. But in order to avoid paradox and the danger of giving offence to the unmetaphysical part of mankind, we may speak of it as due to the imperfection of language or the limitation of human faculties. It is nevertheless a discovery which, in Platonic language, may be termed a 'most gracious aid to thought.'
The doctrine of opposite moments of thought or of progression by antagonism, further assists us in framing a scheme or system of the sciences. The negation of one gives birth to another of them. The double notions are the joints which hold them together. The simple is developed into the complex, the complex returns again into the simple. Beginning with the highest notion of mind or thought, we may descend by a series of negations to the first generalizations of sense. Or again we may begin with the simplest elements of sense and proceed upwards to the highest being or thought. Metaphysic is the negation or absorption of physiologyphysiology of chemistrychemistry of mechanical philosophy. Similarly in mechanics, when we can no further go we arrive at chemistrywhen chemistry becomes organic we arrive at physiology: when we pass from the outward and animal to the inward nature of man we arrive at moral and metaphysical philosophy. These sciences have each of them their own methods and are pursued independently of one another. But to the mind of the thinker they are all onelatent in one anotherdeveloped out of one another.
Talks 076-099, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
Maj. Chadwick: But people will not be content with simplicity; they want complexity.
M.: Quite so. Because they want something elaborate and attractive and puzzling, so many religions have come into existence and each of them is so complex and each creed in each religion has its own adherents and antagonists.
The Act of Creation text, #The Act of Creation, #Arthur Koestler, #Psychology
level of complexity produces a massive and sharply defined response on the
level of physiological reflexes. This paradox enables us to use the res-
--
Lastly, increased complexity means increased risks of breakdowns,
which can only be repaired by processes of the regenerative, reenter-
--
Proust, 'is a primary element of ordered complexity, that is to say, of
beauty/ 2 But this superimposition in our jargon, the bisociation of
--
in terms of levels of increasing complexity, then a difference in degrees does
become a difference in kind. Since the basic mechanisms of sexual reproduction
Theaetetus, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
Some dialogues of Plato are of so various a character that their relation to the other dialogues cannot be determined with any degree of certainty. The Theaetetus, like the Parmenides, has points of similarity both with his earlier and his later writings. The perfection of style, the humour, the dramatic interest, the complexity of structure, the fertility of illustration, the shifting of the points of view, are characteristic of his best period of authorship. The vain search, the negative conclusion, the figure of the midwives, the constant profession of ignorance on the part of Socrates, also bear the stamp of the early dialogues, in which the original Socrates is not yet Platonized. Had we no other indications, we should be disposed to range the Theaetetus with the Apology and the Phaedrus, and perhaps even with the Protagoras and the Laches.
But when we pass from the style to an examination of the subject, we trace a connection with the later rather than with the earlier dialogues. In the first place there is the connexion, indicated by Plato himself at the end of the dialogue, with the Sophist, to which in many respects the Theaetetus is so little akin. (1) The same persons reappear, including the younger Socrates, whose name is just mentioned in the Theaetetus; (2) the theory of rest, which Socrates has declined to consider, is resumed by the Eleatic Stranger; (3) there is a similar allusion in both dialogues to the meeting of Parmenides and Socrates (Theaet., Soph.); and (4) the inquiry into not-being in the Sophist supplements the question of false opinion which is raised in the Theaetetus. (Compare also Theaet. and Soph. for parallel turns of thought.) Secondly, the later date of the dialogue is confirmed by the absence of the doctrine of recollection and of any doctrine of ideas except that which derives them from generalization and from reflection of the mind upon itself. The general character of the Theaetetus is dialectical, and there are traces of the same Megarian influences which appear in the Parmenides, and which later writers, in their matter of fact way, have explained by the residence of Plato at Megara. Socrates disclaims the character of a professional eristic, and also, with a sort of ironical admiration, expresses his inability to attain the Megarian precision in the use of terms. Yet he too employs a similar sophistical skill in overturning every conceivable theory of knowledge.
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1. The senses are not merely 'holes set in a wooden horse' (Theaet.), but instruments of the mind with which they are organically connected. There is no use of them without some use of wordssome natural or latent logicsome previous experience or observation. Sensation, like all other mental processes, is complex and relative, though apparently simple. The senses mutually confirm and support one another; it is hard to say how much our impressions of hearing may be affected by those of sight, or how far our impressions of sight may be corrected by the touch, especially in infancy. The confirmation of them by one another cannot of course be given by any one of them. Many intuitions which are inseparable from the act of sense are really the result of complicated reasonings. The most cursory glance at objects enables the experienced eye to judge approximately of their relations and distance, although nothing is impressed upon the retina except colour, including gradations of light and shade. From these delicate and almost imperceptible differences we seem chiefly to derive our ideas of distance and position. By comparison of what is near with what is distant we learn that the tree, house, river, etc. which are a long way off are objects of a like nature with those which are seen by us in our immediate neighbourhood, although the actual impression made on the eye is very different in one case and in the other. This is a language of 'large and small letters' (Republic), slightly differing in form and exquisitely graduated by distance, which we are learning all our life long, and which we attain in various degrees according to our powers of sight or observation. There is nor the consideration. The greater or less strain upon the nerves of the eye or ear is communicated to the mind and silently informs the judgment. We have also the use not of one eye only, but of two, which give us a wider range, and help us to discern, by the greater or less acuteness of the angle which the rays of sight form, the distance of an object and its relation to other objects. But we are already passing beyond the limits of our actual knowledge on a subject which has given rise to many conjectures. More important than the addition of another conjecture is the observation, whether in the case of sight or of any other sense, of the great complexity of the causes and the great simplicity of the effect.
The sympathy of the mind and the ear is no less striking than the sympathy of the mind and the eye. Do we not seem to perceive instinctively and as an act of sense the differences of articulate speech and of musical notes? Yet how small a part of speech or of music is produced by the impression of the ear compared with that which is furnished by the mind!
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The system which has thus arisen appears to be a kind of metaphysic narrowed to the point of view of the individual mind, through which, as through some new optical instrument limiting the sphere of vision, the interior of thought and sensation is examined. But the individual mind in the abstract, as distinct from the mind of a particular individual and separated from the environment of circumstances, is a fiction only. Yet facts which are partly true gather around this fiction and are naturally described by the help of it. There is also a common type of the mind which is derived from the comparison of many minds with one another and with our own. The phenomena of which Psychology treats are familiar to us, but they are for the most part indefinite; they relate to a something inside the body, which seems also to overleap the limits of space. The operations of this something, when isolated, cannot be analyzed by us or subjected to observation and experiment. And there is another point to be considered. The mind, when thinking, cannot survey that part of itself which is used in thought. It can only be contemplated in the past, that is to say, in the history of the individual or of the world. This is the scientific method of studying the mind. But Psychology has also some other supports, specious rather than real. It is partly sustained by the false analogy of Physical Science and has great expectations from its near relationship to Physiology. We truly remark that there is an infinite complexity of the body corresponding to the infinite subtlety of the mind; we are conscious that they are very nearly connected. But in endeavouring to trace the nature of the connexion we are baffled and disappointed. In our knowledge of them the gulf remains the same: no microscope has ever seen into thought; no reflection on ourselves has supplied the missing link between mind and matter...These are the conditions of this very inexact science, and we shall only know less of it by pretending to know more, or by assigning to it a form or style to which it has not yet attained and is not really entitled.
Experience shows that any system, however baseless and ineffectual, in our own or in any other age, may be accepted and continue to be studied, if it seeks to satisfy some unanswered question or is based upon some ancient tradition, especially if it takes the form and uses the language of inductive philosophy. The fact therefore that such a science exists and is popular, affords no evidence of its truth or value. Many who have pursued it far into detail have never examined the foundations on which it rests. The have been many imaginary subjects of knowledge of which enthusiastic persons have made a lifelong study, without ever asking themselves what is the evidence for them, what is the use of them, how long they will last? They may pass away, like the authors of them, and 'leave not a wrack behind;' or they may survive in fragments. Nor is it only in the Middle Ages, or in the literary desert of China or of India, that such systems have arisen; in our own enlightened age, growing up by the side of Physics, Ethics, and other really progressive sciences, there is a weary waste of knowledge, falsely so-called. There are sham sciences which no logic has ever put to the test, in which the desire for knowledge invents the materials of it.
The Dwellings of the Philosophers, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
fathomed all its mysteries. Alas, the complexity of their theories, amount of words created to
explain the inexplicable, and above all, the pernicious influence of materialistic education,
--
Whatever their shape, whatever the complexity of their layout, the labyrinths are eloquent
symbols of the Great Work, considered with regard to its material realization. Therefore we
The Logomachy of Zos, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
What do we know for certain? In the complexity of differences we become
endowed with pretence and dogmatize our lies.
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increasing complexity of matter, as body-entity. T
Mind, Ego and Body, with their inexact duplications, baffle and bewilder
The Lottery in Babylon, #Labyrinths, #Jorge Luis Borges, #Poetry
There were disturbances, there were lamentable effusions of blood; but the Babylonian people finally imposed their will and they achieved their generous ends against the opposition of the rich. Firstly, they forced the Company to assume full public power. (This unification was necessary given the vastness and complexity of the new operations.) Secondly, they made the lottery secret, general and free of charge. The mercenary sale of lots was abolished. Once initiated into the mysteries of Bel, all free men automatically took part in the sacred drawings of lots, all of which were held in the labyrinths of the god every sixty nights and determined each man's destiny until the subsequent drawing. The consequences were incalculable. A happy drawing could instigate one's elevation to the council of magi or the imprisonment of an enemy (well-known or private) or, in the peaceful dark of one's room, one's meeting the woman who has begun to make one fluster or who one was never expecting to see again; an adverse drawing: mutilation, a variety of infamies, death. Sometimes a single event - C's assassination in a tavern, B's mysterious apotheosis - was the brilliant result of thirty or forty drawings. Combining bets was difficult; we must remember, though, that the individuals of the Company were (and are) all-powerful and astute. In many cases, the knowledge that certain joys were simple fabrications of chance would have diminished their moral worth; to avoid this inconvenience, agents of the Company made use of suggestion and magic. Their moves, their manipulations, were secret. To get at everybody's innermost hopes and fears, astrologers and spies were employed. There were certain stone lions, there was a sacred latrine called Qaphqa, there were fissures in a dusty aqueduct all of which, according to general opinion, led to the Company; persons malign or benevolent deposited exposs in these sites. An alphabetical archive collected these reports of varying veracity.
Incredibly, grumbling abounded. The Company, with its habitual discretion, did not reply directly. It preferred to scribble in the rubble of a mask factory a short line of reasoning which now forms part of the sacred scriptures. This doctrinal piece observed that the lottery is an interpolation of chance into the order of the world and that the acceptance of errors is not the contradiction of chance, but its corroboration. It observed also that those lions and the sacred squatting place, although not disclaimed by the Company (which did not renounce the right to consult them), functioned without official guarantee.
The Monadology, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
61. And compounds are in this respect analogous with [symbolisent avec] simple substances. For all is a plenum (and thus all matter is connected together) and in the plenum every motion has an effect upon distant bodies in proportion to their distance, so that each body not only is affected by those which are in contact with it and in some way feels the effect of everything that happens to them, but also is mediately affected by bodies adjoining those with which it itself is in immediate contact. Wherefore it follows that this inter-communication of things extends to any distance, however great. And consequently every body feels the effect of all that takes place in the universe, so that he who sees all might read in each what is happening everywhere, and even what has happened or shall happen, observing in the present that which is far off as well in time as in place: sympnoia panta, as Hippocrates said. But a soul can read in itself only that which is there represented distinctly; it cannot all at once unroll everything that is enfolded in it, for its complexity is infinite.
62. Thus, although each created Monad represents the whole universe, it represents more distinctly the body which specially pertains to it, and of which it is the entelechy; and as this body expresses the whole universe through the connexion of all matter in the plenum, the soul also represents the whole universe in representing this body, which belongs to it in a special way. (Theod. 400.)
The Shadow Out Of Time, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
though of much complexity and indisputable newness, it reproduced in every least
particular the mystifying words of the strange Arkham patient of 1908.
Timaeus, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
Thus was time made in the image of the eternal nature; and it was created together with the heavens, in order that if they were dissolved, it might perish with them. And God made the sun and moon and five other wanderers, as they are called, seven in all, and to each of them he gave a body moving in an orbit, being one of the seven orbits into which the circle of the other was divided. He put the moon in the orbit which was nearest to the earth, the sun in that next, the morning star and Mercury in the orbits which move opposite to the sun but with equal swiftnessthis being the reason why they overtake and are overtaken by one another. All these bodies became living creatures, and learnt their appointed tasks, and began to move, the nearer more swiftly, the remoter more slowly, according to the diagonal movement of the other. And since this was controlled by the movement of the same, the seven planets in their courses appeared to describe spirals; and that appeared fastest which was slowest, and that which overtook others appeared to be overtaken by them. And God lighted a fire in the second orbit from the earth which is called the sun, to give light over the whole heaven, and to teach intelligent beings that knowledge of number which is derived from the revolution of the same. Thus arose day and night, which are the periods of the most intelligent nature; a month is created by the revolution of the moon, a year by that of the sun. Other periods of wonderful length and complexity are not observed by men in general; there is moreover a cycle or perfect year at the completion of which they all meet and coincide...To this end the stars came into being, that the created heaven might imitate the eternal nature.
Thus far the universal animal was made in the divine image, but the other animals were not as yet included in him. And God created them according to the patterns or species of them which existed in the divine original. There are four of them: one of gods, another of birds, a third of fishes, and a fourth of animals. The gods were made in the form of a circle, which is the most perfect figure and the figure of the universe. They were created chiefly of fire, that they might be bright, and were made to know and follow the best, and to be scattered over the heavens, of which they were to be the glory. Two kinds of motion were assigned to themfirst, the revolution in the same and around the same, in peaceful unchanging thought of the same; and to this was added a forward motion which was under the control of the same. Thus then the fixed stars were created, being divine and eternal animals, revolving on the same spot, and the wandering stars, in their courses, were created in the manner already described. The earth, which is our nurse, clinging around the pole extended through the universe, he made to be the guardian and artificer of night and day, first and eldest of gods that are in the interior of heaven. Vain would be the labour of telling all the figures of them, moving as in dance, and their juxta-positions and approximations, and when and where and behind what other stars they appear to disappearto tell of all this without looking at a plan of them would be labour in vain.
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The revolution of the world around earth, which is accomplished in a single day and night, is described as being the most perfect or intelligent. Yet Plato also speaks of an 'annus magnus' or cyclical year, in which periods wonderful for their complexity are found to coincide in a perfect number, i.e. a number which equals the sum of its factors, as 6 = 1 + 2 + 3. This, although not literally contradictory, is in spirit irreconcilable with the perfect revolution of twenty-four hours. The same remark may be applied to the complexity of the appearances and occultations of the stars, which, if the outer heaven is supposed to be moving around the centre once in twenty-four hours, must be confined to the effects produced by the seven planets. Plato seems to confuse the actual observation of the heavens with his desire to find in them mathematical perfection. The same spirit is carried yet further by him in the passage already quoted from the Laws, in which he affirms their wanderings to be an appearance only, which a little knowledge of mathematics would enable men to correct.
We have now to consider the much discussed question of the rotation or immobility of the earth. Plato's doctrine on this subject is contained in the following words:'The earth, which is our nurse, compacted (OR revolving) around the pole which is extended through the universe, he made to be the guardian and artificer of night and day, first and eldest of gods that are in the interior of heaven'. There is an unfortunate doubt in this passage (1) about the meaning of the word (Greek), which is translated either 'compacted' or 'revolving,' and is equally capable of both explanations. A doubt (2) may also be raised as to whether the words 'artificer of day and night' are consistent with the mere passive causation of them, produced by the immobility of the earth in the midst of the circling universe. We must admit, further, (3) that Aristotle attri buted to Plato the doctrine of the rotation of the earth on its axis. On the other hand it has been urged that if the earth goes round with the outer heaven and sun in twenty-four hours, there is no way of accounting for the alternation of day and night; since the equal motion of the earth and sun would have the effect of absolute immobility. To which it may be replied that Plato never says that the earth goes round with the outer heaven and sun; although the whole question depends on the relation of earth and sun, their movements are nowhere precisely described. But if we suppose, with Mr. Grote, that the diurnal rotation of the earth on its axis and the revolution of the sun and outer heaven precisely coincide, it would be difficult to imagine that Plato was unaware of the consequence. For though he was ignorant of many things which are familiar to us, and often confused in his ideas where we have become clear, we have no right to attri bute to him a childish want of reasoning about very simple facts, or an inability to understand the necessary and obvious deductions from geometrical figures or movements. Of the causes of day and night the pre-Socratic philosophers, and especially the Pythagoreans, gave various accounts, and therefore the question can hardly be imagined to have escaped him. On the other hand it may be urged that the further step, however simple and obvious, is just what Plato often seems to be ignorant of, and that as there is no limit to his insight, there is also no limit to the blindness which sometimes obscures his intelligence (compare the construction of solids out of surfaces in his account of the creation of the world, or the attraction of similars to similars). Further, Mr. Grote supposes, not that (Greek) means 'revolving,' or that this is the sense in which Aristotle understood the word, but that the rotation of the earth is necessarily implied in its adherence to the cosmical axis. But (a) if, as Mr Grote assumes, Plato did not see that the rotation of the earth on its axis and of the sun and outer heavens around the earth in equal times was inconsistent with the alternation of day and night, neither need we suppose that he would have seen the immobility of the earth to be inconsistent with the rotation of the axis. And (b) what proof is there that the axis of the world revolves at all? (c) The comparison of the two passages quoted by Mr Grote (see his pamphlet on 'The Rotation of the Earth') from Aristotle De Coelo, Book II (Greek) clearly shows, although this is a matter of minor importance, that Aristotle, as Proclus and Simplicius supposed, understood (Greek) in the Timaeus to mean 'revolving.' For the second passage, in which motion on an axis is expressly mentioned, refers to the first, but this would be unmeaning unless (Greek) in the first passage meant rotation on an axis. (4) The immobility of the earth is more in accordance with Plato's other writings than the opposite hypothesis. For in the Phaedo the earth is described as the centre of the world, and is not said to be in motion. In the Republic the pilgrims appear to be looking out from the earth upon the motions of the heavenly bodies; in the Phaedrus, Hestia, who remains immovable in the house of Zeus while the other gods go in procession, is called the first and eldest of the gods, and is probably the symbol of the earth. The silence of Plato in these and in some other passages (Laws) in which he might be expected to speak of the rotation of the earth, is more favourable to the doctrine of its immobility than to the opposite. If he had meant to say that the earth revolves on its axis, he would have said so in distinct words, and have explained the relation of its movements to those of the other heavenly bodies. (5) The meaning of the words 'artificer of day and night' is literally true according to Plato's view. For the alternation of day and night is not produced by the motion of the heavens alone, or by the immobility of the earth alone, but by both together; and that which has the inherent force or energy to remain at rest when all other bodies are moving, may be truly said to act, equally with them. (6) We should not lay too much stress on Aristotle or the writer De Caelo having adopted the other interpretation of the words, although Alexander of Aphrodisias thinks that he could not have been ignorant either of the doctrine of Plato or of the sense which he intended to give to the word (Greek). For the citations of Plato in Aristotle are frequently misinterpreted by him; and he seems hardly ever to have had in his mind the connection in which they occur. In this instance the allusion is very slight, and there is no reason to suppose that the diurnal revolution of the heavens was present to his mind. Hence we need not attri bute to him the error from which we are defending Plato.
--
There is no principle so apparent in the physics of the Timaeus, or in ancient physics generally, as that of continuity. The world is conceived of as a whole, and the elements are formed into and out of one another; the varieties of substances and processes are hardly known or noticed. And in a similar manner the human body is conceived of as a whole, and the different substances of which, to a superficial observer, it appears to be composedthe blood, flesh, sinewslike the elements out of which they are formed, are supposed to pass into one another in regular order, while the infinite complexity of the human frame remains unobserved. And diseases arise from the opposite processwhen the natural proportions of the four elements are disturbed, and the secondary substances which are formed out of them, namely, blood, flesh, sinews, are generated in an inverse order.
Plato found heat and air within the human frame, and the blood circulating in every part. He assumes in language almost unintelligible to us that a network of fire and air envelopes the greater part of the body. This outer net contains two lesser nets, one corresponding to the stomach, the other to the lungs; and the entrance to the latter is forked or divided into two passages which lead to the nostrils and to the mouth. In the process of respiration the external net is said to find a way in and out of the pores of the skin: while the interior of it and the lesser nets move alternately into each other. The whole description is figurative, as Plato himself implies when he speaks of a 'fountain of fire which we compare to the network of a creel.' He really means by this what we should describe as a state of heat or temperature in the interior of the body. The 'fountain of fire' or heat is also in a figure the circulation of the blood. The passage is partly imagination, partly fact.
--
The greatest 'divination' of the ancients was the supremacy which they assigned to mathematics in all the realms of nature; for in all of them there is a foundation of mechanics. Even physiology partakes of figure and number; and Plato is not wrong in attri buting them to the human frame, but in the omission to observe how little could be explained by them. Thus we may remark in passing that the most fanciful of ancient philosophies is also the most nearly verified in fact. The fortunate guess that the world is a sum of numbers and figures has been the most fruitful of anticipations. The 'diatonic' scale of the Pythagoreans and Plato suggested to Kepler that the secret of the distances of the planets from one another was to be found in mathematical proportions. The doctrine that the heavenly bodies all move in a circle is known by us to be erroneous; but without such an error how could the human mind have comprehended the heavens? Astronomy, even in modern times, has made far greater progress by the high a priori road than could have been attained by any other. Yet, strictly speakingand the remark applies to ancient physics generallythis high a priori road was based upon a posteriori grounds. For there were no facts of which the ancients were so well assured by experience as facts of number. Having observed that they held good in a few instances, they applied them everywhere; and in the complexity, of which they were capable, found the explanation of the equally complex phenomena of the universe. They seemed to see them in the least things as well as in the greatest; in atoms, as well as in suns and stars; in the human body as well as in external nature. And now a favourite speculation of modern chemistry is the explanation of qualitative difference by quantitative, which is at present verified to a certain extent and may hereafter be of far more universal application. What is this but the atoms of Democritus and the triangles of Plato? The ancients should not be wholly deprived of the credit of their guesses because they were unable to prove them. May they not have had, like the animals, an instinct of something more than they knew?
Besides general notions we seem to find in the Timaeus some more precise approximations to the discoveries of modern physical science. First, the doctrine of equipoise. Plato affirms, almost in so many words, that nature abhors a vacuum. Whenever a particle is displaced, the rest push and thrust one another until equality is restored. We must remember that these ideas were not derived from any definite experiment, but were the original reflections of man, fresh from the first observation of nature. The latest word of modern philosophy is continuity and development, but to Plato this is the beginning and foundation of science; there is nothing that he is so strongly persuaded of as that the world is one, and that all the various existences which are contained in it are only the transformations of the same soul of the world acting on the same matter. He would have readily admitted that out of the protoplasm all things were formed by the gradual process of creation; but he would have insisted that mind and intelligencenot meaning by this, however, a conscious mind or personwere prior to them, and could alone have created them. Into the workings of this eternal mind or intelligence he does not enter further; nor would there have been any use in attempting to investigate the things which no eye has seen nor any human language can express.
--- Overview of noun complexity
The noun complexity has 1 sense (first 1 from tagged texts)
1. (10) complexity, complexness ::: (the quality of being intricate and compounded; "he enjoyed the complexity of modern computers")
--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun complexity
1 sense of complexity
Sense 1
complexity, complexness
=> quality
=> attribute
=> abstraction, abstract entity
=> entity
--- Hyponyms of noun complexity
1 sense of complexity
Sense 1
complexity, complexness
=> complicatedness, complication, knottiness, tortuousness
=> elaborateness, elaboration, intricacy, involution
=> tapestry
=> trickiness
--- Synonyms/Hypernyms (Ordered by Estimated Frequency) of noun complexity
1 sense of complexity
Sense 1
complexity, complexness
=> quality
--- Coordinate Terms (sisters) of noun complexity
1 sense of complexity
Sense 1
complexity, complexness
-> quality
=> appearance, visual aspect
=> attraction, attractiveness
=> clearness, clarity, uncloudedness
=> opacity, opaqueness
=> divisibility
=> ease, easiness, simplicity, simpleness
=> difficulty, difficultness
=> combustibility, combustibleness, burnability
=> suitability, suitableness
=> arability
=> impressiveness
=> navigability
=> neediness
=> painfulness, distressingness
=> piquancy, piquance, piquantness
=> publicity
=> spinnability
=> unsuitability, unsuitableness, ineptness
=> protectiveness
=> nature
=> humanness, humanity, manhood
=> air, aura, atmosphere
=> excellence
=> ultimate
=> characteristic
=> salability, salableness
=> changeableness, changeability
=> changelessness, unchangeability, unchangeableness, unchangingness
=> sameness
=> difference
=> certainty, sure thing, foregone conclusion
=> probability
=> uncertainty, uncertainness, precariousness
=> factuality, factualness
=> counterfactuality
=> materiality, physicalness, corporeality, corporality
=> immateriality, incorporeality
=> particularity, specialness
=> generality
=> simplicity, simpleness
=> complexity, complexness
=> regularity
=> irregularity, unregularity
=> mobility
=> immobility
=> pleasantness, sweetness
=> unpleasantness
=> credibility, credibleness, believability
=> incredibility, incredibleness
=> logicality, logicalness
=> illogicality, illogicalness, illogic, inconsequence
=> naturalness
=> unnaturalness
=> virtu, vertu
=> wholesomeness
=> unwholesomeness, morbidness, morbidity
=> satisfactoriness
=> unsatisfactoriness
=> ordinariness, mundaneness, mundanity
=> extraordinariness
=> ethnicity
=> foreignness, strangeness, curiousness
=> nativeness
=> originality
=> unoriginality
=> correctness, rightness
=> incorrectness, wrongness
=> accuracy, truth
=> accuracy
=> inaccuracy
=> distinction
=> popularity
=> unpopularity
=> lawfulness
=> unlawfulness
=> elegance
=> elegance
=> inelegance
=> urbanity
=> comprehensibility, understandability
=> expressiveness
=> incomprehensibility
=> humaneness
=> inhumaneness, inhumanity
=> morality
=> immorality
=> amorality
=> divinity
=> holiness, sanctity, sanctitude
=> ideality
=> unholiness
=> parental quality
=> fidelity, faithfulness
=> infidelity, unfaithfulness
=> sophistication, worldliness, mundaneness, mundanity
=> naivete, naivety, naiveness
=> hardness
=> penetrability, perviousness
=> impenetrability, imperviousness
=> soapiness
=> fibrosity, fibrousness
=> directivity, directiveness
=> extremeness
=> stuffiness, closeness
=> sufficiency, adequacy
=> worth
=> worthlessness, ineptitude
=> good, goodness
=> bad, badness
=> fruitfulness, fecundity
=> fruitlessness, aridity, barrenness
=> utility, usefulness
=> inutility, uselessness, unusefulness
=> asset, plus
=> constructiveness
=> destructiveness
=> positivity, positiveness, positivism
=> negativity, negativeness, negativism
=> occidentalism
=> orientalism
=> power, powerfulness
=> ability
=> powerlessness, impotence, impotency
=> inability, unfitness
=> romanticism, romance
=> domesticity
=> infiniteness, infinitude, unboundedness, boundlessness, limitlessness
=> finiteness, finitude, boundedness
=> quantifiability, measurability
=> solubility
=> insolubility
=> stuff
=> hot stuff, voluptuousness
=> humor, humour
=> pathos, poignancy
=> tone
=> brachycephaly, brachycephalism
=> dolichocephaly, dolichocephalism
=> relativity
=> responsiveness
=> unresponsiveness, deadness
=> subjectivism
=> snootiness
=> ulteriority
=> memorability
=> woodiness, woodsiness
=> waxiness
--- Grep of noun complexity
complexity
Wikipedia - Abstraction (computer science) -- Technique for arranging complexity of computer systems
Wikipedia - AC0 (complexity)
Wikipedia - Accidental complexity
Wikipedia - AC (complexity)
Wikipedia - Advice (complexity) -- Computational input that relies on the length but not content of the input
Wikipedia - Algorithmic complexity theory
Wikipedia - ALL (complexity)
Wikipedia - AM (complexity)
Wikipedia - Arithmetical hierarchy -- Hierarchy of complexity classes for formulas defining sets
Wikipedia - Arthur-Merlin protocol -- Interactive proof system in computational complexity theory
Wikipedia - Asymptotic complexity
Wikipedia - Asymptotic computational complexity
Wikipedia - Average-case complexity
Wikipedia - Biocomplexity Institute of Virginia Tech -- Research organization for computational biology and related fields
Wikipedia - Biocomplexity
Wikipedia - Blum complexity axioms
Wikipedia - Blum's speedup theorem -- Rules out assigning to arbitrary functions their computational complexity
Wikipedia - BPL (complexity)
Wikipedia - BPP (complexity)
Wikipedia - Category:Complexity classes
Wikipedia - Category:Computational complexity theory
Wikipedia - Category:Descriptive complexity
Wikipedia - Category:Fellows of the International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design
Wikipedia - Category:Measures of complexity
Wikipedia - Category:Structural complexity theory
Wikipedia - Category:Theorems in computational complexity theory
Wikipedia - CC (complexity)
Wikipedia - Certificate (complexity)
Wikipedia - Chain rule for Kolmogorov complexity
Wikipedia - Circuit complexity
Wikipedia - Communication complexity
Wikipedia - Complement (complexity)
Wikipedia - Complete (complexity)
Wikipedia - Complexity analysis
Wikipedia - Complexity and Real Computation
Wikipedia - Complexity classes
Wikipedia - Complexity class -- Set of problems in computational complexity theory
Wikipedia - Complexity (disambiguation)
Wikipedia - Complexity economics
Wikipedia - Complexity of constraint satisfaction
Wikipedia - Complexity Science Hub Vienna
Wikipedia - Complexity science
Wikipedia - Complexity theory and organizations -- Application of complexity theory to strategy
Wikipedia - Complexity theory (disambiguation)
Wikipedia - Complexity -- Properties of systems that cannot be simply described or modeled
Wikipedia - Complexity Zoo
Wikipedia - Computational Complexity Conference
Wikipedia - Computational complexity of mathematical operations
Wikipedia - Computational complexity theory -- Study of inherent difficulty of computational problems
Wikipedia - Computational complexity
Wikipedia - Context of computational complexity
Wikipedia - Counting problem (complexity) -- Type of computational problem
Wikipedia - Cyclomatic complexity
Wikipedia - Decision tree complexity
Wikipedia - Descriptive complexity theory
Wikipedia - Descriptive Complexity
Wikipedia - Descriptive complexity
Wikipedia - Design predicates -- Method to quantify the complexity of software integrations
Wikipedia - Earth systems model of intermediate complexity -- Class of climate models
Wikipedia - Economic complexity index
Wikipedia - Electronic Colloquium on Computational Complexity
Wikipedia - EQP (complexity)
Wikipedia - Espresso heuristic logic minimizer -- computer program for complexity reduction of digital logic circuits
Wikipedia - Essential complexity (numerical measure of "structuredness")
Wikipedia - Evolution of biological complexity -- The tendency for maximum complexity to increase over time, though without any overall direction
Wikipedia - Evolution of complexity
Wikipedia - EXPTIME -- Algorithmic complexity class
Wikipedia - Fagin's theorem -- Set of all properties in existential 2nd order logic is the complexity class NP
Wikipedia - Flesch-Kincaid readability tests -- Indicator for the complexity of texts
Wikipedia - Forecasting complexity
Wikipedia - FP (complexity)
Wikipedia - Fractal dimension -- A ratio providing a statistical index of complexity variation with scale
Wikipedia - Frugal innovation -- process of reducing the complexity and cost of a good and its production
Wikipedia - Fundamental theorem of software engineering -- A general principle for managing complexity through abstraction
Wikipedia - Game complexity
Wikipedia - Game tree complexity
Wikipedia - Game-tree complexity
Wikipedia - GapP -- Complexity class
Wikipedia - Gap theorem -- There are arbitrarily large computable gaps in the hierarchy of complexity classes
Wikipedia - Halstead complexity measures -- Software maintainability index
Wikipedia - Height function -- Mathematical functions that quantify complexity
Wikipedia - Immerman-Szelepcsenyi theorem -- Nondeterministic space complexity classes are closed under complementation
Wikipedia - Information based complexity
Wikipedia - Information-based complexity
Wikipedia - Information fluctuation complexity
Wikipedia - Integrative complexity -- A research psychometric
Wikipedia - Intractability (complexity)
Wikipedia - IP (complexity)
Wikipedia - Irreducible complexity -- Argument by proponents of intelligent design that certain biological systems are too complex to have evolved
Wikipedia - Kolmogorov complexity -- Measure of algorithmic complexity
Wikipedia - Largest-scale trends in evolution -- The low end minimum limit for complexity of living organisms may result in a general gradual trend for increased complexity over time
Wikipedia - Law of Complexity/Consciousness
Wikipedia - Law of conservation of complexity
Wikipedia - L (complexity) -- Complexity class (logarithmic space)
Wikipedia - Level of detail (computer graphics) -- Adjusting the complexity of a 3D model representation to save storage and computation
Wikipedia - List of complexity classes -- Wikipedia list article
Wikipedia - List of computability and complexity topics -- Wikipedia list article
Wikipedia - List of countries by economic complexity -- Wikipedia list article
Wikipedia - Low-complexity art
Wikipedia - Max/min CSP/Ones classification theorems -- On the complexity classes of problems about satisfying a subset of boolean relations
Wikipedia - M-bM-^YM-/P-complete -- Complexity class
Wikipedia - M-bM-^YM-/P -- Complexity class
Wikipedia - Model of hierarchical complexity -- A framework for scoring how complex a behavior is
Wikipedia - Natural proof -- Provides lower bounds on the circuit complexity of boolean functions
Wikipedia - NC (complexity)
Wikipedia - New Complexity
Wikipedia - NL (complexity)
Wikipedia - NP (complexity)
Wikipedia - NP-hardness -- Complexity class
Wikipedia - Parameterized complexity
Wikipedia - P (complexity class)
Wikipedia - P (complexity)
Wikipedia - PH (complexity)
Wikipedia - PP (complexity)
Wikipedia - PR (complexity)
Wikipedia - Programming Complexity
Wikipedia - Programming complexity
Wikipedia - Progressive pop -- Pop music genre that emphasizes complexity and form
Wikipedia - Proof complexity
Wikipedia - Pseudo-polynomial transformation -- A function used in computational complexity theory
Wikipedia - PSPACE (complexity)
Wikipedia - QIP (complexity)
Wikipedia - Quantum complexity theory
Wikipedia - Query (complexity)
Wikipedia - Query complexity
Wikipedia - R (complexity)
Wikipedia - RE (complexity)
Wikipedia - Reduction (complexity)
Wikipedia - RL (complexity)
Wikipedia - RLP (complexity)
Wikipedia - RP (complexity) -- Randomized polynomial time class of computational complexity theory
Wikipedia - Run-time complexity
Wikipedia - Sample complexity
Wikipedia - SC (complexity)
Wikipedia - SL (complexity)
Wikipedia - Social complexity
Wikipedia - Sociology and complexity science
Wikipedia - Software complexity
Wikipedia - Space complexity
Wikipedia - Strahler number -- Measure of the branching complexity
Wikipedia - Structural complexity theory
Wikipedia - Structure of observed learning outcome -- Model of levels of increasing complexity in understanding
Wikipedia - TC0 -- Complexity class used in circuit complexity
Wikipedia - Template talk:Complexity classes
Wikipedia - The Complexity of Songs
Wikipedia - The Observatory of Economic Complexity
Wikipedia - Thorngate's postulate of commensurate complexity
Wikipedia - Time complexity
Wikipedia - UP (complexity)
Wikipedia - Volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity -- Concept in leadership studies
Wikipedia - Worst-case complexity
Wikipedia - ZPL (complexity)
Wikipedia - ZPP (complexity)
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12390341-why-philosophers-should-care-about-computational-complexity
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1299443.Complexity_and_the_Function_of_Mind_in_Nature
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16387421-the-atlas-of-economic-complexity---mapping-paths-to-prosperity
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16796656-intentional-change-from-a-complexity-perspective-journal-of-management
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17070430-the-complexity-of-greatness
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17846702-complexity-science-and-world-affairs
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1893510.The_Complexity_Advantage
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20553397-bootstrapping-complexity
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22020566-complexity
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22262022-complexity-and-ambiguity
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22693584-complexity-and-the-economy
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29889496-complexity-and-evolution
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30220984-communication-complexity
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30333246-complexity
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/337123.Complexity
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34848860-complexity-and-evolution
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35470796-economic-foundations-for-social-complexity-science
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3619828-planning-geometry-and-complexity-of-robot-motion
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40820050-the-complexity-of-autism-spectrum-disorders
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45310912-three-lectures-on-complexity-and-black-holes
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/459614.Cellular_Automata_And_Complexity
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4865092-complexity-and-uncertainty
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5597902-complexity
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/783593.Exploring_Complexity
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8207901-complexity
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8295595-living-with-complexity
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/864852.From_Complexity_To_Creativity
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/899386.Diversity_and_Complexity_in_Feminist_Therapy
Integral World - Further Reflections on Complexity, Gregory Desilet
Integral World - Transcending Complexity and the Pakistani Bomb, Jeff Meyerhoff
Integral World - Predicting Complexity, Andy Smith
Integral World - Consciousness and Complexity: A Defence of Panspiritism, Steve Taylor
Integral World - The Dissipative Universe and the Paradox of Complexity, A Review of David Christian's "Origin Story", Frank Visser
Integral World - Are We The Exception that Proves the Rule?, A Spectrum of Opinions on the Rarity of Complexity, Frank Visser
Integral World - Eros and Evolution, Discussing one of the most un-debated topics in the integral world; Is there a universal, spiritual drive towards increasing complexity and consciousness? Is there any place for Eros in evolution?, Frank Visser and Layman Pascal
Integral World - Eros and Bacteria: Why Some Organisms Grow in Complexity, and Some Don't, Frank Visser
Integral World - "Equilibrium is Death", Energy, Entropy, Evolution and the Paradox of Life's Complexity, Frank Visser
For the Love of Chaos: What Does Complexity Theory Have to Do with Intimacy and Healing?
selforum - evolution complexity and cognition
selforum - managing complexity
https://thoughtsandvisions-searle88.blogspot.com/2012/10/complexity-theory.html
Psychology Wiki - Complexity
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - computational-complexity
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ComplexityAddiction
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/InverseLawOfComplexityToPower
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Complexity
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Complexity_economics
The West Wing (1999 - Current) - This political drama features the lives of staffers in the west wing of the White House. It's been a called groundbreaking in that it ushered in a new type of political series that worked to show the complexity and contrasting simplicity of the day-to-day workings of modern politics, primarily in th...
The Fall ::: TV-MA | 1h | Crime, Drama, Thriller | TV Series (20132016) -- A seemingly cold but very passionate policewoman goes head to head with a seemingly passionate father who is in fact a cold serial killer in this procedural out of Belfast. The only thing they share is their common complexity. Creator:
https://gurps.fandom.com/wiki/Game_Complexity
https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Ambient_complexity
Yama no Susume: Kabe tte Kowakunai no? -- -- 8bit -- 1 ep -- Manga -- Comedy Slice of Life -- Yama no Susume: Kabe tte Kowakunai no? Yama no Susume: Kabe tte Kowakunai no? -- Aoi Yukimura and her friends decide to take on a new challenge: indoor rock climbing! However, the sight of the wall flusters Aoi, who frets over its height and complexity. Fortunately, Kaede Saitou is there to explain the rules of indoor climbing, inspiring the girls to give it a try themselves. Though the wall may seem intimidating and insurmountable, Aoi finds that with a little help from her friends, she may be able to overcome this challenge. -- -- Special - May 24, 2013 -- 17,182 6.74
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Images_from_the_Observatory_of_Economic_Complexity
AC (complexity)
Advice (complexity)
Algorithmic complexity
ALL (complexity)
Arithmetic circuit complexity
Asymptotic computational complexity
Average-case complexity
AWPP (complexity)
BPL (complexity)
BPP (complexity)
Certificate (complexity)
Chain rule for Kolmogorov complexity
Circuit complexity
Cognitive complexity
Communication complexity
Complement (complexity)
Complete (complexity)
Complexity
Complexity class
Complexity (disambiguation)
Complexity economics
Complexity function
Complexity Gaming
Complexity index
Complexity measure
Complexity, Problem Solving, and Sustainable Societies
Complexity Science Hub Vienna
Complexity theory
Complexity theory and organizations
Computational complexity
Computational Complexity Conference
Computational complexity theory
Context of computational complexity
Counting problem (complexity)
Cyclomatic complexity
Descriptional Complexity of Formal Systems
Descriptive complexity theory
Earth systems model of intermediate complexity
Ecological Complexity
Economic Complexity Index
Essential complexity
Evolution of biological complexity
FL (complexity)
FO (complexity)
FP (complexity)
Game complexity
Generic-case complexity
Geometric complexity theory
Halstead complexity measures
Information-based complexity
Information fluctuation complexity
Integer complexity
Integrative complexity
International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design
Irreducible complexity
Kolmogorov complexity
L (complexity)
LH (complexity)
List of computability and complexity topics
Low-complexity art
Low complexity regions in proteins
Model of hierarchical complexity
NC (complexity)
Nelson complexity index
New Complexity
NL (complexity)
NP (complexity)
Parameterized complexity
P (complexity)
PLS (complexity)
PPA (complexity)
PPAD (complexity)
PP (complexity)
Programming complexity
Proof complexity
QIP (complexity)
Quantum complexity theory
Query (complexity)
R (complexity)
RE (complexity)
Reduction (complexity)
RL (complexity)
RP (complexity)
Sample complexity
SL (complexity)
SNP (complexity)
Social complexity
Social identity complexity
Space complexity
Specified complexity
Strategic complexity
Structural complexity theory
The Atlas of Economic Complexity
The Complexity of Happiness
The Complexity of Songs
The Observatory of Economic Complexity
Thorngate's postulate of commensurate complexity
Time complexity
Volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity
Worst-case complexity
ZPP (complexity)
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