In the short space of two weeks, the New Scientist printed two articles that confront the obvious complexity of nature. Not only is this complexity persistent under the attack of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, but it seems to actually increase with time. The two articles have very different answers. The creative cosmos .
Most people accept without question that the physical world is coherent and harmonious.
Yet according to the traditional scientific picture, the Universe is just a random collection of particles with blind forces acting upon them. There is, then a deep mystery as to how a seemingly directionless assembly of passive entities conspire to produce the elaborate structure and complex organisation found in nature. They are also nonlinear, which means that chaotic, unpredictable action may occur. His final example is that of the network with large numbers of interacting sites or nodes. With random inputs, large networks do exhibit self-organization.