Talk:Complexity

message: -plex and -plic- are the same etymon, not different ones.  In Latin, the combining form of a noun ending in -ex is -ic, for example index versus indices.  The root is plico, "I fold", and it's only colloquially used to indicate weaving.
I'm changing the article, speak now or forever hold your peace (and learn a little Latin while you're at it.) 35.10.172.97 00:51, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  WTF etymology 

message: It'd be nice if we could have an overview of what is generally meant by complexity and how different fields approach it. All those concepts are somehow related, so we need more than mere disambiguation.
I'm trying to improve the article :-P "The opposite of simplicity" seems a bit dubious to me (and I wrote it ^-^) but refering to simplicity seems necessary. How about randomness ? Computational irreducibility ? Determinism ? A distinction between what is complex and what is complicated ? Flammifer 09:00, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The notion that simple is the opposite of complex is colloquial but may not get at the essence of the issue.  As the scale and intricacy of the interdependencies between components is one of the key differentiating features of complex systems, the opposite of complexity is something closer to “decomposeable”. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Platinum186 (talk • contribs) 19:39, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

text: Thank you for getting things started in a good way; I appreciate your desire to keep the entry generally applicable.  In that vein, I edited the word "chaotic" to be "random", since (as I see it) "chaos" has scientific meaning which includes possible explanation of behavior; "randomness" is that which has unexplainable variation. Please let me know if you think otherwise, I welcome any input. 1diot 04:11, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  This page needs work 

message: Much of this paragraph seems a parody or satire, is it?
Some indication exists that, pari passu, computer programs become slowly less reliable as their size increases because the statistical and geopolitical meanings of individual bits and bytes of information comprising the program are lost at the extreme of their implications in the environmental thermodynamics of the system. This can be resolved better as computer design becomes better adapted to the ordinary covariant relativistic space-time frame (x, y, z,-ct).
--jonathan
I agree, since I can't figure out what it means, or if it means anything at all. For memory, the deleted piece was:
:Information entropy and thermodynamic entropy are related through statistics, an area that is only emerging recently. The connection is not well determined, but clearly range from trivial inessentials to possibly great value.  Entropy, for instance, can be eliminated as a common variable in both the information entropy equation S = - k log (p) and G = U - T*S (archaic notation...) but then the information content immediately disappears, and only by chasing the equations again, will it reappear often in a somewhat different way like Proteus.  Some indication exists that, pari passu, computer programs become slowly less reliable as their size increases because the statistical and geopolitical meanings of individual bits and bytes of information comprising the program are lost at the extreme of their implications in the environmental thermodynamics of the system.  This can be resolved better as computer design becomes better adapted to the ordinary covariant relativistic space-time frame (x, y, z,-ct).
... if anyone feels like salvaging that, feel free. Flammifer 04:51, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is this a joke? 

message: I'm not seeing it.  yes i've been studying this stuff for 30 years, but this article doesn't seem to sum up what i've been studying.
i don't think the field of computational complexity goes here at all.  I don't think it has to do with what the authors have in mind.
This goes along with those systems wikis.  It's simply too broad to be a topic.  perhaps it needsd to just be a list to all the wikis that have some notion of complexity?  A large redirect page?
the opening paragraph states:
:Complexity in specific usage is the opposite of independence
but then the article never discusses independence or lack of in complex systems.
another definition:
:some would say that only what is somehow complex – what displays variation without being random – is worthy of interest.
really that's too braod.  so the natural numbers are complex?  The periodic chart is complex?  What is NOT complex then?  wave phenomenon i suppose...
oh here is the def:
:The use of the term complex is often confused with the term complicated.   In today’s systems, this is the difference between a myriad of connecting “stovepipes” and effective “integrated” solutions. (Lissack and Roos, 2000) This means that complex is the opposite of independent, while complicated is the opposite of simple.
come out and say what we mean!  what do we mean?  i don't get it.
i give up!  there's nothing here.Wikiskimmer 07:24, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This article gives an overview of meaning of the term complexity, the study around it, and an overview of complex phenomenon. This seems to me like a good start. -- Mdd 15:14, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The article attempts 3 definitions.  none of them are clearly explained.  If the dependence/independence idea is important, we should explain it.  i have only a vague guess here as to what the author of this wiki means by dependence.Wikiskimmer 17:43, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The situation is almost the same as we talk about in Talk:Complex system? - Mdd 23:54, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  so is this just a random list of cultural references with the word complexity in them? 

message: : This article gives an overview of meaning of the term complexity, the study around it, and an overview of complex phenomenon. This seems to me like a good start. -- Mdd 15:14, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The article attempts 3 definitions.  none of them are clearly explained.  If the dependence/independence idea is important, we should explain it.  i have only a vague guess here as to what the author of this wiki means by dependence.Wikiskimmer 17:43, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The situation is almost the same as we talk about in Talk:Complex system? - Mdd 23:54, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Definitions 

message: Anybody looking to lampoon Wikipedia doesn’t have to look further than the collection of {Complexity, Complex system, Complex systems} articles.  As another editor already asked, is this part of Wikipedia a joke?  Being positive and trying to fix Complexity, you will then run into the two other articles.  Maybe the most hilarious point is the side-by-side existence of Complex system and Complex systems.  I’m sorry for the general reader who stumbles into this part of Wikipedia.  Best thing is to scrap all three articles and start over, possibly using Duracell’s work on Complex system from 2 years ago as a bootstrap - that work wasn't half bad.  Vyyjpkmi 04:21, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There are now three articles, which explain this matter from slightly different perspectives, which has been talked extensively on the Talk:Complex system page. If you think this is all the same, maybe your problem is that you can see the difference? If you have something new to add here, I'm sure you can find a place to add this. If you just want to mess up the current format I'm sure you have better things to do. - Mdd 09:28, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Mdd, you said “If you think this is all the same, maybe your problem is that you can see the difference?” Your formulation of my “problem” is on par with the writing of the three articles.  Leaving that aside, you know what I think: The collective editors of the {Complexity, Complex system, Complex systems} articles had different ideas on what complexity is all about, mixed in with a good dose of ideas of the half-baked variety.  Result: the general reader is thrown for a loss.  So concentrate on the articles, concentrate on writing, look for a lot of help, do not concentrate on personalities.  Vyyjpkmi 03:29, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I got the idea that you are not a general reader, but someone close related to user:Duracell. I had the same discussion with him and his minor contributions on the  Talk:Complex system talk page. I have explained the concept of the current state here. I actualy like you tot respond over there, to the argument brought forward. - Mdd 12:32, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Confusion: Complexity + Complex system + Complex systems 

message: I removed the following text:
:Complex project management is a cross-discipline meta-methodology, that applies complexity theory to the social science of project management. The College of Complex Project Managers defines Complex project management in their Complex Project Manager Competency Standards as "the lifecycle delivery of emergent strategic outcomes through projects which: are usually adaptive system of systems; have high uncertainty in scope definition; are distributed; have ongoing environmental and internal turbulence; are implemented through wave planning; and are unable to be decomposed into elements with clearly defined boundaries" 
The text can be readded, when a real article about Complex project management is written in Wikipedia, which is worth mentioning here. There are a million things related to complexity, and this article isn't the place to mention them all. This article only lists and summarized the most important thing allready present in Wikipedia. -- Marcel Douwe Dekker (talk) 20:44, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed text "Complex Project Management" 

message: The essence of the most modern and intriguing meaning of complexity is missing from this article.
The core of complexity (from complector, as distict from merely complicatum, i.e. "having many parts") is NON-LINEARITY. This is implicit in Poincaré (1890) and Lyapunov (1910) already, and becomes explicit with Wiener et al. in the 1940's. 
The essence of complexity is NOT in the many parts of a system; it's in the nonlinear interactions between those parts.
The "trivial" complexity that derives from a system having many parts (complicatum) is in itself a challenge, and is discussed in many Wikipedia places. It should be touched upon here but not handled as a central topic because that is NOT the main point about the complexity that physcists, systems engineers and mathematicians have in mind today.
Weaver's view is OK but, if it is to remain, it should be presented and discussed in light of the underlying non-linearity of organized complexity.
Finally: non-linearity is a subtle system science concept which the new Wikipedia article will present by pointing to the scientific literature and not merely referencing entertaining pseudo-science and journalistic accounts such as those provided in most of the reference and bibliography currently presented. 
We will need to work hard to come up with a sustainable article. Thanks for the attention. --pmagrass (talk) 16:43, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Needs substantial rework 

message: Missing a word on algebraic complexity or algebraic computation models like algebraic circuits, algebraic computation trees, and algebraic Turing Ma-
chines.
Sterling (talk) 17:40, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Algebraic Complexity 

message: I would love for someone to explain the distinction, if any, between a disorganized system and a chaotic one.  I am also troubled by the use of "random" attributed to Warren Weaver, excerpted below from the article.  (Troubled substantively - not questioning the attribution. :) Emphasis added below.)
A prime example of disorganized complexity is a gas in a container, with the gas molecules as the parts. Some would suggest that a system of disorganized complexity may be compared, for example, with the (relative) simplicity of the planetary orbits—the latter can be known by applying Newton's laws of motion, though this example involved highly correlated events.
Organized complexity, in Weaver's view, resides in nothing else than the non-random, or correlated, interaction between the parts."
"God does not play dice with the universe" - wasn't that Einstein?  I'm not clear that randomness is a valid scientific concept.  Who would call the motion of the planets random?  The Brownian motion of gas molecules may or may not be predictable with current technology, but it is surely as non-random as the motion of the planets: given an initial configuration, the correlation of the parts is described by Newtonian &/or quantum interactions.
74.211.52.135 (talk) 03:52, 15 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disorganized, Chaotic and Random Questions/Comments 

message: I'm uncomfortable with the large map image currently in the article, because 1) its caption seems to promote an external website; 2) the copyright status of the image is not so clear--the upload says CC but the origin site doesn't say anything; 3) I'm not convinced that the image content is that helpful to the article, especially with such prominent placement (it seems like basically a buzzword graph).  So I'm planning to remove it.  Let me know of any concerns. 71.141.88.54 (talk) 10:03, 11 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. I agree with your concerns, and made some rearrangements, which I think, cover most of your concerns. I do think the illustration is an interesting perspective on the history of complexity science, and for this could stay. -- Mdd (talk) 01:53, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

text: I'd be more comfortable if the extlink in the caption were removed (WP:EL), otherwise it comes across as COI and self-promotion.  71.141.88.54 (talk) 14:30, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  complexity map image 

message: One of the definitions state:
Warren Weaver has posited that the complexity of a particular system is the degree of difficulty in predicting the properties of the system, if the properties of the system's parts are given.
While the definition is rather reasonable, it is unclear where he (Weaver) has said or even implied this. From his paper this assertion seems rather unsubstatiated.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.240.57.237 (talk) 00:31, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Definition: where is the citation

message: This looks like one of those articles that was put together some time ago based on a very partial set of readings.   Its way out of date, fails to get the complex to complex adaptive systems use and generally lacks any depth or substance.   I'm too engage in the field, with a particular perspective, but it would be a good article for someone to get to grips with if there are any volunteers. ----Snowded TALK 04:20, 29 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Need for a rewrite 

message: It seems the most basic concept of complexity is "non-uniformity".
If some thing is uniform, it cannot be complex.
Perhaps this can provide some starting point for the article. --Lbeaumont (talk) 13:43, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Complexity as non-uniformity 

message: Much confusion in this article, based on conflation between what contemporary computer scientists like to hypothesize (however vague and flowery), and the central issue of observing natural systems (computers and human org's incuded) - the result is too many terminologies introduced without any adequate definition.  I believe the broad definition of "no independence" is a noble start, and I disagree with the objections that defining "what complexity isn't" is not satisfactory - this is basically what the fundamental physical laws of thermo and electromag do.  
Effectively Vague and Meaningless:  "sensitivity to initial conditions,"  "emergent behavior" (please see fractals, brownian walks, etc),  "non-linear" (in itself, can be perfectly deterministic and predictable), "adaptive systems" (fuzzy logic doesn't comprise physically meaningful complexity just because no one's watching)Wikibearwithme (talk) 03:51, 27 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Too much eponymous posturing, and not enough due-diligence in the definition of terms, or relating to the foundation of physical/natural sciences 

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