By Jean Boulton
What are the key ideas that define the science of complexity? How do they help us better understand our world so that we can engage more effectively?
The science of complexity conveys a view of the world as dynamic, richly interdependent and full of variety.
“A world – organic and emergent, shaped by history and context – naturally patterned, yet always in process” (Boulton 2024: 39).
Ilya Prigogine asked why classical physics and evolutionary biology seem to contradict each other. The word that brought these two sciences together and shaped the development of complexity theory, was ‘open’ (Prigogine 1977).
Situations that are open to their environments display emerging order in the form of patterns of relationships. For evolutionary processes at every level – from galaxies to amoeba – this ability to suck fuel from their surroundings is the source of complexification, evolution and adaptation.
Process complexity
Process complexity moves us from an image of concretely objective ‘things which interact’ towards an image of entities that are more akin to ripples on a river (Boulton 2021). It emphasises the processual nature of the complex world. It is a world of processes in process, a world always becoming (see Prigogine 1980).
Embracing this perspective can seem obvious or subtle, exciting or irritating, rich or overwhelming, depending on your point of view. But in that embracing is offered the promise of an understanding that can lead to discernment and judicious action.
Complexity raw and complexity cooked
To talk of complexity theory or complexity science is a complex thing in itself. Edgar Morin (2006) makes a distinction between a framing of complexity that sits within the ontology of classical science, which he calls ‘restricted complexity’; he contrasts this with the raw ‘general complexity’ of the ‘real world’.
Restricted complexity emanates from the world of models, maps and mathematics. The aim is to find ways to represent the complexity of the real world and find a good map.
General complexity, by contrast, starts further back into the primordial mud, and champions the attainment of knowledge through wandering the ‘territory’. General complexity is more paradoxical, more integrating, more challenging, ambiguous and uncertain – but also ripe with potential. It is complexity that is beyond (or before) mathematics. It often starts with experiment and observation – of forests, cells, swirls in chemical systems, galaxies, social groups or societies – rather than with conceptual abstractions.
“Instead of trying to analyse complex phenomena in terms of single or essential principles, [complexity] approaches acknowledge it is not possible to tell a single or exclusive story about something that is really complex. The acknowledgement of complexity, however, certainly does not lead to the conclusion that anything goes (Cilliers 1998).
Subjectivity
The complex world does not present itself as objectively existent entities interacting in measurable ways. There is a subjectivity as to what we perceive and how we interpret what we perceive.
I suggest that there are three aspects to subjectivity: one centred in the person who is perceiving, one centred in the nature of what is perceived and the third embedded in a rather different view of the nature of ‘reality’, a view that emerges from quantum physics.
“We experience more than quantities; we also experience qualities such as colour, texture, pain, health, beauty, coherence. Science tends to dismiss these as ‘subjective’… Subjectivity is getting squeezed out by science… I believe there is a whole scientific methodology that needs to be developed on the basis of what is called the intuitive way of knowing (Brian Goodwin in Brockman 1997).
In general, in order to engage fully with the complex open inter-relational social and natural world, we need to ensure we do not exclude that which is indefinite qualitative contextual, local and emerging. There is a difference between knowing smoking causes cancer and exploring what are the wider determinants that cause a particular group of people to continue to smoke nevertheless, or that makes them more vulnerable to the disease.
We need to resist the desire only to give phenomena salience when they become more settled, fixed and statistically significant. It is through engaging with situations in flux, with emerging patterns and with glimmers of newness, that we have a chance to explore the nature of change and becoming, and indeed the nature of relative stability. We need to be curious and open both in our perceiving, and in our thought processes and sense-making; we need both to respond to what seems concrete and not in dispute and pay attention to that which is more imprecise.
Essential characteristics of the complex world
Complexity theory suggests that organisations, markets, ecologies and communities are:
- Organic: They have more in common with ecosystems, with evolving organisms than with machines; they are not in general predictable or controllable.
- Self-organising and comprised of temporary patterns of relationships: They often display patterns of relationships (such as ways of working in organisations or buying patterns in markets) which can be relatively stable but still display some variation and fluctuation and may indeed evolve, eventually, into new patterns.
- Contingent on history and context: The future depends on the detail of what happens, does not smoothly follow from the past.
- Affected by multiple causes: In general in the social and natural world, there are no simple cause-and-effect chains; outcomes are influenced by several factors acting together, combined with the effects of chance, history and the wider environment.
- Co-evolutionary: Organisations are shaped by their environments and vice versa; there is interaction and reflexive change between scales, between actors.
- Episodic, non-linear change: Sometimes current patterns are resilient but flexible, sometimes locked-in and rigid, sometimes change can be fast and radical.
- Emergent: Change can lead to the emergence of features qualitatively different from the past.
Key takeaways
Key takeaways are to:
- diagnose situations systemically and historically – look for the “simplicity on the other side of complexity” (Boulton 2024: 239-40)
- stay alert to subtle signs of change – by the time there is objective evidence it is often too late
- create shared intentions but plan shorter term; review often and expect the unexpected
- allow some leeway to experiment
- develop good practice by sharing learning, not diktat
- ask questions – to uncover what is, surface new ideas, shape thinking.
How have you been informed by complexity science when tackling complex problems? Are there other perspectives that have influenced you? Do you have success stories about ‘embracing complexity’ that you can share?
To find out more:
Boulton, J. (2024). The dao of complexity: Making sense and making waves in turbulent times. De Gruyter: Berlin, Germany.
Jean Boulton’s website: https://www.embracingcomplexity.com/ also provides more information and excerpts from the book. This i2Insights contribution is taken, largely verbatim, from: https://www.embracingcomplexity.com/complexity/
References
Boulton, J. (2021). Process complexity. Complexity, governance and networks, 7, 1: 5-14.
Brockman, M. (1997). A new science of qualities: A talk with Brian Goodwin. Edge.org (‘Reality Club’) website. (Online): https://www.edge.org/conversation/brian_goodwin-a-new-science-of-qualities
Cilliers, P. (1998). Complexity and postmodernism: Understanding complex systems. Routledge: London, United Kingdom.
Morin, E. (2006). Restricted complexity, general complexity. In; C. Gershenson, D. Aerts and B. Edmonds. (eds.), Worldviews, science and us: Philosophy and complexity, University of Liverpool, UK. World Scientific: Singapore.
Prigogine, I. (1977). Ilya Prigogine – Biographical. NobelPrize.org website. Nobel Prize Outreach AB 2024. (Online): https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/1977/prigogine/biographical/. (From Nobel Lectures, Chemistry 1971-1980, Editor-in-Charge Tore Frängsmyr, Editor Sture Forsén, World Scientific Publishing Co., Singapore, 1993).
Prigogine, I. (1980). From being to becoming: Time and complexity in the physical sciences. W. H. Freeman and Company: New York, United States of America.
Recommended reading:
Boulton, J., Allen, P. and Bowman, C. (2015). Embracing complexity: Strategic perspectives for an age of turbulence. Oxford University Press: Oxford, United Kingdom.
Mowles, C. (2015). Managing in uncertainty: Complexity and the paradoxes of everyday organizational life. Routledge: London, United Kingdom.
Preiser, R. (Ed.). (2016). Critical complexity: Collected essays. De Gruyter: Berlin, Germany.
Varney, S. (2021). Leadership in complexity and change: For a world in constant motion. De Gruyter: Berlin, Germany.
Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) Statement: Generative artificial intelligence was not used in the development of this i2Insights contribution. (For i2Insights policy on generative artificial intelligence please see https://i2insights.org/contributing-to-i2insights/guidelines-for-authors/#artificial-intelligence.)
Biography: Jean Boulton PhD is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics and a visiting academic with the universities of Cranfield and Bath, in the United Kingdom. She has been deeply involved in the science and philosophy of complexity since the mid-1990s and the honing of these ideas continues to inform her research, consultancy work and personal practice.
Dear Jean. Thanks for this post of yours which I found well expressed and I also thought you expressed well your response to Vladimir to clarify your stance. I also liked your citing of Cilliers saying that there is no single story to construct when engaging with processual complexity. I would add that the story or stories that get constructed in turn have an influence on the unfolding of emergent outcomes. That is why we need to reflect upon the potential consequences of our storytelling. I hope I am commenting here on the right place on this site!
Hi Norma, yes indeed. One of the themes of processual complexity is that the past shapes but does not determine the future. The stories we tell, or the values and beliefs we hold – individually and collectively – have a huge influence on what we choose to do. Stories and language are vital ingredients. I love Robin Wall Kimmerer’s book – and love the way she provides solid scholarship on ecology coupled with the stories and reflections that take us into fresh perspectives. And I love the work of a British historian, David Olusoga, who takes us into reflecting on colonialism and race in a way that uses stories that hit the heart.
Hi Jean. Many thanks for these insightful comments and extra references!
I, too, was captured by the summary and comments and started reading your book yesterday. It has been a delightful read thus far.
thank you so much, good to hear
Dear Jean, this is a good message and these are good questions! Are there other perspectives that have influenced you? Do you have any success stories in “embracing complexity” that you can share?
Let me philosophize a little on this topic. I want to develop a little the potency of your wonderful thought: look for “simplicity beyond complexity”. I remember the phrase of an unknown scientist: “The world is extremely simple. If it was complicated, it would have broken long ago.” A complex world and an extremely simple world have one foundation – general order. This order is manifested everywhere in every fragment of space, period of time and feature of information of each object at any level of reality and in the world itself. Therefore, simplicity and complexity are not equivalent concepts.
– “simplicity” characterizes the objective general order – the basis of the world.
– “complexity” characterizes the process of describing many characteristics and parameters of the world. Therefore, complexity is not a problem of understanding the world, but, most likely, an assessment of many things.
On this basis, the well-known vectors of cognition of the world “from simple to complex” and “from complex to simple” arose. In the first case, a disciplinary methodology of cognition is used, which uses analysis and synthesis. In the second case, a systems transdisciplinary methodology is used, which uses unification and generalization. Therefore, we will ask ourselves whether we want to understand complexity or simplicity.
Thank you.
Vladimir Mokiy
Dear Vladimir, thank you for your reply. I replied at length yesterday and then the response disappeared into the ether! So here goes again!
Complexity thinking points to the way resilience in social and ecological situations comes from diversity, reflexive relationships between things and some flexibility in those relationships. If situations become too fixed or rigid (or simple) then they are less able to adapt to changing circumstances and more likely to collapse or ‘break’. So, I’m not in tune with the quote of your unknown scientist, that “the world is extremely simple. If it was complicated, it would have broken long ago.” 😊
Secondly, what I am meaning when talking about the simplicity that is beyond complexity (a quote by Wendell-Holmes) is the way the social and natural world often shows up as patterns of relationships. We don’t have to know every detail to grasp many aspects of situations through apprehending these patterns – organisation culture or the dominant food cycles in ecologies or the norms of ways of doing things in your family unit would be examples of such patterns. The point, explored more fully in the section ‘Simplicity on the other side of complexity’ in The Dao of Complexity, is not to overly close down which aspects of the situation you deem to be pertinent, but to explore widely and deeply in order to apprehend the forms and patterns that are present, but may remain obscure if you are only looking at aspects of the problem. The simplicity is the form of those patterns and structures, which are revealed when embracing as much of the rich picture as possible.
Thirdly, the concept of general order is one that I argue against. Complexity presents a picture of a world – or universe – of wholes (stable patterns of relational aspects) but not of a Whole. These wholes connect and intersect, like ripples on a lake, but they don’t add up to general order. This applies at the level of galaxies, down to the ecologies, societies, families, organisations and brains – indeed, a key theme in the Dao of Complexity is to demonstrate the resonance between the perspectives from many different fields of knowledge – from galaxy formation, to brain science to the conclusions of some political commentators who have lived through the ways power concentrates and how those power structures can dissolve, through to process philosophies including Daoism.
Fourthly, I am attracted to the work of Ian McGilchrist who differentiates between the characteristic thinking patterns of left and right brain. The left brain looks for simple cause and effect explanations, reveres logic above all else, tends to operate to find simple answers and has only one value which is to win. The right brain is more integrative, can handle judgement, ambiguity and paradox, works with head and heart and imagination and can engage with complex and sometimes contradictory value systems. We all work with both left and right brain, but some tend to value one hemisphere more than the other. Transdisciplinarity, as you know, can provide multiple perspectives, and, more than that, can allow for new transformative insights that come from engaging with sometimes paradoxical and even contradictory considerations – it sits well with the strengths of right-brain thinking. Working with paradox is one of the topics I explore in the Dao of Complexity.
As for whether I can point to success stories through embracing complexity: complexity is not a method but an ontological stance, a worldview, a metaphysics. If the world is complex, then it is good to understand its common features and to work with those. For example, I sometimes ask people if they have been involved in developing strategy and then ask if those strategies have gone to plan. Most people say these strategies have not gone to plan. When I ask why not, they describe the complexities of the world – new entrants, unexpected consequences, shifting social and political conditions, internal battles for power and so on. We can then consider how to develop strategies that are more adaptive, take more account of changing factors and are alert to both unexpected successes as well as unanticipated difficulties.
To finish where I started, complexity science is not painting a picture of unknowable chaos, but is pointing to a world that is patterned, shaped by history and context, not accessible to reason on its own, with a future that may have aspects that emerge in ways that could not be predicted. Getting to grips with that worldview does seem to help people and organisations to live and work in the complex, interwoven, often surprising and fast-changing world we experience.
I address many of these aspects more fully in my recent book and my website too, https://embracingcomplexity.com, has more material, excerpts from the book and new blogs that can be signed up for.
Thanks so much for engaging Vladimir and I hope my replies are of some interest
Hello Jean, and thank you for this summary of insights from the science of complexity: it is a tour de force.
My longstanding area of interest and research is complexity and public policy. I was immensely inspired by the work of Robert Geyer and Samir Rihani, back in 2010 (Complexity and Public Policy, a new approach to 21st Century politics, policy and society), largely because it made sense based upon my practical experiences of working in a ‘primordial mud’-style in local government. Ralph Stacey’s work was also an initial leading light of influence for me. It was this that encouraged me to conduct my own systemic research inquiry within the sphere of local governance.
A better understanding of insights from complexity science could create a new form of enlightenment to learn, think, act and adapt in different ways that take value from, but are not ‘straightjacketed’ by history. Popper described this form of straightjacketing well: “It must be admitted that there may be many regularities in our social life which are characteristic of our particular period only, and that we are inclined to overlook this limitation. So that (especially in time of rapid change) we may learn to our sorrow that we have relied on laws that have lost their validity.” (The Poverty of Historicism, 1957). To overcome this possible restriction, people have to be comfortable with being self-critical of their own limitations. This has implications for new, evolving forms of systemic leadership by developing ‘good practice through sharing learning, not diktat’ that you highlight.
I would say that a variety of insights from complexity (and also systems thinking/operational research) are essential to help us to become more effective in the skills of systemic inquiry. I am optimistic that more and more people are being inspired in this way, and social movements are happening, which more realistically acknowledge these influences. No doubt, many will be inspired by your blog.
Thanks for your lovely reply Catherine. Do you know of Danny Burns work – systemic action research. And also Philip Haynes at Brighton, Graham Room at Bath and also Max French on public sector governance and complexity. Max French et al’s new book ‘Harnessing complexity for better outcomes in public and non-profit services is recommended. This theme of exploring the lacunae in our own and our culture’s thinking is such an important one. Just been reading Whitehead making a similar point about assumptions in science. My colleague Peter Allen, who started me on this journey, used to talk increasingly about humility.
I like the idea of this being a new era of enlightenment too.
thank you so much once again!
Thanks very much for these pointers and comments Jean. I am not familiar with Danny Burns or Graham Room. I interviewed Philip Haynes as part of my doctoral research, and I would also recommend Max French et al’s recent book. Following my recent Visiting Fellowship at Northumbria University, I have just co-authored a paper with Hannah Hesselgreaves, Max French, Rob Wilson and Toby Lowe, which is forthcoming in the Special Issue of Systems Research and Behavioral Science as a Festschrift to Mike Jackson: our ideas and inspiration tend to form a confluence around social learning in the light of an ontology of complexity. Your point about humility is well-made.
I look forward to reading your book!
Aha! Good to know!
You ask how have I been informed of complexity science; my answer is that I attended a complexity science summer school at St.John’s College in Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1987 (if I recall the date correctly). One of the lecturers was John H. Holland, author of several books on complex adaptive systems (CAS), of which biological entities, e.g. humans, are instances. We are more than just CAS, we are CAAS – we are anticipatory.
Thank you for this rich introduction to such an important topic.
Thanks Jack, you have indeed been involved in this field for a long time! I agree with your point about the way our anticipation of the future contributes plays back into our choices in the present. I like Prigogine on this “In living systems, the behaviour at a given time is partly determined by memory and partly by the anticipation of the future… In this sense, the future contributes to the present.”
In fact, it was a book by Prigogine and Stengers which alerted me to this field. It was a book by Robert Rosen, and meeting him, which anchored my thinking about anticipatory systems. But,really, it was the work of Nicholas Rashevsky on relational biology, followed by his grad student, Rosen, which made clear the nature of, as Rosen put it, biological systems “free of efficient cause”. We are model driven creatures.
For the record, Rosen claimed that Final Cause belongs in biology.
Through my lens, there is no end to how far we can and must push this science.
One of the things I muse upon in my book The Dao of Complexity is that biological systems, to survive, must find balance amongst their constituents and also with the wider context. And those organisms or ecologies that do this well tend to survive. But many, indeed over 90% of new species, have not survived. Equally, in social situations, humans often do not act to achieve balance – as evidenced by increasing inequality, conflict, desertification and so on. One of the themes I explore is that, if unfettered by personal or collective value systems or modes of governance, the powerful become more powerful and the rich richer. …
https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110981216/html?lang=en
Just bought the book. Looking forward to reading it.
Thank you!
I hope you enjoy it 🙂