The complexity continues
The complexity reduction and complexity absorption that I have talked about in my earlier post are actually even more interesting that I initially thought as I noticed the many examples of its applications in everyday life.
For example, I think science and academic research are application of the attempt to reduce complexity at least in terms of cognitive initially and for practice later on. Science I think is an attempt of humans to reduce the complexity of the natural and real world into something that are more understandable. To ensure that the understanding is as near as possible to the conditions of the real world, the processes of getting to that understanding have to be systematic and logical. The standards are continually checked and improved as more knowledge are built up because we want the understanding to be as accurate as possible and reflect the ongoing changes of the world.
Similarly technical writing I think is also another application of complexity reduction. The purpose of technical writing is to communicate complex information into information that are more digestible and can be easily followed or practiced. The biggest difference from scientific and academic research I think is that technical writing’s main focus is the information users. If a significant portion of readers to a technical writing artifact is unable to follow (cognitively or in actions) what the writer is trying to say, then the writer has failed to reduce the complexity to the objective it was intended to.
The accumulation of scientific knowledge, research papers, and technical writings then in my opinion can be said as application of complexity absorption. Because ideally the more complex a situation is, you need more perspectives to approach the situation in order to truly understand the situation. That’s the importance of sub-fields, sub-topics, sub-areas, sections, etc. in science, academic and research topics, as well as technical writings.
What I also find intriguing is the way complexity reduction and complexity absorption could also be potentially applied to government actions in some parts of the world towards one or some race or ethnics groups in their countries. Race or ethnics can be considered as a type of complexity. When it needs to be addressed, there are governments that attempt to reduce the complexity by reducing the numbers of the races or ethnics or by trying to shape the heterogenous races or ethnics groups into smaller numbers of races or ethnics groups that are more homogenous. The idea I think is that reducing the complexity would make governing the countries as something that are more controllable and thus could potentially hasten the growth of the countries as actions can presumably be taken faster and easier. Then there are also governments that attempt to absorb the complexity by shaping themselves to cater to the heterogenous and numerous groups of races or ethnics groups in their countries. The idea I think is that absorbing the complexity would make governing the countries as something that are more fitting to the growing complexity of the world and thus could potentially prepare the countries more to the turbulence of the world and thus help the countries to last longer.
What is the better approach between the two? Is there a better approach between the two? Collecting long-term economics data among others on this might be helpful to answer these questions. I am also quite curious on how the natural world of animals and plants are tackling the issue of the increasing complexity of the current natural environment, do they as well attempt to reduce complexity, absorb complexity, or a combination of both?
