the Paths of Complex Tao

To reach to the point that you do not know,

you need to take the road you do not know.

S. Giovanni della Croce

In the absence of paradigms for complexity, resulting in the impossibility to define methodologies for description and calculating/computing in replacement/integration of the previous used by classic science, Edgar Morin has proposed somepaths to complexity, or better to complexities, as - naturally - the same complexity is complex.

Morin states that the complexity shows as difficulty and uncertainty and not as clarity and answer typical of the paradigms of classical science. The problem is therefore to understand if it is possible to challenge of uncertainty and complexity.

Today, the biological and physical sciences are characterized by a crisis of the simple explanation, and then what appeared to be the residues of the human sciences such as uncertainty and disorder are part of the problem of scientific knowledge.

The complexity is an obstacle, a challenge. It seems negative or regressive because it involves the reintegration of the uncertainty in a knowledge that was going towards the conquest of absolute certainty, absolute that is no longer possible.

Morin introduces some typical characteristics of complexity:

• the problem of contradiction

Morin indicates in Niels Bohr the author of the most logic braking of science. Formulating the Complementarity Principle in the Copenaghen interpretation of the quantum duality probability wave/particle for the first time in history of science with the classic aristotelian logic of or/or introducing with spectacular theoretical and experimental results the logic of and/and, moving from a single logic to a dialogic, that is accepting that two independent and dual logics coexist at the same time.

• the logic limitation

After the proof of the Gödel incompleteness theorems and the development of Tarski logic it became obvious that no system of explanation can explained itself completely by itself.

•   the meta-complexus

It is not possible to approach the complexity through a single and preliminary definition but it is necessary to follow different paths, so different that one might wonder if there are many and different complexities. All the various complexities such as wires are woven together to form the unity of the texture of complexity. So we arrive at complexus of complexus, namely that core of the complexity in which the various complexities encounter.

• the multi-dimensional thinking

The positive aspect that comes from complexity is the nedd of a multidimensional and dialogic thinking, where in the latter two logics, two natures are connected in a unity without thereby dissolve the duality in unity. The notion of dialogic is not a concept that avoids the logical and empirical constraints but is likely to face difficulties, to fight with the real.

La challenge of complexity makes us give up forever the myth of the total universe clarification, encouraging us to continue the adventure of knowledge which is a dialogue with the universe.

The aim of our knowledge is not to close but to open the dialogue with the universe. The Method of Complexity requires us to think without never closing the concepts. The complexity is just the conjunction of concepts that are fighting each other, cohabit with the complexity and conflict trying to keep from falling inside.

The complexity also leads to think in organizational form, that is to understand how the organization does not result in a few laws but, on the contrary, needs a highly developed thought.

The paths indicated by Morin that lead to the challenge of complexity are:

THE PATH OF IRREDUCIBILITY OF RANDOMNESS AND DISORDER

randomness and disorder are inevitably present in the universe and play an active role in its evolution, but we are not able to resolve the uncertainty caused by the notions of disorder and randomness. The same randomness is not sure to be an accident, or an accidental event of which that the causes are unknown.

THE OVERCOMING OF THE LIMITS WHICH ELIMINATED THE SINGULARITY, THE LOCALITY AND THE TEMPORALITY

it is not possible to delete the singular and the local using the universal. Indeed, it is necessary to connect these concepts, for example in contemporary biology the species are no longer considered as a framework within which the individual is a singular case. In contrast, every living species is considered as a singularity that produces singularity within the most diverse physical-chemical organizations that exist. We must connect the singular, the local and the universal

THE PATH OF COMPLICATION

this problem arised when it was realized that the biological and social phenomena had a infinite number  of interactions and di interazioni e inter-feedbacks.

COMPLEMENTARITY BETWEEN ORDER, DISORDER ANDORGANIZATION

comes into play the concept deployed by Von Foerster “Order fron Noise”: from a disordered motion may arise from organized phenomena.

THE PATH OF ORGANIZATION

the organization determines a system from different elements. Is a unit and at the same time a multiplicity unitas multiplex: it should not dissolve the multiple in the one, nor the one in the multiple. A system is something more and something less of the sum of its parts. Something more because brings out more of the qualities that would not exist without the organization, something less because this organization imposes some constraints that limit some of the potential found in the individual parts. The qualities that emerge, exercis feedback on the individual parts and may stimulate and express their full potential. For example, culture, language or education are properties that can only be a matter of social totality and, in turn, feedbacking on different parts of the society, allow the development of mind and intelligence of individuals.

HOLOGRAMATIC PRINCIPLE AND RECURSIVE ORGANIZATION

in the field of complexity emerges the hologramatic principle: not only the part is in everything, but everything is in the part. In trying to understand the phenomenon one must go from the parts to the whole and from the whole to the parts by adopting a non-linear and circular explanation. The hologram is a physical image that has the quality that each point contains almost all the information of the whole, such as criminal law, the fact that every cell of an organism contains the genetic information of the whole organism.

The hologramatic principle should be connected to the recursive organization principle: a recursive process is a process in which the products and effects are at the same time causes and producers of what that produce them. The idea of recursion is therefore a breaking idea with the of linear idea of cause/effect, product/producer, structure/superstructure;for example the reproduction produces individuals that produce the reproductive cycle.

THE CRISIS OF CLARITY AND OF THE SEPARATION IN THE EXPLANATION

there is a break with the idea that truth is given by the clarity of ideas. The truth is also evident in the ambiguity and in the apparent confusion. It is no longer possible to make a boundary between science and non science, between subject and object, between organism and environment as occured previously for experimental science: it took a subject, extracted it from its context and placed it in an artificial environment, then modified it and checked its modifications.

In addition not to isolate a self-organizing system from its environment, it is necessary to connect this system to its environment, or to obtain a self-eco-organization. The concept of autonomy implies that a system is both open and closed (the result of an operation of the system still falls within the boundaries of the system). This type of system has to maintain its individuality and originality.

THE RETURN OF THE OBSERVER

it is not possible to eliminate the observer from the observations that are made. Always keeping in mind the hologramatic principle, the observer is in the society, but the society is also in the observer. Therefore the observer has to integrate himself into its observation and in its conception and should try to understand its socioculturalhic et nunc. Principio di integrazione dell’osservatore: regardless of the theory and whatever its content, must account that the observer is part of it: 

"... whatever the theory, and whatever its content, it must account of what makes it possible to produce the theory itself. If in any case is unable to account for this, it must also know that the problem is posed."