“It bears repetition that an argument against representation is not anti-scientific at all. It is merely an argument against a particular scientific strategy that assumes complexity can be reduced to specific features and then represented in a machine. Instead it is an argument for the appreciation of the nature of complexity, something that can perhaps be 'repeated' in a machine, should the machine itself be complex enough to cope with the distributed character of complexity.”
Source: Complexity and Postmodernism (1998), p. 86
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Paul Cilliers 12
South African philosopher 1956–2011Related quotes

“Journalistic content is a technical complex expressly intended to adapt man to the machine.”
Source: The Technological Society (1954), p. 96
Source: Complexity and Postmodernism (1998), p. ix

Source: Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution (1996), p. (1996).

“The argument of this book is that we, and all other animals, are machines created by our genes.”
Source: The Selfish Gene (1976, 1989), Ch. 1. Why Are People?

Source: What is Anthropology? (2nd ed., 2017), Ch. 4 : Theories

Source: 1980s, Against The Grain (1986), Ch. 10, The Critic as Clown

1960s, The American Promise (1965)
“The easiest way to cope with complexity is not having it.”
Treo Notes (December 2006 - December 2009)

Source: The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design