“The complexity that we despise is the complexity that leads to difficulty.”

— Ward Cunningham

A Conversation with Ward Cunningham (2003), The Simplest Thing that Could Possibly Work
Context: The complexity that we despise is the complexity that leads to difficulty. It isn't the complexity that raises problems. There is a lot of complexity in the world. The world is complex. That complexity is beautiful. I love trying to understand how things work. But that's because there's something to be learned from mastering that complexity.

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Ward Cunningham 69

American computer programmer who developed the first wiki 1949

Paul Cilliers (1956–2011) South African philosopher

Source: Complexity and Postmodernism (1998), p. viii; as cited in: Michael Lissack (2002), The Interaction of Complexity and Management, p. 233

“The chief difficulty of the spiritual life is to maintain a simple, qualitative, heavenly position in a complex, quantitative, earthly setting.”

Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998) Swiss philosopher

[2016, La conscience de l’Absolu, Hozhoni, 20, 978-2-37241-020-5]
Spiritual life, Outline

“Life is not complex. We are complex. Life is simple, and the simple thing is the right thing.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

“There is no over-arching theory of complexity that allows us to ignore the contingent aspects of complex systems. If something really is complex, it cannot by adequately described by means of a simple theory. Engaging with complexity entails engaging with specific complex systems. Despite this we can, at a very basic level, make general remarks concerning the conditions for complex behaviour and the dynamics of complex systems. Furthermore, I suggest that complex systems can be modelled.”

Paul Cilliers (1956–2011) South African philosopher

Source: Complexity and Postmodernism (1998), p. ix

“It is one of our most exciting discoveries that local discovery leads to a complex of further discoveries.”

Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor and futurist

1970s, Synergetics: Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking (1975), Moral of the work
Context: It is one of our most exciting discoveries that local discovery leads to a complex of further discoveries. Corollary to this we find that we no sooner get a problem solved than we are overwhelmed with a multiplicity of additional problems in a most beautiful payoff of heretofore unknown, previously unrecognized, and as-yet unsolved problems.