Notes on Complexity: A Scientific Theory of Connection, Consciousness, and Being

Theise, a pathology professor at New York University, debuts with a disjointed meditation on complexity theory, or the study of the “open-ended, evolving, unpredictable, yet adaptive and self-sustaining” behavior of complex systems. He suggests that a defining feature of complex systems is their tendency to produce outcomes that cannot be predicted by accounting for each of its constituent parts, explaining how cells organize themselves based on their interactions with each other. Using a hypothetical ant colony to illustrate the “rules” of complex systems, he posits that a moderate degree of randomness is vital; ants that wander off from the food line discover new sources of food, but if too many ants stray, there’s no system to transport new discoveries back to the anthill. Readers will struggle to keep up as Theise weaves together dizzyingly eclectic reflections on fractals, quantum mechanics, artificial intelligence, and “Jewish and Hindu mysticisms,” delving into spiritual territory that will likely give skeptics pause (he claims that because “there are no real distinctions between ‘our own’ molecules and the molecules of the world around us,” all humans are continuous with the giant single organism that is Earth). Further hampered by abstruse jargon (discussions of “complementarity and holarchy” are likely to baffle), this doesn’t live up to its grand ambitions. Illus. (May)