CONTENTS 142 COMPLEXIFICATION NEXT
COMPLEXIFICATION: originality that results from fortuitous linkages


Complexification is the intrinsic creative property of the cosmos. It appears that the cosmos is intrinsically occupied in evolving more complex integrations from the less complex. From entities of one level of complexity, other entities are constructed of a more intricate and diverse form which elicit properties not seemingly present in the constituent entities. Complexification operates at every scale, from nuclear particles thru living forms, social organizations and ecosystems, to planetary systems and galaxies.

It is a very pervasive phenomena. Evolution complexifies biological life processes, just as technologists create manipulation and communication mechanisms, and artists construct imagination models for other awarenesses. In the biological world a web has properties which the strands do not have separately and a drop of water creates an entire ecosystem. In the intellectual world, when coplanar lines are conceptually complexified as a polygon, the new entity has many properties which the individual lines did not possess. In the artistic and scientific arenas, although simplification of cosmic structures is an essential phase in concept formation, never-the less complexification of the concepts and materials is the process whereby knowledge and artistic creativity is realized. There is much repetition of processes. Although each individual complexification is a single cycle and hence not strictly in itself periodic, never-the-less, the recurrent pattern of similar complexifications can be sufficiently similar to be able to describe the process as quasi-periodic, much as in the manner that the history of humanity is often described in terms of generations. This capacity to replicate... with incremental variations... is a core cosmic attribute.

Living things complexify from birth thru to a disintegration of death, eco-systems appear and disappear, civilizations come and go, and stars progress thru a life cycle to become super-nova and dwarves and eventually cosmic debris. Complexification involves both the physically interactive morphology of the entity as well as the memory structures. It may appear that certain external morphologies become less complex as a species evolves, in response to circumstances where it is advantageous to do so, but it is improbable that memory structure complexity will simplify, since it is unlikely that the environmental circumstances of the organism will simplify. The memory structure of the organism will almost inevitably complexify in order to diminish vulnerability and cope with the complexifying strategies of the predatory environment. Memory structure simplification would inevitably involve extinction.

Whilst the more complex entities are continually being constructed from entities of less complexity, never-the-less all proceed thru a phase of existence to an eventual disintegration. Disintegration is intrinsic to creativity. Supernova explode and disperse more complex elements from which new suns are gravitationally accreted. Capsules of life are fabricated, participate, and are then deconstructed. Cultures evolve, have their day in the sun, and then decay when confronted with phenomena for which their rules, conventions and resources have made no provision. Gardens are conceived, intruded upon the default condition of the local environment, flower, render up their produce, and then are absorbed back into the noise of weeds, as the capacities of the gardener wane. Death... in whatever guise and however seemingly unfair... systematically closes windows of past opportunity and thus increases the influence of what is new.


CONTENTS 142 COMPLEXIFICATION NEXT