PDA

View Full Version : Surface complexity arising out of deep simplicity


nari
29-08-2005, 11:03 AM
This title is a quote from Roger Lewis, author of Complexity.

I would like to take it further, and quote a few passages out of John Gribbin's book Deep Simplicity:

Gribbin is talking about systems - all sorts of systems from the Solar System to dripping taps - quote:

"....what really mattered was that some systems...are very sensitive to their starting conditions, so that a tiny difference in the initial 'push' you give them causes a big difference in where they end up, and there si feedback, so that what a system does, affects its own behaviour. It seeemed too good to be true - too simple to be true. So I asked the cleverest person I know, Jum Lovelock, if I was on the right lines. Was it really true, I asked, that all this business of chaos and complexity is based on two simple ideas - the sensitivity of a system to its starting conditions, and feedback? Yes, he replied, that's all there is to it."

Gribben also mentions John Feynman, physicist supremo, who indicates that:

"...the complicated behaviour of the world we see around us - even the living world - is merely 'surface complexity arising out of deep simplicity'."

How does this relate to physiotherapy? I tend to think we are a bit lost in complexity of management, forgetting the starting condition/s, and focusing on the complex issues arising from a small difference initially.

What do SSers think???


Nari

bernard
29-08-2005, 11:21 AM
Well, Nari, a SomaSimpler will reply first =>

The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is at all comprehensible.

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler.

And will add this comment:
If you look at man (physiotherapy) with a microscope then you complicate his behaviours. If you look at him with "man" tools (hands, speech...) thus you're facing to a man that is more understandable!

rajulvasa
29-08-2005, 02:17 PM
This title is a quote from Roger Lewis, author of Complexity.

I would like to take it further, and quote a few passages out of John Gribbin's book Deep Simplicity:

Gribbin is talking about systems - all sorts of systems from the Solar System to dripping taps - quote:

"....what really mattered was that some systems...are very sensitive to their starting conditions, so that a tiny difference in the initial 'push' you give them causes a big difference in where they end up, and there si feedback, so that what a system does, affects its own behaviour. It seeemed too good to be true - too simple to be true. So I asked the cleverest person I know, Jum Lovelock, if I was on the right lines. Was it really true, I asked, that all this business of chaos and complexity is based on two simple ideas - the sensitivity of a system to its starting conditions, and feedback? Yes, he replied, that's all there is to it."

Gribben also mentions John Feynman, physicist supremo, who indicates that:

"...the complicated behaviour of the world we see around us - even the living world - is merely 'surface complexity arising out of deep simplicity'."

How does this relate to physiotherapy? I tend to think we are a bit lost in complexity of management, forgetting the starting condition/s, and focusing on the complex issues arising from a small difference initially.

What do SSers think???


Nari


Hi Nari
what really mattered was that some systems...are very sensitive to their starting conditions, so that a tiny difference in the initial 'push' you give them causes a big difference in where they end up, and there si feedback, so that what a system does, affects its own behaviour
This is exactly what happens in a stroke patient & that is the reason why stroke remains a stroke for the rest of the life.

chaos and complexity is based on two simple ideas - the sensitivity of a system to its starting conditions, and feedback?
if therapists can understand this, stroke does not remain a stroke for the lifetime as victory over stroke becomes simpler then one ever thought.

bernard
03-09-2005, 12:18 PM
Hi All,
Ian Stevens send me the link of this blog and I found that one...

Decisions, Decisions (http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/2005/04/11.html#a1107)

nari
03-09-2005, 01:26 PM
A good one!



Always worth remembering that a complex system is not synonymous with a complicated one...we often complicate complex systems!!


Nari

Diane
03-09-2005, 04:05 PM
I think you meant Jim Lovelock, and Richard Feynman.
I completely support the premises in the book. No argument from this skin treater.
Diane:)

nari
03-09-2005, 11:52 PM
Diane
yes I did steal that quote from them - should have acknowledged it!:thumbs_do


Bernard,

Yes, Einstein was right too, with his comment on simplicity. I wish some of the papers I try to read would follow some sort of simplicity rule, as well. many of them leave me thinking: What? But they weren't written for simple characters like me, of course...


Nari