This book by Jeffrey Kluger explores the emerging field of simplexity: the study of systems for complementary relationships between complexity and simplicity. It moves along at a galloping pace, trying to cover the application of simplexity to economics, sports, government, linguistics, technology, diseases, Jackson Pollock and human behaviour. This is a drawback, and means that many interesting topics are glossed over or merely mentioned in passing.
The most interesting idea to me was the idea of an ‘arc of simplexity’ – a continuum from complete organisation to utter chaos that can be applied to many different systems, with the idea that there is a sweet spot somewhere along that arc where things function perfectly because there is the right amount of simplicity and complexity. However systems at this point are also vulnerable, and it’s very easy to tip them one way or the other.
The book reads more like an extended feature piece for a newspaper or magazine, using a lot of direct quotes from people working on simplexity and examples of specific experiments or studies, rather than analysing and explaining. It loses its way a little when it attempts to apply simplexity theory to art while trying to maintain that art is special and different to other systems. Overall, it’s not a bad book, it explained a few things that I’ve vaguely wondered about, and piqued my interest in the theory. Seek it out if you want an easy non-fiction read that’ll give you plenty of anecdotes to impress people with.
Simplexity: the simple rules of a complex world
Jeffrey Kluger
John Murray Publishers
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