in WespennestComplexity Scientist Stefan Thurner talks to editor Andrea Zederbauer and literary scholar Thomas Eder about the evolving understanding of complex systems.
A complex system consists of many elements that interact and affect each other. “The essential thing in a complex system is that not all components interact in the exact same way as all other components, but these interactions are specific. Some components interact with each other, while some components do not.” In contrast, Sanaa refers to a less complicated planetary system. That itself: Each planetary body acts on all other planetary bodies through gravity, as expected, without exception.
Previously, complexity studies were epistemologically disabled by the total inability to consider the vast numbers of individual interactions between elements of a particular system. However, in the age of comprehensive, large datasets, the prospect of mastering this task has become more realistic, with potentially dramatic results for understanding complex systems.
One such thing is world trade. “Supply chain data allows us to represent the entire economy,” says Thurner. “Every “atom” in the economy – every company, every business decision, every product or service that produces, how it interacts with other companies, how this changes, and everyone else can track it. ”
But rather than leading an age of egalitarian transparency, our data saturation era has led to a kind of “technofascism” in which “previous access to data has been transformed into unfree access to data,” while the behavior of complex systems that determine the distribution of resources remains opaque. Thurner states that if wealth produced by the whole of humanity “seems visible but not concrete,” people will be ” [will] Recognise that something is being withheld from them.
Complexity and literature
Democracy depends on reading, author and information scientist Miha Kobacz argue. Deep reading enhances the human ability to abstract and analytical thinking and protects us from the corrosive effects of bias, bias and conspiracy theory.
The foundation of democracy is citizens, and can think analytically, and can value common goodness and compromise rather than “my first” political agenda. This is succumbing to a simple answer demagogy when dealing with new, unknown social and economic issues. Only a large enough critical mass of those with the ability to analytical and abstract thinking and empathy, through dialogue and compromise, ensures that, through dialogue and compromise, we invent social, economic and cultural policies that will prevent us from dragging us to new forms of witch hunting in fundamentally changing circumstances.
Digital and human researcher Gerhard Lauer tours the alternative literary ecosystem that flourished in the age of social media, wondering what such phenomena have led for the future of written words. Do new genres like Romantasy, New Adult, Dark Academia, and “social storytelling platforms” such as Wattpad and our own archives reflect the concept of poor literature, the loss of aesthetic complexity? If so, does that matter given that they empower the entire new community they want to be readers?
Lauer argues that “the complexity of our interaction with literature is actually growing,” adding many reasons for support. The main thing among them is the fundamental inclusiveness of new genres and platforms. This is to incorporate more easily the voices from the “fringe of the literary scene” than traditional publishers. Fanfiction sites such as the unique Wattpad archive that enjoys tens of millions of reader writers offer a variety of tools and forums to hone your craft. In any case, the gravitational gravitational force of “Classic” ultimately feels like a book, exerting its improved influence. Jane Eyre, 1984 and Great Gatsby About the Social Media Discussion Board. “Reading habits often lead to more complicated reading experiences. The path from [New Adult author] JS Wonda leads quite a few times over Jane Austen or Thomas Hardy.
However, in the distribution of new readers, this means that traditional concepts of “high” and “low” culture fall on the roadside. “Democratization means that less educated people make equal remarks on aesthetic issues and aesthetic evaluations are being renegotiated.” From Lauer’s conclusion, it is clear that complexity, a sociological concept rather than aesthetic, is what he considers as a path forward. “The informality of new reading is an opportunity. We should grab it.”
Political Communication
The way people unfold complexity to encourage politically revolutionary connections is the subject of a conversation between Bulgarian and German novelist Ilya Trojanow and American political communication expert Arun Chaudhary and Bernie Sanders’ creative director of the 2016 presidential campaign and is now a Berlin-based advisor Arun Chaudharry. In their conversation, Trojanow and Chaudhary tackle the persistent issues of the left who tend to embrace the complexity of fact rather than assert through direct emotional appeal, allowing voters to win at an age “after truth” driven by emotions rather than reasons.
Trojanow wonders whether today’s highly diverse media landscape brings pressure to make his message as simple as possible in order to gain a competitive advantage. Chaudhary partially agrees. “Simplicity is the words, colors, and sensations that convey a message in the ocean where most information is lost.” However, he instead prefers the idea of ”redundancy” in a repetitive sense. “Success in political communication is building redundancy and conveying the same message in a slightly diverse way.”
Of course, populist rights are experts in crude manipulation, and Chaudhary is careful not to go too far this path. We make mistakes by trying to oversimplify things… I think Kamala Harris has never said that things are more complicated than the other side said they took her vote.
But in the end, Chaudhary is emotional and not too complicated – plump for the approach. I argue that certain emotions – anger and hope, for example, are scalable. The more hopeful I am, the more I do. The more I get mad, the more I do it. There are ways to make people want to make a big difference. ”
Complexity and avant-garde
Composer and musicologist Jan Kopp identifies the idea of complexity as a thru-line in his self-understanding of avant-garde standard time in classical music of the 20th century. The term “new music” refers to a groundbreaking shift from a tone system that had defined Western composition since almost the 17th century to 20 early, clearly confused integrity.th A century that brought about a “significant increase in complexity.”
Formalizing Arnold Schoenberg’s 12-tone theory, the musical grammar caused by “liberation of dissonance,” and the urgent complexity, will define avant-garde language for some time. Thus, music complexity has become synonymous with the progressive, future-oriented concept of art.
Kopp also points to the development of musical notation in the 15th century and subsequent evolution of written scores as key to promoting complex counter-textures. Here another 20th century revolution – John Cage’s experiments with non-standard postwar notation – will make everything even more complicated.
Minsk School
This problem of Wespennest It is a collaboration with the Minsk School of poet Dmitry Strozev, an ongoing anthology of non-mergerist Belarusian writers of the 1970s and ’80s. This issue includes the Strozev text “Poetic Reportage”. Due to the current political situation in Belarus, Wespennest The fifth issue is jointly released Minsk School From Vienna.
Reviewed by Nick Sywak
Source: Eurozine – www.eurozine.com
