14/10/2024
If life sometimes feels overwhelmingly complex, that’s because it really is. Now factor in nonliving, technological systems, which have been growing exponentially ever since Charles Babbage invented his 1822 “difference engine”—named for its capacity to perform mathematical computations and hence widely regarded as the first computer. The complexity has only compounded.
The key of complexity is powerfully demonstrated by what went on at Bletchley Park, the World War II British intelligence site, which is famous for cracking Germany’s Enigma code under the leadership of the mathematical genius Alan Turing. What made the cryptic codes so hard to decipher was their complexity; the number of possible combinations was 15 billion trillion (that’s 15 with 18 zeros). What’s more, the code was changed every 24 hours.
That is a lot like life. Every day we face new possibilities, fresh surprises, novel connections, and unexpected events. Our lives may seem routine, but order on the surface hides a complex cipher of continuous, dynamic interactions. Our lives are a puzzling, fascinating Enigma code.
Everywhere we look, if we pay enough attention, we will see complexity, often manifesting in unexpected ways. There’s a Netflix series called Connected, presented by science journalist Latif Nasser, that beautifully illustrates this point. One whole episode is dedicated to dust, for example, which reveals surprising connections between fossilized fish, sand in the Sahara Desert, Atlantic hurricanes, oxygen-generating phytoplankton, and soil fertility in the Amazon rain forest.
Another episode explores hidden mathematical codes that recur in nature and society, connecting everything from volcanoes and astronomy to political elections and social media. Not only does this put the joy of discovery back into science; it also introduces a mainstream audience to the science of complex living systems, without ever calling it that.
From Thriving: The Breakthrough Movement to Regenerate Nature, Society and the Economy
