Product Description

In Complexity and Postmodernism, Paul Cilliers explores the idea of complexity in the light of contemporary perspectives from philosophy and science. Cilliers offers us a unique approach to understanding complexity and computational theory by integrating postmodern theory (like that of Derrida and Lyotard) into his discussion. Complexity and Postmodernism is an exciting and an original book that should be read by anyone interested in gaining a fresh understanding of complexity, postmodernism and connectionism.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #877803 in Books
• Published on: 1998-03-10
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 176 pages

Review
This is a cogently argued, important and original book.
–Mary Hesse, author of Forces and Fields

This book constitutes an excellent introduction to complexity theory and provides an intelligent appraisal of its implications for the philosophies of mind and science as well as for social theory.
–Keith Ansell Pearson, University of Warwick

About the Author
Paul Cilliers lectures in philosophy at the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa.

Customer Reviews

Science is not pop music ...and philosophy didn't used to be
... in spite of the appearance of the reviews associated with this work and the work itself, there is a valid connection between postmodernism and (let me be patient!) complexity.

First of all, about terminology... isn't complexity theory a branch of computer science that deals with execution time as a metric of algorithms? I think the reviewers here want to refer to complex systems theory. Wasn't connectionism a fad which was piled on top of a catchily-conceived name for artificial neural networks .... which were the popularization of more serious works of people like Papert, Minsky, Grossberg...and doesn't the reviewer who pretends to know something about physical science understand what "irreversibility" is and that, indeed, classical mechanics is indeed reversible? J. Willard Gibbs would roll over in his grave if he could read the reviews on this page...

IF you are seriously trying to find out what this stuff is about, start out by getting Lars Skyttner's book on General Systems Theory. Use it as a guidebook. Then, if you want to understand the evolution of the ideas, read the opening sections of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. After that, read Saussure and Piaget on structuralism and read Terence Hawkes' book, "Structuralism and Semiotics" After that, try to get at least a rudimentary understanding of the work of the process philosophers...Bergson, Peirce, James and, of course, "Process and Reality" by Whitehead. At this point, you should seriously consider getting at least a passing familiarity with the work of Karl Marx with the goal of understanding what was really bothering him - and of seeing that Marx's ideas are important in ways that he probably never even thought about.

At that point, if you are one of many for whom there is a schism between the culture of liberal arts and the culture of mathematics and science, you should, at this point read a few of the popular works of Richard Feynman - perhaps, "The Character of Physical Law" or the opening lecture of Volume I of "The Feynman Lectures on Physics". Compare what Feynman has to say about science to what Piaget has to say about structures and - hopefully, by now you are beginning to realize that mathematics is a liberal art - and that the so-called liberal arts are sometimes excuses for people who don't want to be very careful in their thinking....(not always, mind you) - go and read Sunny Auyang's wonderful books, "Foundations of Complex Systems Theories" and "How is Quantum Field Theory Possible?"

By this point, you should feel somewhat secure in addressing "Postmodernism" and being able to distinguish what is there because people want to sound "cool" for their friends, and what is valid and sometimes deeply disturbing for the evolution of humanity.

Crippled by Cilliers' Knowledge of Complexity Science
Frankly, I'm astonished by some of the favorable reviews this book has received. First of all, I still haven't figured out if this really is a book or if it's a collection of essays, due to the amount of repetition of content between chapters.

Cilliers attempts to demonstrate the mutual relevance of complexity science (CS) and postmodern philosophy, but his knowledge of CS and thermodynamics seems to go no deeper than what he's read on the dustjackets of pop-sci books. The number of claims he makes that are either blatantly false or not necessarily true are outnumbered only by the number of uninsightful comments and statements that appear to have been gleaned directly from more technical sources. Here are a few to make one's skin crawl:

On p. 6, as an example of a non-linear relationship: "money can receive compounded interest". In fact, this is a classic *linear* relationship (so common it's often used as an introductory problem the first day of a course in linear differential equations). The equation representing it is simply: dM/dt = n*M, where M is the amount of money in an account, and n is the interest rate. The solution is Mo * e^(nt), where Mo is the initial amount of money in the account and 'e' represents 'exponential'. (Simply because compounded interest generates an exponential curve over time does not make the relationship non-linear; the underlying equation is linear.)

On p. 4: "Any analysis of a complex system that ignores the dimension of time is incomplete, or at most a synchronic snapshot of a diachronic process." This is completely false - One of the very purposes of 'phase space' analysis is to *completely* represent a system without considering time. The elliptical relationship between velocity and momentum in a simple harmonic oscillator is a common example that many might remember from high school physics.

On p. 8: "In classical mechanics, time was reversible, and therefore not part of the equation. In thermodynamics time plays a vital role." This quote still makes me tear at my hair. The *exact opposite* is true: almost every equation in classical mechanics (projectile motion, harmonic oscillation, planetary motion) explicitly involve time as a dimension, while, because thermodynamics is only concerned with initial and final (equilibrium) states, few thermo equations do so.

On p. 3, Cilliers says: "The grains of sand on a beach do not interest us as a complex system." but includes later in the book a quote from complexity scientist Per Bak, who has achieved his fame specifically for the study of the 'self-organized criticality' of sand grains.

And this is just the first few pages! The list goes on and on: He repeatedly confuses the thermodynamic concepts of 'closed' and 'isolated' systems; He seems to think that 'non-linear' equations are all somehow phenomenally complex and unsolvable and that the phrase 'non-linear' is therefore a synonym for being non-reductionist, non-rational, and, in short, 'postmodern'. (In doing so, he falls into many of the traps Alan Sokal identified in Fashionable Nonsense.)

I think that the basic concept behind the book could have been interesting, but due to Cilliers elementary-level grasp of half the subject matter with which he deals, the statement Cilliers himself makes on p. 133 (in reference to a recent book by Rouse) applies equally well to this text: "For me, reading this book was about as pleasant as it would be to eat it."

All Without Referring to Wittgenstein?
I read this book primarily through an interest in the philosophy of language. Of particular relevance in this respect is the emphasis on a characterisation of complexity as being opposed to traditional notions of representation. Cilliers draws parallels between the philosophy of Saussure and Derrida and scientific developments in distributed representation, particularly with respect to connectionist approaches as implemented in neural networks. Cilliers argues that a classical representational theory of language that posits syntax as an instantiation of semantics does not sufficiently allow for the complexity evident in language, but rather that meaning is constituted by the dynamic relationships between both the components of language and the environment in which it is embedded. Cilliers explicitly rejects rule-based symbol systems as being adequete for modelling language, referring to recent scientific research using neural networks to simulate language learning indicating that "though rules may be useful to describe linguistic phenomena, explicit rules need not be employed when language is acquired or when it is used" (p. 32). In Chapter 4 (pp. 48-57), Cilliers considers the Chinese Room Gedankenexperiment from the perspective of his thesis. He suggests that the debate has unquestionably assumed that the formal model of language represented by the argument is correct, that is, that a rule-book such as the one supposed is even possible. Cilliers suggests that this assumes certain features of language: that a formal grammar for a natural language can be constructed and represented in a lookup table; that there is a clean split between syntax and semantics; and that language represents rather than constitutes meaning (p. 53).

The overall picture of language that Cilliers develops has important parallels with the views of Wittgenstein, though, somewhat surprisingly, Wittgenstein is never explicitly mentioned (except with regard to his family concepts). Firstly, meaning is construed as occuring through dynamic processes (use) rather than static representations (the conception that Wittgenstein's private language argument criticises). Secondly, the idea that there is some fact of the matter (whether inside or outside human agents) that determines meaning is explicitly rejected. Finally, a straightforward split between syntax and semantics is denied (a distinction that the sceptical interpretation of Wittgenstein, offered by Kripke, takes advantage of).

In summary, I would recommend this book to anyone interested in making connections between dynamic systems theory and philosophy of mind or language -- Cilliers proves an effective communicator in both of the fields he wishes to connect.