Complex Systems Quotes - Page 3

• The mind controls so much of the body. We are much more than flesh and blood; we are complex systems. Patients do better when they have faith that they're going to do better. That's why I always tell my patients and their families not to neglect their prayers. There's nobody I don't say that to.

  Benjamin Carson

  Prayer, Blood, Mind

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• A rough rule in life is that an organization foolish in one way in dealing with a complex system is all too likely to be foolish in another.

  Charlie Munger

  Organization, Way, Life Is

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• The belief that complex systems require armies of designers and programmers is wrong. A system that is not understood in its entirety, or at least to a significant degree of detail by a single individual, should probably not be built.

  Niklaus Wirth

  Army, Degrees, Details

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• I think one of the things we learned from the physicists and also the theoretical biologists is the idea that when you're dealing with very complex systems you're going to get a large variety of behavior which can be interpreted as hill climbing, but hill climbing with a lot of modifications, hill climbing with big jumps occasionally.

  Kenneth Arrow

  Thinking, Ideas, Climbing

  Source: www.minneapolisfed.org

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• It's a complex system we live in to think the actions that we take have consequences beyond the years in which we serve, and we all have an obligation to do what is best for our country.

  Karl Rove

  Country, Thinking, Years

  Source: www.msnbc.com

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• There is a growing recognition that the death penalty simply can't work. It's a complex system that arbitrarily selects defendants for death and creates more stress and appeals, even as it is plagued by serious error. Each new exoneration reminds us of the unacceptable possibility of wrongful execution.

  Robert Cecil Martin

  Stress, Errors, Growing

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• In journalism, especially, we tend to deal with large, complex systems by finding especially interesting people and story lines to focus on.

  Nicholas Lemann

  People, Interesting, Focus

  "Ask the Author Live: Nicholas Lemann on Higher Education". www.newyorker.com. September 20, 2010.

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• It is important to understand that while oxytocin may be the hub of the evolution of the social brain in mammals, it is part of a very complex system. Part of what it does is act in opposition to stress hormones, and in that sense release of oxytocin feels good - as stress hormones and anxiety do not feel good.

  Patricia Churchland

  Stress, Oxytocin, Feel Good

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

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• The first proponent of cortical memory networks on a major scale was neither a neuroscientist nor a computer scientist but .. a Viennes economist: Friedrich von Hayek (1899-1992). A man of exceptionally broad knowledge and profound insight into the operation of complex systems, Hayek applied such insight with remarkable success to economics (Nobel Prize, 1974), sociology, political science, jurisprudence, evolutionary theory, psychology, and brain science (Hayek, 1952).

  Joaquin Fuster

  Memories, Men, Profound

  "Memory in the Cerebral Cortex: An Empirical Approach to Neural Networks in the Human and Nonhuman Primate". Book by Joaquin M. Fuster, 1995.

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• If there is no fate and our interactions depend on such a complex system of chance encounters, what potentially important connections do we fail to make? What life changing relationships or passionate and lasting love affairs are lost to chance?

  Simon Pegg

  Life Changing, Fate, Important

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• The people working in my field also are quite skeptical of our ability to do this. It ultimately boils down to the problem of building complex systems that are reliable and that work, and that problem has long predated the problem of access to encryption keys.

  Matt Blaze

  Keys, Long, People

  Source: www.politico.com

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• As we build systems that are more and more complex, we make more and more subtle but very high-impact mistakes. As we use computers for more things and as we build more complex systems, this problem of unreliability and insecurity is actually getting worse, with no real sign of abating anytime soon.

  Matt Blaze

  Real, Mistake, Impact

  Source: www.politico.com

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• I believe the evidence strongly supports common descent. But the root question remains unanswered: What has caused complex systems to form?

  Michael Behe

  Believe, Roots, Support

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• People have a hard time accepting free-market economics for the same reason they have a hard time accepting evolution: it is counterintuitive. Life looks intelligently designed, so our natural inclination is to infer that there must be an intelligent designer--a God. Similarly, the economy looks designed, so our natural inclination is to infer that we need a designer--a government. In fact, emergence and complexity theory explains how the principles of self-organization and emergence cause complex systems to arise from simple systems without a top-down designer.

  Michael Shermer

  Intelligent, Simple, Hard Times

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