Rosalia Condorelli
Department of Political and Social Sciences,
Italy
Review Article
Surprise of Complexity and Complexity of Surprise: What Happened to Predictability? Limits and New Possibilities of Complexity for Physical, Psychological and Social Sciences
Author(s): Rosalia CondorelliRosalia Condorelli
Complexity, as emergent self-organization, is indicative of the end of a science which has always rooted its own aims, its own reasons, its own meaning in the most exalting project: making the uncertain certain, knowing order so to predict and control the future, what is unknown. Emergence, with its burden of surprise and unpredictability, and non-linearity meet at all levels, in physical, inorganic and material, systems as well as in living, human and mental systems. At this point, some question could be raised: if this is true, if everything is emergent, surprising, unpredictable, where does this acknowledgment lead us? What is the sense of Science? What are its objectives? Does Complexity ‘promises’ and ‘permits’ us to better understand nature and the real behaviour of systems, or are emergence, surprise, and unpredictability really sic et simpliciter only a.. View More»
