Simply Complex: This World is It.

A simple system is one where the parts are fully predictable: the lock on your front door, for instance, is a simple system. You insert your key, turn it, and the mechanism inside the lock does exactly what it has been designed to do.

Let us compare this to a complex system, such as the ecosystem responsible for the survival and flourishing of any particular species — perhaps we can choose the endangered dusky gopher frog (Rana sevosa) as an example species. A complex system like an ecosystem is built on a number of interconnections — a number, in fact, so great, that it is impossible (or extraordinarily difficult) to locate them all.

In a complex system, if one interrelated element is altered, it becomes incredibly difficult to predict how the alteration of that element will affect the system as a whole since that single change can reverberate through untold links. A simple system, in contrast, is easy to predict: if one of the pins in the lock is jammed closed the lock will cease to function and repairing that system is as easy as unjamming the pin. There is no such solution for a complex system.

When our endangered species, Rana sevosa, finally vanishes from the Earth, will there be a cataclysmic failure of the environment? No, naturally not. Just as there is no easy way to undo damage to a complex system, such a system is inherently more stable than a system created through artificial means. There is, however, a point where a complex system takes so much damage that it becomes unable to recover. Alter the global parameters of a complex system, for instance, the average temperature of a large area, and the whole system is instantly placed under immense strain. Couple species depletion with global condition changes and you increase the likelihood of catastrophic failure.

The case before our species is not an individual one devoid of consequences.

A complex system, like the planet Earth, can survive an incredible amount of stress. But when a complex system does actually break down it becomes nearly impossible to repair. In the case of semi-complex systems, ones which are built within controlled boundaries, it might be possible to reset the system completely — to remove the components of the system and start again from scratch (but, note, that there is no absolute certainty of returning to a previous state of functioning). This is not the case for an unbounded, true complex system. If this Earth fails there is no reset button to bring it back.

The case before our species is not an individual one devoid of consequences. The mythology that personal responsibility extends no farther than the end of our uplifted index finger is not a beneficial one, nor remotely an accurate one. Individual responsibility is bordered by and intersects with, a global web of tangible relationships and dependencies — which, themselves, feed the individual. What we must come to realize is that any system based on limitless consumption is a system at odds with the stability necessary for the maintenance of a complex system. In a simple system we can replace what we break, but in a complex system when something breaks there’s usually no returning to an earlier state.