{"id":397,"date":"2010-02-16T01:13:53","date_gmt":"2010-02-16T08:13:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/ClaireWolfe\/?p=397"},"modified":"2010-02-16T01:13:53","modified_gmt":"2010-02-16T08:13:53","slug":"comfort-with-complexity-iii-the-simplicity-on-the-other-side-of-complexity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/2010\/02\/16\/comfort-with-complexity-iii-the-simplicity-on-the-other-side-of-complexity\/","title":{"rendered":"Comfort with complexity, III: Simplicity lies beyond"},"content":{"rendered":"

“I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.<\/p>\n

“Life is so complex that government efforts to regulate and control it are doomed to fail, just as the Austrians say. And life is simple in the principles we use to guide us.” — Paul Bonneau<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

—–<\/p>\n

Part I here.<\/a> <\/p>\n

Part II here.<\/a><\/p>\n

Now we’re at the final installment, and reading Paul Bonneau’s comment above, I wonder if maybe I should just leave it at what he said and shut up. He summed up the political and philosophical aspects very well. <\/p>\n

But … there’s more. Of course. And (no surprise) it’s both simple and complex.<\/p>\n

When simplicity strikes<\/b><\/p>\n

You’ve probably heard the account of mathematician Henri Poincare’s sudden insight. As he stepped onto a bus, in the midst of a conversation with a companion, he was struck by a Great Truth about a subject he’d been pondering. He went right on with his conversation as if nothing had happened, but his whole life was changed. A complex problem had become simple.<\/p>\n

Not many people remember the subject of Poincare’s insight (non-Euclidian geometry), but lots of people know the story<\/a>. It has a universal appeal. <\/p>\n

Similar experiences abound. After years of dogged effort by some of the world’s most brilliant minds to discover the structure of DNA, young James Watson has a sudden flash of clarity<\/a>: DNA is like a spiral staircase with two rails.<\/p>\n

Saint Francis of Assisi<\/a> struggled for years, trying and largely failing to accomplish heroic works for God. Then one day, sitting in a dilapidated church, he heard the voice of Christ (so he perceived) telling him, “Francis, Francis, go and repair My house which, as you can see, is falling into ruins.” And he began at last to comprehend his life’s work. <\/p>\n

How many times have you had similar, if less saintly, experiences? You wrestle with some seemingly insolvable problem. For ages you get nowhere and feel as if you never will. Then one day you wake up — or you hear the lyric of a song — or you’re washing dishes — and suddenly, everything is clear. The solution is so obvious you wonder how you could have missed it. <\/p>\n

Mathematicians call the the truest solutions “elegant.” That’s just another way of saying that the best solutions take a complex reality and reduce it to simple lucidity. “E=mc2.” Classic example.<\/p>\n

The truest insights have a history of striking in the same way:<\/p>\n