"Seeing' Complexity - the cybernetic viewpoint

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Abstract
This paper explores the meaning of complexity in human activities and offers a way to deal with it. Complexity is defined as the number of distinct outcomes that a viewpoint 'sees' in a situation, and not as an objective property of the situation itself. Moreover, it is argued that seeing complexity depends on the history of the viewpoint. However, this subjective definition of complexity does not imply that all appreciations of complexity are equally adequate. Whether the viewpoint is responding or not to the appropriate complexity in a situation depends on its perceptions of stability with other viewpoints. Instability may suggest that too much or too little complexity is seen in the situation. Thus, the problem for viewpoints is that of discovering economic forms of seeing this complexity in order to improve their chances of maintaining stability. It is argued that, while human situations are essentially black boxes for the viewpoints, the naming of systems is a way of focusing their attentions in different transformations, and that modelling the complexity entailed by these transformations is potentially a way to make them more manageable.

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