Challenging complexity

One has different ways of looking at complexity. While some take delight in its sheer intricacy and the inherent puzzling aspect that it presents, others look upon it as a problem and try to simplify it, attempting to create a simpler version of the otherwise complex problem, so as to derive more benefits more easily from that former.

I like my life to be simple, and hence abhor complexity. But there are things that cannot be simplified beyond a limit - take for instance the current project I am working on with Xiao. It is a very complex system (the nature of which I cannot disclose due to an NDA that I have signed, all I can say is we are working on a low power UWB radio), and hence something that irks me. Now however hard I may try, I cannot strip the circuit off its complexity. Yet I am supposed to lay it out for fabrication. So I felt that it would be more worthwhile investing time in simplifying my notion of complexity rather than avoiding all things complex, large and small.

I feel that any complex thing can be analysed as a simple mix of 2 complex parts - what I prefer to call individual complexity and system level complexity. You can always break a complex system, or for that matter anything complex, say a complex problem, or a complex issue, into a simple combination of various blocks that may or may not be complex. The complexities of each of the individual blocks in turn contributes to the system level complexity, which is what one encounters when one looks at the complex phenomenon superficially. Although the two levels of complexity are very closely related to each other, I feel that it's very important to analyse them separately. More often than not one fails to make breakthroughs because one becomes more obsessed with the system level complexity while he may be better off attacking each complex block separately.

Also I believe some issues are adaptive in nature; their complexity increases with each failed attempt to simplify them. Consider a case where you want to recover from a failed venture, say a failed startup, with little backing from others. For such issues, it becomes necessary to tackle the individual complexities one by one, rather than focusing on the system level complexity, which may result in one inadvertently aggravating the individual complexities, probably resulting in a bad impact on the complexity of the system.

How should one then approach the issue of individual complexity? Most often, people look for a good strategy to deal with complexity. This is describing the situation in a broad way; I shall not narrow down to any specific case. This is a good approach and will pay off most times. But poor strategic choices may have a negative impact on solving the problem at hand. I think it would be much more helpful to solve this problem through well-sequenced activities. While aiming to simplify a complex system, it is also important to manage the complexity along the way. One should first identify the parameters determining the complexity in the block under consideration and fix the kind of simplification that one is looking for. Then make attempts to solve that while at the same time seeing to it that one doesn't affect the complexity of the other blocks adversely.

A certain degree of complexity may be unavoidable, but then the answer is not to pare back and simplify at all costs. Managing complexity is equally if not more important than simplifying it.