Dear DeniWeb Community,

I, in sane mind, decided to post this most boring topic (possibly having no answer) to this forum. I have my own motivations to write those lines (which is mostly ultimate boredom and total apathy); yet the question itself is a paradoxical one (swap the cause and consequence). To make a long story short, I want to hear your opinions about wether all this technology (not limited to IT and computers) and civilization is worth the complexity it pre-requisites.

P.S. This is not any kind of homework or similar (I am BS. in Comp. Eng.); I just wanted to complicate universe a little more and waste our time, in a lovely Nihilist way.

Sincerely yours,
Loren Soth

There is no cost to complexity (imo). And the complexity (and technology) is optional. So the answer's yes.

Hi,

I believe anything and everything has a cost; and technology/complexity is not exempt. The tech/complexity is hardly optional (or reducable) unless one chooses a Robinson kind of life, even in that case the quality of life is greatly reduced. Perheps this question can be reduced to quality of life trade-off between technological benefit and complexity cost.
Lets assume a virtual ratio of benefit per complexity cost, which is measurable. (ex: airplane high complexity / high benefit - bicycle low complexity / low benefit)
Can someone give examples of tech/application/device which isn't worth the complexity in accordance to its benefit. I start first, some drugs have such a high complexity (drug interactions, side effects, excessive liver load, addiction potential) that it is hard to medically justify its use most of the time.

Loren Soth

In general, complexity is worth it, until the point where the technology of which the complexity is benefitting does not break the point of ease.

(sorry if that doesnt make sense )

Hi,

It makes a lot of sense but also brings questions ? Do you think today's technology (in general or average) is near the point of ease, or has it broken that point ? Sure it depends on high complexity the technology eg. MRI,Multi-core processors, 3G cellular infrastructure, PNP device drivers, ICBM, AI Singularity, ad infinitum ... Can you give some tech. examples from the near point, way above it and way below it ?
The purpose I am asking this is that I'm fairly familiar with the complexity of many technologies but the perception of complexity has such a subjective nature that might have we missed the point and forgot which are the purposes and which are the means ?

Loren Soth

Increasing technological compexity and our ability to deal with it (perhaps more now than ever) could be the difference between us joining the extra terrestrial club of civilisation winners or becoming a historic anomoly, a miniscule blip in the vastness of the cosmos. Now is NOT the time to faulter my friends.

Hi,

Do you think there can be a non-subjective, measurable/calculatable measure of complexity for some thing. Sure the laser knives surgeons use is more complex than good old bread cutter but it is pure intuition. $ spent ? number of components ? date of invention ?
As we are on the geek's lounge and have a relax conversation over the nature of things geek's deal with. What do you think of the relationship between the complexity and order (as opposite of chaos) ?

Loren Soth

Complexity is a moving target I'd say, relative to the observer. Something can appear complex until it is explained after which it becomes less complex. Ultimate familiarity finally renders the complex subject simple.

I would also say it's layered. for example you say the laser knife is intuitive, but that's just familiarity with lasers. If you delve deeper into how lasers actually work that's complex, unless you're a physicist in which case familiarity renders it simple.

Complexity is created from compounding many simple things. So you could say complex is just plural for simple.

http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/COMPLEXI.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computa...plexity_theory

this suggests you can measure complexity in computation. but that's a limited context.

So I'm coming round to the notion you can measure complexity by simply counting how many things make it up.

But where do you start counting ? quarks ?