Simplicity vs. Complexity

Often in life we realize that when the going gets tough, we would chose the easy or the simple way out. Yet, while we are at ease with ourselves, we propagate simple situations into something more complex, and most of the time, end up miserably.

In academia, educators often use simple and idealized models to illustrate theories. For example, forces in physics. Assumptions were made and these were definitely not real, as real always builds complex models upon simple ones. Hence, dealing with forces in physics would consider issues like gravity, resistive forces, and electromagnetic interferences and so on. Of course, this idea prevails throughout all fields of academia, including arts and social sciences subjects.

However, complexity cannot be totally embraced. The human mind can only understand simple ideas, before the complex ones are introduced. Hence, it takes a massive amount of time and effort before complex ideas can be utilized. We can look at thermodynamics, a terribly abstract and extremely idealized subject that have no real simple model for illustration. Therefore, many simple ideas and analogies have been introduced, but still, they are far from the real stuff that we learn. In academia, scientists and researchers often find the extremes of their studies, but have never done exactly so yet.

In life, everyone embrace simplicity because it is easy to. Yet, they disregard the existence of the complexity behind the ideal. It is easy to say that both simplicity and complexity need to be in balance, but it is always almost impossible to put your finger to it.

-异客拍客-