Customer Reviews

Simplexity: Why Simple Things Become Complex (and How Complex Things Can Be Made Simple)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

In a well-narrated and thought provoking book, Kluger raises some interesting questions about how we define or tend to view and experience complexity. Organized as a series of (essentially independent) 11 or so chapters, each one focuses on one aspect - herd mentality, instincts, equilibrium, payoffs, scale, objective, fear, silence, flexibility, false targets, and loveliness. A motivating title in the form of a paradox starts the discussion in each chapter. The titles (and the short sub title) alone are interesting enough to provoke one's imagination. The chapters that deal with instincts (analogy of fluid dynamics in traffic management and evacuation procedures) and scale (discussion on Kleiber's observations on animal mass, energy consumption and life spans) stood out the most.

Despite all the interesting discussions, the chapters are so autonomous, a common thread leading to some substantial conclusions is not apparent. Moreover, it is disappointing to see that the author does not provide a detailed citation list or a reading list for the more curious reader, despite the references to work done at Santa Fe Institute and some books. The chapters do full justice to the main title, though the sub-question in the parentheses of the title doesn't get the attention it deserves..

Overall, an entertaining book that introduces the reader to a very interesting research domain.

This book starts with a bang, and contains occasional flashes of brilliancy. The cover artwork, title, and premise are very appealing. Unfortunately this book doesn't live up to it's parenthetical subtitle of "how complex things can be made simple."

I picked this up at an airport for a good cross-country airplane read. Initially I was very happy with this purchase.

The first two chapters are very interesting, and propose some brilliant insights into human behavior. These insights, like all of the interesting facts in this book, are disappointingly unsupported by any bibliography or source references. Hopefully the publisher will consider adding a bibliography when the edition goes into paperback.

This book fizzles out around chapter 4. There are a few interesting tidbits of information in the sports-centric 6th chapter. But it never seems to pick up the momentum created in the first two chapters.

As a senior software developer I was keenly interested in reading chapter 9, which is technology centered. It's titled "Why are your cell phone and camera so absurdly complicated? Confused by Flexibility." This is where I expected Mr. Kluger to shine on the book's subtitle "How Complex Things Can Be Made Simple." In that respect this chapter was a complete let-down.

The chapter provides an overview of the development of TVs, cell phones, and software, with dips into washing machines and other gadgets. Ultimately it boils down to a list of complaints about the complexity in technology, and a suggestion that simplification will eventually come as a result of market forces.

My expectation was that some insights would be offered on HOW to make the technology simpler. Jakob Nielsen and others have done remarkable work in this arena, though we are still only scratching the surface of making user interfaces "more intuitive." It seems that the intuitive user interface is the mystical gold standard that no-one can seem to get right. But I digress...

Read chapters 1, 2, and 6 for the meat of this book. Then move on to another book in your summer reading list.

There are many agreements that I would have with other reviewers who found the book appealing enough to open its cover, but not deeply satisfying - indeed, slipping into the disappointing range the further along I read. I thought that it would reveal something to chew on, to elucidate complexity and simplicity and the relationship of the two, but other than its first chapter with its discussion of a complexity arc, it had no more to add than diluted observations of what happens in complex and non-complex settings. Interesting perhaps, especially in the context of each chapter's probing questions, but basically not much more than storytelling of contrarian conditions (ie, why did the unbeatable team get beat by the pushover). Nice antidotes, but I felt a sportswriter would reveal more and in doing so, be more entertaining to read.

It did succeed, however, in one major area: it got me to buy the book. The cover and table of contents, as Amazon allows, were intriguing enough to order it. It just didn't have the right stuff of Apollo 13 (the author's other noteworthy book).

Based on the second half of the sub-title (How Complex Things Can Be Made Simple), I was expecting a "how to" approach for finding the underlying simplicity in apparently complex environments. However, the book was more of a collection of articles that "report the news" versus a "how to" approach for practical application. "Freakonomics [Revised and Expanded]: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything" by Levitt & Dubner has a similar flow, but did a much better job of providing insights on the analytics and approaches used to substantiate the causal relationships they assert.

I did find the book enjoyable from an philosophical/entertainment point of view. If you agree with Claude Levi-Strauss' that, "The wise man doesn't give the right answers, he poses the right questions," then you should read the book. In my opinion the real value of the book is that it may open your mind to asking better questions about the nature of complex environments. I specifically enjoyed the chapter on Cell Phone/Camera complexity and believe it's a must read for any manager of software engineers. In addition, I have high hopes that the references to other books will provide the pragmatic material I'm seeking.

In summary, if your are looking for a thought provoking piece on the nature of simplicity and complexity you will enjoy the book, but if you are tasked with making complex environments simple and looking for guidance the book won't further your journey.

In "Simplexity" Time magazine science writer Jeffrey Kluger examines how simple things can be complex and how complex things can sometimes be actually simple, and after suffering through a meandering and confusing 307 pages I now know why no one reads Time magazine anymore.

At first Mr. Kluger has two main arguments. With physical phenomenon (like gases) there are two extremes of static (absolute zero) and chaos, and both extremities are simple and boring; in between is where the complexity lies. With human relationships (like a corporation) there are two extremes of low wage earners and high skill wage earners, and both in fact are highly skilled and experienced at their work; in between is where the simplicity lies. Middle management was involved in numbing routine work, and with the advent of the computer middle managers became obsolete and redundant.

And then the rest of the four-fifths of the book meanders into topics that have nothing to do with the author's main arguments. Rather they're probably just a collection of his Time science articles re-published here.

Magazine writers know that readers tend only to read the first article of each section, and perhaps that's what Mr. Kluger is thinking here. Write two chapters, and fill in the rest with previous articles: most readers won't know the difference. Unfortunately, even the first two chapters aren't worth reading.

Kluger sets out to discuss common themes of complexity and simplexity, but unfortunately his knowledge base is far too thin to offer anything worth reading. He has interviewed key people and distilled those discussions to an ethereal mist that carries no weight at all, just vaporware.

If you want to read about simple explanations about complex things, like people escaping from a burning building or analogies between physics, biology and economics, your book is "Critical mass" by Philip Ball. "Complexification" by John Casti is an alternative. If you want more behavioral text, "The Wisdom of the Crowds" by James Surowiecki is much better, in e.g. explaining how groups of people reach decisions vs. personal solutions. Mathematics of sports, e.g. winning streaks is nicely described in a superb book "How the other half thinks; adventures in mathematical reasoning" by Sherman Stein. If stock market "physics" is of interest, then Nassim Taleb's "Fooled by randomness" or Benoit Mandelbrot's "Misbehaviour of markets" are better choices than Simplexity. Risks are covered by Gerd Gigerenzer in "Reckoning with risk" or by Peter Bernstein in "Against the Gods". A general view of interconnected world is offered by Albert-Laszlo Barabasi in his excellent "Linked. The new science of networks".

What all these books have in common is that they actually dwell on their chosen topic, while Kluger throws in a few interesting points, makes the few most obvious observations and moves on. Another guide to the modern world is "Information rules" by Shapiro & Varian. It explains the background economics and technical issues that drive many of the visible trends like "winner take all" markets, or the value of networking.

As for details, Kluger's discussion on how semiconductor plants work (p. 123 on paperback edition) is a collection of misunderstadings and misinformation. Either he has mixed up a semiconductor fab with an electronics assembly plant, or else he (and his informant) have completely missed the whole idea of semiconductor fabrication.

As a final detail, Kluger did not convince me that a lifetime risk of dying from a crashing airplane is 1/10,000 if I live near the airport. Maybe it is true, maybe not, but an individual factoid like this does not add much to my knowledge about risks of modern life.

Simplexity is a book tied together by a very large and abstract concept - that seemingly complex things can sometimes be understood in a very simple way, and some deceptively simple things are not actually so at all. This is called complexity science, and is primarily studied at the Santa Fe Institute, where Jeffrey Kluger has done a lot of his research for this book.

Simplexity is written with the easier tone of a good magazine article than an academic book, making it an easy read (although, in the same vein, the lack of endnotes or any bibliography reflect badly on the book as a serious resource). Each chapter is more-or-less self-contained to one aspect of simplicity or complexity; Kluger writes about the stock market, political structures, speech acquisition, and technology, among other subjects. His scope is extremely broad, enough so that he could afford only to put the interesting bits in, but the thread tying everything together is very very tentative.

One of the problems I had with some of his chapters was how reductive he was in his sociology. A lot of the chapter on the stock market hinges on the concept of "zero intelligence investors," that people playing the stock market will always behave as predictably and mindlessly as a school of fish. In the chapter on sports, same thing - trust stats for players, never hunches or long shots. Again, any corroborating footnotes would help a lot, and a good discussion of social anomalies in these instances, compared to the predictable mechanisms of technology, would have been really interesting.

The reader learns a lot from this book; there are plenty of neat tidbits and anecdotes that made it enjoyable to read. My favorite parts were the chapters on language and on technology. For technology, Kluger makes the point that the entire industry is really supported by complexity - not just in making detailed gadgets, but making them user-unfriendly enough that additional support/hardware/software will be needed to supplement them.

Sadly, Simplexity doesn't build to any really stunning insights, and I'm not sure ultimately what impact complexity science will have on the world - much less what impact this book will have. It's an interesting read, but the disparate subject matters and the vagueness and abstractness of the concept make it a less than fulfilling work overall.

This book is clearly the work of a journalist. On the positive side, that means that Kluger has chosen interesting topics and he's written about them in a smooth and engaging way. But on the negative side, there are a host of problems, many of which have been pointed out by other reviewers:

- Kluger apparently coined the term "simplexity" himself. I haven't heard complexity researchers use the term, and Kluger gives it no meaningful definition or illustrations in this book. He doesn't even meaningfully distinguish between complicated and complex. The book title is thus essentially a gimmick.

- The topics Kluger covers are only loosely affiliated with complexity, and some hardly at all. At the same time, the majority of core topics in complexity theory recieve little or no mention in this book. And making matters worse, the topics Kluger does discuss aren't linked together in any coherent way. So this isn't really even a book on complexity, but instead closer to a random collection of (mostly) interesting topics.

- Kluger's understanding is often rather shallow, even by journalistic standards, and there are some outright errors in the book (eg, his short discussion on bridge design and construction is riddled with misunderstandings).

In short, this book has little to do with complexity and no new concept of "simplexity" is genuinely introduced, so the book's title is a severe case of false advertising, hence my 2 stars. For a proper introduction to complexity, I recommend Complexity: A Guided Tour by Melanie Mitchell.

If you're looking for a book covering Complexity Theory and/or the Sante Fe Institute, go elsewhere. There is no mention of the Complex Adaptive System, Genetic Algorithms, Game of Life, Cellular Automata, or really anything else associated with Complexity Theory, though he does refer to the Sante Fe Institute occasionally. Many of his topics are likewise completely unrelated to Complexity Theory, or even Chaos or Systems Theories. He spends an entire chapter on healthcare spending, for instance, with no explanation for how any of it is complex. In short, I do not recommend this book to anyone for any reason. Save your money.

Simplexity: Why Simple Things Become Complex (and How Complex Things Can Be Made Simple) is a rare book indeed. The author, Jeffrey Kluger, is a senior editor and writer for TIME magazine. He draws heavily from that background both in approach as well as content. According to the author notes, chapters two and ten were largely based on Time articles. He clearly knows how to write, and his prose is readable and engaging. Yet he may be using his writing ability to pull a fast one over on us. While this book is filled with interesting facts, very few of them actually support any central thesis.

For him it seems those things easiest to see with the naked eye are inherently more complex than those not easily observed. A lack of a background in the various areas he discusses does not dissuade him from painting with a very broad brush. Those who enjoy reading about the history of science will find this book to be interesting and worth a quick read. Those looking for insight into complexity and how it can be made simple will likely come away disappointed.

THE GOOD

This book's saving grace is that some later chapters avoid the loose contrasts the author draws, at his own peril, in earlier ones. Chapter 7 deals with fear and has some interesting sections on the brain based on The Emotional Brain. Chapter 8 deals with language skills in infants and is largely drawn from The Scientist in the Crib. Chapter 10 focused nicely on why most medical research dollars are concentrated on the a minority of the world's illnesses. And Chapter 11 has an interesting, while brief, treatment of the difficulty in quantifying art. Yet even in the best chapters, most of the information is more of a collection of random observations than any serious study of complexity.

THE BAD

The author most often gets into trouble when he nonchalantly tackles complicated subjects. Chapter 9 on technology and consumer electronics makes the author seem more out of touch with technology than aware of its complexity. He implies that most product development teams allow their software engineers to design as they please. Clearly he has never worked in software engineering. This chapter devolves into a Seinfeld stand up routine that amounts to little more than, "And why are there so many buttons on your remote? What's the deal with that?"

In fact, from the introduction through the first two thirds of the book, the author undercuts himself with poorly chosen examples. He says a pencil is "arguably one of the most complex objects in the world" because the process that is used to make it incorporates so many steps and materials. By his logic, an item produced by an inefficient process would be more complex than an identical one made in less steps. He then says that a star is much simpler than a guppy, because "a star, after all, is just a furnace, a vulgar cosmic engine," while a guppy is a "symphony of systems, circulatory, skeletal, optical." I am fairly certain that most astrophysicists would disagree.

These kind of illogical contrasts undermine much of this book, with the author over-simplifying topics he is not well-versed in while over-emphasizing complexity where it is more easily observed.

There is also a strong air of pseudo-science around some of the "experts" that he highlights. When I read about Nassim Taleb at U.Mass, "Professor of uncertainty science ... a philosopher of probability," I can't help but wonder, weren't the people who study probability once called statisticians? The author is definitely enamored with the Santa Fe Institute but conveys only a generic sense of the research projects being undertaken there.

CONCLUSION

There are a few other basic things missing. The author references a lot of materials, but provides no bibliography. I have linked a few of the books that seemed most interesting to me, but some more referencing could have gone a long way.

This is still an interesting topic, but I think the main purpose this book will serve is as an introduction to many other interesting books. If you haven't invested the time in this one yet, you may be better served to start off with one of those other books first.


Enjoy.