> […] a unified concept is only meaningful if the manifold can be treated as a unity from some point of view. The concept of complexity thus formulates first of all the intention to see manifoldness from the point of view of its unity. The complex object must be manifold and unity at the same time.
In the current literature of very different disciplines the term complexity is used frequently, but mostly undefined. Even without definition, the term already suggests its own meaning. Since many things are considered or described as complex, it seems to have a theoretically central position. However, the exploitation of the associated opportunities depends on a sufficient clarification of the term and on an explication and control of the options lying in the conceptual field.
From a very cursory introduction of the term, quite heterogeneous usages initially emerge in the individual disciplines or branches of research, although a uniform phenomenon is apparently targeted.
In psychological research on "cognitive complexity" the term is used to designate the structure of personality systems from the point of view of their ability to process environmental information under differentiated categories integrated at an abstract level and thus to detach themselves from overly concrete environmental ties.
In organizational theory, the concept of complexity is needed as a measure of the degree of differentiation in the division of labor; it is then elaborated in terms of roles or jobs as units.
In the theory of socio-cultural evolution, complexity is either tacitly equated with "structural differentiation", or the term simply denotes evolution itself, as far as it can be measured with Guttman Scales.
The formal sciences think of complexity mostly in terms of the number and the variety of relations which are possible on the basis of a given number of elements in a system according to its structure. And also otherwise one often encounters multidimensional definitions, simply adding several variables, which reduce the inner structure of the concept of complexity to a mere "and".
In addition to concise and theoretically inadequate and uncoordinated uses of the term of this kind, there are attempts to make the term more precise by retreating to an epistemological or methodological level. The defining characteristics then lie in the measurement of efforts to gain knowledge of complex issues, for example in the amount of information or information processing required, or in the reductions necessary for operationalization.
In this way, however, one arrives at best at an operational, not also at a theoretical clarification of the term, which would have to refer to the complexity of the object of research.
If one wants to bring all this to an overarching central idea, the classical problem of the unity of the manifold remains in the last stage of generalization. "Complexity is only of importance if in a certain respect there is a high degree of complexity and in another respect there is unity." After all, **a unified concept is only meaningful if the manifold can be treated as a unity from some point of view. The concept of complexity thus formulates first of all the intention to see manifoldness from the point of view of its unity. The complex object must be manifold and unity at the same time.**
We now have experience with this problem, and we can make use of it. Already on the basis of the conceptual history of *complexum*, *complexio* one can see that this problem has forced modalizations and thus simultaneous presentation on several levels. In the tradition, these were partly possibility-theoretical (*complexio contingens!*), partly epistemological (*complexe significabile!*) modalizations.
Otherwise, the unity of the manifold could not be expressed. Depending on the modal-theoretical frame of reference, this reference to unity appears partly as a concomitant necessity in the contingently composed,18 partly as a question of securing the categorial correspondence of being and cognition when accessing the totality of content.19 (Today's ideas would rather correspond to a majority of "levels of language.)20 It always seems to have been an undiscussed prerequisite of the problem that it was about the unity of the complex itself. Exactly in this the perfection specific to the object was seen, that it brought multiplicity and distinctness (multitudo et distinctio) to an ordered unity - by the will of the creator or by the function of the imagination of the transcendental subject. And at the same time the unity of the complex subject was a guarantee for the decidability of the question whether statements contradict each other, i.e. precondition of the principle of non-contradiction. Finally, it offered to the older doctrine the starting point for cosmological explanations, about whose bases science cannot fully dispose.
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LUHMANN, Niklas, 2017. Systemtheorie der Gesellschaft. Berlin: Suhrkamp. ISBN 978-3-518-58705-8, p. 25–29.
"Complexity serves as a cornerstone of Luhmann’s theoretical work and as such it strongly influenced his notion of systems. The ‘System’, in Luhmann’s systems theory 2.0, consists of an internal environment that houses subsystems. The ‘parts’ are actually subsystems, each with their own complex processes and interactions with their environment. Whereas the parts in systems theory 1.0 are thought of as modular and static organs, the parts in systems theory 2.0 are themselves systems, like the cardiovascular system and immune system in a human body. The parts are essentially their own complex systems, which are comprised of their own complex systems, which are comprised of their own complex systems, and on and on. It’s essentially one big complex fractal of systems and subsystems"
Extract from the Antinet Zettelkasten book by Scott P. Scheper. This material may be copyrighted.