This is an extraordinary book that will change the way you understand yourself and the universe. It will empower you. We should all be indebted to Neil Theise for this monumental contribution to the science behind all reality.”—Deepak Chopra
“Lucid and luminous.”—Maria Popova, The Marginalian
“Lucid and accessible . . . This slender work offers a compelling retreat into the exhilarating and oddly reassuring world of complexity.”—Washington Post
“Mind-blowing . . . [There is] a very small amount of people we’ve interviewed who seem to be able to see the entire world in all of its complexity, in one view. . . . Neil might have his arms around perhaps as much of the big picture as one can get their arms around.”—Dax Shepard, Armchair Expert Podcast
“Enthusiastic and convincing in [its] demonstrations of the universe’s vast interconnectedness. . . . A stimulating read.”—Kirkus
“A wide, wise, and warm presentation and evocation of the broad domains of complexity, life, mind, and emergence. Please do read this book. The world is better for it.”—Stuart Kauffman, MacArthur Fellow, Fellow of Royal Society of Canada, author of The Origins of Order
“A must-read instant classic for those who are determined to discover the true nature of reality.”—Robert Thurman, Jey Tsong Khapa Professor Emeritus, Columbia University
“Engaging, compelling and revelatory, Notes on Complexity takes us inside the cell and outside the galaxy to deepen our understanding of the mysteries of which we are made. It is a fascinating and thought-provoking journey that filled me with wonder.”—Mark Epstein, MD, author of The Zen of Therapy: Uncovering a Hidden Kindness in Life
“This timely book invites us on a transformative journey into what is normally hidden from view—the complex, complementary interactions that inform science, art, and religion, and illuminate our existence as conscious and creative beings, inseparable from the totality of life.”—Ian A. Baker, PhD, National Geographic Explorer for the Millennium and author of The Heart of the World
“Notes on Complexity gives us a new way to see life and understand our existence.”—Daniel C. Matt, author of God & the Big Bang and translator of The Zohar: Pritzker Edition
“Neil Theise takes us through the ‘shimmering webs’ of complexity—from the womb to the windy mountain rooftops of the world, so that we may come home to the everywhere and the everyone.”—Maureen Seaberg, author of Fearfully and Wonderfully Made: The Astonishing New Science of the Senses
03/27/2023
Theise, a pathology professor at New York University, debuts with a disjointed meditation on complexity theory, or the study of the “open-ended, evolving, unpredictable, yet adaptive and self-sustaining” behavior of complex systems. He suggests that a defining feature of complex systems is their tendency to produce outcomes that cannot be predicted by accounting for each of its constituent parts, explaining how cells organize themselves based on their interactions with each other. Using a hypothetical ant colony to illustrate the “rules” of complex systems, he posits that a moderate degree of randomness is vital; ants that wander off from the food line discover new sources of food, but if too many ants stray, there’s no system to transport new discoveries back to the anthill. Readers will struggle to keep up as Theise weaves together dizzyingly eclectic reflections on fractals, quantum mechanics, artificial intelligence, and “Jewish and Hindu mysticisms,” delving into spiritual territory that will likely give skeptics pause (he claims that because “there are no real distinctions between ‘our own’ molecules and the molecules of the world around us,” all humans are continuous with the giant single organism that is Earth). Further hampered by abstruse jargon (discussions of “complementarity and holarchy” are likely to baffle), this doesn’t live up to its grand ambitions. Illus. (May)
2023-03-07
An introduction to a theory that “provides a powerful, yet delicately nuanced understanding of the nature of reality and of our place within it as conscious, living beings.”
Theise is a professor of pathology at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine, expert on adult stem cell plasticity, practicing Zen Buddhist, and pioneering researcher in “complexity theory.” During his distinguished career, he has made associations among different kinds of cells that other scientists have missed in their research. In his debut book, the author shifts his associative analytical skills into overdrive, as he seeks—and often finds—similarities between complex systems on all kinds of levels, from the smallest to the largest, organic to inorganic. Theise has given many talks about complexity theory and stem cell research to the general public, which might explain why the text occasionally falls victim to oversimplification. For example, the author asserts that Lynn Margulis and James Lovelock—who conceptualized Earth as “Gaia,” a system in which all living and nonliving components collaborate—“proved the critics wrong” and “established the study of Gaia as a robust field of investigation.” While some of the research leading to this theory is accepted, even lauded, in the scientific community, many researchers approach it with wariness. Nonetheless, as Theise eloquently notes, it is increasingly inescapable that, on a warming planet in which nonliving elements like carbon are being weaponized by the living, all kinds of worlds, ecosystems, geo-systems, cells, and particles are impacting all kinds of others. The author is enthusiastic and convincing in his demonstrations of the universe’s vast interconnectedness, consistently showing us how it is much greater than the sum of its parts. Are we “moment by moment…unique emergent expressions of the universe itself?” Not all will agree, but few will be uninterested.
A stimulating read for anyone who has wondered about unexpected similarities between divergent systems.