this post was submitted on 20 May 2025
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Is the universe the most complex interconnected system? Complexity implies not random. It seems to be nearly perfectly random. Not understanding something is not the same thing as it being complex.
How so?
It forms structures, but it's exactly what you'd expect from a random process. We expect some points of higher and lower density, not pure uniformity, in randomness. The structures we see are just the results of random processes. If you zoom out far enough it looks just like noise, as you'd expect from randomness.
Which is precisely what we see. I'm not sure where you're getting the impression that it's totally random noise, every scientific and mathematical field is based on the universe having consistent, ordered rules of operation.
Yes, that's what I said. Pure randomness expects points of higher and lower density, not pure uniformity, as we see, which implies it's pure randomness.
This has nothing to do with being random noise or not. In fact, random noise requires consistent ordered rules. If that isn't the case then you get something non-random where the rules change to achieve desired results, which isn't what we observe.
I'm really not sure how you're defining "randomness" then, or how that randomness precludes complexity and interconnectedness.
If you throw a handful of sand, there will be almost no pattern to it, but if you look closely there WI be some points with more sand and some with less. You could find interesting looking things in this. When you look at the whole thing though it obviously doesn't have a pattern to it, except what our brain may find because it tries to find patterns, even when there aren't any.
I wouldn't call something that's just noise complex. I guess it sort of is by definition, but not in a way that's interesting. Normally when I think of "complex" it's something that has a purpose to it, but we can't identify easily, not something that's easy to identify but has no purpose. It's just a random distribution of matter with the rules of physics applied. It doesn't create anything that seems to have any purpose.
That's not really what complexity is. Complexity has nothing to do with purpose, it's just about how many "moving parts" a system has. Those elaborate do-nothing machines that don't have any real "purpose" are nonetheless complex.
A random distribution of matter, subject to physical laws, is unquestionably a complex interconnected system. The laws of physics generate planets, stars, nebulae, blank holes, galaxies, superclusters, etc.
And I'll tell you a secret: every single "purposeful" pattern you've ever encountered was generated by that distribution of physically reactive matter. The complex interconnected universe, by definition, includes every other system, including the ones that you normally think of when you think of as "complex".