Paul Cilliers
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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 14
Average rating: 4.0 of 5
Crippled by Cilliers' Knowledge of Complexity Science 2 out of 5 stars.
23 of 25 people found this review helpful.
Frankly, I'm astonished by some of the favorable reviews this book has received. First of all, I still haven't figured out if this really is a book or if it's a collection of essays, due to the amount of repetition of content between chapters.Cilliers attempts to demonstrate the mutual relevance of complexity science (CS) and postmodern philosophy, but his knowledge of CS and thermodynamics seems to go no deeper than what he's read on the dustjackets of pop-sci books. The number of claims he makes that are either blatantly false or not necessarily true are outnumbered only by the number of uninsightful comments and statements that appear to have been gleaned directly from more technical sources. Here are a few to make one's skin crawl:
On p. 6, as an example of a non-linear relationship: "money can receive compounded interest". In fact, this is a classic *linear* relationship (so common it's often used as an introductory problem the first day of a course in linear differential equations). The equation representing it is simply: dM/dt = n*M, where M is the amount of money in an account, and n is the interest rate. The solution is Mo * e^(nt), where Mo is the initial amount of money in the account and 'e' represents 'exponential'. (Simply because compounded interest generates an exponential curve over time does not make the relationship non-linear; the underlying equation is linear.)
On p. 4: "Any analysis of a complex system that ignores the dimension of time is incomplete, or at most a synchronic snapshot of a diachronic process." This is completely false - One of the very purposes of 'phase space' analysis is to *completely* represent a system without considering time. The elliptical relationship between velocity and momentum in a simple harmonic oscillator is a common example that many might remember from high school physics.
On p. 8: "In classical mechanics, time was reversible, and therefore not part of the equation. In thermodynamics time plays a vital role." This quote still makes me tear at my hair. The *exact opposite* is true: almost every equation in classical mechanics (projectile motion, harmonic oscillation, planetary motion) explicitly involve time as a dimension, while, because thermodynamics is only concerned with initial and final (equilibrium) states, few thermo equations do so.
On p. 3, Cilliers says: "The grains of sand on a beach do not interest us as a complex system." but includes later in the book a quote from complexity scientist Per Bak, who has achieved his fame specifically for the study of the 'self-organized criticality' of sand grains.
And this is just the first few pages! The list goes on and on: He repeatedly confuses the thermodynamic concepts of 'closed' and 'isolated' systems; He seems to think that 'non-linear' equations are all somehow phenomenally complex and unsolvable and that the phrase 'non-linear' is therefore a synonym for being non-reductionist, non-rational, and, in short, 'postmodern'. (In doing so, he falls into many of the traps Alan Sokal identified in Fashionable Nonsense.)
I think that the basic concept behind the book could have been interesting, but due to Cilliers elementary-level grasp of half the subject matter with which he deals, the statement Cilliers himself makes on p. 133 (in reference to a recent book by Rouse) applies equally well to this text: "For me, reading this book was about as pleasant as it would be to eat it."
Editorial Review:
This book integrates insights from complexity and computational theory with the philosophical position of thinkers including Derrida and Lyotard.
