Matthew Abraham

Philosophy and Literature Program
Purdue University
MAbra68114@aol.com

 

Paul Cilliers, Complexity and Postmodernism: Understanding Complex Systems. London: Routledge, 1998.

 

Paul Cilliers’s Complexity and Postmodernism: Understanding Complex Systems attempts to bring together developments in neuroscience, linguistics, logic, computer science, the philosophy of science, and poststructural theory in an effort to locate unifying themes in these exciting fields. Cilliers seizes on “complexity,” a term used to describe large-scale, non-linear interaction of nodes or agents in a dynamic environment, as a way to discuss possible structural resonances among the brain, natural language, artificial intelligence, deconstruction, and the legitimation of knowledge in contemporary society. By means of this ambitiously interdisciplinary approach, Cilliers hopes to overcome certain persistent simplifications in the thinking of both representation and organization.

 

Cilliers introduces the terms “distributed representation” and “self-organization” (or “self-organized criticality”) to improve upon the standard analytical and rule-based methods of understanding complexity. He takes up the “connectionism” attributed to neural networks as a model for the contingency and dynamism of complex systems such as those of the brain or of natural language. Connectionism treats the interactions of the nodes within it as a dynamic whole, each individual node working in concert with all other nodes of the network to adapt continually to environmental changes. This is in stark contrast to the rule-based descriptions of complexity which, imposing the rigidity of principled behavior on the nodes, cannot account for the contingency of environmental conditions and localized adaptations. Through distributed representation, Cilliers circumvents the shortcomings of the rule-based understanding of complexity because he is able to demonstrate that distributed representation is not representation at all, but rather the recognition of localized contingency. Each node interacts in concert with the other nodes of a neural or language network because each node acts and reacts as a system, not individually. This interaction is further explained through self-organization. A complex system, able to organize its individual nodes or agents through concerted action, does not have a central organization center but has the capacity to self-organize at local sites where environmental changes are detected.

 

Cilliers, following Saussure and Derrida, recognizes the complexity of natural language in terms of both its stability and its evolutionary capacity. Discussing natural language’s ability to instantiate meaning through a system of phonetic or graphical differences, he claims that while language users are bound to certain language rules, they are nonetheless free to adjust those rules and hence to influence the evolution of the language. This seemingly contradictory statement finds its theoretical underpinnings in Saussure’s concepts of the signifier and signified, where signification involves mental representation and the enactment of this representation through the utilization of the signifier in either spoken or written language. A language user has to choose among a host of socially sanctioned signifiers to represent a mental state. As Cilliers observes, “The system of language transcends the choices of any individual user, and therefore has stability” (39). But while he recognizes the constraints of social conditioning and common culture that temper any “free play” of language, Cilliers conceptualizes language as less the closed system described by Saussure than the open one of Derrida. Derrida, by denying the metaphysics of presence, claims that meaning cannot be generated outside of language and hence “where there is meaning there is already language” (43). Drawing in particular on the Derridean notions of différance and trace, Cilliers tries to show that natural language is a complex system which adapts dynamically over time and across multiple environments through a system of phonetic and graphic difference. Because language is constituted by nothing more than relationships, there are traces of other signs inherent in every sign. Language, through difference and deferral (hence différance), self-organizes signs through distributed representation.

 

Cilliers uses his discussion of natural language as a segue into a consideration of artificial intelligence as a complex system. In a chapter entitled “John Searle Befuddles,” Cilliers asserts that Searle’s contention that artificial intelligence does not possess intentionality and hence cannot be called intelligence at all is untenable. Cilliers briefly summarizes Searle’s views on artificial intelligence through a description of “The Chinese Room Experiment,” in which an English man, unfamiliar with Chinese, is provided with a rule book describing how to translate Chinese symbols into meaningful sentences. To the outside observer, the man appears able to “speak” Chinese as well as he can speak English, when in fact he is only following a rulebook. Searle contends that a computer, similar to the man in the experiment room, is simply following rules and cannot be truly said to think. In the absence of intentionality, Searle asserts, thinking cannot be said to have occurred. Cilliers rejects Searle’s pronouncement on the ground that it leaves intentionality undefined and does not consider that there might be different forms or modes of intentionality corresponding to different agents, such as the human brain and the computer. Cilliers also reiterates certain key points from Derrida’s critique of Searle in “Signature Event Context,” strongly endorsing the former’s reading of Austin’s speech act theory over the latter’s, which would hold that the context of a speaker’s utterance can be relied upon to anchor its meaning. For Cilliers, Derrida’s elaborate mockery of any such rule-based description of language contains crucial insights for discussions of complexity, for it both unseats the code as the ultimate arbiter of rules and dislodges context as the master precept of the code.

 

Cilliers’s considerations of complexity with respect to neural networks, language, and artificial intelligence provide him with a theoretical base upon which to discuss the postmodern condition. Incorporating insights gleaned from Lyotard’s The Postmodern Condition, Cilliers asserts that postmodern societies meet all of the ten criteria for a complex system:

 

1. Complex systems are comprised of a large number of elements.
2. The elements in a complex system interact dynamically.
3. The level of interaction is fairly rich.
4. Interactions are non-linear.
5. The interactions have a fairly short-range.
6. There are loops in the interactions.
7. Complex systems are open systems.
8. Complex systems operate under conditions far from equilibrium.
9. Complex systems have histories.
10. Individual elements are ignorant of the behavior of the whole system in which they are embedded. (119-120)

 

By analogy:

 

1. Postmodern societies have millions of agents operating within them at any one time.
2. These agents fulfill their functions in a number of dynamic and multiple roles (teacher, consumer, parent, child, etc.).
3. In a postmodern society, the interactions between agents and and mechanisms of the societal system are extremely rich and diverse.
4. Social relationships in postmodern society are non-linear and asymmetrical with respect to power. It is within these asymmetrical power relationships that people operate as teachers, students, consumers, and citizens.
5. Individuals interact on local levels. Although interactions on one level affect those on another, there is no “metalevel controlling the flow of information” (121).
6. All interpretations are local, contingent, and provisional. In this situation, paralogy and dissensus rather than homology prevail.
7. Open systems such as the social interact with other open systems such as the ecological.
8. Social disequilibrium characterizes the postmodern condition.
9. Although the concept of history is dismissed as a grand narrative in the postmodern, local narratives tell the histories of individuals and groups.
10. It is impossible for an individual to have a complete understanding of the operations of the entire social system in which he or she lives and interacts. (6-7)

 

Cilliers uses his analogy between complex systems and postmodern societies to dismiss the notion that postmodernism sanctions an “anything goes mentality” in which relativism reigns supreme. Instead, Cilliers asserts, postmodernism leads us to new ethical horizons and committments. He draws upon Lyotard to emphasize this point:

 

The breaking up of the Grand Narratives… leads to what some authors analyze in terms of the dissolution of the social bond and the disintegration of social aggregates into a mass of individual atoms thrown into the absurdity of Brownian motion. Nothing of this kind is happening: this point of view, it seems to me, is haunted by the paradisaic representation of a lost “organic society.” (The Postmodern Condition 15)

 

As Cilliers states, “A careful reading of Lyotard shows that his understanding of the individual is formulated in such a way as to counter the idea of fragmentation and isolation that could result from a dismissal of the grand narrative” (115). He goes on to argue that individuals constitute part of a vast social scene where each enters into an “agonistic network” in which discourses compete for legitimacy. Within this framework, paralogy and dissensus rather than homology and consensus “supply the system with that increased performativity it forever demands and consumes” (The Postmodern Condition 15). Cilliers compares paralogy to self-organized criticality by which “networks diversify their internal structure maximally” (117).

 

Ultimately, Cilliers is most intrigued by the Lyotardian concept of justice within the postmodern condition. Through the work of Cornell and Derrida, he outlines four criteria for “responsible judgment” in the wake of postmodernism and complexity:

 

Respect otherness and difference as values in themselves.
Gather as much information on the issue as possible, notwithstanding the fact that it is impossible to gather all the information.
Consider as many of the possible consequences of the judgment, notwithstanding the fact that it is impossible to consider all the consequences.
Make sure that it is possible to revise the judgment as soon as it becomes clear that it has flaws. (139-40)

 

These four criteria could very well be called a “postmodern ethic.”

 

Cilliers’s book provides a sympathetic yet rigorous reading of poststructural theory in the wake of the rapid advances in complex system research and understanding. Cilliers’s interdisciplinary approach to the concept of complexity will allow literary critics, philosophers, and scientists to reach across their respective disciplines and to appreciate the application of their disciplinary perspectives in new and exciting arenas. This book has taken an innovative and important first step down the path of critical scholarship on the subject of complexity and postmodernism.

 

Works Cited

 

• Derrida, Jacques. “Signature, Event, Context.” Limited Inc. Evanston, IL: Northwestern UP, 1988. 1-23.
• Lyotard, Jean-Francois. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1979.