KISS or Complicate?: A simpler view solves problems. So does complication.

E=mc2 simplifies so much but looking for a simple statement is ruinous when the facts are not simple.  The example explained to me the other day is the random number generator in the computer game, Minesweeper. 

It places hidden mines on a board and looks random but isn't quite. When the code is used to pick a "random" point in a many-dimension grid, patterns emerge but you'll never see them if you just apply the code to a single row of numbers.  The non-random element is that each new iteration starts from the last one.

Immunoglobulin molecule

People great and small  (like myself), like to simplify and reduce the random messiness of life.  A delightful line showing this tendency:  "The (French) Academy, founded in 1635, is the official guardian of the French language and therefore is charged with the daunting task of defending the language from its own speakers."    Less savoury examples include blaming all bad things on Donald Trump,  equating weather with climate, and despising all nation states.

Each of us finds a simplifying shortcut, a TOE  (Theory of Everything) to make sense of confusion.  A little kid may go with "Mom says so".    Men five thousand years ago may conclude that stars and stones are people and build a culture around it.

I end with Richard Feynman's thought which handles complexity well:

"I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it’s much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong".