Complexity, Experience, and Decision-Making

Introduction

I have been meaning to write this post for a while as it follows nicely from my most recent one on decision-making. It also dives into the experience of complexity, which is incredibly important. In this post, I want to single out decision-making in complex situations. Parts of the following will be similar to an earlier post titled "How Complex Situations Feel." The post goes in a new direction by braiding together decision-making, explanation, and the experience of complexity.

It's Complex!

How do we experience situations that we call complex? Edgar Morin (2002) writes “When someone says, ‘It’s complex.... the word complex does not constitute an explanation, but rather indicates the difficulty of explaining. The word serves to designate something we really can't explain" (p.325). Explanations are something we experience and are said to ourselves, to others, and by others to us.

Explaining

But what is in an explanation? Where is the difficulty located when we try to explain s…