How Complex Situations Feel: Edgar Morin

I have been searching for an understanding of complexity grounded in human experience. From what I have read so far, most definitions concerning complexity focus on the characteristics of complex systems. While an important part of understanding complexity, I have been more concerned with what it feels like to encounter situations where we engage with complex systems. My thinking is that if we understand complex situations by the way they feel, we have another indicator of when we need to begin to change strategies and tactics to fit the context. At the same time, the feeling of complex situations may also add another valuable layer of understanding to what it means to call something complex.

Beyond Dave Snowden's insight that complexity corresponds with multiple competing hypotheses, the general understanding that in complex situations cause and effect are not proportionate or closely linked in time and space, the leading experiential understanding of complexity I have found comes fro…