DOI
ISBN 9781527507562

Summary
Hypercomplexity is not – has never been – an option; it is a “fact of life”: unfortunately, there is still too little awareness of the fact that the hypercomplexity that we are facing has extended so far as to make it very complicated and difficult to attempt to formulate reductive schemes of complexity or to to analyze it; in fact the resulting view would at best be partial. It has extended so far as to make it almost unthinkable – a utopian endeavor -- to try, even more ambitiously, to define a theoretical-interpretive model, (a fundamental but too often underestimated - sometimes considered “futile”- dimension), or a “system of thinking” capable of explaining the ongoing changes, capable of recognizing and comprehending the ambivalence and the interactions at all levels of the problematics that are involved . It is not by chance, in fact, that “old” models and interpretative schemes are often called up, perhaps readjusted with certain flashy neologisms to make them seem original and innovative.

Relevance for Complex Systems Knowledge
We are dealing with a kind of complexity that has been further enhanced by the ever more strategic relevance wielded by communication and by technological innovations, not only in the processes of education and socialization, but also – and above all -- in the representations and the perception of dynamics and of the systemic processes of evolution. Complex and problematic dimensions that also have an obvious impact on already hegemonic representations and narratives. The real issue is that we have never been (and are still not being) educated and taught to recognize this hypercomplexity, or at any rate, not by using our own heads. An inadequacy which has become even more apparent in this society of interdependency and of global interconnections: as I said above, a “new ecosystem” (1996) in which everything is (or at least, appears to be) linked and connected, within non-linear processes and dynamics, with many variables and concauses that must be considered. Nowadays, as never before, technology has come to participate in the synthesis of new values and of new evaluation criteria. Technological innovation, as well as the post-humanistic challenge (the new Utopia), enable the social actors to perform further – and irreversible – improvements, reaching higher and higher levels of quality. Considering the complexity of such a metamorphosis and the new situations that it implicates, whose solution cannot be met simply through acquired experience, an in-depth analysis of the possible ramifications correlated to the coming of the technological network civilization is sorely needed.

Point of Strength
Systemic and multidisciplinary approach to complexity