Complex vs. complicated

Know which domain you are in

A while ago I read about the difference between complex and complicated (it might have been Taleb, I can’t remember). The following explanation might be overly simplified, but the subtle difference is important, and has been a useful heuristic to me.

In a complex domain, you can not connect the input to the output. You can’t say that X happened because of A, B and C.

In a complicated domain, on the other hand, you can. It’s hard, but possible.

Think of a complex domain as a black box:

while a complicated domain is a tangled wire:

In a complex world, there are probably some factors influencing the output that you can identify, but if you ignore those you don’t see or if you don’t realize that other factors exist, you might be in deep trouble. You’ll end up drawing spurious conclusions and feeling unreasonably confident about your understanding of the situation at hand.

If you think you’re in a complicated world, but you’re actually in a complex one, you’ll waste a lot of time looking for answers you won’t find.