A complex idea holds 'lesser' contradictory ideas

In this article: What makes a complex idea, complex and why it's important.

An idea or theory is complex because it's made up of and holds, as a single new idea, multiple sub-ideas or strands, most of which are contradictory. This is what makes it complex.

There's an inherent tension to complexity, and the more complex the more inherent tension it holds. For example there is no tension in the idea that ice-cream is cold [because it doesn't hold any conflicting sub-ideas]. Yet there is in the idea that climate change and global warming is a consequence of humanities use of and addiction to fossil fuels.

A key though is contradictory. Complexity holds contradiction. The conflicting, competing and contradictory sub-ideas form the building blocs of the new more complex idea.

And greater intelligence holds greater complexity, since it's found a way to reconcile at a higher level the apparently irreconcilable contradictions of the previous level -- Requiring the contradictory mental skills of greater objectivity and deeper connection.

A key though, is that complexity holds this not as a bucket of competing and conflicting sub-ideas, but rather as a single, simple, new idea -- I know it's difficult to wrap our minds around.

We know the world is round, yet our daily experience of the world is of it being flat, which it is. The world in one sense is flat and in another round. Yet we hold this apparent contradiction, between our daily experience of the world, and what it actually is, comfortably. 

That the world is round is a more complex idea, than that the world is flat.

So when Ms. More Intelligence talks to Mr. Less Intelligence she naturally includes more complexity. But Mr. Less Intelligence unable to comprehend the single, simple, new idea soon becomes lost in the inherent contradictions. Mr. Less Intelligence eventually comes to believe that Ms. More Intelligence is just silly, unless of course he understands, complexity.

The key to developing intelligence is the cultivated ability to include and embrace what is initially experienced as fringe, radical and most often, frighting new perspectives. This introduces complexity and tension. At some point, if one stays and contemplates the complexity [for long enough], a new emergent reconciled idea is born.

One that comfortably holds ... paradox and contradiction.