Physicist says ‘humans are complex’
by Udochi Igbokwe, reporter

     Human beings are complex because they are very difficult to understand and evaluate, one of America’s leading physicists told a NE Campus audience last month.

     Dr. Murray Gell-Mann, Nobel-prize winner, discussed his proposed theory of complexities in relation to irregularities of the universe. In the beginning of his presentation, he explained the meaning of pletics as the combination of the words, simplicity and complexity. The word plek is a Latin word, meaning entwined. Within the word plek, another Latin word complexus, meaning complex, arises.

     Pletics, therefore, refers to the combination of simple and complex things. Items called pletics are interdependent on one another.

     Gell-Mann received a 1969 Nobel laureate prize in physics for his work on the theory of elementary particles. He is well known for his theory of the existence of elementary particles with electric charges, otherwise called quarks.

     Gell-Mann also explained the existence of humans as complex beings and the services they depend on to survive. For example, people depend on food and water to survive.

     Under pletics are the complexities and irregularities of elements and substances, he said. Human beings, the universe and music are examples of regularities derived from irregularities. Regularity is the sequence at which a particular thing is done. As complex beings, people follow a set of regularities and irregularities in their dress, speech and communication.

     The audience appeared especially interested when Gell-Mann turned on a tape of the chirping of different types of birds. He explained that each type of specie had its own way of maintaining the tempo and pitch of the irregular sounds they made.

     “The most effective complexity in the universe results from frozen accidents,” Gell-Mann said.

     Frozen accidents are the uncontrollable accidents that caused the formation of the universe. As Gell-Mann explained, the mechanisms of self-organization caused the increase of local order at the expense of disorders elsewhere. In simpler terms, the universe is the result of quantum fluctuation of quarks. These fluctuations were irregular at the time, thus forming a regularity called the universe. Other regularities caused by frozen accidents are the shapes and location of the stars and planets. The formation of the spiral arms of the galaxies and the shapes of snowflakes are also examples of regularities caused by irregular disorders.

     This phenomenon leads to two of the fundamental laws of physics that Gell-Mann bases his theory on: the unified quantum theory of elements and their interaction and the initial condition of the universe near the beginning of expansion 13 billion years ago.

     Gell-Mann pointed out that the second law of physics is responsible for the second law of thermodynamics, which states that the total entropy of a system/universe does not change when a reversible process occurs and increases when an irreversible process occurs.

     Although the second law of thermodynamics is part of the laws of the universe, it does not forbid regular order through “various mechanisms of self-organization which can turn accidents into frozen ones—producing extensive regularities,” he said.

     Gell-Mann further explained that human existence is due to the fundamental laws of physics. Therefore, if there weren’t a frozen accident, there would be no human existence. For any given substance of the universe, frozen accidents lead to the regularities of that substance along with the fundamental laws, thus making it an effective complex.

     For every complex substance, there is a mode of operation of that substance, he said. He also explained the operation of a complex adaptive system through a diagram called the effective competition of schema. A schema is subject to variation in such a way that there is competition among different schemata (species/ things).

     “Basically,” he said, “humans analyze data, apply the data and wait for the consequences or result of the application of the data. If it yields bad results, they find another way to yield better results.”
Although a theoretical physicist, Gell-Mann’s theories and proposal cover psychology, evolution and biology.