A Vast Space of Possibilities
As we're searching for strategies based on limited information, our options are virtually endless.
Chess comes up frequently in books on complexity. Maybe that's because it's such a good example of what amounts to an effectively infinite space of possibilities. The game has twelve rules, but it has 10120 possible moves, give or take an order of magnitude. Numbers that big are simply impossible for us to comprehend in any practical sense. There is no way to explore all of those possible moves.
But the things we do every day in our social systems are just as complex. International trade, monetary policy, organizational strategy and change, doing your taxes. The list could go on. So many options, so little time. We ...
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