Simplicity

musicpianoaccordion

So I watched this video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=p5yjZt-mvMQ

In this video we are told that simplicity is having few parts. Then the pizza aint simple. What do we call a non-simple thing?
We are in fact using this definition every day. A simple tune could be made of just two chords and thus simple but still very difficult.
We sometimes hear the term simplicity refering to something easy. A two chord accordion tune could be really difficult. And a simple living could be bloody difficult. If one accepts that God is the Existence Itself (summum esse??) then one would agree that just by looking at existence we will see God (at least in some form). Simple people without formal music training are often the best at two chord tunes.
So the difficulty of simplicity is that we complicate stuff a lot or never really learn the two chord tune. We want a four or five chord tune. I took this as an example as I am an accordionist.
Hos are we to speak about simplicity?

BC

What do we call a non-simple thing? — musicpianoaccordion

Complex? Complicated? Multifactorial?

One of the reasons "Most men [and women] lead lives of quiet desperation" is that they are adding too many parts to their lives: Too many things, too many activities, too many people, etc. "Things are in the saddle; getting and spending we lay waste our powers" etc.

Simplify, simplify, simplify.

Getting the empty things and activities and maybe empty people as well) out of our lives is critical to living a simpler life. A simpler life generally produces more life, as long as it is voluntary and directed towards fullness of life.

Just my simple opinion, of course,

Shawn

Well, if you like the physics analogy of the issue then we are living in a state of constant entropic decay and disorganization. It's hard to fight nature but we do try to with some success.

Valentinus

I always think about Aristotle on this topic. He noted that an incredible amount of work went on behind the scenes to allow something to just be what it was a you perceived it. And I suppose that is why artists of all kinds speak of "making it look easy"

musicpianoaccordion

↪Valentinus

Please elaborate some more on this.

musicpianoaccordion

↪Bitter Crank

So we simply but...then we are forced to go deeper into our relationships and activities which can be painful?
What does philosophy say about this?

Valentinus

↪musicpianoaccordion

Well, the initial point of entry in Aristotle's discussion of perception is commonly regarded to be his comment in De Anima, 418a3:

"That which can perceive is, as we have said, potentially such as the object of perception already is actually. It is not like the object, then, when it is being affected by it, but once it has been affected it becomes like it and is such as it is."

Welcome to some of the most hotly contested particles of ancient Greek. In this and his writings in Metaphysics there is talk about an "alteration" that allows things as they actually are to be present to a life through an alteration of that life. Something like TS Eliot saying: "You are the music while it lasts."

Now there is plenty of healthy disagreement to my thumbnail view and I hope they don't know where I live. *Valentinus removes battery from smartphone*

BC

↪musicpianoaccordion

It isn't clear to me what you are asking. Can you clarify, please?

Simplicity

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