According to John Urry, complexity involves emergent effects where the sum of the parts is different from each individual element (76). Urry emphasizes that this does not mean that the sum is greater than its parts, but rather it is different from its parts. When describing a “global” world, local elements comprise combine to make a global, but that “global” is different than the sum of its local parts. Urry criticizes rational action theorists that presume there is an “irreducible ‘individual’ whose rational actions can explain the social phenomenon in question” (77). Urry claims that physical science history has shown no irreducible entities, and what is ‘individual’ is really a “multiple flows occurring over various times” such as the flows of “minerals, genes, diseases, energy, information, and language.”
References:
Urry, John. Global Complexity. Malden: Polity, 2003. Print.