I have been listening to Mattias Desmet discuss the nature of complex systems on James Howard Kunstler’s podcast, the KunstlerCast. Desmet’s book, The Psychology of Totalitarianism, is the center of their conversation, but at the beginning Desmet relates how he had a paradigm shift about science through his study of complexity theory and through writing the book. He discovered that nature is not rational and neither is any complex system.

He quoted Nils Bohr at the end of his career after he won the Nobel:

“The poet, too, is not nearly so concerned with describing facts as with creating images and establishing mental connections.

Desmet elaborates by observing that very little can be understood rationally and that only in a very limited way. For the remainder we have a much greater grip on reality through poetry.

Of course.  Which is not to say that poetry is superior to science.  It is just a bit better for certain uses, certain ‘resonances’.