Steven Johnson's The Myth of the Ant Queen, Key Term: Organized Complexity

Within his essay "The Myth of the Ant Queen," Johnson uses the term organized complexity in order to describe the most intricate level of scientific study. Johnson first defines organized complexity as the region involving "all problems which involve dealing simultaneously with a sizeable number of factors which are interrelated into an organic whole" (Johnson 204). Johnson's story describing Deborah Gordan's ant colonies demonstrates the idea of organized complexity. Each ant in the colony acts as a contributing factor, which when placed together with the rest of the ants, carries out the ultimate goal of protecting the ant queen. No ant receives any command but acts naturally toward the collective understanding that protecting the ant queen takes precedent over anything. This directly correlates to the concept of organized complexity the way that each ant acts as its own individual factor in the grand scheme of things. 

Johnson provides his audience with another story that embodies the idea of organized complexity. He describes Alan Turing's thinking machines as complex products which work out many individual problems and situations. Each individual task these machines would perform would work together to carry out the ultimate goal of cracking codes the way a human possibly could. Specifically, Shannon's idea to incorporate musical concepts in the hopes it would assist in solving equations and cracking codes.  

Organized complexity could be found among Davidson's iPod experiment at Duke. She held her app designing contest with each student designing their own specific app with its own design, all to work towards the goal of incorporating technology into everyday learning.  Each individual factor working towards carrying out a common goal.