The pattern of relational intolerance traced in quantum theory, evolutionary biology, neuroscience, AI, and ethics is not confined to those domains. Wherever explanation stabilises, cuts are made, and relational excess is suppressed, the same intolerances reappear, often in amplified form.
This post examines this recurrence in domains of heightened complexity: climate science, economics, and social systems. Its aim is not to solve these problems, but to make the structural pattern legible.
Climate Science: The Intolerance of Uncertainty
Climate science confronts a field of immense relational richness:
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Atmosphere, ocean, biosphere, human activity, feedback loops.
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Processes spanning seconds to millennia.
Explanatory cuts are necessary: models simplify, parameters are fixed, projections are probabilistic.
The suppressed remainder — uncertainty, contingency, local experience — returns as:
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public anxiety,
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policy resistance,
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political dispute.
Intolerance here is not irrational. It is the signal of what the models cannot fully contain, pressed up against the stakes of human action.
Economics: The Intolerance of Agency
Economic modelling stabilises agents, preferences, constraints, and markets:
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Rational actors, equilibrium, incentives, optimisation.
Relational excess — social norms, historical contingency, ethical stakes, unpredictable behaviour — is bracketed.
Resistance manifests as:
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market crises,
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political revolt,
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critiques of reductionism.
Once again, agency and meaning return as pressure, forcing attention to the relational field outside the explanatory cut.
Social Systems: The Intolerance of Scale
Sociology, urban planning, and public policy operate across complex relational networks:
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Individuals, communities, institutions, infrastructure.
Intolerance signals the limits of explanation at scale: the field always exceeds the form, no matter how sophisticated the model.
Repetition and Amplification
Across these complex systems:
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Field of constrained possibility — immense, relationally rich domains.
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Necessary explanatory cut — models, abstractions, variables, agents.
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Formal or operational success — predictions, optimisation, interventions.
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Suppression of relational excess — uncertainty, agency, meaning, contingency.
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Resistance and intolerance — crisis, debate, dissent, or unanticipated outcomes.
The structure is identical to what we observed in physics, evolution, neuroscience, and AI. Only the stakes, scale, and visibility differ.
The Cumulative Insight
These patterns suggest a general principle:
Wherever explanation is stabilised, resistance will recur in proportion to what is suppressed.
Complexity, human participation, and collective action make the remainder more visible, more socially consequential, and harder to ignore. Intolerance in these contexts is therefore not a sign of error, but a diagnostic of structural necessity.
Navigating the Intolerable
Understanding the recurrence of relational intolerances allows us to:
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anticipate where explanation will be resisted,
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recognise signals of suppressed relations,
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act attentively in domains where stakes are high,
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engage ethically with the limits of our models.
Intolerance becomes a tool, not an obstacle — a way of reading what the explanatory cut cannot contain, and a guide for responsible action within the field.
Toward a Cross-Domain Perspective
Recognising this across domains enables a new understanding of explanation itself: powerful, necessary, incomplete, and always relationally constrained.
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