Frank, how about the following as a definition suggested to me by your
approach (psychology) and that of Pagels (physical)?
"The complexity of an entity is a measure of the number of possible states
it could enter into directly from a specific current state."
This would tend to describe the condition that you refer to "not easily
explained or predictable" (in detail) by the nature of the thing itself.
I'm not proposing this as "the" definition of complexity but it does have
a ring to it that may indicate some usefulness as well as some validity.
--
Michael McMaster : Michael@kbdworld.com
book cafe site : http://www.vision-nest.com/BTBookCafe
"I don't give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity
but I'd die for the simplicity on the other side of complexity."
attributed to Chief Justice Brandeis
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations
For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>