6 Relation to other definitions of complexity

6.3 Bennett's Logical Depth

Logical depth [2] is the computational resources (chiefly time) taken to calculate the results of a program of minimal length. It is thus a combination of computational complexity (Section 6.1) and Kolmogorov complexity (Section 6.2). Bennett uses it to formalise the level of organisation in systems. All present-day organisms can be viewed as the result of a very long computation from an incompressible program*1 and are thus by this definition complex. Using this definition where the "difficulty" is essentially the difficulty of computation from a random starting point, evolution necessarily produces complexity however intuitively simple the results would appear to be. This is because this measure is aimed at the complexity of the process and not the results.

What is Complexity? - The philosophy of complexity per se with application to some examples in evolution - 14 JUN 95

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