snip: My point about the candle is that complexity is in the eye of the beholder
Spirited: Cognitive dissonance is a deformation of the mind and thinking processes. Like a wall, it keeps what is true and real locked away behind a little door with a warning on it that says, “Do Not Open!” Reason is not disabled, yet in the absence of what is true and real, reason is deformed. Your claim is an example of deformed reasoning, for complexity is a permanent part of reality. It is there whether you allow yourself to be cognizant of it or not. It does not ‘disappear’ simply because you need to believe it is not there. This is magic-thinking.
Cognitive dissonance and materialism/empiricism are like a hand and glove.
It is not I who separates things into categorical bins, real and unreal, true and untrue, machine and non-machine.
I am the fighter against such compartmentalization, or I would not have sought to blur the distinctions between machine and "complex systems" with my analogy of the candle.
I celebrate a mental vision that encompasses a range from the sub-atomic to the span of galaxies and beyond, and a time-scale from sub-nanoseconds to billions of years. I find sufficient magic in such visions.
But this may be the first time that I, poet and writer, mathematical dunce and scientific dunderhead, renowned bon-vivant and celebrated raconteur, (Hey, it is "in my own mind", after all!), have been accused of having a place in my own mind that I would not go, a door that I would not open.
An interesting observation, but I think you are wrong.