complexity ontological or epistemological

["Jeff Pridaux" <***>]

Is complexity ontological or just epistemological?

This has been on my mind since the mid-90s.  Consider the following....

1.  Certainly, different people can look at the same thing (Natural system)
and see different things (formal system).  Just think of politics.  For
instance, liberals and conservatives can look at the same issue and come up
with completely different models of reality and push for different courses
of action (when in many cases they both want the same end-result).

2.  Certainly just because we (scientists) may interact with an entity
(like a sub-cellular organelle) with one set of observables (like
concentrations of molecules), doesn't mean those observables
(concentrations) are what something else (like other subcellular
organelles) "sees" with its interactions with the entity.   The
concentrations may be there but the concentrations may not really be the
observable used between the organelles.

3.  It could follow that organelle B could use one set of observables when
interacting with organelle A and organelle C could use a completely
different set of observables when it interacts with organelle A.  The
subcellular system could (in its own right) have complex modeling
relationships going on independent of any human observer.  The system has
its own interior complex modeling relationships inside it.  And as such,
the complexity of this subcellular system could be thought of as having
ontological existence.