Introduction: Absence — Presence, Circulation, and Encountering in Complex Space

Abstract

In common sense it is obvious: an object or a person is either here or there, and not in two places at the same time. Hard on the heels of this first self-evidence comes a second: the idea that if things are not chaotic then this is because they are contained within something larger, a whole. In which case, complex though it might be, there is indeed an order. Things are somewhere, and some are bigger than others.