Perhaps we've discussed this before, but I searched and couldn't find it.

At a conference a speaker mentioned that our work was not complicated, but instead it was complex. It made me wonder about the difference between the words, and I found this article. What are your thoughts on how these two words differ?

It seems a completely arbitrary difference to me.

I can see a difference in my own personal usage but it isn't anything like the one the article is suggesting. And it probably says more about me than about the words.

If I say something is complicated I usually mean that either I don't understand it or I don't think you will. If I say that something is complex I don't usually make that same association.

Otherwise I agree with arnie. The difference seems arbitrary.
The acid test would be to do a global swap in the article changing all instances of each word for the other and see if it would still make the same sense.
I think it would.
The author has just decided on a difference and used the words accordingly.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: BobHale,

I agree with arnie and Bob and would say the difference in meaning is arbitrary. Complicated seems to me slightly more pejorative connotation though.

This complicated discussion is too complex for me.

I get what they mean in that complicated seems more like using many different steps, while complex is more subtle (the social implications of culture and being raised in urban decay, or some such). Brenda Zimmerman, an expert in complexity theory differentiates the two words this way and is often cited. Yet, I don't see that distinction in the dictionaries.

quote:

Yet, I don't see that distinction in the dictionaries.

Because it isn't there.
These are shades of meaning that specific people are choosing to use. And if they define their terms than fine.
They are not the common meanings though.

If you are correct, and I think you are, boy are we shooting from the hip in health care then. All over the place the distinction between complexity and complicated is made.