Frankly, I'm astonished by some of the favorable reviews this book has received. First of all, I still haven't figured out if this really is a book or if it's a collection of essays, due to the amount of repetition of content between chapters.

Cilliers attempts to demonstrate the mutual relevance of complexity science (CS) and postmodern philosophy, but his knowledge of CS and thermodynamics seems to go no deeper than what he's read on the dustjackets of pop-sci books. The number of claims he makes that are either blatantly false or not necessarily true are outnumbered only by the number of uninsightful comments and statements that appear to have been gleaned directly from more technical sources...

 

I think that the basic concept behind the book could have been interesting, but due to Cilliers elementary-level grasp of half the subject matter with which he deals, the statement Cilliers himself makes on p. 133 (in reference to a recent book by Rouse) applies equally well to this text: "For me, reading this book was about as pleasant as it would be to eat it."