>without taking into account the difference between accidental and essential complexity.
This is acutely summarized by Larry Wall's "Waterbed Theory of Complexity" which is basically Einstein's "Make things simple as they have to be but not any simpler than that". i.e if complexity is like water -- not very compressible. If you compress that complexity (a part of the bed) -- it will manifest elsewhere in the bed as more awkward/expanded because it's all connected.
Many discussions on complexity do make this distinction.
This is acutely summarized by Larry Wall's "Waterbed Theory of Complexity" which is basically Einstein's "Make things simple as they have to be but not any simpler than that". i.e if complexity is like water -- not very compressible. If you compress that complexity (a part of the bed) -- it will manifest elsewhere in the bed as more awkward/expanded because it's all connected.
Many discussions on complexity do make this distinction.