Which is more complicated...?

A question came up about whether it is fair to say "While the human-made artifact is no more complex than a plant or animal or even a rock, it is no less complex either" (in a piece on Goethean science and human artifacts). The human, machine-like order placed over raw materials is no where as complex as that of a natural substance.

My reply was:

I was trying to address that we lose sight of where the things around us come from -- not just non-human nature (not sure how else to say that) but also social processes. First, these artifacts do come from nature and by exploring that aspect of them we recover something, or maybe at least understand something of the human-nature relationship. Second, I am not trying to say that, say, one of those robo-dogs is as complex as a real dog as a dog. But I do think that history and social relations are expressed in the artifact, but that this dimension is generally obscured or lost. That dimension is very complex because it ties into a very large web (if not ultimately all) of human interactions, history, desires, etc., and expresses nature processes of a different sort than that of a dog. (And Goethean science helps us reach and experience that, etc. etc.)

(Also, this human dimension also exists for non-human nature to the extent that human beings have transformed ecosystems, species, etc.)

jd