The world just is. Its our language games that create the intricate web of meanings and patterns we call complexity.
Yes, and, though, it is also worth pointing out that humans, like probably all life, are in a constant relationship to and adaptation towards the material world. Furthermore humans, have had a constant fascination with the material world, partly in an attempt to understand it, partly in an attempt to use it, both to gain dominance over other species, and within their own species, but also partly out of the fascination that comes with exploring it.
And that, perhaps the most fundamental tool, for powering and developing a personal and social understanding of the material world, is to use and create a language that helps us describe, test and share our understandings of that material world. Language-ing may be considered some kind of game – and its true to suggest that the scope and limitations of our understanding of the material world – are in some sense encoded in our language, but the complexity exists both in the material world, and the language in which the material world tries to understand and explain.
Complexity, I would suggest, does not emerge, rather it is created in our language, but also as a reflection, and so is reflected in, the complexity of the world the language tries to explain.
You claim that without language, much of our socially constructed complexity would disappear. True, our social constructions would disappear, crumble. But as you have also suggested – the complexity of the world would remain. Furthermore, arguably, like other animals, who don’t have language, we would still have a relationship to that complexity, and still have a social means of sharing our understanding of that complexity, in the way that birds, or lions, or monkeys, or babies, are able to pass on and share their understandings of the material world – through observing each other’s behaviours, for example – and through their behavioural communication – certain sounds have certain meanings for animals. The understanding is there, its just not expressed in language.
I do also wonder too, about AI. It won’t necessarily need language to develop understandings of the material world – instead it will explore and develop understandings via correlations and algorithms – though it will need language to share those understandings with humans – if humans want to understand – or if the AI machines want humans to understand – otherwise those AI machines may simply direct humans to do things based on an understanding of the complexity of the world – which bypasses human language games.
But also, one last thought, we, and our language, are as much a part of the world, as anything and everything else in the world, and so the distinction between the complexity of our language, and the complexity of the world collapses into one. The question then becomes how is is that some part of the material universe, over time evolved into conscious beings with linguistic abilities and the ability to reflect back on itself and wonder about itself. Humans then, and their language, are both fascinated with their own material composition, but they also represent too, the wider material university developing a fascination with its own material composition.