Can you write a novel using only nouns? Well, maybe…but it won’t be very good, nor easy, nor will it tell a story. Verbs link events, allow for narrative, communicate becoming. So why, in telling stories of our economic lives, have people settled into using algebraic theory ill-suited to the task of capturing the fundamentally uncertain, open and evolving processes of innovation and exchange?Welcome to COMPLEXITY, the official podcast of the Santa Fe Institute. I’m your host, Michael Garfield, and every other week we’ll bring you with us for far-ranging conversations with our worldwide network of rigorous researchers developing new frameworks to explain the deepest mysteries of the universe.This week on Complexity, we bring our two-part conversation with SFI External Professor W. Brian Arthur to a climax — a visionary exploration of multiple scientific methodologies that takes us from the I Ching to AlphaGo, Henri Bergson to Claude Shannon, artificial life to a forgotten mathematics with the power to (just maybe) save the future from inadequate and totalizing axioms…We pick up by revisiting the end of Part 1 in Episode 68 — if you’re just tuning in, you’ll want to double back for vital context.If you value our research and communication efforts, please subscribe to Complexity Podcast wherever you prefer to listen, rate and review us at Apple Podcasts, and/or consider making a donation at santafe.edu/give. You can find numerous other ways to engage with us — including job openings for both SFI staff and postdoctoral researchers, as well as open online courses — at santafe.edu/engage.Thank you for listening!Join our Facebook discussion group to meet like minds and talk about each episode.Podcast theme music by Mitch Mignano.Follow us on social media:Twitter • YouTube • Facebook • Instagram • LinkedInRelated Reading & Listening:W. Brian Arthur on Complexity episodes 13, 14, & 68.“Economics in Nouns and Verbs” by W. Brian Arthur (+ @sfiscience Twitter thread excerpting the essay“Mathematical languages shape our understanding of time in physics” by Nicolas Gisin for Nature Physics“Quantum mechanical complementarity probed in a closed-loop Aharonov–Bohm interferometer” by Chang et al. in Nature Physics“Quantum interference experiments, modular variables and weak measurements” by Tollaksen et al. in New Journal of Physics

COMPLEXITY

W. Brian Arthur (Part 2) on "Prim Dreams of Order vs. Messy Vitality" in Economics, Math, and Physics

What is the economy?  People used to tell stories about the exchange of goods and services in terms of flows and processes — but over the last few hundred years, economic theory veered toward measuring discrete amounts of objects.  Why?  The change has less to do with the objective nature of economies and more to do with what tools theorists had available.  And scientific instruments — be they material technologies or concepts — don’t just make new things visible, but also hide things in new blind spots.  For instance, algebra does very well with ratios and quantities…but fails to properly address what markets do: how innovation works, where value comes from, and how economic actors navigate (and change) a fundamentally uncertain shifting landscape.  With the advent of computers, new opportunities emerge to study that which cannot be contained in an equation. Using algorithms, scientists can formalize complex behaviors – and thinking economics in both nouns and verbs provides a more complete and useful stereoscopic view of what we are and do.This week we speak with W. Brian Arthur of The Santa Fe Institute, Stanford University, and Xerox PARC about his recent essay, “Economics in Nouns and Verbs.” In this first part of a two-part conversation, we explore how a mathematics of static objects fails to describe economies in motion — and how a process-based approach can fill gaps in our understanding.  If you can’t wait two weeks for Part Two, dig through our archives for more Brian Arthur in episodes 13 and 14.If you value our research and communication efforts, please subscribe to Complexity Podcast wherever you prefer to listen, rate and review us at Apple Podcasts, and/or consider making a donation at santafe.edu/give. You can find numerous other ways to engage with us — including job openings for both SFI staff and postdoctoral researchers, as well as open online courses — at santafe.edu/engage.Join our Facebook discussion group to meet like minds and talk about each episode.Podcast theme music by Mitch Mignano.Follow us on social media:Twitter • YouTube • Facebook • Instagram • LinkedInRelated Reading & Listening:• “Economics in Nouns and Verbs” by W. Brian Arthur (pre-print)• @sfiscience Twitter thread excerpting “Economics in Nouns and Verbs”• “Mathematical languages shape our understanding of time in physics” by Nicolas Gisin for Nature Physics• “Introduction to PNAS special issue on evolutionary models of financial markets” by Simon Levin & Andrew Lo• “The Information Theory of Individuality” by David Krakauer et al. for Theory in Biosciences• “On Coronavirus, Crisis, and Creative Opportunity with David Krakauer” on Complexity Podcast• “The Erotics of Becoming: XENOGENESIS and The Thing” by Eric White for Science Fiction Studies• “New model shows how social networks could help generate economic phenomena like inequality & business cycles” by INET Oxford on research by J. Doyne Farmer

W. Brian Arthur on Economics in Nouns and Verbs (Part 1)

Whether in an ecosystem, an economy, a jazz ensemble, or a lone scholar thinking through a problem, critical transitions — breakdowns and breakthroughs — appear to follow universal patterns. Creative leaps that take place in how mathematicians “think out loud” with body, chalk, and board look much like changes in the movement through “music-space” traced by groups of improvisers. Society itself appears to have an “aha moment” when a meme goes viral or a new word emerges in the popular vocabulary. How do collectives at all scales — be they neurons, research groups, or a society at large — suddenly change shape…and what early warning signs portend a pending bolt of inspiration?This week we talk to SFI Fellow Tyler Marghetis of UC Merced about regimes and ruptures across timescales — from the frustration and creativity of mathematicians and musicians to the bursts of innovation that appear to punctuate civilization and the biosphere alike.If you value our research and communication efforts, please subscribe to Complexity Podcast wherever you prefer to listen, rate and review us at Apple Podcasts, and/or consider making a donation at santafe.edu/podcastgive. You can find numerous other ways to engage with us at santafe.edu/engage. Thank you for listening!Join our Facebook discussion group to meet like minds and talk about each episode.Podcast theme music by Mitch Mignano.Follow us on social media:Twitter • YouTube • Facebook • Instagram • LinkedIn Related Reading & Listening:“Creative leaps in musical ecosystems: early warning signals of critical transitions in professional jazz” by Matt Setzler, Tyler Marghetis, Minje Kim“The complex system of mathematical creativity: Modularity, burstiness, and the network structure of how experts use inscriptions” by Tyler Marghetis, Kate Sampson, David Landy“An Integrated Mess of Music Lovers in Science” – press release with video playlist of the 2020 Musicology & Complexity Working Group“Explosive Proofs of Mathematical Truths” – Simon DeDeo SFI Seminar on inductive networksComplexity 29: David KrakauerComplexity 33: Tim Kohler & Marten SchefferComplexity 35, 36: Geoffrey WestComplexity 37: Laurence GonzalesComplexity 65: Deborah GordonTopics Discussed:• competitive wrestling to complex systems science• free jazz ensembles as a mode of distributed cognition like ant colonies• creative transitions as analogous to ecosystemic transitions (loss of resilience due to autocorrelation, etc)• the difference between composed and improvised music• creativity and boredom• the relationship between improvisation and trauma, exploration and nonlinearity• the death of the genre (?)• the role of the body in thought• how can you tell an “aha moment” is about to happen?• what does a healthy mathematical ecosystem look like?• burstiness and virality

Tyler Marghetis on Breakdowns & Breakthroughs: Critical Transitions in Jazz & Mathematics

We are all investors: we all make choices, all the time, about our allocation of time, calories, attention… Even our bodies, our behavior and anatomy, represent investment in specific strategies for navigating an evolving world. And yet most people treat the world of finance as if it is somehow separate from the rest of life — including people who design the tools of finance, or who come up with economic theories. Many of the human world’s problems can be traced back to this fundamental error, and, by extension, many of the problems we create for other life-forms on this planet. What changes when we take the time to pause, and listen, and reflect on how the biosphere already works? How do we balance innovation with sustainability, or growth with resource distribution? Could a careful study of nature not only lead to better business outcomes but also help us heal the living world? Welcome to COMPLEXITY, the official podcast of the Santa Fe Institute. I’m your host, Michael Garfield, and every other week we’ll bring you with us for far-ranging conversations with our worldwide network of rigorous researchers developing new frameworks to explain the deepest mysteries of the universe.This week we talk to SFI’s new Board Chair Katherine Collins, Head of Sustainable Investing at Putnam, about insights encoded in her book, The Nature of Investing. We discuss how investing has transformed in the 21st Century and what new challenges have emerged because of it; the tragedy of value capture; the push and pull between sustainability and efficiency; the consequential differences between risk and uncertainty, problems and mysteries; how multiple timescales interact to produce complexity in the market; balancing growth and development; and what all this means for those who want to do good and not just well with their investments…If you value our research and communication efforts, please subscribe to Complexity Podcast wherever you prefer to listen, rate and review us at Apple Podcasts, and/or consider making a donation at santafe.edu/podcastgive. You can find numerous other ways to engage with us at santafe.edu/engage. Thank you for listening!Join our Facebook discussion group to meet like minds and talk about each episode.Podcast theme music by Mitch Mignano.Follow us on social media:Twitter • YouTube • Facebook • Instagram • LinkedIn Related Reading & Listening:Katherine’s Website (where you can buy a copy of The Nature of Investing)Katherine’s SFI ProfileSFI’s Alien Crash Site 12 with Katherine CollinsRe: Putnam’s Sustainable InvestingESG at Putnam: A Digital Resource Guide“The coming battle for the COVID-19 narrative” by Samuel Bowles & Wendy Carlin“Economics in Nouns and Verbs” by W. Brian Arthur“The information theory of individuality” by David Krakauer, Nils Bertschinger, Eckehard Olbrich, Jessica C. Flack & Nihat Ay“Industrial mass-capture fishing may undo the benefits of schooling, according to a new study from UC Santa Barbara co-authored by SFI Postdoc Albert Kao…”“Group Decisions: When More Information Isn’t Necessarily Better”Complexity 35, 36: Scaling Laws & Social Networks in The Time of COVID-19 with Geoffrey WestComplexity 62, 63: Mark Ritchie on A New Thermodynamics of BiochemistryComplexity 13, 14: W. Brian Arthur on The History & Future of Complexity EconomicsComplexity 30: Rethinking Our Assumptions During the COVID-19 Crisis with David Krakauer

Katherine Collins on Better Investing Through Biomimicry

The popular conception of ants is that “anatomy is destiny”: an ant’s body type determines its role in the colony, for once and ever. But this is not the case; rather than forming rigid castes, ants act like a distributed computer in which tasks are re-allocated as the situation changes. “Division of labor” implies a constant “assembly line” environment, not fluid adaptation to evolving conditions. But ants do not just “graduate” from one task to another as they age; they pivot to accept the work required by their colony in any given moment. In this “agile” and dynamic process, ants act more like verbs than nouns — light on specialization and identity, heavy on collaboration and responsiveness. What can we learn from ants about the strategies for thriving in times of uncertainty and turbulence?What are the algorithms that ants use to navigate environmental change, and how might they inform the ways that we design technologies? How might they teach us to invest more wisely, to explore more thoughtfully?Welcome to COMPLEXITY, the official podcast of the Santa Fe Institute. I’m your host, Michael Garfield, and every other week we’ll bring you with us for far-ranging conversations with our worldwide network of rigorous researchers developing new frameworks to explain the deepest mysteries of the universe.In this episode we talk to SFI External Professor Deborah Gordon at Stanford University about the lessons we can learn from insect species whose individuals cannot be trained, but whose collective smarts have reshaped every continent. We muse on what the ants can teach us about a wide variety of real-world and philosophical concerns, including:  how our institutions age, how to fight cancer, how to build a more resilient Internet, and why the notion of the “individual” is overdue for renovation…If you value our research and communication efforts, please subscribe to Complexity Podcast wherever you prefer to listen, rate and review us at Apple Podcasts, and/or consider making a donation at santafe.edu/podcastgive. You can find numerous other ways to engage with us at santafe.edu/engage. Thank you for listening!Join our Facebook discussion group to meet like minds and talk about each episode.Podcast theme music by Mitch Mignano.Follow us on social media:Twitter • YouTube • Facebook • Instagram • LinkedInKey Links:Deborah Gordon at StanfordDeborah's TED Talk, "What Ants Can Teach Us About Brain Cancer and The Internet"Deborah's Google Scholar PageDeborah's book, Ants at Work: How an Insect Society is OrganizedFurther Exploration:Complexity 10 with Melanie Moses (ants, scaling, and computation)Complexity 29 with David Krakauer (catastrophe and investment strategy)Complexity 56 with J. Doyne Farmer (market ecology)Krakauer, et al., "The Information Theory of Individuality"W. Brian Arthur, "Economics in Nouns & Verbs"Michael Lachmann's research on Costly Signaling and Cancer 

Deborah Gordon on Ant Colonies as Distributed Computers

Seventy thousand years ago, humans migrated on foot across the ancient continent of Sahul — the landmass that has since split up into  Australia and New Guinea. Mapping the journeys of these ancient voyagers is no small task: previous efforts to understand prehistoric migrations relied on coarse estimates based on genomic studies or on spotty records of recovered artifacts.Now, progress in the fields of geographic information system mapping and agent-based modeling can help archaeologists run massive simulations that explore all likely paths across a landscape, bridging the view from orbit with thoughtful models of prehistoric peoples and how they moved through space.The new research expands our scientific understanding of how ritual and story encode vital geographic features, and sheds light on how our modern world is the product of deep, ancient forces.Agent-based modeling in archaeology can also help save lives by improving science communication, empowering stakeholders in cultural resource management, and facilitating better international planning and coordination as the climate crisis looms…Welcome to COMPLEXITY, the official podcast of the Santa Fe Institute. I’m your host, Michael Garfield, and every other week we’ll bring you with us for far-ranging conversations with our worldwide network of rigorous researchers developing new frameworks to explain the deepest mysteries of the universe.This week we talk with Stefani Crabtree, SFI Fellow and Assistant Professor in Socio-Environmental Modeling at Utah State University, and Devin White, R&D Manager for Autonomous Sensing & Perception at Sandia National Laboratories. Stefani and Devin are the first two authors on the recent Nature Human Behaviour paper, Landscape rules predict optimal superhighways for the first peopling of Sahul, a project at the bleeding edge of agent-based modeling for archaeology that simulated over 125 billion potential ancient migratory routes.In our conversation, we discuss bringing advanced technologies to bear on research into human prehistory; the ways humans make sense of space; how our minds and landscapes inform each other; and the ways agent-based modeling might help avert disaster for the sedentary populations of our century.If you value our research and communication efforts, please subscribe to Complexity Podcast wherever you prefer to listen, rate and review us at Apple Podcasts, and/or consider making a donation at santafe.edu/podcastgive. You can find numerous other ways to engage with us at santafe.edu/engage. Thank you for listening!Join our Facebook discussion group to meet like minds and talk about each episode.Podcast theme music by Mitch Mignano.Follow us on social media:Twitter • YouTube • Facebook • Instagram • LinkedInRelated Reading & Listening:• Stefani’s Website• Devin’s Webpage• Landscape rules predict optimal superhighways for the first peopling of Sahul by Stefani A. Crabtree, Devin A. White, Corey J. A. Bradshaw, Frédérik Saltré, Alan N. Williams, Robin J. Beaman, Michael I. Bird & Sean Ulm • Complexity 60: Andrea Wulf on Alexander von Humboldt’s Naturegemälde• Complexity 33: The Future of the Human Climate Niche with Tim Kohler & Marten Scheffer• Subscribe to updates from SFI Press on the upcoming ABM for Archaeology textbook• Lauren Klein’s SFI Seminar: What is Feminist Data Science?• Sam Bowles, Wendy Carlin, Suresh Naidu: Core Economics• Scale and information-processing thresholds in Holocene social evolution by Jaeweon Shin, Michael Holton Price, David H. Wolpert, Hajime Shimao, Brendan Tracey & Timothy A. Kohler • The universal visitation law of human mobility by Markus Schläpfer, Lei Dong, Kevin O’Keeffe, Paolo Santi, Michael Szell, Hadrien Salat, Samuel Anklesaria, Mohammad Vazifeh, Carlo Ratti & Geoffrey B. West• Outreach in Archaeology with Agent-Based Modeling in Advances in Archaeological Practice by Stefani Crabtree, Kathryn Harris, Benjamin Davies, and Iza Romanaowska

Reconstructing Ancient Superhighways with Stefani Crabtree and Devin White

This week we conclude our two-part discussion with ecologist Mark Ritchie of Syracuse University on how he and his SFI collaborators are starting to rethink the intersections of thermodynamics and biology to better fit our scientific models to the patterns we observe in nature. Most of what we know about the enzymatic processes of plant and animal metabolisms comes from test tube experiments, not studies in the context of a living organism. What changes when we zoom out and think about life’s manufacturing and distribution in situ?Starting where we left off in in Episode 62, we tour the implications of Mark’s biochemistry research and ask: What can studying the metabolism of cells tell us about economics? How does a better model of photosynthesis change the way we think about climate change and the future of agriculture? Why might a pattern in the failure of plant enzymes help biologists define where to direct the search for life in space?A better theory of the physics of biomolecules — and the networks in which they’re embedded — provides a clearer understanding of the limits for all living systems, and how those limits shape effective strategies for navigating our complex world.Welcome to COMPLEXITY, the official podcast of the Santa Fe Institute. I’m your host, Michael Garfield, and every other week we’ll bring you with us for far-ranging conversations with our worldwide network of rigorous researchers developing new frameworks to explain the deepest mysteries of the universe.If you value our research and communication efforts, please subscribe, rate, and review this show at Apple Podcasts, and/or consider making a donation at santafe.edu/give. You can find numerous other ways to engage with us at santafe.edu/engage. Thank you for listening!Join our Facebook discussion group to meet like minds and talk about each episode.Follow us on social media:Twitter • YouTube • Facebook • Instagram • LinkedInRelated Reading & Listening:Ritchie Lab at Syracuse University | Mark’s Google Scholar Page | Mark’s soil ecology startupReaction and diffusion thermodynamics explain optimal temperatures of biochemical reactionsby Mark Ritchie in Scientific ReportsThermodynamics Of Far From Equilibrium Systems, Biochemistry, And Life In A Warming World [Mark Ritchie’s 2021 SFI Seminar + @SFIscience Twitter thread on Mark’s talk]Scale and information-processing thresholds in Holocene social evolutionby Jaeweon Shin, Michael Holton Price, David H. Wolpert, Hajime Shimao, Brendan Tracey & Timothy A. KohlerGeneralized Stoichiometry and Biogeochemistry for Astrobiological Applicationsby Christopher P. Kempes, Michael J. Follows, Hillary Smith, Heather Graham, Christopher H. House & Simon A. Levin Complexity 4: Luis Bettencourt on The Science of CitiesComplexity 5: Jennifer Dunne on Food Webs & ArchaeoEcologyComplexity 17: Chris Kempes on The Physical Constraints on Life & EvolutionComplexity 35: Scaling Laws & Social Networks in The Time of COVID-19 with Geoffrey WestComplexity 41: Natalie Grefenstette on Agnostic Biosignature DetectionAlien Crash Site 15: Cole Mathis on Pathway Assembly and AstrobiologyPodcast theme music by Mitch Mignano.Cover artwork adapted from photos by Peter Nguyen and Torsten Wittmann (UCSF).

Mark Ritchie on A New Thermodynamics of Biochemistry, Part 2

Deep inside your cells, the chemistry of life is hard at work to make the raw materials and channel the energy required for growth, maintenance, and reproduction. Few systems are as intricate or as mysterious. For this reason, how a cell does what it does remains a frontier for research — and, consequently, theory often grows unchecked by solid data. Most of what we know about the enzymatic processes of plant and animal metabolisms comes from test tube experiments, not studies in the context of a living organism. How much has this necessarily reductionist approach misled us, and what changes when we zoom out and think about life’s manufacturing and distribution in situ?Welcome to COMPLEXITY, the official podcast of the Santa Fe Institute. I’m your host, Michael Garfield, and every other week we’ll bring you with us for far-ranging conversations with our worldwide network of rigorous researchers developing new frameworks to explain the deepest mysteries of the universe.This week we open a two-part discussion with ecologist Mark Ritchie of Syracuse University on how he and his SFI collaborators are starting to rethink the intersections of thermodynamics and biology to better fit our scientific models to the patterns we observe in nature. Beginning with his history of research into biodiversity, environmental science, and plant-herbivore dynamics, this conversation leads us to his latest work on photosynthesis and scaling laws in cells — an inquiry with potent implications that reach far beyond the microscopic realm, to economics and the future of sustainability.Subscribe to stay tuned for Part Two, in which we travel even deeper into how Mark’s work relates to other SFI research — and what his new perspectives may reveal about the nature of the complex crises faced by both human beings and the biosphere at large...If you value our research and communication efforts, please rate and review us at Apple Podcasts, and/or consider making a donation at santafe.edu/podcastgive. You can find numerous other ways to engage with us at santafe.edu/engage. Thank you for listening!Join our Facebook discussion group to meet like minds and talk about each episode.Podcast theme music by Mitch Mignano.Follow us on social media:Twitter • YouTube • Facebook • Instagram • LinkedInRelated Reading & Listening:Ritchie Lab at Syracuse University | Mark’s Google Scholar Page | Mark’s soil ecology startupReaction and diffusion thermodynamics explain optimal temperatures of biochemical reactions by Mark Ritchie in Scientific ReportsThermodynamics Of Far From Equilibrium Systems, Biochemistry, And Life In A Warming World [Mark Ritchie’s 2021 SFI Seminar + @SFIscience Twitter thread on Mark’s talk]Complexity Podcast 17: Chris Kempes on The Physical Constraints on Life & EvolutionComplexity Podcast 35: Scaling Laws & Social Networks in The Time of COVID-19 with Geoffrey WestMentioned in this episode:Sidney RednerGeoffrey WestJohn HartePablo MarquetJennifer DunneBrian ArthurChris Kempes

Mark Ritchie on A New Thermodynamics of Biochemistry, Part 1

The 19th Century saw many transformations: the origins of ecology and modern climatology, new unifying theories of the living world, the first Big Science projects, revolutions in the Spanish colonies, new information systems for the storage and representation of data… Many of these can be traced back to the influence of one singular explorer, Alexander von Humboldt. Humboldt was one of the last true polymathic individuals in whom the sum of human knowledge could be seated. As the known world grew, he leaned increasingly upon the work and minds of his collaborators — a kind of human bridge between the age of solitary pioneers before him and the age of international, interdisciplinary research he helped usher into being.Reflecting on his life, we natives of the new millennium, living through another phase transition in the information architecture of society, have much to learn about the challenges of weaving everything together into one holistic understanding. After all, when everything’s connected, our individuality is cast in doubt, truth is often hard to separate from politics and ethics — and maverick explorers find themselves caught in between incumbent power and the burden of responsibility to act on what they learn...Welcome to COMPLEXITY, the official podcast of the Santa Fe Institute. I’m your host, Michael Garfield, and every other week we’ll bring you with us for far-ranging conversations with our worldwide network of rigorous researchers developing new frameworks to explain the deepest mysteries of the universe.This week we conclude a special two-part conversation with SFI Miller Scholar Andrea Wulf, author of six books — including the New York Times Bestseller The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World. In this episode we build on our explorations in Part One and talk about the conflicts between truth and power, politics and science; the surprising unintended consequences of discovery; Humboldt’s influence on   illustrator Ernst Haeckel’s development of the idea that nature is an art form; the role of embodiment in innovation, discovery, and creativity; and the effects of nature and the built environment on human thought.If you value our research and communication efforts, Please subscribe to Complexity Podcast wherever you prefer to listen, rate and review us at Apple Podcasts, and/or consider making a donation at santafe.edu/podcastgive. You can find numerous other ways to engage with us at santafe.edu/engage. Thank you for listening!Join our Facebook discussion group to meet like minds and talk about each episode.Podcast theme music by Mitch Mignano.Follow us on social media:Twitter • YouTube • Facebook • Instagram • LinkedInRelated Reading & Listening:Complexity 17: Chris Kempes on The Physical Constraints on Life & EvolutionComplexity 20: Albert Kao on Animal Sociality & Collective ComputationComplexity 31: Exponentials, Economics, and EcologyConflicts of interest improve collective computation of adaptive social structuresBrush, Krakauer, FlackComplex Systems Science Allows Us To See New Paths ForwardFlack, MitchellCOVID-19 lockdowns provide a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to study wildlife in empty citiesYeh, MacGregor-ForsAmerican higher education must think outside the academy in a post-pandemic worldCowanCognition All The Way DownLevin, DennettMentioned in this episode:Chris KempesDavid KrakauerJessica FlackAlbert KaoCarrie CowanAlbert EinsteinErnst HaeckelCharles DarwinSimón BolívarJohn MuirErasmus DarwinAlfred Russel WallaceWilliam WordsworthSamuel Taylor ColeridgeLouis Comfort TiffanyMichael LevinDaniel Dennett

Andrea Wulf on The Invention of Nature, Part 2: Humboldt's Dangerous Idea

When you hear the word “nature,” what comes to mind? Chances are, if you are listening to this in the 21st Century, the image is one of a vast, interconnected, living network — one in which you and your fellow human beings play a complicated part. And yet, this is a relatively recent way of thinking for the modern West. It takes a special kind of thinker — and a special kind of life — to find and recognize the patterns that connect different environments around the planet. Until the pioneering research of 19th-Century explorer Alexander von Humboldt, no one had ever noticed global similarities between the climates and creatures at a given altitude, on different continents. His legendary work popularized not only a new portrait of the world and its complex inter-relatedness, but innovated vastly influential ways of doing and communicating science — including novel data visualization and interdisciplinary international collaboration methods. Von Humboldt, though, would bristle at the notion that he stands alone as some Great Man in history, preferring to acknowledge not just the inspiration that he drew from poets and philosophers, but also the Indigenous peoples he met and worked with in his travels. His theories beg to be examined in light of the aesthetic sensibilities with which they were communicated, as well as their sociopolitical and philosophical impact — including how they fertilized the Transcendentalist Romantics, founded what we now call ecology, and exemplified a synthesis of Art and Science at which our age of vast but fragmented knowledge can only marvel.Welcome to COMPLEXITY, the official podcast of the Santa Fe Institute. I’m your host, Michael Garfield, and every other week we’ll bring you with us for far-ranging conversations with our worldwide network of rigorous researchers developing new frameworks to explain the deepest mysteries of the universe.This week and next, we have a special two-part conversation for you with SFI Miller Scholar Andrea Wulf, author of six books — including the New York Times Bestseller The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World, winner of the Royal Society Science Book Prize and too many others to name in this introduction. In Wulf’s words, “This is not a biography about this great man. This is the biography of an idea.” In part one we begin our journey in Prussia at the turn of the 19th Century — and in a rich milieu of daring minds including Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and how their philosophies formed the basis for a profound new vision of the natural world…Subscribe to Complexity Podcast wherever you prefer to listen for part two next week.If you value our research and communication efforts, please rate and review us at Apple Podcasts, and/or consider making a donation at santafe.edu/podcastgive. You can find numerous other ways to engage with us at santafe.edu/engage. Thank you for listening!Join our Facebook discussion group to meet like minds and talk about each episode.Podcast theme music by Mitch Mignano.Follow us on social media:Twitter • YouTube • Facebook • Instagram • LinkedInMentioned in this episode:Cris Moore - Complexity 51Stefan ThurnerDavid Krakauer - Complexity 1Merlin SheldrakeFriedrich Wilhelm Joseph von SchellingJohann Wolfgang von GoetheEdgar MitchellRusty SchweickertDani Bassett - SFI Community Lecture, “Networks Thinking Themselves”Kirell Benzi - SFI Seminar, “Data + Art = Better Science Communication”Mark Moffett - Complexity 52Humphry DavyCharles LyellMichael Faraday

Andrea Wulf on The Invention of Nature, Part 1: Humboldt's Naturegemälde

Complexity is all around us: in the paths we walk through pathless woods, the strategies we use to park our cars, the dynamics of an elevator as it cycles up and down a building. Zoom out far enough and the phenomena of everyday existence start revealing hidden links, suggesting underlying universal patterns. At great theoretic heights, it all yields to statistical analysis: winning streaks and traffic jams, card games and elevators. Boiling down complicated real-world situations into elegant toy models, physicists derive mathematical descriptions that transcend mundane particulars — helping us see daily life with fresh new eyes.Welcome to COMPLEXITY, the official podcast of the Santa Fe Institute. I’m your host, Michael Garfield, and every other week we’ll bring you with us for far-ranging conversations with our worldwide network of rigorous researchers developing new frameworks to explain the deepest mysteries of the universe.In this episode, we speak to SFI Resident Professor Sidney Redner, author of A Guide to First-Passage Processes, about how he finds inspiration for his complex systems research in the everyday — and how he uses math and physics to explore hot hands, heat waves, parking lots, and more…If you value our research and communication efforts, please rate and review us at Apple Podcasts, and/or consider making a donation at santafe.edu/podcastgive. You can find numerous other ways to engage with us at santafe.edu/engage. Thank you for listening!Join our Facebook discussion group to meet like minds and talk about each episode.Podcast theme music by Mitch Mignano.Follow us on social media:Twitter • YouTube • Facebook • Instagram • LinkedInKey Links:Sidney Redner’s SFI WebpageRedner’s textbook, A Guide to First-Passage ProcessesPapers Discussed:Kinetics of clustering in traffic flowsWinning quick and dirty: the greedy random walkWhen will an elevator arrive?Role of global warming on the statistics of record-breaking temperaturesUnderstanding baseball team standings and streaksRandom Walk Picture of Basketball ScoringSafe leads and lead changes in competitive team sportsSimple parking strategiesA Fresh Look at the “Hot Hand” ParadoxCitation Statistics from 110 Years of Physical ReviewExplainer Animations:Simple Parking Strategies: A Primer"Sleeping Beauties" of Science: Unseen ≠ UnimportantWhen Will An Elevator Arrive? 

Sidney Redner on Statistics and Everyday Life

“More than the sum of its parts” is practically the slogan of systems thinking. One canonical example is a beehive: individually, a honeybee is not that clever, but together they can function like shapeshifting metamaterials or mesh networks — some of humankind’s most sophisticated innovations. Emergent collective behavior is common in the insect world — and not just among superstar collaborators like bees, ants, and termites. One firefly, alone, blinks randomly; together, fireflies effect an awe-inspiring synchrony in large, coordinated light shows scientists are only starting to explain. It turns out that diversity is key, even in a swarm; variety improves the “computations” that these swarms perform as they adapt to their surroundings. Watch them self-organize for long enough and you might ask, “Is this what people do? What hidden patterns and emergent genius do we all participate in unawares?” If bees and fireflies inspire that kind of question in you, you’ll find yourself at home in this week’s episode…Welcome to COMPLEXITY, the official podcast of the Santa Fe Institute. I’m your host, Michael Garfield, and every other week we’ll bring you with us for far-ranging conversations with our worldwide network of rigorous researchers developing new frameworks to explain the deepest mysteries of the universe.In this conversation, we talk to SFI External Professor Orit Peleg (Google Scholar, Twitter) at the University of Colorado Boulder’s BioFrontiers Institute and Computer Science Department about her research into the collective behavior of bees and fireflies. These humble insects can, together, do amazing things — and what science shows about just how they do it points to deeper insights on the nature of noise, creativity, and life in our complex world.If you value our research and communication efforts, please rate and review us at Apple Podcasts, and/or consider making a donation at santafe.edu/podcastgive. You can find numerous other ways to engage with us at santafe.edu/engage. Thank you for listening!Join our Facebook discussion group to meet like minds and talk about each episode.Podcast theme music by Mitch Mignano.Follow us on social media:Twitter • YouTube • Facebook • Instagram • LinkedIn Papers Discussed:Collective mechanical adaptation in honeybee swarmsCollective ventilation in honeybee nestsFlow-mediated olfactory communication in honey bee swarmsSelf-organization in natural swarms of Photinus carolinus synchronous firefliesSpatiotemporal reconstruction of emergent flash synchronization in firefly swarms via stereoscopic 360-degree cameras Further Listening & Reading:Episode 29 — David Krakauer on Coronavirus, Crisis, and Creative OpportunityEpisode 56 — J. Doyne Farmer on The Complexity Economics RevolutionStefani Crabtree — The archaeological record can teach us much about cultural resilience and how to adapt to exogenous threatsAnnalee Newitz — Scatter, Adapt, and RememberLaurence Gonzales on Behind The Shield PodcastMichael Mauboussin — The Success EquationEpisode 55 — James Evans on Social Computing and Diversity by Design@sfiscience on Orit Peleg’s research into honeybee olfactory communication

Orit Peleg on the Collective Behavior of Honeybees & Fireflies

Human relationships are often described in the language of “chemistry” — does that make the beliefs and attitudes of individuals a kind of “physics”? It is, at least, a fascinating avenue of inquiry. In particular, the field of statistical mechanics offers potent tools for understanding how exactly people form their views and change their minds. From this perspective, everyone is a dynamic network of opinions and values, in a tense and ever-changing balance both with others and ourselves. The “chemistry” of social life, then, arises from multilevel interactions in our noisy minds and how they influence each other.Welcome to Complexity, the official podcast of the Santa Fe Institute. I’m your host, Michael Garfield, and every other week we’ll bring you with us for far-ranging conversations with our worldwide network of rigorous researchers developing new frameworks to explain the deepest mysteries of the universe.In this conversation, we speak with SFI Postdoc Jonas Dalege about how his research uses physics models to understand the emergence of higher-level behaviors from lower-level behaviors, both within and between people. We discuss the role of entropy in the formation of individual beliefs; statistical approaches to the study of ambivalence and cognitive dissonance; the wisdom (and challenge) of tolerating ambiguity; and the social consequences when we try to minimize internal conflict…If you value our research and communication efforts, please rate and review us at Apple Podcasts, and/or consider making a donation at santafe.edu/podcastgive. You can find numerous other ways to engage with us at santafe.edu/engage. Thank you for listening!Join our Facebook discussion group to meet like minds and talk about each episode.Podcast theme music by Mitch Mignano.Follow us on social media:Twitter • YouTube • Facebook • Instagram • LinkedIn Key Links:Jonas’s Website | Google Scholar Page Related Papers, Talks, and Complexity Podcast Episodes:[Video] Explosive Proofs of Mathematical Truths by Simon DeDeoFalling through the cracks: Modeling the formation of social category boundaries by Vicky Chuqiao Yang, Tamara van der Does, and Henrik OlssonConflicts of interest improve collective computation of adaptive social structures by Eleanor Brush, David Krakauer, and Jessica FlackIntegrating social and cognitive aspects of belief dynamics: Towards a unifying framework by Mirta Galesic, Henrik Olsson, Jonas Dalege, Tamara van der Does, Daniel L. SteinCoarse-graining as a downward causation mechanism by Jessica Flack9 - Mirta Galesic on Social Learning & Decision-making29 - On Coronavirus, Crisis, and Creative Opportunity with David Krakauer (Transmission Series Ep. 3)33 - The Future of the Human Climate Niche with Tim Kohler & Marten Scheffer42 - Carl Bergstrom & Jevin West on Calling Bullshit: The Art of Skepticism in a Data-Driven World43 - Vicky Yang & Henrik Olsson on Political Polling & Polarization: How We Make Decisions & Identities55 - James Evans on Social Computing and Diversity by Design

Jonas Dalege on The Physics of Attitudes & Beliefs

Once upon a time at UC Santa Cruz, a group of renegade grad students started mixing physics with math and computers, determined to discover underlying patterns in the seeming-randomness of systems like the weather and roulette. Their research led to major insights in the emerging field of chaos theory, and eventually to the new discipline of complexity economics — which brings models from ecology and physics, cognitive science and biology together to improve our understanding of how value flows through networks, how people make decisions, and how new technologies evolve. As the human world weaves new global economic systems and sustainability looms ever-larger in importance, it is finally time to heed the warnings — and the promises — of this new paradigm of economics.Welcome to Complexity, the official podcast of the Santa Fe Institute. I’m your host, Michael Garfield, and every other week we’ll bring you with us for far-ranging conversations with our worldwide network of rigorous researchers developing new frameworks to explain the deepest mysteries of the universe.This week on Complexity, we speak with SFI External Professor J. Doyne Farmer at INET Oxford, to tour his fifty years of pioneering work and current book-in-progress, The Complexity Economics Revolution. Topics include how ecology inspires novel forms of macroeconomics; how “bounded rationality” changes the narrative about rational self-interested economic actors; how leverage leads to greater instability; how new tools can help us predict emerging innovations and engineer a better banking system; the skewed incentives of science funding and venture capital; his take on cryptocurrencies; and more…If you value our research and communication efforts, please rate and review us at Apple Podcasts, and/or consider making a donation at santafe.edu/podcastgive. You can find numerous other ways to engage with us at santafe.edu/engage. Thank you for listening!Join our Facebook discussion group to meet like minds and talk about each episode.Podcast theme music by Mitch Mignano.Follow us on social media:Twitter • YouTube • Facebook • Instagram • LinkedInKey Links:Doyne Farmer’s Personal Website | SFI Page | INET Oxford Page | Google Scholar PageDoyne Farmer and related talks on our YouTube channelComplexity Economics from SFI PressRelated Complexity Podcast Episodes:W. Brian Arthur on The History & Future of Complexity Economics[Farmer’s PhD student] R. Maria del-Rio Chanona on Modeling Labor MarketsMatthew Jackson on The Science of Social NetworksGeoffrey West on Scaling and Superlinear InnovationDavid Krakauer on Collapse & High-Beta Investment Strategies

J. Doyne Farmer on The Complexity Economics Revolution

In the 21st Century, science is a team sport played by humans and computers, both. Social science in particular is in the midst of a transition from the qualitative study of small groups of people to the quantitative and computer-aided study of enormous data sets created by the interactions of machines and people. In this new ecology, wanting AI to act human makes no sense, but growing “alien” intelligences offers useful difference — and human beings find ourselves empowered to identify new questions no one thought to ask. We can direct our scientific inquiry into the blind spots that our algorithms find for us, and optimize for teams diverse enough to answer them. The cost is the conceit that complex systems can be fully understood and thus controlled — and this demands we move into a paradigm of care for both the artificial Others we create and human Others we engage as partners in discovery. This is the dawn of Social Computing: an age of daunting risks and dazzling rewards that promises to challenge what we think we know about what can be known, and how…Welcome to COMPLEXITY, the official podcast of the Santa Fe Institute. I’m your host, Michael Garfield, and every other week we’ll bring you with us for far-ranging conversations with our worldwide network of rigorous researchers developing new frameworks to explain the deepest mysteries of the universe.In this episode, I speak with SFI External Professor James Evans, Director of the University of Chicago’s Knowledge Lab, about his new work in, and journal of, social computing — how AI transforms the practice of scientific study and the study of scientific practice; what his research reveals about the importance of diversity in team-building and innovation; and what it means to accept our place beside machines in the pursuit of not just novel scientific insight, but true wisdom.If you value our research and communication efforts, please consider making a donation at santafe.edu/podcastgive — and/or rating and reviewing us at Apple Podcasts. You can find numerous other ways to engage with us at santafe.edu/engage. Thank you for listening!Join our Facebook discussion group to meet like minds and talk about each episode.Podcast theme music by Mitch Mignano.Follow us on social media:Twitter • YouTube • Facebook • Instagram • LinkedIn Key Links:• James Evans at The University of Chicago• Knowledge Lab• Google Scholar• “Social Computing Unhinged” in The Journal of Social ComputingOther Mentioned Learning Resources:• Melanie Mitchell, “The Collapse of Artificial Intelligence”• Alison Gopnik’s SFI Community Lecture, “The Minds of Children”• Hans Moravec, Mind Children• Ted Chiang, “The Life Cycle of Software Objects”• Re: Recent CalTech study on interdisciplinarity and The Golden Age of Science• Yuval Harari, “The New Religions of the 21st Century”• Melanie Mitchell & Jessica Flack, “Complex Systems Science Allows Us To See New Paths Forward” at Aeon• Complexity Episode 9 - Mirta Galesic (on Social Science)• Compexity Episode 20 - Albert Kao (on Collective Behavior)• Complexity Episode 21 - Melanie Mitchell (on Artificial Intelligence)

James Evans on Social Computing and Diversity by Design

Far-reaching conversations with a worldwide network of scientists and mathematicians, philosophers and artists developing new frameworks to explain our universe's deepest mysteries. Join host Michael Garfield at the Santa Fe Institute each week to learn about your world and the people who have dedicated their lives to exploring its emergent order: their stories, research, and insights…

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COMPLEXITY

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