Episoder

  • Nature of Intelligence, Ep. 6: AI’s changing seasons

    Nature of Intelligence, Ep. 6: AI’s changing seasons

    · COMPLEXITY

    Guest:

    Melanie Mitchell, Resident Professor, Santa Fe Institute

    Hosts: Abha Eli Phoboo

    Producer: Katherine Moncure

    Podcast theme music by: Mitch Mignano

    Follow us on:
    Twitter • YouTube • Facebook • Instagram • LinkedIn • Bluesky

    More info:

    Tutorial: Fundamentals of Machine LearningLecture: Artificial IntelligenceSFI programs: EducationCompetition: ARC Prize

    Books:

    GĂśdel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas HofstadterArtificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans by Melanie MitchellComplexity: A Guided Tour by Melanie Mitchell

    Talks:

    The Future of Artificial Intelligence by Melanie MitchellIntroduction: AI and the Barrier of Meaning 2 by Melanie MitchellConceptual Abstraction and Analogy in Natural and Artificial Intelligence by Melanie Mitchell

    Papers & Articles:

    “The metaphors of artificial intelligence,” in Science (November 14, 2024), doi: 10.1126/science.adt6140“Using counterfactual tasks to evaluate the generality of analogical reasoning in Large Language Models,” in arXiv (February 14, 2024), doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2402.08955“Comparing humans, GPT-4, and GPT-4V on abstraction and reasoning tasks, ” (Proceedings of the LLM-CP Workshop, AAAI 2024), arXiv (December 11, 2023), doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2311.09247“The debate over understanding in AI’s large language models,” in PNAS (March 21, 2023), doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2215907120“The ConceptARC benchmark: evaluating understanding and generalization in the ARC domain,” in Transactions on Machine Learning Research (August 2023), arXiv (May 11, 2023), doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2305.07141
  • Nature of Intelligence, Ep. 5: How do we assess intelligence?

    Nature of Intelligence, Ep. 5: How do we assess intelligence?

    · COMPLEXITY

    Guests:

    Erica Cartmill, Professor, Anthropology and Cognitive Science, Indiana University BloomingtonEllie Pavlick, Assistant Professor, Computer Science and Linguistics, Brown University

    Hosts: Abha Eli Phoboo & Melanie Mitchell

    Producer: Katherine Moncure

    Podcast theme music by: Mitch Mignano

    Follow us on:
    Twitter • YouTube • Facebook • Instagram • LinkedIn • Bluesky

    More info:

    Tutorial: Fundamentals of Machine LearningLecture: Artificial IntelligenceSFI programs: EducationDiverse Intelligences Summer Institute

    Books:

    Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans by Melanie Mitchell

    Talks:

    How do we know what an animal understands by Erica CartmillThe Future of Artificial Intelligence by Melanie Mitchell

    Papers & Articles:

    “Just kidding: the evolutionary roots of playful teasing,” in Biology Letters (September 23, 2020), doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2020.0370“Overcoming bias in the comparison of human language and animal communication,” in PNAS (November 13, 2023), doi.org/10.1073/pnas.22187991“Using the senses in animal communication,” by Erica Cartmill, in A New Companion to Linguistic Anthropology, Chapter 20, Wiley Online Library (March 21, 2023)“Symbols and grounding in large language models,” in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A (June 5, 2023), doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2022.0041“Emergence of abstract state representations in embodied sequence modeling,” in arXiv (November 7, 2023), doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2311.02171“How do we know how smart AI systems are,” in Science (July 13, 2023), doi: 10.1126/science.adj59

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  • Nature of Intelligence, Ep. 4: Babies vs Machines

    Nature of Intelligence, Ep. 4: Babies vs Machines

    · COMPLEXITY

    Guests:

    Linda Smith, Distinguished Professor and Chancellor's Professor, Psychological and Brain Sciences, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University BloomingtonMichael Frank, Benjamin Scott Crocker Professor of Human Biology, Department of Psychology, Stanford University

    Hosts: Abha Eli Phoboo & Melanie Mitchell

    Producer: Katherine Moncure

    Podcast theme music by: Mitch Mignano

    Follow us on:
    Twitter • YouTube • Facebook • Instagram • LinkedIn • Bluesky

    More info:

    Tutorial: Fundamentals of Machine LearningLecture: Artificial IntelligenceSFI programs: Education

    Books:

    Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans by Melanie Mitchell

    Talks:

    Why "Self-Generated Learning” May Be More Radical and Consequential Than First Appears by Linda SmithChildren’s Early Language Learning: An Inspiration for Social AI, by Michael Frank at Stanford HAIThe Future of Artificial Intelligence by Melanie Mitchell

    Papers & Articles:

    “Curriculum Learning With Infant Egocentric Videos,” in NeurIPS 2023 (September 21)“The Infant’s Visual World The Everyday Statistics for Visual Learning,” by Swapnaa Jayaraman and Linda B. Smith, in The Cambridge Handbook of Infant Development: Brain, Behavior, and Cultural Context, Chapter 20, Cambridge University Press (September 26, 2020)“Can lessons from infants solve the problems of data-greedy AI?” in Nature (March 18, 2024), doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-00713-5“Episodes of experience and generative intelligence,” in Trends in Cognitive Sciences (October 19, 2022), doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2022.09.012“Baby steps in evaluating the capacities of large language models,” in Nature Reviews Psychology (June 27, 2023), doi.org/10.1038/s44159-023-00211-x“Auxiliary task demands mask the capabilities of smaller language models,” in COLM (July 10, 2024)“Learning the Meanings of Function Words From Grounded Language Using a Visual Question Answering Model,” in Cognitive Science (First published: 14 May 2024), doi.org/10.1111/cogs.13448
  • Nature of Intelligence, Ep. 3: What kind of intelligence is an LLM?

    Nature of Intelligence, Ep. 3: What kind of intelligence is an LLM?

    · COMPLEXITY

    Guests:

    Tomer Ullman, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, Harvard UniversityMurray Shanahan, Professor of Cognitive Robotics, Department of Computing, Imperial College London; Principal Research Scientist, Google DeepMind

    Hosts: Abha Eli Phoboo & Melanie Mitchell

    Producer: Katherine Moncure

    Podcast theme music by: Mitch Mignano

    Follow us on:
    Twitter • YouTube • Facebook • Instagram • LinkedIn • Bluesky

    More info:

    Tutorial: Fundamentals of Machine LearningLecture: Artificial IntelligenceSFI programs: Education

    Books:

    Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans by Melanie MitchellThe Technological Singularity by Murray ShanahanEmbodiment and the inner life: Cognition and Consciousness in the Space of Possible Minds by Murray ShanahanSolving the Frame Problem by Murray ShanahanSearch, Inference and Dependencies in Artificial Intelligence by Murray Shanahan and Richard Southwick

    Talks:

    The Future of Artificial Intelligence by Melanie MitchellArtificial intelligence: A brief introduction to AI by Murray Shanahan

    Papers & Articles:

    “A Conversation With Bing’s Chatbot Left Me Deeply Unsettled,” in New York Times (Feb 16, 2023)“Bayesian Models of Conceptual Development: Learning as Building Models of the World,” in Annual Review of Developmental Psychology Volume 2 (Oct 26, 2020), doi.org/10.1146/annurev-devpsych-121318-084833“Comparing the Evaluation and Production of Loophole Behavior in Humans and Large Language Models,” in Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics (December 2023), doi.org/10.18653/v1/2023.findings-emnlp.264“Role play with large language models,” in Nature (Nov 8, 2023), doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06647-8“Large Language Models Fail on Trivial Alterations to Theory-of-Mind Tasks,” arXiv (v5, March 14, 2023), doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2302.08399“Talking about Large Language Models,” in Communications of the ACM (Feb 12, 2024), “Simulacra as Conscious Exotica,” in arXiv (v2, July 11, 2024), doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2402.12422
  • Nature of Intelligence, Ep. 2: The relationship between language and thought

    Nature of Intelligence, Ep. 2: The relationship between language and thought

    · COMPLEXITY

    Guests:

    Evelina Fedorenko, Associate Professor, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, and Investigator, McGovern Institute for Brain Research, MITSteve Piantadosi, Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience, and Head of Computation and Language Lab, UC BerkeleyGary Lupyan, Professor of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison

    Hosts: Abha Eli Phoboo & Melanie Mitchell

    Producer: Katherine Moncure

    Podcast theme music by: Mitch Mignano

    Follow us on:
    Twitter • YouTube • Facebook • Instagram • LinkedIn • Bluesky

    More info:

    Tutorial: Fundamentals of Machine LearningLecture: Artificial IntelligenceSFI programs: Education


    Books:

    Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans by Melanie MitchellDeveloping Object Concepts in Infancy: An Associative Learning Perspective by Rakison, D.H., and G. LupyanLanguage and Mind by Noam ChomskyOn Language by Noam Chomsky


    Talks:

    The Future of Artificial Intelligence by Melanie MitchellThe language system in the human brain: Parallels & Differences with LLMs by Evelina Federenko

    Papers & Articles:

    “Dissociating language and thought in large language models,” in Trends in Cognitive Science (March 19, 2024), doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2024.01.011“The language network as a natural kind within the broader landscape of the human brain,” in Nature Reviews Neuroscience (April 12, 2024), doi.org/10.1038/s41583-024-00802-4“Visual grounding helps learn word meanings in low-data regimes,” in arXiv (v2 revised on 25 March 2024), doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2310.13257“No evidence of theory of mind reasoning in the human language network,” in Cerebral Cortex (December 28, 2022), doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhac505“Chapter 1: Modern language models refute Chomsky’s approach to language,” by Steve T. Piantadosi (v7, November 2023), lingbuzz/007180“Uniquely human intelligence arose from expanded information capacity,” in Nature Reviews Psychology (April 2, 2024), doi.org/10.1038/s44159-024-00283-3“Understanding the allure and pitfalls of Chomsky's acience,” Review by Gary Lupyan, in The American Journal of Psychology (Spring 2018), doi.org/10.5406/amerjpsyc.131.1.0112“Language is more abstract than you think, or, why aren’t languages more iconic?” in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B (June 18, 2018), Published:18 June 2018, doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2017.0137“Does vocabulary help structure the mind?” in Minnesota Symposia on Child Psychology: Human Communication: Origins, Mechanisms, and Functions (February 27, 2021), doi.org/10.1002/9781119684527.ch6“Use of superordinate labels yields more robust and human-like visual representations in convolutional neural networks,” in Journal of Vision (December 2021), doi.org/10.1167/jov.21.13.13“Appeals to ‘Theory of Mind’ no longer explain much in language evolution,” by Justin Sulik and Gary Lupyan“Effects of language on visual perception,” in Trends in Cognitive Sciences (October 1, 2020), doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2020.08.005“Is language-of-thought the best game in the town we live?” in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (September 28, 2023), doi:10.1017/S0140525X23001814“Can we distinguish machine learning from human learning?” in arXiv (October 8, 2019), doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.1910.03466
  • Nature of Intelligence, Ep. 1: What is Intelligence

    Nature of Intelligence, Ep. 1: What is Intelligence

    · COMPLEXITY


    Guests:

    Alison Gopnik, SFI External Faculty; Professor of Psychology and Affiliate Professor of Philosophy at University of California, Berkeley; Member of Berkeley AI Research GroupJohn Krakauer, SFI External Faculty; John C. Malone Professor of Neurology, Neuroscience, and Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, Johns Hopkins University

    Hosts: Abha Eli Phoboo & Melanie Mitchell

    Producer: Katherine Moncure

    Podcast theme music by: Mitch Mignano

    Podcast logo by Nicholas Graham

    Follow us on:
    Twitter • YouTube • Facebook • Instagram • LinkedIn • Bluesky

    More info:

    Complexity Explorer:

    Tutorial: Fundamentals of Machine Learning

    Lecture: Artificial Intelligence

    SFI programs: Education

    Books:

    Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans by Melanie MitchellWords, Thoughts and Theories by Alison Gopnik and Andrew N. MeltzoffThe Scientist in the Crib: Minds, Brains, and How Children Learn by Alison Gopnik, Andrew N. Meltzoff, and Patricia K. KuhlThe Philosophical Baby: What Children's Minds Tell Us About Truth, Love, and the Meaning of Life by Alison GopnikThe Gardener and the Carpenter: What the New Science of Child Development Tells Us About the Relationship Between Parents and Children by Alison Gopnik

    Talks:

    The Future of Artificial Intelligence by Melanie MitchellImitation Versus Innovation: What Children Can Do That Large Langauge Models’ Can’t by Alison GopnikThe Minds of Children by Alison GopnikWhat Understanding Adds to Cambrian Intelligence: A Taxonomy by John Krakauer

    Papers & Articles:

    “Why you can’t make a computer that feels pain,” by Daniel C. Dennett“Transmission versus truth, imitation versus innovation: What children can do that Large Language and Language-and-Vision models cannot (yet),” in Perspectives on Psychological Science (October 26, 2023), doi.org/10.1177/17456916231201401“Empowerment as Causal Learning, Causal Learning as Empowerment: A bridge between Bayesian causal hypothesis testing and reinforcement learning,” by Alison Gopnik“What can AI Learn from Human Exploration? Intrinsically-Motivated Humans and Agents in Open-World Exploration” by Yuqing Du et al, for Workshop: Agent Learning in Open-Endedness Workshop, NeurIPS 2024 conference“Two views on the cognitive brain,” by David L. Barack & John W. Krakauer, Perspectives in Nature Reviews Neuroscience Vol 22 (April 15, 2021)“The intelligent reflex,” by John W. Krakauer, Philosophical Psychology (May 23, 2019), doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2019.1607281“Representation in Cognitive Science by Nicholas Shea: But Is It Thinking? The Philosophy of Representation Meets Systems Neuroscience” by John W. Krakauer
  • Trailer for The Nature of Intelligence

    Trailer for The Nature of Intelligence

    · COMPLEXITY

    Right now, AI is having a moment — and it’s not the first time grand predictions about the potential of machines are being made. But, what does it really mean to say something like ChatGPT is “intelligent”? What exactly is intelligence?
    In this season of the Complexity podcast, The Nature of Intelligence, we'll explore this question through conversations with cognitive and neuroscientists, animal cognition researchers, and AI experts in six episodes. Together, we'll investigate the complexities of human intelligence, how it compares to that of other species, and where AI fits in. We'll dive into the relationship between language and thought, examine AI's limitations, and ask: Could machines ever truly be like us?

  • Physics of Life, Ep 6: Multiple worlds, containing multitudes

    Physics of Life, Ep 6: Multiple worlds, containing multitudes

    · COMPLEXITY

    Guests:

    Heather Graham, Research Associate at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

    Hosts: Abha Eli Phoboo & Chris Kempes

    Producer: Katherine Moncure

    Podcast theme music by: Mitch Mignano

    Additional sound credits: Digifish music; “Determination of Azimuth,” written by Heather Graham, staged at the Baltimore Rock Opera Society

    Follow us on:
    Twitter • YouTube • Facebook • Instagram • LinkedIn • Bluesky

    More info:

    Apply for the 2024 Complexity Global School at Universidad de los Andes in BogotĂĄ, Colombia

    SFI programs: Education

    Complexity Explorer: Origins of Life: Introduction| Chris Kempes (Link to full playlist)Enroll for the course: Origins of Life

    Videos:

    Asteroids, Agnostic Biosignatures, & Experimental Rock Opera with Dr. Heather GrahamHeather Graham on Katherine Johnson

    Papers & Articles:

    “Investigating the impact of x‐ray computed tomography imaging on soluble organic matter in the Murchison meteorite: Implications for Bennu sample analyses” in Meteoritics & Planetary Science (December 2023), doi.org/10.1111/maps.14111“The Vacant Niche Revisited: Using Negative Results to Refine the Limits of Habitability,” in bioRxiv (Nov 8, 2023), doi.org/10.1101/2023.11.06.565904“Observations of Elemental Composition of Enceladus Consistent with Generalized Models of Theoretical Ecosystems,” in bioRxiv (Oct 29, 2023), doi.org/10.1101/2023.10.29.564608“Planetary Subsurface Science and Exploration: An Integrated Consortium to Understand Subsurface Sources of Energy and the Unique Energetics of Subsurface Life,” in Mars Extant Life: What’s Next? (Nov 2019), hou.usra.edu/meetings/lifeonmars2019/pdf/5047.pdf“Detecting life on Earth and the limits of analogy,” in Planetary Astrobiology (June 16, 2020)“Identifying molecules as biosignatures with assembly theory and mass spectrometry,” in chemRxiv (Nov 16, 202), chemrxiv.org/engage/api-gateway/chemrxiv/assets/orp/resource/item/60c751e59abda27c1af8dce4/original/identifying-molecules-as-biosignatures-with-assembly-theory-and-mass-spectrometry.pdf“The Grayness of the Origin of Life,” in Life (May 29, 2021) doi.org/10.3390/life11060498“Generalized stoichiometry and biogeochemistry for astrobiological applications,” in Bulletin of Mathematical Biology (July 2021), link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11538-021-00877-5
  • Physics of Life, Ep 5: How human history shapes scientific inquiry

    Physics of Life, Ep 5: How human history shapes scientific inquiry

    · COMPLEXITY

    Guests:

    David Krakauer, President and William H. Miller Professor of Complex Systems at the Santa Fe InstituteSean Carroll, External Professor and Fractal Faculty at the Santa Fe Institute, Homewood Professor of Natural Philosophy at Johns Hopkins University

    Hosts: Abha Eli Phoboo & Chris Kempes

    Producer: Katherine Moncure

    Podcast theme music by: Mitch Mignano

    Additional sound credits: Digifishmusic, Trundlefly, Greenvwbeetle, Miksmusic, Brewlabboffin

    Follow us on:
    Twitter • YouTube • Facebook • Instagram • LinkedIn • Bluesky

    More info:

    SFI programs: Education

    Complexity Explorer:

    Origins of Life: The Multiple Origins of Life - Part 1 | David KrakauerOrigins of Life: The Multiple Origins of Life - Part 2 | David KrakauerOrigins of Life: The Multiple Origins of Life - Part 3 | David KrakauerOrigins of Life: The Multiple Origins of Life - Part 4 | David KrakauerComplexity Explorer Lecture: David Krakauer • What is Complexity?

    Books:

    Disputed Inheritance: The Battle over Mendel and the Future of Biology by Gregory RadickQuanta and Fields: The Biggest Ideas in the Universe by Sean CarrollWorlds Hidden in Plain Sight: The Evolving Idea of Complexity at the Santa Fe Institute, 1984-2019 Edited by David Krakauer

    Talks:

    The Many Worlds of Quantum Mechanics Sean Carroll

    Papers & Articles:

    “The Multiple Paths to Multiple Life,” in Journal of Molecular Evolution (July 12, 2021), doi.org/10.1007/s00239-021-10016-2
  • Physics of Life, Ep 4: The physics of collectives

    Physics of Life, Ep 4: The physics of collectives

    · COMPLEXITY

    Guests:

    Melanie Moses, External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute, Professor of Computer Science and Associate Professor of Biology at University of New MexicoHyejin Youn, External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute, Associate Professor at Institute of Northwestern University

    Hosts: Abha Eli Phoboo & Chris Kempes

    Producer: Katherine Moncure

    Podcast theme music by: Mitch Mignano

    Follow us on:
    Twitter • YouTube • Facebook • Instagram • LinkedIn • Bluesky

    More info:

    SFI programs: Education

    Complexity Explorer:

    Fractals and Scaling

    Fractals and Scaling: Toward a Theory of Urban Scaling

    Introduction to Complexity: Ant Foraging and Task Allocation

    Books: Scale by Geoffrey WestComplexity: a Guided Tour by Melanie Mitchell

    Talks:

    Toward a Scientific Theory of Cities by Hyejin Youn

    Papers & Articles:

    “Synergy in ant foraging strategies: memory and communication alone and in combination,” in GECCO’13: Proceedings of the 15th annual conference on Genetic and evolutionary computation (July 6, 2013), doi.org/10.1145/2463372.2463389“In vivo, in silico, in machina: Ants and Robots balance memory and communication to collectively exploit information,” in Proceedings of the European Conference on Complex Systems 2012“What makes individual I’s a Collective We; coordination mechanisms & costs” in arXiv (November 20, 2023), doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2306.02113“How does innovation push its boundaries?” in 43 Visions for Complexity, Exploring Complexity: Volume 3 (January 2017), doi.org/10.1142/9789813206854_0043
  • Physics of Life, Ep 3: Why is life so diverse?

    Physics of Life, Ep 3: Why is life so diverse?

    · COMPLEXITY

    Guests:

    Brian Enquist, External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute, Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at University of ArizonaPablo Marquet, External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute, Professor at Institute of Ecology and Biodiversity, Pontificia Universidad CatĂłlica de Chile

    Hosts: Abha Eli Phoboo & Chris Kempes

    Producer: Katherine Moncure

    Podcast theme music by: Mitch Mignano

    Other music: Craig Smith, Justkiddink, MaestroALF, ComputerHotline, James Ro Davidson, SoundEnsemble, Trundlefly, Geoff Bremner, Newagesgroup, Oddmonoliths, Thepla

    Follow us on:
    Twitter • YouTube • Facebook • Instagram • LinkedIn • Bluesky

    More info:

    SFI programs: Education

    Complexity Explorer: Origins of Life: Astrobiology & General Theories for Life - Scaling with Pablo Marquet

    Books:

    Scale by Geoffrey WestScaling Biodiversity (Ecological Reviews) edited by David Storch, Pablo Marquet , James Brown How Landscapes Change: Human Disturbance and Ecosystem Fragmentation in the Americas (Ecological Studies Book 162) edited by Gay A. Bradshaw and Pablo A. Marquet

    Talks:

    Better Forecasting our Ecological Future: Taming Big Data with Big Theory, Brian Enquist

    Papers & Articles:

    “More than 17,000 tree species are at risk from rapid global change,” in Nature Communications (January 2, 2024), doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-44321-9“Metastatic cells exploit their stoichiometric niche in the network of cancer ecosystems,” in Science Advances (December 13, 2023), doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adi79“Environmental heterogeneity as a driver of terrestrial biodiversity on a global scale” in PPG: Earth and Environment (August 11, 2023), doi.org/10.1177/03091333231189045“The number of tree species on Earth,” PNAS (Jan 31, 2022), doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2115329119“Globally important plant functional traits for coping with climate change,” in Frontiers of Biogeography (October 2, 2021), doi.org/10.21425/F5FBG53774“Scaling from Traits to Ecosystems: Developing a General Trait Driver Theory via Integrating Trait-Based and Metabolic Scaling Theories,” Advances in Ecological Research (May 4, 2015), doi.org/10.1016/bs.aecr.2015.02.001“A general quantitative theory of forest structure and dynamics,” PNAS (April 28, 2009), doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0812294106
  • Physics of Life, Ep 2: How do we identify life?

    Physics of Life, Ep 2: How do we identify life?

    · COMPLEXITY

    Guests:

    Ricard SolĂŠ, External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute, Head of the Complex Systems Lab at Universitat Pompeu FabraSara Walker, External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute, Associate Director of the ASU-SFI Center for Biosocial Complex Systems

    Hosts: Abha Eli Phoboo & Chris Kempes

    Producer: Katherine Moncure

    Podcast theme music by: Mitch Mignano

    Other music: Matucha, Kijjaz, Klankbeeld, Aesterial-Arts, Dijifishmusic, Greenvwbeetle, Odilon Marcenaro, Jobro, Benboncan, Bone666138, Aiwha, Josh Berry, Rubenvvuuren, and Miksmusic

    Follow us on: Twitter • YouTube • Facebook • Instagram • LinkedIn • Bluesky

    SFI programs:

    Complexity Explorer: Origins of LifeEducation

    Books & Films:

    Frankenstein, directed by James Whale, based on book by Mary ShelleyThe Computer and the Brain, by John von NeumannSigns of life: How complexity pervades biology by Ricard V. SolĂŠ and Brian C. Goodwin

    Talks:

    Liquid and Solid Brains: Mapping the Cognition Space by Ricard SolĂŠEvolving Brains: Solid, Liquid and Synthetic by Ricard SolĂŠA Universal Theory of Life: Math, Art & Information by Sara Walker

    Papers & Articles:

    “Assembly theory explains and quantifies selection and evolution” in Nature (October 4, 2023) doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06600-9“Time is an object” in Aeon, May 19, 2023“The Algorithmic Origins of Life” in Journal of the Royal Society Interface (February 6, 2013) doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2012.0869“Evolution of Brains and Computers: The Roads Not Taken” in Entropy (May 9, 2022), doi.org/10.3390/e24050665“Unicellular–multicellular evolutionary branching driven by resource limitations” (June 2, 2022) doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2022.0018
  • Physics of Life, Ep 1: What can physics tell us about ourselves?

    Physics of Life, Ep 1: What can physics tell us about ourselves?

    · COMPLEXITY

    Guests:

    Vijay Balasubramanian, External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute, Cathy and Marc Lasry Professor of Physics at the University of PennsylvaniaGeoffrey West, Shannan Distinguished Professor and Past President, Santa Fe Institute

    Hosts: Abha Eli Phoboo & Chris Kempes

    Producer: Katherine Moncure

    Podcast theme music: Mitch Mignano

    Other Music: Blue Dot Sessions, Pink House Music, Eardeer, and Craig Smith.

    Follow us on: Twitter • YouTube • Facebook • Instagram • LinkedIn • Bluesky

    SFI programs:

    Complexity Global School Complexity Explorer: Fractals & ScalingEducation

    Books & Stories:

    Tell Me Why by Arkady LeokumScale by Geoffrey West“Funes, the Memorious” by Jorge Luis Borges

    Talks:

    How the Brain Makes You: Collective Intelligence and Computation by Neural Circuits by Vijay BalasubramanianThe Future of the Planet: Life, Growth and Death in Organisms, Cities and Companies by Geoffrey WestEnergy, Scaling & The Future of Life on Earth by Geoffrey WestComplex Time Working Group: “What is Sleep?” with Geoffrey West, Van Savage, Alex Herman

    Papers:

    “Brain Power” in PNAS (August 2, 2021) doi.org/10.1073/pnas.210702211“The Physical Effects of Learning” preprint published in biorxiv“Unraveling why we sleep: Quantitative analysis reveals abrupt transition from neural reorganization to repair in early development” in Science Advances (September 18, 2020) DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aba0398“The Scales That Limit: The Physical Boundaries of Evolution” in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution (August 7, 2019) doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2019.00242
  • Trailer for Physics of Life

    Trailer for Physics of Life

    · COMPLEXITY

    Trailer for Complexity: Physics of Life, from the Santa Fe Institute

  • Michael Garfield & David Krakauer on Evolution, Information, and Jurassic Park

    Michael Garfield & David Krakauer on Evolution, Information, and Jurassic Park

    · COMPLEXITY

    Episode Title and Show Notes:

    106 - Michael Garfield & David Krakauer on Evolution, Information, and Jurassic Park

    Welcome to Complexity, the official podcast of the Santa Fe Institute. I'm Michael Garfield, producer of this show and host for the last 105 episodes. Since October, 2019, we have brought 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. Today I step down and depart from SFI with one final appearance as the guest of this episode. Our guest host is SFI President David Krakauer, he and I will braid together with nine other conversations from the archives in a retrospective masterclass on how this podcast traced the contours of complexity. We'll look back on episodes with David, Brian Arthur, Geoffrey West, Doyne Farmer, Deborah Gordon, Tyler Marghetis, Simon DeDeo, Caleb Scharf, and Alison Gopnik to thread some of the show's key themes through into windmills and white whales, SFI pursues, and my own life's persistent greatest questions.

    We'll ask about the implications of a world transformed by science and technology by deeper understanding and prediction and the ever-present knock-on consequences. If you value our research and communication efforts, please subscribe, rate and review us at Apple Podcasts or Spotify and consider making a donation or finding other ways to engage with SFI at Santa fe.edu/engage. Thank you each and all for listening. It's been a pleasure and an honor to take you offroad with us over these last years.

    Follow SFI on social media: Twitter • YouTube • Facebook • Instagram • LinkedIn

    📚Reading & Videos:

    The Lost World
    by Michael Crichton

    Jurassic Park
    by Michael Crichton

    The Evolution of Syntactic Communication
    by Martin Nowak, Joshua Plotkin, and Vincent Jansen

    InterPlanetary Festival 2018 + SFI Science Explainer Animations
    by SFI

    Complexity Economics
    by SFI Press

    Supertheories and Consilience from Alchemy to Electromagnetism
    by Simon DeDeo (2019 SFI Seminar)

    How To Live in The Future, Part 4: The Future is Exapted/Remixed
    by Michael Garfield

    Artists Misusing Technology
    by NXT Museum

    The Collapse of Artificial Intelligence
    by Melanie Mitchell (2019 SFI Symposium Talk)

    The Debate Over Understanding in AI's Large Language Models
    by Melanie Mitchell & David Krakauer

    Welcome To Jurassic Park
    by Tink Zorg
    (re: COVID-19 and the collapse of supply chains)

    Smarter Parts Make Collective Systems Too Stubborn
    by Jordana Cepelewicz at Quanta Magazine
    (re: Albert Kao)

    Coarse-graining as a downward causation mechanism
    by Jessica Flack

    Argument Making In The Wild
    by Simon DeDeo
    (SFI Seminar re: egregores)

    The Collective Computation of Reality in Nature and Society
    by Jessica Flack (SFI Community Lecture re: “hourglass emergence”)

    Interaction-based evolution: how natural selection and nonrandom mutation work together
    by Adi Livnat

    In The Country of The Blind (_Afterword: An Introduction to Cliology)
    by Michael Flynn

    An exchange of letters on the role of noise in collective intelligence
    by Daniel Kahneman, David Krakauer, Olivier Sibony, Cass Sunstein, David Wolpert

    Murray Gell-Mann - Information overload. A crude look at the whole (180/200)
    (re: the challenges of funding truly innovative research)

    The work of art in the age of biocybernetic reproduction
    by W.J.T. Mitchell

    Ken Wilber

    Intelligence as a planetary scale process
    by Adam Frank, David Grinspoon, and Sara Walker

    Light & Magic (documentary series)
    on Disney+

    Palantir Analytics
    The Lord of The Rings
    by J.R.R. Tolkien

    Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now
    by Douglas Rushkoff

    Michael Levin

    Robustness of variance and autocorrelation as indicators of critical slowing down
    by Vasilis Dakos, Egbert H van Nes, Paolo D’Odorico, Marten Scheffer

    The Singularity in Our Past Light-Cone
    by Cosma Shalizi

    🎧Podcasts:

    Complexity Podcast

    001 - David Krakauer on The Landscape of 21st Century Science

    009 - Mirta Galesic on Social Learning & Decision-making

    012 - Matthew Jackson on Social and Economic Networks

    013 - W. Brian Arthur (Part 1) on The History of Complexity Economics

    016 - Andy Dobson on Disease Ecology & Conservation Strategy

    036 - Geoffrey West on Scaling, Open-Ended Growth, and Accelerating Crisis/Innovation Cycles: Transcendence or Collapse?

    056 - J. Doyne Farmer on The Complexity Economics Revolution

    060 - Andrea Wulf on The Invention of Nature, Part 1: Humboldt’s Naturegemälde

    065 - Deborah Gordon on Ant Colonies as Distributed Computers

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

    072 - Simon DeDeo on Good Explanations & Diseases of Epistemology

    087 - Sara Walker on The Physics of Life and Planet-Scale Intelligence

    090 - Caleb Scharf on The Ascent of Information: Life in The Human Dataome

    92 - Miguel Fuentes & Marco Buongiorno Nardelli on Music, Emergence, and Society

    099 - Alison Gopnik on Child Development, Elderhood, Caregiving, and A.I.

    Future Fossils Podcast

    194 - Simon Conway Morris on Convergent Evolution & Creative Mass Extinctions
    190 - Lauren Seyler on Dark Microbiology & Right Relations in Science

    165 - Kevin Kelly on Time, Memory, Change, and Vanishing Asia

    125 - Stuart Kauffman on Physics, Life, and The Adjacent Possible

    Podcast theme music by Mitch Mignano

    Other music by Michael Garfield

  • Mason Porter on Community Detection and Data Topology

    Mason Porter on Community Detection and Data Topology

    · COMPLEXITY

    One way of looking at the world reveals it as an interference pattern of dynamic, ever-changing links — relationships that grow and break in nested groups of multilayer networks. Identity can be defined by informational exchange between one cluster of relationships and any other. A kind of music starts to make itself apparent in the avalanche of data and new analytical approaches that a century of innovation has availed us. But just as with new music genres, it requires a trained ear to attune to unfamiliar order…what can we learn from network science and related general, abstract mathematical approaches to discovering this order in a flood of numbers?

    Welcome to COMPLEXITY, the official podcast of the Santa Fe Institute. I’m your host, Michael Garfield, and in every episode we 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 speak with SFI External Professor, UCLA mathematician Mason Porter (UCLA Website, Twitter, Google Scholar, Wikipedia), about his research on community detection in networks and the topology of data — going deep into a varied toolkit of approaches that help scientists disclose deep structures in the massive data-sets produced by modern life.

    If you value our research and communication efforts, please subscribe, rate and review us at Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and consider making a donation — or finding other ways to engage with us — at santafe.edu/engage.

    I know it comes as a surprise, but this is our penultimate episode. Please stay tuned for one more show in May when SFI President David Krakauer and I will reflect on major themes and highlights from the last three-and-a-half years, and look forward to what I’ll be doing next! It’s been an honor and a pleasure to bring complex systems science to you in this way, and hope we stay in touch. I won’t be hard to find.

    Thank you for listening.

    Podcast theme music by Mitch Mignano.

    Follow us on social media:
    Twitter • YouTube • Facebook • Instagram • LinkedIn

    Mentioned & Related Media:

    Bounded Confidence Models of Opinion Dynamics on Networks
    SFI Seminar by Mason Porter (live Twitter coverage & YouTube stream recording)

    Communities in Networks
    by Mason Porter, Jukka-Pekka Onnela, & Peter Mucha

    Social Structure of Facebook Networks
    by Amanda Traud, Peter Mucha, & Mason Porter

    Critical Truths About Power Laws
    by Michael Stumpf & Mason Porter

    The topology of data
    by Mason Porter, Michelle Feng, & Eleni Katifori

    Complex networks with complex weights
    by Lucas BĂśttcher & Mason A. Porter

    A Bounded-Confidence Model of Opinion Dynamics on Hypergraphs
    by Abigail Hicock, Yacoub Kureh, Heather Z. Brooks, Michelle Feng, & Mason Porter

    A multilayer network model of the coevolution of the spread of a disease and competing opinions
    by Kaiyan Peng, Zheng Lu, Vanessa Lin, Michael Lindstrom, Christian Parkinson, Chuntian Wang, Andrea Bertozzi, & Mason Porter

    Social network analysis for social neuroscientists
    Elisa C Baek, Mason A Porter, & Carolyn Parkinson

    Community structure in social and biological networks
    by Michelle Girvan & Mark Newman

    The information theory of individuality
    by David Krakauer, Nils Bertschinger, Eckehard Olbrich, Jessica C Flack, Nihat Ay

    Social capital I: measurement and associations with economic mobility
    by Raj Chetty, Matthew O. Jackson, Theresa Kuchler, Johannes Stroebel, Nathaniel Hendren, Robert B. Fluegge, Sara Gong, Federico Gonzalez, Armelle Grondin, Matthew Jacob, Drew Johnston, Martin Koenen, Eduardo Laguna-Muggenburg, Florian Mudekereza, Tom Rutter, Nicolaj Thor, Wilbur Townsend, Ruby Zhang, Mike Bailey, Pablo BarberĂĄ, Monica Bhole & Nils Wernerfelt

    Hierarchical structure and the prediction of missing links in networks
    by Aaron Clauset, Cristopher Moore, M.E.J. Newman

    Gregory Bateson (Wikipedia)

    Complexity Ep. 99 - Alison Gopnik on Child Development, Elderhood, Caregiving, and A.I.

    “Why Do We Sleep?”
    by Van Savage & Geoffrey West at Aeon Magazine

    Complexity Ep. 4 - Luis Bettencourt on The Science of Cities

    Complexity Ep. 12 - Matthew Jackson on Social & Economic Networks

    Complexity Ep. 68 - W. Brian Arthur on Economics in Nouns and Verbs (Part 1)

    Complexity Ep. 100 - Dani Bassett & Perry Zurn on The Neuroscience & Philosophy of Curious Minds

  • Andrea Wulf on Magnificent Rebels: The First Romantics and The Invention of The Self

    Andrea Wulf on Magnificent Rebels: The First Romantics and The Invention of The Self

    · COMPLEXITY

    For centuries, Medieval life in Europe meant a world determined and prescribed by church and royalty. The social sphere was very much a pyramid, and everybody had to answer to and fit within the schemes of those on top. And then, on wings of reason, Modern selves emerged to scrutinize these systems and at great cost swap them for others that more evenly distribute power and authority. Cosmic forces preordained one’s role within a transcendental order…but then, across quick decades of upheaval, philosophy and politics started celebrating self-determination and free will. Art and science blossomed as they wove together. Nothing was ever the same.

    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 engage with returning guest, New York Times best-selling author of seven books and SFI Miller Scholar Andrea Wulf, about her latest lovingly-detailed long work, Magnificent Rebels: The First Romantics and The Invention of The Self. In this episode we explore the conditions for an 18th century revolution in philosophy, science, literature, and lifestyle springing from Jena, Germany. Over just a few years, an extraordinary confluence of history-making figures such as Goethe, Schelling, Schlegel, Hegel, and Novalis helped rewrite what was possible for human thought and action. Admist a landscape of political revolt, this braid of brilliant friends and enemies and lovers altered what it means to be a self and how the modern self relates to everything it isn’t, inspiring later British and American Romantic movements. Arguing for art and the imagination in the work of science and infusing art with reason, Jena’s rebels of the mind lived bold, iconoclastic lives that seem 200 years ahead in retrospect. We stand to learn a great deal from a careful look at Jena and the first Romantics…maybe even how to replicate their great successes and avoid their self-implosion in the face of social turbulence.

    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 — in particular, you may wish to celebrate ten years of free online courses at Complexity Explorer with SFI Professor Cris Moore’s Computation in Complex Systems, starting March 28th. Learn more in the show notes…and thank you for listening!

    Podcast theme music by Mitch Mignano.

    Follow us on social media:
    Twitter • YouTube • Facebook • Instagram • LinkedIn

    Related Reading & Listening:

    Episode 60 - Andrea Wulf on The Invention of Nature, Part 1: Humboldt's Naturegemälde

    Episode 61 - Andrea Wulf on The Invention of Nature, Part 2: Humboldt's Dangerous Idea

    The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World
    by Andrea Wulf

    Magnificent Rebels: The First Romantics and The Invention of The Self
    by Andrea Wulf

    Common As Air: Revolution, Art, and Ownership
    by Lewis Hyde

    Episode 37 - The Art & Science of Resilience in the Wake of Trauma with Laurence Gonzales

    “Nature” (1844)
    by Ralph Waldo Emerson

    Chopin’s Preludes

    Finnegans Wake
    by James Joyce

    InterPlanetary Voyager (Interactive Golden Record Liner Notes)
    by SFI’s InterPlanetary Festival

    Blue Planet (BBC)
    with David Attenborough

  • Carlos Gershenson on Balance, Criticality, Antifragility, and The Philosophy of Complex Systems

    Carlos Gershenson on Balance, Criticality, Antifragility, and The Philosophy of Complex Systems

    · COMPLEXITY

    How do we get a handle on complex systems thinking? What are the implications of this science for philosophy, and where does philosophical tradition foreshadow findings from the scientific frontier?

    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 with Carlos Gershenson (UNAM website, Google Scholar, Wikipedia, Twitter), SFI Sabbatical Visitor and professor of computer science at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, where he leads the Self-organizing Systems Lab, among many other titles you can find in our show notes. For the next hour, we’ll discuss his decades of research and writing on a vast array of core complex systems concepts and their intersections with both Western and Eastern philosophical traditions — a first for this podcast.

    If you value our research and communication efforts, please subscribe, rate and review us at Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and consider making a donation — or finding other ways to engage with us — at santafe.edu/engage.

    For HD virtual backgrounds of the SFI campus to use on video calls and a chance to win a signed copy of one of our books from the SFI Press, please help us improve our scicomm by completing a survey linked in the show notes.

    Or just a copy of the recently resurfaced SFI Press Archival Volume Complexity, Entropy, and The Physics of Information.

    There’s still time to apply for the Complexity GAINS UK program for PhD students – apps close March 15th.

    Or come work for us! We are on the lookout for a new Digital Media Specialist, an Applied Complexity Fellow in Sustainability, a Research Assistant in Emergent Political Economies, and a Payroll, Accounts Payable & Receivable Specialist.

    You can also 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

    Mentioned & Related Links:

    Carlos publishes the Complexity Digest Newsletter.

    His SFI Seminars to date:
    A Brief History of Balance
    Emergence, (Self)Organization, and Complexity
    Criticality: A Balance Between Robustness and Adaptability
    Festina lente (the slower-is-faster effect)
    Antifragility: Dynamical Balance

    W. Ross Ashby & The Law of Requisite Variety

    Hyperobjects
    by Timothy Morton

    How can we think the complex?
    by Carlos Gershenson and Francis Heylighen

    The Implications of Interactions for Science and Philosophy
    by Carlos Gershenson

    Complexity and Philosophy
    by Francis Heylighen, Paul Cilliers, Carlos Gershenson

    Heterogeneity extends criticality
    by Fernanda SĂĄnchez-Puig, Octavio Zapata, Omar K, Pineda, Gerardo IĂąiguez, and Carlos Gershenson

    When Can we Call a System Self-organizing?
    by Carlos Gershenson and Francis Heylighen

    Temporal, Structural, and Functional Heterogeneities Extend Criticality and Antifragility in Random Boolean Networks
    by Amahury Jafet LĂłpez-DĂ­az, Fernanda SĂĄnchez-Puig, and Carlos Gershenson

    When slower is faster
    by Carlos Gershenson, Dirk Helbing

    Self-organization leads to supraoptimal performance in public transportation systems
    by Carlos Gershenson

    Dynamics of ranking
    by Gerardo IĂąiguez, Carlos Pineda, Carlos Gershenson, & Albert-LĂĄszlĂł BarabĂĄsi

    Self-Organizing Traffic Lights
    by Carlos Gershenson

    Dynamic competition and resource partitioning during the early life of two widespread, abundant and ecologically similar fishes
    by A. D. Nunn, L. H. Vickers, K. Mazik, J. D. Bolland, G. Peirson, S. N. Axford, A. Henshaw & I. G. Cowx

    Towards a general theory of balance
    by Carlos Gershenson

    A Calculus for Self-Reference
    by Francisco Varela

    On Some Mental Effects of The Earthquake
    by William James

    Self-Organization Leads to Supraoptimal Performance in Public Transportation Systems
    by Carlos Gershenson

    Alison Gopnik on Child Development, Elderhood, Caregiving, and A.I.
    Complexity Ep. 99

    Simon DeDeo on Good Explanations & Diseases of Epistemology
    Complexity Ep. 72

    David Wolpert on The No Free Lunch Theorems and Why They Undermine The Scientific Method
    Complexity Ep. 45

    The Clock of the Long Now: Time and Responsibility
    by Stewart Brand

    Michael Lachmann

    Stuart Kauffman

    Andreas Wagner

    Cosma Shalizi

    Nassim Taleb

    Does Free Will Violate The Laws of Physics?
    Big Think interviews Sean Carroll

  • Complex Conceptions of Time with David Krakauer, Ted Chiang, David Wolpert, & James Gleick

    Complex Conceptions of Time with David Krakauer, Ted Chiang, David Wolpert, & James Gleick

    · COMPLEXITY

    And now for something completely different! Last October, The Santa Fe Institute held its third InterPlanetary Festival at SITE Santa Fe, celebrating the immensely long time horizon, deep scientific and philosophical questions, psychological challenges, and engineering problems involved in humankind’s Great Work to extend its understanding and presence into outer space. For our third edition, we turned our attention to visionary projects living generations will likely not live to see completed — interstellar travel, off-world cities, radical new ways of understanding spacetime — as an invitation to engage in science as not merely interesting but deeply fun. For our first panel, we decided to inquire: What is time, really? How has science fiction changed the way we track and measure, speak about, and live in time? And how do physics and complex systems science pose and answer these most fundamental questions?

    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 week’s episode, we share the Complex Conceptions of Time panel from InterPlanetary Festival 2022, moderated by SFI President David Krakauer and featuring an all-star trinity of panelists: science journalist James Gleick, sci-fi author and SFI Miller Scholar Ted Chiang, and physicist and SFI Professor David Wolpert. In this hour, we play with and dissect some favorite metaphors for time, unroll the history of time’s mathematization, review time travel in science fiction, and examine the arguments between free will and determinism.

    Be sure to check out our extensive show notes with links to all our references at complexity.simplecast.com — as well as the extensive, interactive web-based “Voyager Golden Record Liner Notes” with links to not only all of the panels from IPFest 2022 but also copious additional resources, including contributor bios, peer-reviewed publications, science fiction and nonfiction science writing, and more…

    If you value our research and communication efforts, please subscribe, rate and review us at Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and consider making a donation — or finding other ways to engage with us — at santafe.edu/engage.

    If you’d like some HD virtual backgrounds of the SFI campus to use on video calls and a chance to win a signed copy of one of our books from the SFI Press, help us improve our science communication by completing a survey about our various scicomm channels. Thanks for your time!

    Lastly, we have a bevy of summer programs coming up! Join us June 19-23 for Collective Intelligence: Foundations + Radical Ideas, a first-ever event open to both academics and professionals, with sessions on adaptive matter, animal groups, brains, AI, teams, and more. Space is limited! The application deadline has been extended to March 1st.

    OR apply to the Graduate Workshop on Complexity in Social Science.

    OR the Complexity GAINS UK program for PhD students.

    (OR check our open listings for a staff or research job!)

    Join our Facebook discussion group to meet like minds and talk about each episode.

    Podcast theme music by Mitch Mignano.

    Episode cover art by Michael Garfield with the help of Midjourney.

    Follow us on social media:
    Twitter • YouTube • Facebook • Instagram • LinkedIn

    (SOME) Mentioned & Related Links:

    David Krakauer
    Mathematical languages shape our understanding of time in physics
    by Nicolas Gisin
    Does Time Really Flow? New Clues Come From a Century-Old Approach to Math
    by Natalie Wolchover
    The Principle of Least Action
    Path Integral Formulation
    Closed Timelike Curve
    The Time Machine
    by H. G. Wells
    Kip Thorne

    James Gleick
    Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman
    The Physicist and The Philosopher
    by Jimena Canales

    Ted Chiang
    “Story of Your Life”
    Arrival
    Exhalation
    Russian Doll (TV series)
    “The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate”

    David Wolpert
    Complexity 94 - David Wolpert & Farita Tasnim on The Thermodynamics of Communication
    Complexity 45 - David Wolpert on The No Free Lunch Theorems and Why They Undermine The Scientific Method
    A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain
    Intuitionist Mathematics

  • Paul Smaldino & C. Thi Nguyen on Problems with Value Metrics & Governance at Scale (EPE 06)

    Paul Smaldino & C. Thi Nguyen on Problems with Value Metrics & Governance at Scale (EPE 06)

    · COMPLEXITY

    There are maps, and there are territories, and humans frequently confuse the two. No matter how insistently this point has been made by cognitive neuroscience, epistemology, economics, and a score of other disciplines, one common human error is to act as if we know what we should measure, and that what we measure is what matters. But what we value doesn’t even always have a metric. And even reasonable proxies can distort our understanding of and behavior in the world we want to navigate. Even carefully collected biometric data can occlude the other factors that determine health, or can oversimplify a nuanced conversation on the plural and contextual dimensions of health, transforming goals like functional fitness into something easier to quantify but far less useful. This philosophical conundrum magnifies when we consider governance at scales beyond those at which Homo sapiens evolved to grasp intuitively: What should we count to wisely operate a nation-state? How do we practice social science in a way that can inform new, smarter species of political economy? And how can we escape the seductive but false clarity of systems that rain information but do not enhance collective wisdom?

    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 the show we talk to SFI External Professor Paul Smaldino at UC Merced and University of Utah Professor of Philosophy C. Thi Nguyen. In this episode we talk about value capture and legibility, viewpoint diversity, issues that plague big governments, and expert identification problems…and map the challenges “ahead of us” as SFI continues as the hub of a five-year international research collaboration into emergent political economies. (Find links to all previous episodes in this sub-series in the notes below.)

    Be sure to check out our extensive show notes with links to all our references at complexity.simplecast.com. If you value our research and communication efforts, please subscribe, rate and review us at Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and consider making a donation — or finding other ways to engage with us — at santafe.edu/engage.

    If you’d like some HD virtual backgrounds of the SFI campus to use on video calls and a chance to win a signed copy of one of our books from the SFI Press, help us improve our science communication by completing a survey about our various scicomm channels. Thanks for your time!

    Lastly, we have a bevy of summer programs coming up! Join us June 19-23 for Collective Intelligence: Foundations + Radical Ideas, a first-ever event open to both academics and professionals, with sessions on adaptive matter, animal groups, brains, AI, teams, and more. Space is limited! The application deadline has been extended to March 1st.

    OR apply to the Graduate Workshop on Complexity in Social Science.

    OR the Complex ity GAINS UK program for PhD students.

    (OR check our open listings for a staff or research job!)

    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

    Mentioned & Related Links:

    Transparency Is Surveillance
    by C. Thi Nguyen

    The Seductions of Clarity
    by C. Thi Nguyen

    The Natural Selection of Bad Science
    by Paul Smaldino and Richard McElreath

    Maintaining transient diversity is a general principle for improving collective problem solving
    by Paul Smaldino, Cody Moser, Alejandro PĂŠrez Velilla, Mikkel Werling

    The Division of Cognitive Labor
    by Philip Kitcher

    The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in The Natural Sciences
    by Eugene Wigner

    On Crashing The Barrier of Meaning in A.I.
    by Melanie Mitchell

    Seeing Like A State
    by James C. Scott

    Jim Rutt

    Slowed Canonical Progress in Large Fields of Science
    by Johan Chu and James Evans

    The Coming Battle for the COVID-19 Narrative
    by Wendy Carlin and Samuel Bowles

    Peter Turchin

    In The Country of The Blind
    by Michael Flynn

    82 - David Krakauer on Emergent Political Economies and A Science of Possibility (EPE 01)

    83 - Eric Beinhocker & Diane Coyle on Rethinking Economics for A Sustainable & Prosperous World (EPE 02)

    84 - Ricardo Hausmann & J. Doyne Farmer on Evolving Technologies & Market Ecologies (EPE 03)

    91 - Steven Teles & Rajiv Sethi on Jailbreaking The Captured Economy (EPE 04)

    97 - Glen Weyl & Cris Moore on Plurality, Governance, and Decentralized Society (EPE 05)

  • Vis mere