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

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 Sánchez-Puig, Octavio Zapata, Omar K, Pineda, Gerardo Iñiguez, 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 López-Díaz, Fernanda Sánchez-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 Iñiguez, Carlos Pineda, Carlos Gershenson, & Albert-László Barabási 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