COMPLEXITY: Physics of Life

Are there universal laws of life and can we find them? Is there a physics of society, of ecology, of evolution? Join us for six episodes of thought-provoking insights on the physics of life and its profound implications on our understanding of the universe. In this season of the Santa Fe Institute’s Complexity podcast’s relaunch, we talk to researchers who have been exploring these questions and more through the lens of complexity science. Subscribe now and be part of the exploration!

https://complexity.simplecast.com

Eine durchschnittliche Folge dieses Podcasts dauert 58m. Bisher sind 112 Folge(n) erschienen. Alle zwei Wochen gibt es eine neue Folge dieses Podcasts.

Gesamtlänge aller Episoden: 4 days 11 hours 46 minutes

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episode 52: Mark Moffett on Canopy Biology & The Human Swarm


Most maps of the world render landscapes in 2D — yet wherever we observe ecosystems, they stratify into a third dimension. The same geometries that describe the dizzying diversity of species in the canopies of forests also govern life in other  living systems, from the oceans to the linings of our mouths. Behind the many forms, a hidden order shapes how organisms live in and on each other — and this emerging discipline of “canopy biology”  may yield important insights into modern urban life...


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 January 29, 2021  1h12m
 
 

episode 51: Cris Moore on Algorithmic Justice & The Physics of Inference


It’s tempting to believe that people can outsource decisions to machines — that algorithms are objective, and it’s easier and fairer to dump the burden on them. But convenience conceals the complicated truth: when lives are made or broken by AI, we need transparency about the way we ask computers questions, and we need to understand what kinds of problems they’re not suited for. Sometimes we may be using the wrong models, and sometimes even great models fail when fed sparse or noisy data...


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 January 15, 2021  1h11m
 
 

episode 50: Science in The Time of COVID: Michael Lachmann & Sam Scarpino on Lessons from The Pandemic


COVID-19 hasn’t just disrupted the “normal” of everyone’s social practices in what we take for granted as “daily life.” The pandemic has also, more granularly, changed the way scientists research and publish; it has changed the way science interfaces with institutions as varied as local governments and cell phone companies; it has changed the way we host and produce this podcast...


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 December 23, 2020  59m
 
 

episode 49: Artemy Kolchinsky on "Semantic Information" & The Physics of Meaning


Matter, energy, and information: the holy trinity of physics. Understanding the relations between these measures of our world are one of the big questions of complex systems science.

The laws of thermodynamics tell us that entropy (loosely but somewhat inaccurately speaking, “disorder”) increases in any closed material system. But at the same time living systems constantly pump out entropy, thereby keeping themselves alive by harnessing flows of energy and information...


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 December 11, 2020  1h1m
 
 

episode 48: Peter Dodds on Text-Based Timeline Analysis & New Instruments for The Science of Stories


"There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.”
– Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

When human beings saw the first pictures of the Earth from space, the impact was transformative. New instruments for taking in new vistas, for understanding our relationships and contexts at a different scale, have in some ways defined the history of not just science but the evolution of intelligence...


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 November 26, 2020  1h30m
 
 

episode 47: Scott Ortman on Archaeological Synthesis and Settlement Scaling Theory


The modern world has a way of distancing itself from everything that came before it…and yet the evidence from archaeology supports a different story. While industrial societies tend to praise markets and advanced technologies as the main drivers of the last few centuries of change, a careful study of civilizations as distinct as Ancient Rome, Peru, and Central Mexico reveals an underlying uniformity...


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 November 12, 2020  54m
 
 

episode 46: Helena Miton on Cultural Evolution in Music and Writing Systems


Organisms aren’t the only products of the evolutionary process. Cultural products such as writing, art, and music also undergo change over time, subject to both the constraints of the physical environment and the psychologies of those who make them...


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 October 29, 2020  1h1m
 
 

episode 45: David Wolpert on The No Free Lunch Theorems and Why They Undermine The Scientific Method


On the one hand, we have math: a world of forms and patterns, a priori logic, timeless and consistent. On the other, we have physics: messy and embodied interactions, context-dependent and contingent on a changing world. And yet, many people get the two confused, including physicists and mathematicians...


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 October 15, 2020  52m
 
 

episode 44: Introducing Alien Crash Site, a new SFI Podcast with host Caitlin McShea


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...


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 October 9, 2020  20m
 
 

episode 43: Vicky Yang & Henrik Olsson on Political Polling & Polarization: How We Make Decisions & Identities


Whether you live in the USA or have just been watching the circus from afar, chances are that you agree: “polarization” dominates descriptions of the social landscape. Judging from the news alone, one might think the States have never been so painfully divided…yet nuanced public polls, and new behavioral models, suggest another narrative: the United States is largely moderate, and people have much more in common with each other than they think...


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 September 30, 2020  1h10m