Second Foundation: Perspectives on the Past and Future of Complexity Science

Second Foundation: Overview

For the last 40 years SFI has been striving to develop new sciences in a novel and experimental research institution. SFI science focuses on the adaptive properties of collectives, including their emergent properties, functional capabilities, robustness properties, and failure modes. The distributed and self-organizing nature of the institution seeks to learn from and reflect its scientific discoveries. SFI research has come to span the origin of life, energetics of ecosystems, epidemics, the nature of natural and artificial intelligence, the dynamics of markets, and the creativity of cities. These are all connected by common principles of damage accumulation, coordination, information transmission, and computation. In the fortieth anniversary of SFI we are asking our community to analyze the progress of the fundamental science, review promising new areas of investigation that are either too risky or novel to have become mainstream, and explore the idea of a new SFI for the new millennium. We are structuring these topics into: Foundations; Boundaries, and Nuclei.

Foundations

We are focusing on four foundational contributions to complexity science, including: (1) networks and coordination, (2) fractals and scaling (3) ecosystems and stability, and (4) computation and complexity. Each contribution will be discussed by members of the SFI community and its ongoing development and contemporary implications explored.

Boundaries

Four researchers shall explore contemporary boundaries in science that are currently being investigated and crossed. The implications of which might be the opening of entirely new territories for research and These boundaries include (1) development and distributed processing; (2) new theories of life and physics, (3) ecology and culture, (4) the interface with engineering and design.

Nuclei

What if SFI were to start again, building on forty years of insight, in order to pursue a radically new research agenda in a novel institutional form? We are asking several members of our community to speculate on the new research agenda and the new institution required to achieve its goals.

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AGENDA

FRIDAY, APRIL 26th, 2024
*Note: All Times Below are U.S. Mountain Time

Inn at Loretto (Zuni Ballroom) 
211 Old Santa Fe Trail
Santa Fe, NM 87501

Foundations

12:00 PM — Lunch
12:45 PM — Welcome & Intro to Foundations with David Krakauer, Santa Fe Institute
1:15 PM — Presenter: Michelle Girvan, University of Maryland, "Foundations in Network Science: Properties of Real-World Networks and the Models That Help Us Understand Them." 
1:35 PM — Respondent: Matthew Jackson, Stanford University 
1:50 PM — Q&A
2:00 PM — Presenter: Geoffrey West, Santa Fe Institute, "On Searching for Simplicity, Unity, and Emergent Laws Underlying the Complexity of the Biosphere and Anthroposphere”
2:20 PM — Respondent: Melanie Moses, University of New Mexico 
2:35 PM — Q&A
2:45 PM — Afternoon Break
3:15 PM — Presenter: Pablo Marquet, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, “The Emergence of Ecologies, from Molecules to Societies" 
3:35 PM — Respondent: Chris Kempes, Santa Fe Institute
3:50 PM — Q&A
4:00 PM — Presenter: Cris Moore, Santa Fe Institute, "Against Foundations"
4:20 PM — Respondent: Tom Mitchell, Carnegie Mellon University
4:35 PM — Q&A
4:45 PM — Discussion with Alan Perelson, Los Alamos National Laboratory 
6:00 PM — Reception and Dinner
                  Rio Chama 
                  414 Old Santa Fe Trail
                  Santa Fe, NM 87501

 

SATURDAY, APRIL 27th, 2024
*Note: All Times Below are U.S. Mountain Time

Inn at Loretto (Zuni Ballroom) 
211 Old Santa Fe Trail
Santa Fe, NM 87501

Boundaries

7:30 AM — Breakfast
9:00 AM —Intro to Boundaries with David Krakauer, Santa Fe Institute 
9:05 AM — Presenter: Michael Levin, Tufts University, "Cellular Collective Intelligence and Navigation of Anatomical Spaces"
9:25 AM — Respondent: Bruno Olshausen, University of California-Berkeley 
9:40 AM — Q&A
9:50 AM — Presenter: Sara Walker, Arizona State University, "Re-Inventing the Fundamental: Should Complexity Science Revolutionize Foundational Physics?" 
10:10 AM — Respondent: Adilson Motter, Northwestern University
10:25 AM — Q&A
10:35 AM — Morning Break
11:05 AM — Presenter: Jen Dunne, Santa Fe Institute, "Beyond Boundaries: Integration of Ecological and Societal Complexity"
11:25 AM — Respondent: Raissa D'Souza, University of California - Davis 
11:40 AM — Q&A
11:45 AM — Lunch
12:45 PM — Presenter: Karen Willcox, University of Texas-Austin, "Redefining Engineering Simulation + Design in the Age of AI: Fact or Fiction?" 
1:05 PM — Respondent: Neil Gershenfeld, MIT 
1:20 PM — Q&A

 

Nuclei

1:30 PM — Intro to Nuclei with David Krakauer
1:35 PM — Co-Presenters: Melanie Mitchell, Santa Fe Institute + Scott Page, University of Michigan 
1:55 PM — Q&A
2:05 PM — Afternoon Break
2:15 PM — Co-Presenters: Ricardo Hausmann, Harvard +  John Miller, Carnegie Mellon University 
2:35 PM — Q&A
2:45 PM — Co-Presenters: Elizabeth Bruch, University of Michigan + Sam Scarpino, Northeastern University 
3:05 PM — Q&A
3:15 PM — Co-Presenters: Tina Eliassi-Rad, Northeastern University +  Allison Stanger, Middlebury College 
3:35 PM — Q&A
3:45 PM — Afternoon Break
4:00 PM — Discussion with Elizabeth Bradley, University of Colorado-Boulder + Susan Fitzpatrick, LSRT Associates
6:00 PM — Reception and Dinner
                  SFI's Miller Campus
                  9 Eddy Road
                  Santa Fe, NM 87506