Substrat: complex adaptive systems govern our lives
life is path-dependent & locked-in in unpredictable outcomes
(examples: QWERTY or VHS, which was judged technically inferor to Beta)
complex adaptive system (dynamic, self-organising, self-reinforcing, emergent, adaptive, coevolutionary behaviour):
1) independent agents interact with each other;
2) many levels of organisation;
3) anticipate the future;
4) have many niches (which create new niches; equilibrium is never achieved)
complex adaptive systems have incessant urge to organize themselves into patterns
emergence: building blocks at one level combining into new building blocks at a higher level
autocatalytic set: compounds form self-reinforcing web of reactions (phase transition) that catalyses creation of more compounds
exploitation learning: strengthen existing connections; improve what you already have
exploration learning: rewire nodes; take the risk of screwing up big in return for the chance of winning big
Life: Too static --> "Life/Intelligence" --> Too noisy
selection can get a complex adaptive system to the edge of chaos
initial cooperation + tit for tat is dominating strategy in simulated negotiation game
necessary for game-playing agents to prosper: prediction and feedback
far from equilibrium the "gravitational pull" of rational expectations becomes weak
Santa Fe's intellectual agenda: understand intertwining processes of emergence and adaptation (i.e. research complex adaptive systems)
George Cowan founded the Santa Fe institute in a collaborative manner: he guided a decentralised, emergent decision-making process among highly capable individuals;
he focused on getting consensus on the institute's direction first. Later they tried to avoid hype and inflated expectations.
boids create flocking behaviour with 3 rules for individuals:
1) maintain minimum distance from other objects; 2) match velocities with boids in neighborhood;
3) move toward perceived centre of mass of boids in neighborhood
noteworthy:
"Any given organism’s ability to survive and reproduce depends on what niche it is filling"
"Evolution doesn’t care whether problems are well defined or not. Adaptive agents are just responding to a reward.";
"What you’re trying to do is maximize robustness, or survivability, in the face of an ill-defined future."
"(...) living systems always seem to emerge from the bottom up, from a population of much simpler systems.";
"top-down systems are forever running into combinations of events they don’t know how to handle"
"(...) fitness isn’t decreed from the outside at all. It arises from the dance of coevolution"
"There are models where the species that dominate in the stable period after the upheaval may be less fit than the species that dominated beforehand."
"(...) the institute might actually be much better off without a permanent faculty.
So why not just keep the institute going in its catalyst role?"