Month: March 2021

Conference on Complex Systems CCS 2021

The Conference on Complex Systems, the flagship conference of the Complex System Society, is the most important annual meeting for the complex systems research community. Last year, the Conference was fully online because of the Covid-19 pandemics.

For 2021, this annual event will be held in Lyon, France, from October 25 to 29, 2021. We are confident to be able to welcome you in Lyon at this time of the year, for an in-person conference. Still, as we know that there might still be a number of travel restrictions at that time, some sessions will be organized as a hybrid conference.

More at: ccs2021.univ-lyon1.fr

Complexity and the Social World: building on the legacy of Allen, Byrne, Stacey and Cilliers

Complexity theory took off in the 1990s and four of the key people who shaped how these ideas were developed for application to the social world were represented in this event. In this unique retrospective, we explored how these four thinkers approached complexity thinking over long careers.

Invited Speakers

Peter Allen  – Embracing Complexity
David Byrne – Complexity and the Social Sciences
Chris Mowles in the legacy of Ralph Stacey –  Complex Responsive Processes
Rika Preiser in the legacy of Paul Cilliers –  Complexity and Postmodernism
The discussion was hosted by Jean Boulton and featured a guest appearence from Brian Arthur (who developed complexity economics)

The speakers were each interviewed and then discussed issues with each other, before answering questions from the audience.

Watch the video at: complexity-physics.org

What Is Life? Its Vast Diversity Defies Easy Definition.

People often feel that they can intuitively recognize whether something is alive, but nature is filled with entities that flout easy categorization as life or non-life — and the challenge may intensify as other planets and moons open up to exploration. In this excerpt from his new book, Life’s Edge: The Search for What It Means to Be Alive, published today, the science writer Carl Zimmer discusses scientists’ frustrated efforts to develop a universal definition of life.

Read the full article at: www.quantamagazine.org