Complexity Symposium

Complexity Science and 21st Century Issues

Co-Sponsored by the Santa Fe Institute,
the European Commission, and the London School of Economics,

25-26 March 2004

Location: Hong Kong Theatre
Clement House, the Aldwych,
London School of Economics
London, WC2

Thursday 25th March 2004

08.30 - 09:00 REGISTRATION AND CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST IN CAFE PEPE, 3RD FLOOR CLEMENT HOUSE, THE ALDWYCH, LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS

09.00 - 09.30 Welcome from LSE, the European Commission and SFI.

09:30 - 13:00 SESSION I -- PROSPECTS FOR COMPLEXITY SCIENCE IN HELPING TO SOLVE SOCIETAL ISSUES
Moderator: Dr Robert A. Eisenstein, SFI

9.30 -10.30 Lord Robert May, Royal Zoology Department, University of Oxford
'The nonlinear dynamics of vulnerability: how systems, whether ecosystems, or IT networks, or transmission networks for infectious diseases, respond to disturbance'

The transmission of infection among humans or other animals, the spread of viruses or worms among computers, and the way ecosystems respond to disturbance are three examples of nonlinear dynamical systems whose behaviour depends upon the nature of the network of connections among nodes (that is individuals, computers, species, respectively). Recent and current concern about HIV/AIDS, SARS, and foot and mouth disease among livestock have prompted advances in our understanding of the interplay between network patterns and effective control measures. Separate, but ultimately related, work has recently focussed (often in the context of "homeland security") on protecting IT networks from attack. Perhaps surprisingly, this work has made relatively little contact with older questions about ecosystem resilience. My talk aims to be an opinionated overview of all this.

10.30 -11.00 COFFEE IN ROOM D202

11.00 - 12.00 Dr. Christopher L. Barrett, Group Leader of the Basic and Applied Simulation Science Group of the Computing and Computational Sciences Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory
"Simulation Science and the Understanding of Large Socio-Technical Systems"

There is an increasing appreciation of the centrality of complex cascades of interactions among various (psychological, social, physical, and technological) elements of human systems and our environment. Dr Barrett will introduce a perspective on foundations of interaction-based systems and interaction-based computing as the natural basis for the simulation and analysis of in large socio-technical systems. The approach is interesting theoretically and also useful in many important ways, and he will emphasize one of them: scaling practical simulations of operating civil infrastructures that involve interactions among very large numbers (106 to 1012) of heterogeneous, interacting entities.

12.00 - 13.00 Dr. Charles F. Sabel, Professor of Law and Social Science, Columbia Law School
"Efficiency and Governance in the Age of Search Networks"

Error detection and correction disciplines such as benchmarking, root-cause and near-miss analysis induce new organizations to routinely search for solutions outside the space defined by their routines. The search networks that result appear to be more efficient and more robust--resistant to catastrophic disruption, and conversely capable of innovation--than hierarchies and a range of decentralized alternatives to them. To underscore the practical import of the theoretical ideas Dr. Sabel will focus on the novel governance problems posed by the new organizations, and look at some successful efforts to address them.

13.00 - 14.30 LUNCH

14:30 - 18.00 SESSION II -- PROSPECTS FOR COMPLEXITY SCIENCE IN HELPING SOLVE BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY PROBLEMS
Moderator: Prof. Eve Mitleton-Kelly, LSE

14.30 - 15.30 Prof. W. Brian Arthur, Science Board Member, Santa Fe Institute
"Technology and Complexity"

Within the collective of technology, existing elements often become building blocks that build further building blocks--further technologies. Thus Lee De Forest's triode vacuum tube combined with other electronic elements to create the amplifier, the oscillator, the heterodyne mixer, and eventually the logic circuit. These, in their turn, became building blocks in yet further devices: transmission repeaters in telephony, radar, and early computers.
How does combination and recombination work within technology? How do higher-level technologies come into being from simpler ones? And by what dynamics does the entire collective of technology emerge from primitive elements? Prof. Arthur will discuss these questions and how they relate to complexity.

15.30 - 16.30 Dr Bryan D. Gross, President and Chief Executive Officer, MPSI Systems Inc.
"Complexity & Consumer Behaviour"

Retail performance depends largely upon the retailer's ability to manage the store-customer interface across all stores in a retail network; made more complex by interactions between proximal stores and consumers. Sustained retail success requires simultaneous consideration of the impact of all decisions at all points in the retail network. Simulation models have offered decades of scientific support for managing this complex environment. Optimization methods married to simulation systems now offer a further, significant improvement for managing complexities of the store-customer interface.

16.30 -17.00 TEA IN ROOM D202

17.00 - 18.00 Prof. Scott Kirkpatrick, Professor in the School of Engineering and Computer Science, Hebrew University and Exystence Network of Excellence
"From the scale-free Web to Avogadro-scale Engineering"

ART & COMPLEXITY AT THE LSE

Julian Burton: The Art of complexity
"Improvising together into the Unknown: Using Visual Art to Facilitate Emergence"
Julian has been working with the LSE Complexity Group for several years. He will be drawing his impressions of some of the talks on the 25th March.

Mateo Willis explores the visualisation of complexity through his paintings. By developing a unique technique, he can create images that display motion and depth on canvas. The outcome is dependent on the initial conditions of the process and the final results are unpredictable, but balanced compositions with a fractal element of detail

EVENING: OPTIONAL EVENT (booked in advance)
18.30 Reception at the Balcony, Palm Court, Waldorf Hotel
19.30 Dinner at the Waldorf Hotel, Aldwych

Friday 26 March 2004

08.30 - 09:00 CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST IN CAFE PEPE

09:00 - 17.00 SESSION III -- CURRENT RESEARCH & FUTURE DIRECTIONS IN COMPLEXITY SCIENCE
Moderator: Prof. Eve Mitleton-Kelly, LSE

09.00 - 09.30 Dr. Robert A. Eisenstein President, Santa Fe Institute
"Future Directions in Complexity Science at the Santa Fe Institute"

During the last two decades, the essential role of complex interactions in science, government and business -- and in human interactions generally -- has become very widely appreciated. In parallel, the progress made in developing new analytical and computational tools has made possible some significant progress in many areas. In this talk Dr Eisenstein will outline some potential new directions for the scientific program at the Santa Fe Institute, and its connections to fundamental science, to understanding some aspects of human behavior, and to decisions regarding social policy. Prospects for international collaboration will be discussed as well.

09.30 - 10.30 John S. Leggate, CBE, CIO, & Group Vice President, British Petroleum
"What Did The Internet Ever Do For Us?"

John Leggate will speak on how BP, a world leader in the application of digital technology to business processes, has combined its approach to innovation and learning with the connectivity and greater speed of operation afforded by the Internet and related developments, to liberate the creative energy of its people and drive the corporation to new levels of capability and performance.

10.30 - 11.00 COFFEE IN ROOM D302

11.00 - 12.00 Dr. Geoffrey West, Distinguished Research Professor, Santa Fe Institute; Senior Fellow, Los Alamos National Laboratory
"The Complexity, Unity and Simplicity of Living Systems"

Dr. West will explore a quantitative conceptual framework for understanding many of the generic properties of living organisms from molecules and cells to ecosystems. The paradigm presented will be developed as a way of viewing many related phenomena and will include a discussion of the cardiovascular system, trees and plants, growth, aging and mortality, sleep, genome size, cities and corporate structures.

12.00 - 13.00 Prof. J. Doyne Farmer, McKinsey Research Professor, Santa Fe Institute
"The Low Intelligence Approach to Economics: Simple Laws Relating Order Flow to Statistical Properties of Markets"

While much of economics appropriately focuses on the strategic interactions of agents, there are some situations where this is dominated by other factors, such as market structure. Prof. Farmer will present a model of the continuous double auction based on zero-intelligence noise traders. This can be used to derive simple laws relating order flow to statistical properties of markets, such as volatility and the average bid-ask spread, that agree remarkably well with data from the London Stock Exchange. He will then discuss the effects of adding intelligence, simulating an ecology of arbitrage and exploring its effect on prices.

13.00 - 14.30 LUNCH

Afternoon Session Moderator: Dr. Ralph Dum, European Commission

14.30 - 15.30 Dr. Luc Steels, University of Brussels (VUB AI Lab) and Sony Computer Science Laboratory, Paris
"Language as a Complex Adaptive System"

Dr Steels will talk about how the increasing complexity of robots, and the increasing complexity and open-endedness of information technology as experienced in the Web, pushes us to adopt mechanisms whereby communication is no longer pre-programmed but based on emergent conventions and ontologies. These mechanisms are directly inspired by complex systems research and are grounded in complex systems theory.

15.30 - 16.30 Eric Beinhocker, Senior Advisor, McKinsey & Company, London, SFI Business Network
"Where Does Wealth Come From? A Complexity Economics Perspective"
One of the most stunning empirical facts in economics is the explosive growth in worldwide wealth over the past 250 years, and the related growth in the complexity of the global economy. Conventional, particularly neoclassical, economic theories have a very difficult time explaining this pattern of growth. This talk will explore what complexity science might offer in explaining this puzzle; most notably perspectives from evolutionary theory, thermodynamics, and cognitive science.

16.30 - 17.00 Plenary Session

17.00 Close of Symposium

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