Conference


New directions for Science

E. Knapp

Santa Fe Institute, USA

Abstract

Many everyday phenomena, such as those involving human interactions or biological development, have been particularly difficult to approach with the traditional scientific method of inquiry. In many cases, these phenomena involve the interactions of many agents, or actors, acting autonomously between themselves and generating, through their actions, much of theenvironment in which their interactions take place. Typically, the state of their development is critically dependent on accidental outcomes at branch points in the development of the entire system, that is, the development of the system is very path dependent. We at the Santa Fe Institute are pioneering the application of both computing and mathematical analysis to problems of this type, which are very general and are among the most important that science can address. In this talk I will describe the Santa Fe Institute program and show examples from biology, economics, and cultural evolution. While it is certainly not established that simulation by computer or closed mathematical analysis to these problems can yield scientifically robust solutions, the goal is to develop this approach as a rigorous discipline, spanning the full gamut of the disparate disciplines now so compartmentalized in the university system.
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sln 25 April 1996