Are there conditions that create a pathway to innovation and groundbreaking inventions? How do groups solve problems? In today’s episode, we look at the science of collectives to learn about the patterns that emerge as human societies grow, the importance of a collective structure to foster ideas and create impact, and – from collectives like ants and immune systems – the importance of veering off the beaten path to become better at exploring and discovering.

Guests:

Melanie Moses, External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute, Professor of Computer Science and Associate Professor of Biology at University of New Mexico

Hyejin Youn, External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute, Associate Professor at Institute of Northwestern University

Hosts: Abha Eli Phoboo & Chris Kempes
Producer: Katherine Moncure
Podcast theme music by: Mitch Mignano

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More info:

SFI programs: Education
Complexity Explorer:
Fractals and Scaling
Fractals and Scaling: Toward a Theory of Urban Scaling
Introduction to Complexity: Ant Foraging and Task Allocation

Books:
Scale by Geoffrey West
Complexity: a Guided Tour by Melanie Mitchell

Talks:
Toward a Scientific Theory of Cities by Hyejin Youn

Papers & Articles:

“Synergy in ant foraging strategies: memory and communication alone and in combination,” in GECCO’13: Proceedings of the 15th annual conference on Genetic and evolutionary computation (July 6, 2013), doi.org/10.1145/2463372.2463389

“In vivo, in silico, in machina: Ants and Robots balance memory and communication to collectively exploit information,” in Proceedings of the European Conference on Complex Systems 2012

“What makes individual I’s a Collective We; coordination mechanisms & costs” in arXiv (November 20, 2023), doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2306.02113

“How does innovation push its boundaries?” in 43 Visions for Complexity, Exploring Complexity: Volume 3 (January 2017), doi.org/10.1142/9789813206854_0043