Events

Professor Lee Smolin of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics examines the fundamental Arrow-Debreu model of market equilibrium in neoclassical economics. He asks the basic question always raised by physicists when confronting a new system: What are the system’s symmetries? Addressing this question, he argues that many markets have multiple equilibria. He also explores the application of the principle of gauge invariance to markets — an idea originally introduced by Malaney and Weinstein — and explains some of this principle’s consequences for economic theory.

Speaker: George Francis

For WICI to realize its potential, argues Professor George Francis of environment and resource studies at the University of Waterloo, it should draw upon a cadre of people familiar with different approaches to understanding complex systems, as well as specialists highly accomplished in particular complex phenomena. He briefly summarizes his perspectives derived from years of research and sketches a “consumers’ guide” to world-systems thinking, a well-developed body of scholarship that should be an important part of a WICI repertoire.

Professor Dawn Parker of the School of Planning at the University of Waterloo reports on a collaborative research project with the University of Michigan exploring land-use change and carbon sequestration in ex-urban landscapes in Southeastern Michigan, with a focus on the carbon implications of landscaping behaviours of developers and residents.

Professor Karen Houle of the University of Guelph argues that, while we now recognize the genuine complexity of many issues, we have yet to rethink the basic — and oddly Newtonian — concepts we use to make normative judgments around those same issues. She discusses what features a concept of responsibility adequate for coping with complex issues must have.

Speaker: Brad Bass

Cities are analogous to peaks on a dynamic fitness landscape. Brad Bass of the University of Toronto discusses this concept theoretically and illustrates it using a geographical analysis of the U.S. Patent Database. This analysis also illustrates networked, authoritative and chaotic search strategies and sheds light on the stability of the central place structure.

Professor Philip Beesley of University of Waterloo’s School of Architecture describes field-oriented experimental architecture installations, including the recent hylozoic soil and epithelium series. Drawing from the interactive behaviours of these installations, he discusses the implications of architecture that pursues mutually dependent, post-humanist relationships.

Speaker: J. Doyne Farmer

With the advance of global warming, the predictability of future technological change becomes a pressing and relevant issue. Doyne Farmer of the Santa Fe Institute compares several different hypotheses for technological improvement using different examples of technologies, ranging from computers to energy. He shows that it is indeed possible to make useful forecasts of technological progress. He also reviews ideas for why such laws exist, and discusses how one can use this to address problems like global warming.

Speaker: Thomas Homer-Dixon, Stephen Bocking, and Robert Gibson

Category: Alternatives Magazine debate

On Tuesday, January 12, three of Canada’s foremost “ecollectuals” will burn up the podium with a fast-paced discussion that will challenge your eco-ideas and test your eco-vocabulary. Climate change may be heating up the planet, but it’s Thomas Homer-Dixon (UW), Robert Gibson (UW) and Stephen Bocking (Trent University) who will raise the thermostat on January 12.

Speakers: David Robinson, Ivan Filion, and Kirsten Robinson

A major restoration project for Georgian Bay calls for re-imagining the ecosystems management strategy and its relationship to the local economy. The problem is complicated, and the solutions are contested. Is it an opportunity to apply complexity theory? This issue will be explored in this exciting and interactive WICI seminar.

Dr. Jukka Pekka Onnela of Harvard University discusses how social networks are structured by and interact with cellphone communication patterns. He also outlines his research on how ‘apps’ used in social networking sites influence collective human behaviour and how community detection involves the identification of tightly connected groups of nodes in social networks.