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David Krakauer reflects on the foundations and future of complexity science
In his book “The Complex World,” Krakauer explores how complexity science developed, from its early roots to the four pillars that now define it—entropy, evolution, dynamics and computation.
By
Paul Middlebrooks
14 January 2025 | 106 min watch
In this episode, Paul Middlebrooks asks David Krakauer, president of the Santa Fe Institute, how complexity scientists approach the complex systems they study. Guided by Krakauer’s book “The Complex World: An Introduction to the Foundations of Complexity Science,” they discuss the historical foundations of complexity science over the past 100 years. Krakauer highlights how these principles, which continue to shape how modern complexity science integrates ideas across multiple scientific disciplines, may help us understand what may be the most complex system we know of—the brain.
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