I was thinking about the how physicists have modeled the big bang through this idea of going backwards and looking back through time essentially. And would it not be possible to envision different scenarios, exactly as you say, and then work backwards and identify the perhaps sociological trigger points? Although I'm not sure what it would change because we have also the planetary boundaries and the warming targets and all this stuff. We know that we're over shooting and hitting all the trigger points and nothing changes. That's the unfortunate reality.
George Mobus is Professor Emeritus at University of Washington, Tacoma. His broad academic background saw him conduct research on artificial intelligence, cybernetics and systems science.
George joins me to discuss how systems science is failing to grasp the polycrisis—that the field has been split into silos, leaving most systems scientists without the tools to model the complexity of the emergency we face.
He also explains the neurological limits of individual human wisdom, suggesting the agricultural revolution affected our capacity for abstract thinking, before revealing how humans can work past those limits—collectively.
Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it.
© Rachel Donald
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