What makes us human?  Over the last several decades, the once-vast island of human exceptionalism has lost significant ground to wave upon wave of research revealing cognition, emotion, problem-solving, and tool-use in other organisms. But there remains a clear sense that humans stand apart — evidenced by our unique capacity to overrun the planet and remake it in our image. What is unique about the human mind, and how might we engage this question rigorously through the lens of neuroscience? How are our gifts of simulation and imagination different from those of other animals? And what, if anything, can we know of the “curiosity” of even larger systems in which we’re embedded — the social superorganisms, ecosystems, technospheres within which we exist like neurons in the brain?Welcome to COMPLEXITY, the official podcast of the Santa Fe Institute. I’m your host, Michael Garfield, and every other week we’ll bring you with us for far-ranging conversations with our worldwide network of rigorous researchers developing new frameworks to explain the deepest mysteries of the universe.This week we conclude a two-part conversation with SFI External Professor John Krakauer, Professor of Neurology and Director of the Center for the Study of Motor Learning and Brain Repair at Johns Hopkins. In this episode, we talk about the nature of curiosity and learning, and whether the difference between the cognitive capacities and inner lifeworld of humans and other animals constitutes a matter of degree or one of kind…Be sure to check out our extensive show notes with links to all our references at complexity.simplecast.com  . If you value our research and communication efforts, please subscribe, rate and review us at Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and consider making a donation — or finding other ways to engage with us — at santafe.edu/engage. Please also note that we are now accepting applications for an open postdoc fellowship, next summer’s undergraduate research program, and the next cohort of Complexity Explorer’s course in the digital humanities. We welcome your submissions!Lastly, for more from John Krakauer, check out our new six-minute time-lapse of notes from the 2022 InterPlanetary Festival panel discussions on intelligence and the limits to human performance in space…Thank you for listening!Join our Facebook discussion group to meet like minds and talk about each episode.Podcast theme music by Mitch Mignano.Follow us on social media:Twitter • YouTube • Facebook • Instagram • LinkedInReferenced in this episode:Prospective Learning: Back to the Futureby The Future Learning Collective (Joshua Vogelstein, et al.)The Learning Salon: Toward a new participatory scienceby Ida Momennejad, John Krakauer, Claire Sun, Eva Yezerets, Kanaka Rajan, Joshua Vogelstein, Brad WybleArtificial Intelligence Hits the Barrier of Meaningby Melanie Mitchell at The New York TimesEconomic Possibilities for our Grandchildrenby John Maynard KeynesThe Intelligent Life of the City Raccoonby Jude Isabella at Nautilus MagazineThe maintenance of vocal learning by gene-culture interaction: the cultural trap hypothesisby R. F. Lachlan and P. J. B. SlaterMindscape Podcast 87 - Karl Friston on Brains, Predictions, and Free Energyby Sean CarrollThe Apportionment of Human Diversityby Richard LewontinFrom Extraterrestrials to Animal Minds: Six Myths of Evolutionby Simon Conway MorrisI Am a Strange Loopby Douglas HoftstadterCoarse-graining as a downward causation mechanismby Jessica FlackDaniel DennettSusan BlackmoreRelated Episodes:Complexity 9 - Mirta Galesic on Social Learning & Decision-makingComplexity 12 - Matthew Jackson on Social & Economic NetworksComplexity 21 - Melanie Mitchell on Artificial Intelligence: What We Still Don't KnowComplexity 31 - Embracing Complexity for Systemic Interventions with David Krakauer (Transmission Series Ep. 5)Complexity 52 - Mark Moffett on Canopy Biology & The Human SwarmComplexity 55 - James Evans on Social Computing and Diversity by DesignComplexity 87 - Sara Walker on The Physics of Life and Planet-Scale IntelligenceComplexity 90 - Caleb Scharf on The Ascent of Information: Life in The Human DataomeComplexity 95 - John Krakauer Part 1: Taking Multiple Perspectives on The Brain

The brain is arguably one of the most complex objects known to science. How best to understand it? That is a trick question: brains are organized at many levels and attempts to grasp them all through one approach — be it micro, macro, anatomical, behavioral — are destined to leave out crucial insights. What more, thinking “vertically” across scales, one might miss important angles from another discipline along the “horizontal” axis. For inquiries too big to sit within one field of knowledge, maybe it is time we resurrected the salon: a mode of scientific exploration that levels hierarchies of expertise and optimizes for more complementary and high-dimensional, egalitarian, communal discourse. As with the Jainist philosophic principle anekantavada — how many blind people does it take to grok an elephant? — neuroscience is perhaps best practiced as innately and intensely multiperspectival…Welcome to COMPLEXITY, the official podcast of the Santa Fe Institute. I’m your host, Michael Garfield, and every other week we’ll bring you with us for far-ranging conversations with our worldwide network of rigorous researchers developing new frameworks to explain the deepest mysteries of the universe.This week is part one of a two-part conversation with SFI External Professor John Krakauer, Professor of Neurology and Director of the Center for the Study of Motor Learning and Brain Repair at Johns Hopkins . In this episode, we talk about the history of different ways of studying the brain — in animals and humans — and how subjects as complex as brains invite a different way of seeing, one that synthesizes many different ways of seeing…Thanks for your patience with the recent delays in publication — with InterPlanetary Festival and our Annual Symposium behind us, Complexity will now return to regular biweekly scheduling.Be sure to check out our extensive show notes with links to all our references at complexity.simplecast.com, and stay tuned for part two — in which we talk about how learning is inherently a future-focused exercise, and what that means for education. If you value our research and communication efforts, please subscribe, rate and review us at Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and consider making a donation — or finding other ways to engage with us, including an open postdoctoral fellowship in Belief Dynamics — at santafe.edu/engage.Thank you for listening!Join our Facebook discussion group to meet like minds and talk about each episode.Podcast theme music by Mitch Mignano.Follow us on social media:Twitter • YouTube • Facebook • Instagram • LinkedInReferenced in this episode:Neuroscience Needs Behavior: Correcting a Reductionist BiasJohn Krakauer, Asif Ghazanfar, Alex Gomez-Marin, Malcolm MacIver, David PoeppelTwo Views of the Cognitive BrainDavid Barack & John KrakauerOn Beyond Living: Rhetorical Transformations of the Life SciencesRichard DoyleSimon DeDeo on Good Explanations & Diseases of EpistemologyComplexity Podcast Episode 72Former SFI Fellow David Kinney, epistemologist (re: disciplines as levels of explanatory granularity)Coarse-graining as a downward causation mechanismJessica FlackIntegral Ecology: Uniting Multiple Perspectives on the Natural WorldSean Esbjörn-Hargens & Michael ZimmermanCarl Cranor, moral philosopher (re: causation)The Learning Salon: Toward a new participatory scienceIda Momennejad, John Krakauer, Claire Sun, Eva Yezerets, Kanaka Rajan, Joshua Vogelstein, Brad WybleBrain Inspired PodcastPaul MiddlebrookseLife JournalbiorXivW. Brian Arthur on Economics in Nouns and Verbs (Part 1)Complexity Podcast Episode 68W. Brian Arthur (Part 2) on "Prim Dreams of Order vs. Messy Vitality" in Economics, Math, and PhysicsComplexity Podcast Episode 69Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save The WorldTyson Yunkaporta

Communication is a physical process. It’s common sense that sending and receiving intelligible messages takes work…but how much work? The question of the relationship between energy, information, and matter is one of the deepest known to science. There appear to be limits to the rate at which communication between two systems can happen…but the search for a fundamental relationship between speed, error, and energy (among other things) promises insights far deeper than merely whether we can keep making faster internet devices. Strap in (and consider slowing down) for a broad and deep discussion on the bounds within which our entire universe must play…Welcome to COMPLEXITY, the official podcast of the Santa Fe Institute. I’m your host, Michael Garfield, and every other week we’ll bring you with us for far-ranging conversations with our worldwide network of rigorous researchers developing new frameworks to explain the deepest mysteries of the universe.This week we speak with SFI Professor David Wolpert and MIT Physics PhD student Farita Tasnim, who have worked together over the last year on pioneering research into the nonlinear dynamics of communication channels. In this episode, we explore the history and ongoing evolution of information theory and coding theory, what the field of stochastic thermodynamics has to do with limits to human knowledge, and the role of noise in collective intelligence.Be sure to check out our extensive show notes with links to all our references at complexity.simplecast.com. If you value our research and communication efforts, please subscribe, rate and review us at Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and consider making a donation — or finding other ways to engage with us, including a handful of open postdoctoral fellowships — at santafe.edu/engage.Lastly, this weekend — October 22nd & 23rd — is the return of our InterPlanetary Festival! Join our YouTube livestream for two full days of panel discussions, keynotes, and bleeding edge multimedia performances focusing   space exploration through the lens of complex systems science. The fun begins at 11 A.M. Mountain Time on Saturday and ends 6 P.M. Mountain Time on Sunday. Everything will be recorded and archived at the stream link in case you can’t tune in for the live event. Learn more at interplanetaryfest.org…Thank you for listening!Join our Facebook discussion group to meet like minds and talk about each episode.Podcast theme music by Mitch Mignano.Follow us on social media:Twitter • YouTube • Facebook • Instagram • LinkedInReferenced in this episode:Nonlinear thermodynamics of communication channelsby Farita Tasnim and David Wolpert (forthcoming at arXiv.org)Heterogeneity and Efficiency in the Brainby Vijay BalasubramanianNoisy Deductive Reasoning: How Humans Construct Math, and How Math Constructs Universesby David Wolpert & David KinneyStochastic Mathematical Systemsby David Wolpert & David KinneyTwenty-five years of nanoscale thermodynamicsby Chase P. Broedersz & Pierre RoncerayTen Questions about The Hard Limits of Human Intelligenceby David WolpertWhat can we know about that which we cannot even imagine?by David WolpertCommunication consumes 35 times more energy than computation in the human cortex, but both costs are needed to predict synapse numberby William Levy & Victoria CalvertAn exchange of letters on the role of noise in collective intelligenceby Daniel Kahneman, David Krakauer, Olivier Sibony, Cass Sunstein, David WolpertWhen Slower Is Fasterby Carlos Gershenson & Dirk HelbingAdditional Resources:The stochastic thermodynamics of computationby David WolpertElements of Information Theory, Second Edition (textbook)by Thomas Cover & Joy ThomasComputational Complexity: A Modern Approach (textbook)by Sanjeev Arora & Boaz BarakAn Introduction to Kolmogorov Complexity and Its Applications (textbook)by Ming Li & Paul Vitányi

What does it mean to be alive? Our origins are the horizon of our understanding, and as with the physical horizon, our approach brings us no closer. The more we learn, the more mysterious it all becomes. What if we’re asking the wrong questions? Maybe life did not begin at all, but rather coalesced piecemeal, a set of properties contingent and convergent, plural, more than once? Maybe the origin of life is happening right now, just over the horizon, forming something new anew. Let’s get into the weeds and see if we can find a continuity between biology and physics.Welcome to COMPLEXITY, the official podcast of the Santa Fe Institute. I’m your host, Michael Garfield, and every other week we’ll bring you with us for far-ranging conversations with our worldwide network of rigorous researchers developing new frameworks to explain the deepest mysteries of the universe.This week we speak with Kate Adamala, synthetic biologist and professor at the University of Minnesota, about her research to produce synthetic minimal cells that are not technically alive but can perform myriad biological processes. Along the way the distant past and future meet. Can we build life? Or can we grow machines?Be sure to check out our extensive show notes with links to all our references at complexity.simplecast.com. Note that applications are now open for our Complexity Postdoctoral Fellowships! If you value our research and communication efforts, please subscribe, rate and review us at Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and consider making a donation — or finding other ways to engage with us — at santafe.edu/engage.Thank you for listening!Join our Facebook discussion group to meet like minds and talk about each episode.Podcast theme music by Mitch Mignano.Follow us on social media:Twitter • YouTube • Facebook • Instagram • LinkedInReferenced in this episode:Nonenzymatic Template-Directed RNA Synthesis Inside Model ProtocellsEngineering genetic circuit interactions within and between synthetic minimal cellsCompetition between model protocells driven by an encapsulated catalystSynthetic cells in biomedical applicationsParasites, infections and inoculation in synthetic minimal cellsBuild-a-Cell: Engineering a Synthetic Cell CommunityThe Andromeda Strain and the Meaning of Life: Monolith MonologuesSara Walker on The Physics of Life and Planet-Scale IntelligenceWhat Technology Wants by Kevin KellyMatthew Jackson on Social & Economic NetworksScott PageMind Children by Hans MoravecThe Multiple Paths to Multiple LifeMichael LachmannTerraforming the Biosphere by Ricard SoléScaling Laws & Social Networks in The Time of COVID-19 with Geoffrey West (Part 1)Red Queen

One way to frame the science of complexity is as a revelation of the hidden order under seemingly separate phenomena — a teasing-out of music from the noise of history and nature. This effort follows centuries of work to find the rules that structure language, music, and society. How strictly analogous are the patterns governing a symphony and those that describe a social transformation? Math and music are old friends, but new statistical and computational techniques afford the possibility of going even deeper. What fundamental insights — and what sounds — emerge by bringing physicists, composers, social scientists, data artists, and biologists together?Welcome to COMPLEXITY, the official podcast of the Santa Fe Institute. I’m your host, Michael Garfield, and every other week we’ll bring you with us for far-ranging conversations with our worldwide network of rigorous researchers developing new frameworks to explain the deepest mysteries of the universe.This week on Complexity, we sit with two of SFI’s External Professors — Miguel Fuentes at the Argentine Society for Philosophical Analysis and the Institute of Complex Systems of Valparaiso, and Marco Buongiorno Nardelli at the University of North Texas — for a discussion that roams from their working group on the complexity of music, to fundamental questions about the nature of emergence, to how we might bring all of these ideas together to think about  social transformation as a kind of music in its own right.A show that spend so much time exploring sense and nonsense would hardly be complete without technical errors, so please accept our apologies for losing some of Miguel’s backstory to a recording glitch. For this reason, be extra sure to check out our extensive show notes with links to all our references at complexity.simplecast.com.Note that applications are now open for our Complexity Postdoctoral Fellowships! If you value our research and communication efforts, please subscribe, rate and review us at Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and consider making a donation — or finding other ways to engage with us — at santafe.edu/engage.Thank you for listening!Join our Facebook discussion group to meet like minds and talk about each episode.Podcast theme music by Mitch Mignano.Follow us on social media:Twitter • YouTube • Facebook • Instagram • LinkedInReferenced in this episode:An ‘integrated mess of music lovers in science’on the 2020 Music & Complexity SFI Working Group(with YouTube playlist of talks)Expanding our understanding of musical complexityon the 2022 Music & Complexity SFI Working GroupTopology of Networks in Generalized Musical Spacesby Marco Buongiorno NardelliTonal harmony and the topology of dynamical score networksby Marco Buongiorno Nardellia computer-aided data-driven composition environment for the sonification and dramatization of scientific data streamsby Marco Buongiorno NardelliMachines that listen: towards a machine listening model based on perceptual descriptorsby Marco Buongiorno Nardelli, Mitsuko Aramaki, Sølvi Ystad, and Richard Kronland-MartinetDoes network complexity help organize Babel’s library?by Juan Pablo Cárdenas Iván González, Gerardo Vidal, and Miguel FuentesComplexity and the Emergence of Physical Propertiesby Miguel FuentesThe Structure of Online Information Behind Social Crisesby Juan Pablo Cárdenas, Gastón Olivares, Gerardo Vidal, Carolina Urbina and Miguel Fuentes88 - Aviv Bergman on The Evolution of Robustness and Integrating The DisciplinesComplexity Podcast86 - Dmitri Tymoczko on The Shape of Music: Mathematical Order in Western TonalityComplexity Podcast81 - C. Brandon Ogbunu on Epistasis & The Primacy of Context in Complex SystemsComplexity Podcast67 - Tyler Marghetis on Breakdowns & Breakthroughs: Critical Transitions in Jazz & MathematicsComplexity Podcast36 - Geoffrey West on Scaling, Open-Ended Growth, and Accelerating Crisis/Innovation Cycles: Transcendence or Collapse? (Part 2)Complexity Podcast27 - COVID-19 & Complex Time in Biology & Economics with David Krakauer (Transmission Series Ep. 2)Complexity PodcastIgnorance, Failure, Uncertainty, and the Optimism of Scienceby Stuart Firestein (SFI Community Lecture)SFI’s Operating Principlesby Cormac McCarthy

As the old nut goes, “To the victor goes the spoils.” But if each round of play consolidates the spoils into fewer hands, eventually it comes to pass that wealthy special interests twist the rules so much it undermines the game itself. When economic power overtakes the processes of democratic governance, growth stagnates, and the rift between the rich and poor becomes abyssal. Desperate times and desperate measures jeopardize the fabric of society. How might nonpartisan approaches to this wicked problem help us walk the system back into a healthy balance?Welcome to COMPLEXITY, the official podcast of the Santa Fe Institute. I’m your host, Michael Garfield, and every other week we’ll bring you with us for far-ranging conversations with our worldwide network of rigorous researchers developing new frameworks to explain the deepest mysteries of the universe.This week on Complexity we speak with Steven Teles, political scientist at Johns Hopkins University and SFI External Professor Rajiv Sethi, Professor of Economics at Barnard College, Columbia University about how self-serving economic actors intervene in regulation to stifle innovation, increase inequality, and contribute to the conditions in which violence can flourish. Referencing Teles’ aisle-crossing book The Captured Economy with co-author Brink Lindsey, we link the problem of regulatory capture in its myriad forms to Sethi’s work on race, inequality, and crime, which we discussed in Episode 7 (Rajiv Sethi on Crime, Stereotypes, and The Pursuit of Justice). At the interface between the left and right, public and private, our guests shed light on the forces that divide — and may help reunite — the USA and other modern nations.Be sure to check out our extensive show notes with links to all our references at complexity.simplecast.com. Note that applications are now open for our Complexity Postdoctoral Fellowships! Tell a friend. And if you value our research and communication efforts, please subscribe, rate and review us at Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and consider making a donation — or finding other ways to engage with us — at santafe.edu/engage.Thank you for listening!Join our Facebook discussion group to meet like minds and talk about each episode.Podcast theme music by Mitch Mignano.Follow us on social media:Twitter • YouTube • Facebook • Instagram • LinkedInMore on the Emergent Political Economies SFI Research Theme:SFI launches new research theme on emergent political economiesComplexity 82 - David Krakauer on Emergent Political Economies and A Science of Possibility (EPE 01)Complexity 83 - Eric Beinhocker & Diane Coyle on Rethinking Economics for A Sustainable & Prosperous World (EPE 02)Complexity 84 - Ricardo Hausmann & J. Doyne Farmer on Evolving Technologies & Market Ecologies (EPE 03)Referenced in (or related to) this episode:The Captured Economy: How The Powerful Enrich Themselves, Slow Down Growth, and Increase Inequalityby Brink Lindsey and Steven TelesShadows of Doubt: Stereotypes, Crime, and the Pursuit of Justiceby Brendan O’Flaherty and Rajiv SethiComplexity 19 - David B. Kinney on the Philosophy of ScienceCommon as Airby Lewis HydeSignalling architectures can prevent cancer evolutionby Leonardo Oña & Michael LachmannScaling of urban income inequality in the USAby Elisa Heinrich Mora, Cate Heine, Jacob J. Jackson, Geoffrey B. West, Vicky Chuqiao Yang and Christopher P. KempesCrime and Punishment in a Divided Societyby Rajiv SethiRajiv Sethi discusses gun violence, critical race theory, and bezzleson The Glenn Loury Show (video)(audio-only podcast link)The Gun Deal by Rajiv Sethi (Substack)Rajiv Sethi reviews Boldrin/Levine’s Against Intellectual MonopolySteven Teles and Brink Lindsey on EconTalk with Russ RobertsIs Nothing Sacred? Rajiv Sethi on Salman Rushdie (Substack)Rajiv Sethi with Bari Weiss and David French on gun violenceRajiv Sethi on James Tobin’s Hirsch Lecture on Functional Inefficiency in Finance (Substack)

Chances are you’re listening to this on an advanced computer that fits in your pocket, but is really just one tentacle tip of a giant, planet-spanning architecture for the gathering and processing of data. A common sentiment among the smartphone-enabled human population is that we not only don’t own our data, but our data owns us — or, at least, the pressure of responsibility to keep providing data to the Internet and its devices (and the wider project of human knowledge construction) implicates us in the evolution of a vast, mysterious, largely ineffable self-organizing system that has grabbed the reins of our economies and cultures. This is, in some sense, hardly new: since humankind first started writing down our memories to pass them down through time, we have participated in the “dataome” — a structure and a process that transcends, and transforms, our individuality. Fast-forward to the modern era, when the rapidly-evolving aggregation of all human knowledge tips the scales in favor of the dataome’s emergent agency and its demands on us…Welcome to COMPLEXITY, the official podcast of the Santa Fe Institute. I’m your host, Michael Garfield, and every other week we’ll bring you with us for far-ranging conversations with our worldwide network of rigorous researchers developing new frameworks to explain the deepest mysteries of the universe.This week on Complexity, we talk to Caleb Scharf, Director of Astrobiology at Columbia University, about his book, The Ascent of Information: Books, Bits, Genes, and LIfe’s Unending Algorithm. In this episode, we talk about the interplay of information, energy, and matter; the nature of the dataome and its relationship to humans and our artifacts; the past and future evolution of the biosphere and technosphere; the role of lies in the emergent informational metabolisms of the Internet; and what this psychoactive frame suggests about the search for hypothetical intelligences we may yet find in outer space.Be sure to check out our extensive show notes with links to all our references at complexity.simplecast.com. Note that applications are now open for our Complexity Postdoctoral Fellowships! Tell a friend. And if you value our research and communication efforts, please subscribe, rate and review us at Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and consider making a donation — or finding other ways to engage with us — at santafe.edu/engage.Thank you for listening!Join our Facebook discussion group to meet like minds and talk about each episode.Podcast theme music by Mitch Mignano.Follow us on social media:Twitter • YouTube • Facebook • Instagram • LinkedInMentioned and related resources:Caleb’s Personal Website, Research Publications, and Popular WritingsCaleb’s TwitterWe Are The Aliensby Caleb Scharf at Scientific AmericanWe Are Our Data, Our Data Are Usby Caleb Scharf at The Los Angeles TimesIs Physical Law an Alien Intelligence?by Caleb Scharf at NautilusWhere Do Minds Belong?by Caleb Scharf at AeonAutopoiesis (Wikipedia)The physical limits of communicationby Michael Lachmann, M. E. J. Newman, Cristopher MooreThe Extended Phenotypeby Richard Dawkins“Time Binding” (c/o Alfred Korzybski’s General Semantics) (Wikipedia)The Singularity in Our Past Light-Coneby Cosma ShaliziArgument-making in the wildSFI Seminar by Simon DeDeoCoarse-graining as a downward causation mechanismby Jessica FlackIf Modern Humans Are So Smart, Why Are Our Brains Shrinking?by Kathleen McAuliffe at Discover MagazineWhen and Why Did Human Brains Decrease in Size? A New Change-Point Analysis and Insights From Brain Evolution in Antsby Jeremy DeSilva, James Traniello, Alexander Claxton, & Luke FanninComplexity 35 - Scaling Laws & Social Networks in The Time of COVID-19 with Geoffrey West (Part 1)The Collapse of NetworksSFI Symposium Presentation by Raissa D'SouzaJevons Paradox (Wikipedia)What Technology Wantsby Kevin KellyThe Glass Cageby Nicholas CarrThe evolution of languageby Martin Nowak and David KrakauerComplexity 70 - Lauren F. Klein on Data Feminism (Part 1)Complexity 87 - Sara Walker on The Physics of Life and Planet-Scale IntelligenceSimulation hypothesis (Wikipedia)Complexity 88 - Aviv Bergman on The Evolution of Robustness and Integrating The DisciplinesBuilding a dinosaur from a chickenby Jack Horner at TEDComplexity 80 - Mingzhen Lu on The Evolution of Root Systems & Biogeochemical CyclingWhy Animals Lie: How Dishonesty and Belief Can Coexist in a Signaling Systemby Jonathan T. Rowell, Stephen P. Ellner, & H. Kern ReeveThe evolution of lying in well-mixed populationsby Valerio Capraro, Matjaž Perc & Daniele ViloneComplexity 42 - Carl Bergstrom & Jevin West on Calling Bullshit: The Art of Skepticism in a Data-Driven World

Human beings are distinctly weird. We live for a very long time after we stop reproducing, move completely differently than all of our closest relatives, lack the power of chimpanzees and other primates but completely outdo most other terrestrial mammals in a contest of endurance. If we think about bodies as hypotheses about the stable features of their ancestral environments, what do the features of our unusual physiology say about what humans ARE, where we come from, the details of our origin story as a profoundly successful species? And what can we learn by telescoping that story forward to explain some of the most persistent puzzles and paradoxes about our health, the way we age, our need for physical exercise, and our nearly ubiquitous aversion to habits that are good for us?Welcome to COMPLEXITY, the official podcast of the Santa Fe Institute. I’m your host, Michael Garfield, and every other week we’ll bring you with us for far-ranging conversations with our worldwide network of rigorous researchers developing new frameworks to explain the deepest mysteries of the universe.This week, we sprint into the paleoanthropology, biomechanics, and physiology of exercise with Harvard evolutionary biologist Daniel Lieberman, author of several books including Exercised, The Story of the Human Body, and The Evolution of the Human Head. In our rapid-fire discussion we explore how millions of years as hunter-gatherers equipped hominids with a unique package of adaptations for endurance running, why exercise is so good for us but so generally undesirable, and how physical activity in old age helped shape us into the strongly intergenerational social apes we are today.Be sure to check out our extensive show notes with links to all our references at complexity.simplecast.com. Note that applications are now open for our 2023 Complexity Postdoctoral Fellowships! Tell a friend. And if you value our research and communication efforts, please subscribe, rate and review us at Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and consider making a donation — or finding other ways to engage with us — at santafe.edu/engage.Thank you for listening!Join our Facebook discussion group to meet like minds and talk about each episode.Podcast theme music by Mitch Mignano.Follow us on social media:Twitter • YouTube • Facebook • Instagram • LinkedInMentioned papers and other resources:SFI Colloquium & Twitter thread on Daniel Lieberman’s “Active Grandparent Hypothesis”The evolution of human fatigue resistanceby Frank E. Marino, Benjamin E. Sibson, Daniel E. Lieberman "What beer and running taught me about the scientific process"Seminar by SFI Journalism Fellow Christie AschwandenEndurance running and the evolution of Homoby Dennis Bramble & Daniel Lieberman in NatureSFI Professor David Wolpert & the thermodynamics of computationComplexity 64 - Reconstructing Ancient Superhighways with Stefani Crabtree and Devin White3100: Run and Become (Documentary Film)Why run unless something is chasing you?by Daniel Lieberman at The Harvard GazetteHate Working Out? Blame Evolutionby Daniel LIeberman at The New York TimesThe Aging of Wolff’s “Law”: Ontogeny and Responses to Mechanical Loading in Cortical Boneby Osbjorn Pearson & DanielL LiebermanEffects of footwear cushioning on leg and longitudinal arch stiffness during runningby Nicholas B.Holowkaab, Stephen M.Gillinovac, EmmanuelVirot, Daniel E.Lieberman

Ask any martial artist: It’s not just where a person strikes you but your stance that matters. The amplitude and angle of a blow is one thing but how you can absorb and/or deflect it makes the difference. The same is true in any evolutionary system. Most people seem to know “the butterfly effect” where tiny changes lead to large results, but the inverse also works: complex organisms buffer their development against adverse mutations so that tiny changes cannot redirect the growth of limbs and other organs. It takes a lot to shake the pattern of five fingers on a hand, or five toes on a paw. This is robustness: how much change can something soak up before it transforms? The question leads us into a secret garden of cryptic variation: mutations waiting for their moment, pieces sitting in place that might suddenly and radically metamorphose in changing circumstances. It’s why evolution stutters, halts and leaps, and maybe it can help us think about society and mind in ways that deepen comprehension of the tangled and surprising forces playing out at all scales, in society and in ecology. For quests as deep as these, we need to wear new lenses and train inquiries stereoscopically. How can and do the sciences and the humanities inform each other as we keep evolving — not just biologically, but culturally? Can we triangulate the truth by holding theories side by side and looking through them all together?Welcome to COMPLEXITY, the official podcast of the Santa Fe Institute. I’m your host, Michael Garfield, and every other week we’ll bring you with us for far-ranging conversations with our worldwide network of rigorous researchers developing new frameworks to explain the deepest mysteries of the universe.This week, we speak with Aviv Bergman (Google Scholar), External Professor of the Santa Fe Institute and Director of the new Albert Einstein Institute for Advanced Study in the Life Sciences.Be sure to check out our extensive show notes with links to all our references at complexity.simplecast.com. Note that our applications for SFI postdoctoral fellowships open on August 1st! Tell a friend.If you value our research and communication efforts, please subscribe, rate and review us at Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and consider making a donation — or finding other ways to engage with us — at santafe.edu/engage.Thank you for listening!Join our Facebook discussion group to meet like minds and talk about each episode.Podcast theme music by Mitch Mignano.Follow us on social media:Twitter • YouTube • Facebook • Instagram • LinkedInMentioned Papers:Waddington’s canalization revisited: Developmental stability and evolutionMark L. Siegal & Aviv BergmanEvolutionary capacitance as a general feature of complex gene networksAviv Bergman & Mark L. SiegalPhenotypic Pliancy and the Breakdown of Epigenetic Polycomb MechanismsMaryl Lambros, Yehonatan Sella, Aviv BergmanMammalian Endothermy Optimally Restricts Fungi and Metabolic CostsAviv Bergman & Arturo CasadevallHow on Earth can Aliens Survive? Concept and Case StudyAviv Bergman’s 2022 SFI SeminarAdditional Mentioned Podcasts, Videos, & Writing:Melanie Mitchell on Artificial Intelligence: What We Still Don't KnowOn Coronavirus, Crisis, and Creative Opportunity with David Krakauer (Transmission Series Ep. 3)Ricardo Hausmann & J. Doyne Farmer on Evolving Technologies & Market Ecologies (EPE 03)Olivia Judson on Major Energy Transitions in Evolutionary HistoryJames Evans on Social Computing and Diversity by DesignMirta Galesic on Social Learning & Decision-makingWhat Determines The Complexity of Writing Systems?on the work of SFI Fellow Helena MitonDoes the Ecology of Somatic Tissue Normally Constrain the Evolution of Cancer?SFI Seminar by External Professor John PepperExplosive Proofs of Mathematical TruthsSFI Seminar by External Professor Simon DeDeoArmchair Scienceby 2022 SFI Journalism Fellow Dan Falk at Aeon MagazineThe coming battle for the COVID-19 narrativeSamuel Bowles, Wendy Carlin 10 April 2020Ignorance, Failure, Uncertainty, and the Optimism of ScienceStuart Firestein’s 2022 SFI Community LectureSmarter Parts Make Collective Systems Too StubbornJordana Cepelewicz at Aeon Magazine"Ancestral forms are very different, but as you increase regulatory interactions is decreasing the space of the possible. You can think of bureaucracy..."- SFI President David Krakauer on #DevoBias2018

What is life, and where does it come from? These are two of the deepest, most vexing, and persistent questions in science, and their enduring mystery and allure is complicated by the fact that scientists approach them from a myriad of different angles, hard to reconcile. Whatever else one might identify as universal features of all living systems, most scholars would agree life is a physical phenomenon unfolding in time. And yet current physics is notorious for its inadequacy with respect to time. Life appears to hinge on information transfer — but, again, what do we mean by “information,” and what it is relationship to energy and matter? If humankind can’t settle fundamental issues with these theoretical investigations, we might be missing other kinds of life (and mind) — not just in outer space, but here on Earth, right beneath our noses. But new models that suggest a vastly wider definition of life offer hope that we might — soon! — not only learn to recognize the biospheres and technospheres of other living worlds, but notice other “aliens” at home, and even find our place amidst a living cosmos.Welcome to COMPLEXITY, the official podcast of the Santa Fe Institute. I’m your host, Michael Garfield, and every other week we’ll bring you with us for far-ranging conversations with our worldwide network of rigorous researchers developing new frameworks to explain the deepest mysteries of the universe.This week on the show, we speak with SFI External Professor Sara Walker (Twitter, Google Scholar), Deputy Director of The Beyond Center at ASU, where she acts as Associate Professor in half a dozen different programs. In this conversation, we discuss her pioneering research in the origins of life and the profound and diverse implications of Assembly Theory — a new kind of physics she’s developing with chemist Leroy Cronin and a team of SFI and NASA scholars.  Sara likes to speculate out loud in public conversation, so strap in for an unusually enthusiastic, animated, and free-roaming conversation at the very bleeding edge of science. And be sure to check out our extensive show notes with links to all our references at complexity.simplecast.com.If you value our research and communication efforts, please subscribe, rate and review us at Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and consider making a donation — or finding other ways to engage with us — at santafe.edu/engage.Thank you for listening!Join our Facebook discussion group to meet like minds and talk about each episode.Podcast theme music by Mitch Mignano.Follow us on social media:Twitter • YouTube • Facebook • Instagram • LinkedInMentioned Papers:Intelligence as a planetary scale processby Adam Frank, David Grinspoon & Sara WalkerThe Algorithmic Origins of Lifeby Sara Imari Walker & Paul C. W. DaviesBeyond prebiotic chemistry: What dynamic network properties allow the emergence of life?by Leroy Cronin & Sara WalkerIdentifying molecules as biosignatures with assembly theory and mass spectrometryby Stuart Marshall, Cole Mathis, Emma Carrick, Graham Keenan, Geoffrey Cooper, Heather Graham, Matthew Craven, Piotr Gromski, Douglas Moore, Sara Walker & Leroy CroninAssembly Theory Explains and Quantifies the Emergence of Selection and Evolutionby Abhishek Sharma, Dániel Czégel, Michael Lachmann, Christopher Kempes, Sara Walker, Leroy CroninQuantum Non-Barking Dogsby Sara Imari Walker, Paul C. W. Davies, Prasant Samantray, Yakir AharonovThe Multiple Paths to Multiple Lifeby Christopher P. Kempes & David C. Krakauer Other Related Videos & Writing:SFI Seminar - Why Black Holes Eat Informationby Vijay BalasubramanianMajor Transitions in Planetary Evolutionby Hikaru Furukawa and Sara Imari Walker2022 Community Lecture: “Recognizing The Alien in Us”by Sara WalkerSara Walker and Lee Cronin: The Alien Debateon The Lex Fridman ShowIf Cancer Were Easy, Every Cell Would Do ItSFI Press Release on work by Michael LachmannThe Ministry for The Futureby Kim Stanley RobinsonRe: Wheeler’s delayed choice experimentWikipediaOn the SFI “Exploring Life’s Origins” Research ProjectComplexity Explorer’s Origins of Life Free Open Online CourseChiara Marletto on Constructor TheorySimon Saunders, Philosopher of Physics at OxfordRelated SFI Podcast Episodes:Complexity 2 - The Origins of Life: David Krakauer, Sarah Maurer, and Chris Kempes at InterPlanetary Festival 2019Complexity 8 - Olivia Judson on Major Energy Transitions in Evolutionary HistoryComplexity 17 - Chris Kempes on The Physical Constraints on Life & EvolutionComplexity 40 - The Information Theory of Biology & Origins of Life with Sara Imari Walker (Big Biology Podcast Crossover)Complexity 41 - Natalie Grefenstette on Agnostic Biosignature DetectionComplexity 68 - W. Brian Arthur on Economics in Nouns & Verbs (Part 1)Complexity 80 - Mingzhen Lu on The Evolution of Root Systems & Biogeochemical CyclingAlien Crash Site 015 - Cole MathisAlien Crash Site 019 - Heather GrahamAlien Crash Site 020 - Chris KempesAlien Crash Site 021 - Natalie Grefenstette