Seminar 30th January 2013 3 p.m. Building 53, Room 4025
Complexity Systems Simulation Seminar Series (CS^4) - The Hitchhikers Guide to Complexity
Dr Rachel Armstrong
University of Greenwich
- Web page
- http://cs4southampton.wordpress.com/
- Categories
- Complex Systems
- Submitter
- Luke Goater
Dr Rachel Armstrong, University of Greenwich
“This talk offers a multi-disciplinary view of complexity from the perspective of an informed amateur – an ideas hitchhiker – curating concepts relevant to its philosophical, technological and cultural importance. These ideas are co-ordinates for a hitchhiker’s map that provokes discussion about the theory, method and application of complex systems in addressing cultural agendas and how they may work as a counter point to prevalent practices. Of particular interest is how complexity may offer alternative technological systems to machines, which shape our Modern era. Although complexity is still an emerging practice and not a ‘cure-all’ to the significant challenges that we face this century, it may offer a point of reflection on the processes that underpin human development – to identify opportunities where the interests of humanity and the environment may be one and the same – say for example, by considering the Earth to be a giant ‘natural’ supercomputer.”