Mission, Vision and Program
Para Limes plans to organize 12–15 exploratory conferences over a period of 5 years that explore a variety of themes, all relevant to the future of our societies, all underexplored in terms of the underlying complexity, questions and challenges and all to be discussed by world class thinkers.
The conference that was held in Stockholm in May 2023 on the “Illusion of Control” was the first of those explorations. The program will be updated yearly.
If you have any suggestions for future explorations, please contact us.
Mission
To probe the future of our world through daring explorations.
Vision
Most progress of the human condition has been triggered by individuals with explorative minds and original ideas. They dared to take steps in the unknown and open new perspectives for humanity. As complex and existential threats to humanity have started to destabilize our societies and cloud our views, the world, more than ever, needs explorers.
Para Limes was set up to invigorate explorations in a complex world and to be a platform from which explorations are launched, new approaches to burning questions are investigated and involvement of key stakeholders in addressing those burning questions is built.
Practically this means Para Limes brings together the best thinkers (world-class scientists, visionary politicians and policymakers, leaders from industry and NGO’s) to bridge the gap between science and society, or cover the realm between theory, applications and practice.
Para Limes means “Beyond Boundaries”, implying that its activities are not limited by methods or disciplines, national, institutional or political boundaries, but by imagination only.
True to this meaning, Para Limes will organize its activities anywhere in the world where there is interest to explore the future in search of unknown questions that must be answered.
Major steps to improve the human condition have been triggered by individuals with explorative minds and original ideas. They dared to take steps into the unknown and open new perspectives for humanity. The enormous advances in our understanding of nature (around us and within us) and the ways to use that understanding for the betterment of humanity were induced by such explorers. When this exploratory mindset was leading there seemed to be no limits in our imagination in terms of improving the quality of life, health and wellbeing in a peaceful and flourishing society. After exploration, exploitation followed. Now exploitation is leading, and the limits of our world are becoming painfully visible1.
As complex and existential threats to humanity have started to destabilize our societies and cloud our views, the world, more than ever, needs explorers.
Para Limes was set up to invigorate explorations in a complex world and to be a platform from which explorations are launched, new approaches to burning questions are investigated and involvement of key stakeholders in addressing those questions is shaped.
Practically this means Para Limes brings together the best thinkers (world-class scientists, visionary politicians and policymakers, leaders from industry, people from practice and NGO’s) to explore themes (either pressing or emerging) and identify challenges and questions that may be relevant to society (at a global level) but have not been adequately addressed by science, research or policy.
Through the experience and insights, it gained over the last 15 years, and as its network of extraordinary people (see Attachment C) grew while organizing its conferences, workshops and projects, Para Limes developed a highly effective approach to explore such themes, bridging the gap between science and society and covering the realm between theory, applications and practice.
Based on the results of these conferences, several of which were published in books2, Para Limes now proposes to organize 10–12 conferences over a period of five years that explore a variety of urgent themes, all relevant to the future of our societies, all underexplored in terms of the underlying questions and challenges and all to be discussed by world-class scientists, visionary politicians and policymakers, leaders from industry, people of practice and NGO’s.
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1Exploitation largely killed the spirit of exploration. Counterintuitive as that may look, science, in its focus on reductionism to understand nature, contributed to the loss of such an explorative spirit.
2E.g., Disrupted Balance – Society at Risk (2018), Grand Challenges for Science in the 21st Century (2019) and Buying Time for Climate Action (2022), all published by World Scientific Publishing, Singapore.
The program objective is two-fold:
- To bring to light lingering issues (problems and key questions) that will have to be addressed to enable the global society to cope with the challenges of the future and be able to recognize existential threats and prevent them from materializing.
- To develop an independent and sustainable funding that allows exploration into lingering issues as described in the first objective.
The issues to be brought to light within the context of the first objective have a long-time horizon and address topics of great societal relevance. Such topics3 must be effectively addressed by experts from different scientific disciplines, backgrounds and societal stakeholders in a multi-disciplinary approach. They require analyses of broad themes that cover past, present, and future developments that have shaped and are shaping our world. They are identified through intensive interactions between world class scientists, visionary politicians and policy makers, leaders from industry, people of practice and NGOs, both as speakers for the conferences and as members of the audience.
The starting points for the second objective are the opportunity to foster the track record built by Para Limes since 2011 in developing high level meetings that yield the type of results pursued under objective 1 and the need for future and sustained identification and exploration of “new” lingering issues4.
Circle of Words
Years ago, a famous Israeli writer was asked in an interview on public radio: “What are the greatest moments that you experienced as a writer?”. He answered: “Every once in a while, I manage to catch within a circle of words an idea or thought that has no word yet. Those are the greatest moments in my life as a writer.”
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3Like the topics mentioned in Future Explorations
4This includes the need to address these issues and come up with adequate answers and suggestions for societal impact and implementation
There are three key elements to the proposed program:
- The basic concept of a conference
- The flow of conferences
- Building a stable and sustainable funding for conferences and explorations
The Basic Concept of a Conference
The key elements in the project plan are the conferences. Each conference focuses on a specific theme. A synopsis outlines this theme in a captivating way and is used both to interest potential speakers and attract a committed audience. Each conference is organized according to a format that allows the speakers ample time to fully present and argue their points of view and to allow for intensive discussions between the speakers and the audience, both formally and informally.
a. Synopsis
In the synopsis for a conference, the theme is defined in a way that challenges the imagination of both potential speakers and audience. Examples of such a synopsis are given in Annexes B and Future Explorations.
b. The Choice of Speakers
A selection of speakers that meet the highest standards is essential for the success of the conference. That selection will be based on the relevance to the theme of a persons’ expertise and background, the persons’ quality as a speaker and his or her ability to listen, learn and interact with an open mind. Part of the selection process is an interview with each potential speaker, aimed at establishing his/her interest in the theme, the nature of his/her contribution and diversity and complementarity of speakers.
Listen and learn
In helping to prepare a positive setting for the establishment of Para Limes in 2004, John Holland conveyed his enthusiasm for the Santa Fe Institute (SFI) to a small group of Dutch professors. One professor asked: “If SFI is so fantastic, why is there only one such place in the US?” John answered: “About a thousand plus senior scientists in the US have Nobel Prize potential. That is the quality you need to make a place like SFI work. That, and the capability to listen and be genuinely interested to find out what top scientists from other disciplines have to offer. Only 10% of the best scientists have that capability. That limits the population from which SFI can draw to about one hundred plus senior scientists.”
c. Conference Format
Para Limes has developed a successful format for conferences that will be used in this project. That format entails three full days of discussions with 12 world class speakers and a committed audience. Each speaker has a time slot of 1.5 hours for his or her talk and discussions with the audience5. After each talk there is half an hour break, with coffee and other refreshments. So, each day will have four speakers, who will give in depth talks and have intensive interactions with the (invited) audience. There will be a lot of opportunities to interact with the other speakers.
d. Capturing Results
Proceedings with a summary of the presentations and the main results, open-access books, online videos of all presentations, reports on social media, public television, interviews in national newspapers and reports in international scientific journals to draw attention to the results and impact of the conferences.
e. Follow-up
Each conference will involve and mobilize potentially relevant stakeholders in society who are key to addressing the challenges and questions that might come up during the conference and who will help ensure implementation of the results and societal impact. Some of them will be invited as participants to the conference.
The Flow of Conferences
With this project, Para Limes aims at organizing two to three conferences per year.
The first conference will take place about one year after funding has been secured, the second half a year later. Then, on average, a new conference will be organized every 4–6 months. In total 12 conferences will be scheduled in a period of 5 years.
Typically, preparing for a conference from the inception of the theme to the actual conference taking place takes at least one year, but in general slightly more. Most of that time is needed to find and commit the speakers and to find an appropriate time slot that fits with the calendar of all speakers.
Para Limes focuses on themes with worldwide impact. Therefore, conferences will be organized in different places, all over the world. To keep that flow going, Para Limes will explore involvement of leading institutes (e.g. universities or research organizations) that might be interested in a particular conference and/or bring in specific expertise related to the topic of the conference. That involvement may include a major role in the organization of the conference, suggestions for speakers and location, and the mobilization of potential funders for the conference and local activities.
Building a funding base for future explorations
The 5-year period of this plan will be used to develop stable and sustainable long-term funding by a combination of institutional, private and public funders.
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5 The audience at the conference meeting is limited to facilitate discussion; there is no limit as to the number of on-line participants.
Subscription to 12 World-Class Exploratory Conferences in 5 Years
The leading principle for funding the activities of Para Limes is subscription. We offer companies, non-profit organizations, and individuals, a subscription to participate in the upcoming exploratory conferences, free access to all material produced in past explorations and the right to suggest themes for new explorations. The subscription costs €2k/year for individuals, €4k/year for non-profit organizations and €10k and more for companies (size dependent).The essence of Para Limes’ activities lies in its program of exploratory conferences.
The principle for establishing a stable funding basis for Para Limes lies in offering a broad range of explorations and in offering contributors to select and participate in the ones they see as most relevant for their organization while getting access to all the material produced in those conferences (video-material of presentations, books, publications in international journals).
Every year Para Limes will develop/ update a program of 12 exploratory conferences to be executed in the next five years.
At the present cost level, the average cost for one such conference is about €8k6. Including 6% inflation, the costs for 12 conferences over a period of five years would be roughly €1.4 million.
Subscription by Companies and Not-for-Profit Organizations
We intend to find at least 75 companies or not-for-profit organizations worldwide, who will subscribe to the activities of Para Limes. For companies, the price7 for such a subscription is €10K per year. For not-for-profit organizations, it is €4K per year. For that subscription Para Limes offers:- The right to delegate two people from their organization to actively participate in each of the exploratory conferences.
- Access to video streaming of the conference for passive participation in each of the exploratory conferences.
- Access to all the material that is generated before or during each of the conferences, such as videos, books, and articles.
- The right to suggest themes for explorations in the future.
Subscription by Individuals
Individuals can subscribe to the activities of Para Limes for €2K per year. Each individual will have the right to:- Participate in each exploratory conference, actively or passively.
- Access all the material that is generated before, during and after each of the conferences.
- Suggest themes for explorations in the future.
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6 The cost level of August 2022. At that time the value of the Euro and the US Dollar was roughly equal. In this note the Euro is used as unit of currency.
7 Given that minimum there are different levels of subscriptions possible, e.g. depending on the size of the organization and the level of active participation like the number of people be delegated to a conference.
Cost estimate for an average conference, to be held in a major European City
| S/N | Units of Costs | € |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Average traveling cost per speaker | 1,550 |
| 2 | Average cost for one hotel night | 200 |
| 3 | Cost for dinner per person | 90 |
| 4 | Catering per person per day | 30 |
| Number of speakers | 12 | |
| Number of Para Limes staff | 2 | |
| Number of paying participants | 100 | |
| 5 | Average costs of participation | 150 |
| 6 | Number of hotel nights per speaker | 6 |
| Number of hotel nights for staff | 6 | |
| Number of dinners for speakers | 4 | |
| Number of days catering | 3 | |
| Organisation, based on 2 staff members for Para Limes | € | |
| Travelling | 1,000 | |
| Hotel | 2,400 | |
| Dinner, etc. | 14,400 | |
| 7 | Administrative costs | 20,000 |
| Other costs | ||
| 8 | Social event | 2,500 |
| 9 | Video recording | 2,500 |
| Transcription and editing book | 5,000 |
| S/N | Notes | € |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Calculation average traveling costs (economy class plus) per speaker: | 1,550 |
| Number of speakers from US | 3 | |
| Number of speakers from Asia | 3 | |
| Number of speakers from South Africa | 100 | |
| Number of speakers from Europe | 2 | |
| Number of local speakers | 3 | |
| Average ticket cost from US – Amsterdam | 2,000 | |
| Average ticket cost from Asia – Amsterdam | 2,000 | |
| Average ticket cost from South Africa – Amsterdam | 2,000 | |
| Average ticket cost from Europe – Amsterdam | 500 | |
| 2 | Estimated costs (based on actual pricing as of May 2022) for one night at a 4-star hotel in Amsterdam | |
| 3 | Estimated costs based on pricing in Amsterdam | |
| 4 | Estimated coffee breaks and lunch | |
| 5 | Total income based on 50 participants at €200, and 50 participants at €100 | 15,000 |
| 6 | Two extra nights before the conference to recover from Economy (plus) class travel | |
| 7 | Calculation of administrative costs | 15,000 |
| Selection of theme and speakers, based on 20 days at €400/day | 8,000 | |
| Secretarial costs, based on an average of 2 days per week at €200/day | 8,500 | |
| Administration and registration | 3,000 | |
| Local costs per conference | 3,500 | |
| Total | 20,000 | |
| 8 | E.g. A concert by local musicians | 2,500 |
| 9 | All sessions to be recorded and posted on websites of host(s) and Para Limes | 2,500 |
| Costs for conference | € |
|---|---|
| Travelling speakers | 18,600 |
| Hotel speakers | 14,400 |
| Dinner speakers | 5,760 |
| Catering all participants | 9,000 |
| Organisational costs | 24,840 |
| Transcriptions | 5,000 |
| Total costs | 77,600 |
| Total income | 15,000 |
| Total to be funded | 62,600 |
Synopsis for “Disrupted Balance – Societies at Risk” 8
The central issues for the conference are the serious risks that our society runs if the balance in the systems that uphold it is disrupted. On a global and historical scale disruptions in such systems happen quite frequently. In fact, as one of the speakers will show, disasters with a small probability happen all the time. Therefore the conference is not about the probability that such disruptive events occur, but about the effects such disruptions may have on society.The conference is meant to capture the attention of leaders who see risk not as an academic issue, but as something they have to deal with as part of their responsibilities in society. They need to think the unthinkable and anticipate disruptions in crucial systems in society and its effects on it.
In the conference, twelve eminent speakers will discuss in depth and with great authority the effects of disruptions in our food and water supplies, financial systems, trust in our science and governance systems, invasions in our cyberspace and the inescapable future of uncontrollable pandemics and its disruptive powers.
In a more general sense questions will be discussed like: How the risk of a disrupted balance will manifest itself in society and what resilience means in view of those risks? Finally, the relevance of historic cases of disrupted balances to managing our present-day society and its environment will be illustrated by answering the question Why did Angkor Wat collapse?”
The audience will be invited to include senior people from across the globe and especially from Singapore and East and South Asia who deal with risk as part of their responsibilities in society. The maximum number of people to attend is 200. Attendance is free.
Synopsis for “Removing Barriers to Buy Time”9
Many of even the best-conceived plans to bring about change are never executed or fail during execution because they do not address stumbling blocks inhibiting change. Efforts to address various threats associated with climate change are a prime example; they all face five common and interrelated stumbling blocks: finance, talent, bureaucracy, vested interests and political will.Effective action plans that aim to mitigate the consequences of climate change require tactics for effectively overcoming these stumbling blocks. Such tactics, laying out specific steps to limit their impact, may buy us time to turn the tide on climate change and adapt to its consequences in better ways than through devastating droughts, famines, pandemics, refugees and wars.
In January, just before Covid-19 infected the globe, Para Limes organized a three-day workshop to set out key principles guiding such action plans. A short report of that workshop is attached. Since January the workshop participants held a number of Zoom meetings to prepare for the conference” Buying Time”, originally planned to take place in Penang in December 2020. This conference would initially focus on strategies in the areas of food, water, pandemics, and mass migration (the areas of expertise of the participants of the workshop). The Zoom discussions led to the rather sobering conclusion that whatever actions are planned in whatever area of concern, there is no chance to actually execute them unless the stumbling blocks mentioned in the first paragraph are effectively dealt with.
The five categories of stumbling blocks all have strong institutional bases. Bottom-up actions may seem to be one way around them, but once the potential of such actions grows, the need to involve national and international institutions grows as well.
The purpose of the webinar Removing Barriers to Buy Time is to explore and define principles for overcoming these stumbling blocks on the way to formulating explicit and effective action plans.
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8 This conference took place in December 2016. The results have been published in the book, Disrupted Balance – Society at Risk (2018), published by World Scientific Singapore.
9 This webinar took place in February 2021. The results have been published in: Buying Time for Climate Action (2022), published by World Scientific Singapore.
2011 – 2014: Preparation and launch of Nanyang Complexity Institute
2011 – 2018: Conferences, workshops, lecture series and books
Book series Exploring Complexity
Volume 1: Aha… That is interesting, John Holland, 85 years young (2015)Edited by: Jan W. Vasbinder
Published by World Scientific
Volume 2: Cultural Patterns in Neurocognitive Circuits, East West Connections (2016)
Edited by: Jan W. Vasbinder and Balázs Gulyás
Published by World Scientific
Volume 3: 43 Visions for Complexity (2017)
Edited by Stefan Thurner
Published by World Scientific
Volume 4: Selected papers by John Holland (2018)
Edited by Jan W. Vasbinder and Helena Gao
Published by World Scientific
Volume 5: Cultural Patterns in Neurocognitive Circuits, East West Connections – II (2018)
Edited by: Balázs Gulyás and Jan W. Vasbinder
Published by World Scientific
Volume 6: Disrupted Balance – Society at Risk (2018)
Edited by: Jan W. Vasbinder
Published by World Scientific
Volume 7: Grand Challenges to Science (2018)
Edited by: Jan W. Vasbinder, Balázs Gulyás and Jonathan Sim
Published by World Scientific
Volume 8: Buying Time for Climate Change, Exploring Ways around Stumbling Blocks (2021)
Edited by Jan W. Vasbinder and Jonathan Sim
Published by World Scientific
Volume 9: Fit for Purpose? Futures of Universities (2022)
Edited by Jan W. Vasbinder and Jonathan Sim
Published by World Scientific
Volume 10: Balanced Sustainability in a Changing World (2024)
Edited by Ernst Pöppel & Maria Reinisch
Published by World Scientific
Para Limes Initiatives resulting in books
The Sydney Brenner lectures (2018)Edited by Terrence Sejnowski
Published by World Scientific.
10-on-10: The Chronicles of Evolution (2018)
Edited by Shuzhen Sim and Benjamin Seet
Published by Wildtype books.
The W. Brian Arthur lectures (2018)
to be published
More is Different (2012), Conference
- Geoffrey West
Complexity and Transdisciplinarity: Science for the 21st Century - Sander van der Leeuw
Complex Systems Theory, Sustainability and Innovation - Albert László-Barabási
Network Science: From Structure to Control - Emma Hill
The dynamic surface of the earth - Atsushi Iriki
The brain at the interface of evolution and society - Stan Gielen
Complexity in the Brain: Emergent behaviour from complex interactions within and between neurons - Steve Lansing
Did clouds or butterflies propel the last great human immigration - Sydney Brenner
Is administration necessary? - Luis Bettencourt
Does the individual matter in complex systems? - Yehuda Cohen
The Complex social living of microbes - Brian Arthur
The economy, how it emerges and evolves - Will Steffen
Governing complexity in the Anthropocene
A Crude Look at the Whole (2013), Conference
- Murray Gell-Mann
A crude look at the whole: A reflection on complexity - Robert Axelrod
A theory of meaning - Helga Nowotny
Curiosity, innovation and complexity - Kristian Lindgren
Land-use, economy and complexity - John Holland
Signals and boundaries - Douglas H. Erwin
Diversity and repetition - Ying-Yi Hong
A dynamic constructivist approach to culture - Peter M. A. Sloot
A complex world from a virus’ point of view - Simon Levin
Collective phenomena, collective motion, and collective action in ecological systems - Johan Rockström
Resilience for human development in the Anthropocene - Wang Xian Feng
Isotope chemistry, climate change and the fate of the Chinese dynasties: Implications for the future of Asian societies - Peter Ho
A crude look at governance and complexity by a former civil servant
Complexity and Governance (2013), Workshop
- Robert Axtell
Self-organization, spontaneous order and emergent governance: Under what conditions are bottom up mechanisms realizable? - Sander van der Leeuw
Resilience and Sustainability: Science and Policy - Douglass Carmichael
Human Complexity - Roland Kupers
Laissez-faire activism: The complexity frame for policy - Herawati Sudoyo
Complexity and biosecurity: Molecular detection and emerging threats - Petter Braathen
Governing in the face of paradox: Practical application of complexity theory - Chan Heng Chee
Future Governance in Singapore - Orit Gal
Operating in a complex world – from retrospective to prospective coherence - Julia Watson
Landscape architecture without landscape architects
Hidden Connections (2014), Conference and launch of the Complexity Institute
- Guest-of-Honor, Peter Ho
Launch of complexity institute - Doyne Farmer
An evolutionary view of technological progress - Martin Rees
From Big Bang to biospheres—and beyond - Adam Kahane
How to collaborate to transform complex social systems - Chiu Chi-Yue
Psychological reactions to culture mixing - Albrecht von Müller
From rationality to reason - Arieh Warshe
Unravelling the complexity of biological functions by computer simulation - Ricard Solé
Towards the major transitions in synthetic evolution - Staffan Kjelleberg
Microbial biofilms – A highly complex default mode of life - Ricardo Hausmann
Collective know-how - William S-Y Wang
Phase transitions in language evolution - Brian Uzzi
Atypical combinations in scientific impact
Emerging Patterns (2015), Conference
- Atsushi Iriki
How human intelligence may have emerged - Balázs Gulyás
Emergent evolutionism and the brain-mind problem - Luciano Pietronero
New metrics for economic complexity: measuring the intangible growth potential of countries - Roland Fletcher
The structure of emerging cultural patterns: 100,000 BP to the present - David Christian
Complexity and big history - Sander van der Leeuw
Are we part of the solution or part of the problem? - Tim Hunt
Switches and Latches: The control of cell division - Tor Nørretranders
Commonities and the complexity of everyday life - Brian Arthur
Complexity and the shift in Western thought - Ben Shedd
Making the strange familiar and the familiar strange - Stefan Thurner
Emergence of a comprehensive understanding of scaling patterns in nature - Ada Yonath
Beauty, symmetry, complexity, origin of life & species specificity in antibiotics resistance
Silent Transformations (2016), Conference
- Douglas Robertson
Computation and the transformation of the sciences and civilization - Gideon Rosenblatt
Machine-based collective intelligence and the human experience - Gregory Chaitin
Leibniz on Complexity - Tom Kirkwood
Dynamics of Ageing: A silent transformation caused by “noise” - Eörs Szathmáry
How can evolution learn? - Georges Halpern
Environment and brains, food for thoughts - Helena Gao
Understanding the mind of bilinguals from their progression in linguistic behaviour - William Laurance
Silent Tsunami: Limiting the environmental impacts of tropical infrastructure - Geoffrey West
The silent threat of exponential growth and collapse - Krishna Savani
Increased variability as a silent transformation: Consequences for behavior and policy - Tone Bjordam
The nature of change - Steve Lansing
Islands of order
East of West, West of East (2016), Conference
- Andrew Sheng
Divergence and convergence between Chinese and Western approach to change - Tonio Andrade
Divergences and convergences in East and West: A global historical perspective - Helena Gao
Constraints of language on thinking and behaviour - Atsushi Iriki
Cultural differences as opportunities for collaboration in healthcare and medicine - Georges M. Halpern
Fusion cuisine - Bilahari Kausikan
The Individual and the Community: Managing Multiculturalism in Eastern and Western political systems - Lisa Raphals
Perspectives on ambiguity - Panel discussion
The role of Singapore in bridging East and West
Disrupted Balance, Society at Risk (2016), Conference
- Peter Ho
Societies at risk, taming black elephants and hunting black swans - Kerry Sieh
Our low likelihood/ high risk hurdle: Geohazard examples - Tim Benton
Food systems and their fragility in a global world - Séan Cleary
Governance at Risk - Shashi Jayakumar
Terrorism and Cyber: Singapore’s security futures - Shella Ronis
Social Resilience: Lessons from Herman Kahn - David Lallemant
Disrupting Disaster – Choosing the risk trajectory of our cities - Daniel Brooks
Climate change and emerging disease crisis: an existential threat to technological humanity - Alexander Zehnder
Failing water management - Roland Fletcher
Climate change and disrupted cities: past and future - Nik Gowing
The imperative to thing the unthinkable - Andrew Sheng
Financial risk, global deal breaker
Grand Challenges to Science (2016), three days discussion with:
Brian Arthur, Sydney Brenner, Helga Nowotny, Martin Rees, Terrence Sejnowski, Eörs Szathmáry moderated by Tor Norretranders
Causality Reality (2017), Conference
- George Rzevski
Managing organisation complexity: Practical methods and tools for adaptation and causality analysis - Stuart Kauffman
Beyond Physics: The emergence and evolution of life - De Kai
Translating reality to causality - Michael Puett
Rethinking notions of causality and reality: Indigenous theories from China - James Bailey
Schooling for life K-12 - Nick Obolensky
A military view - Ernst Pöppel
Trust as basis for the concept of causality: A biological speculation - Stefan Thurner
How complexity weakens causality – emerging dangers – and ways out - Ilan Chabay
Behavioral Causality – Anthropocene Reality - Peter Edwards
Technological myopia - Mile Gu
Quantum Simplicity: Can quantum mechanics better isolate the causes of natural things? - Sydney Brenner
Causality in Evolution
10-on-10, The Chronicles of Evolution (2017), series
- Sydney Brenner
Why we need to talk about evolution - John Barrow
The origin and evolution of the universe - Jack Szostak
The origin of cellular life - Hyman Hartman
The origin of the genetic code and metabolism - Detlev Arendt
From nerve net to brain - Per Ahlberg
The origin and early evolution of vertebrates - Byrappa Venkatesh
Evolution and diversity of fishes - John Long
The early evolution of sex aa told through the fossil record - Francis Thackeray
Human evolution if Africa - Svante Pääbo
A Neandertal perspective of the human genome - Terrence Sejnowski
Evolving brains - Atsushi Iriki
A presage of Anthropocene: How the primate brain and its learning capacity co-evolves with the environment - Tecumseh Fitch
The biological evolution of the human capacity for language - Nick Enfield
The evolution of language - Roland Fletcher
Hominin cultural evolution: Pattern and process over 4 million years - Steve Lansing
The challenge of the Anthropocene - Brian Arthur
The emergence of technology in human history - Sander van der Leeuw
The evolution of innovation - Helga Nowotny
A humble view from inside evolution - Stefan Thurner
Why it could make sense to understand how evolution works - Sydney Brenner
The neutral clock for the history of life - Eörs Szathmáry
Difficult questions about evolution - Gerd Müller
Towards an extended evolutionary synthesis
Sydney Brenner lectures (2017)
Complexities of time (2018), Conference
- Geoffrey West
The emergence of a universal time in living systems from cells to cities - Douglas H. Erwin
The tempos of evolution and the complexities of deep time - Helga Nowotny
Timescapes of complexity - Semir Zeki
The enigmatic relationship between micro- and macro-perception - Aaron Maniam
Between chronos and kairos: Overlapping timeframes in public policy - Virg. van Wassenhove
Making sense of time in the human brain - Steve Lansing
Language and society in deep time
Brian Arthur Lectures (2018)
Removing Barriers to Buy Time (2021), Webinar
- Martin Rees
Climate change and emerging threat - Tim Benton
Food systems and sustainability - Gert van Santen
Fisheries and climate change - Daniel Brooks
What are emerging infectious diseases? - Hillary Brown
Climate-induced Managed Retreat - Andrew Sheng
Finance as a barrier to address systematic climate change - Alexander Zehnder
Resilient water management
Illusion of Control (2023), Conference
- Sander van der Leeuw
Illusion of Control - Sean Cleary
The failure of collective action, when we need it most - Daniel Brooks
Darwinian Evolution: Neither out of control nor under control - Nick Obolensky
Redefining control in uncontrollable times - Paul Larcey
Governing in the Anthropocene - Helga Nowotny
In AI we trust. Power, illusion and control of predictive algorithms - Gert van Santen
Fisheries Governance: Its search for the illusion of control - W. Brian Arthur
The illusion of control in the economy - Terry Sejnowski
ChatGPT and the Illusion of Intelligence - Andrew Sheng
Can we really control open giant complex systems? - Liesbeth Feikema
Anti-corruption law as a fiction: The illusion of serving morality by controlling it through rules and regulations - Atsushi Iriki
Neurobiological mechanisms towards cognitive evolution of Homo sapiens