Brains, bees, and bankers… or why complex systems fail | Karoline Wiesner | TEDxRoyalHolloway

Complex systems are usually very robust. But when they fail, they fail spectacularly. Why? It is a deviation from the right balance of order and disorder which breaks the system.

Karoline Wiesner studies complex systems, searching for similarities between seemingly unrelated systems such as bee hives, brains, or the economy, finding insights through the mathematics of information.
Karoline Wiesner trained as a physicist. She joined the School of Mathematics at Bristol University in 2007 and is now a Associate Professor in Complex Systems. She is co-managing the Centre for Complexity Sciences and has won several awards for her work on the mathematics of complex systems.
She is currently writing a book about the mathematics and philosophy of complex systems, to be published by Princeton University Press.

[michaels]

I expected her to conclude by saying something like "and that's why complex systems fail." Did she ever explain that?

[zsoltpalatinus]

Unfortunately, order and disorder are just as inadequately defined as complexity.

[rupeshtashildar]

A complex system is a system in which the systems that make up the complex system are itself a complex system

[charlieangkor]

how many neurons have to fire in synchrony (skew how many microseconds max.) for how long to be considered “neurons firing in sunchrony”? where is the evidence that “neurons firing in synchrony are a thought”? what about “grandma cells” where a single neuron codes for recognition of a single human? sounds like some kind of vague new age talk to impress with buzzwords from neuroscience and sound profound without actually saying anything

[dsmyify]

She forgot Stalin from the image of the 40s.

[charlieangkor]

how much noise can be behind a whispering woman so that we can still barely understand her? Claude Shannon figured out and she will demonstrate for us in a passive aggressive way.

[charlieangkor]

so much white noise and so tiny talk voice. I wish my iPhone X could turn up volume enough to hear the voice.