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The CSI-Piemonte Technical-Scientific Committee is organizing the Convention “Understanding complexity: a journey through science” to be held on November 22nd-23th 2007 in Turin.
The conference is promoted with support of the ISI Foundation and aims to help us reflect on complexity as something to be valued, and an intrinsic feature of natural, social and technological systems. Several subjects will be discussed: from the structure of living organisms to climate; from organising a company to financial market trends, to the evolution of the “international system”; from designing “intelligent” software to that of large communication networks such as Internet.
A beehive, anthill, a flock of birds are formidable examples of natural, complex structures where single interacting elements following simple rules lead to a deeply detailed system that can determine new, unforeseeable, original forms of behaviour.
The sheer power of modern computers to calculate and new simulation methods enable us to create models describing complex phenomenon, which are then applicable to different disciplines. The programme defines the behaviour of single agents at the very lowest structural level and how they interact provides us with the key to the system’s overall evolution.
Inter-personal networks, labour organisations, political and economic systems: all those relations between human beings, considered either individually or as a group, can be considered complex structures surprisingly similar to natural systems.
programme (pdf)