The Math of Reality

The Santa Fe Institute (SFI) and The New England Complex Systems Institute (NECSI) are poised to assist the Obama Administration in the greatest transformation of the US economy in over a century. Prior economic revolutions, whether the automobile, the computer, or the steam engine have emerged from a narrow sector of society. As we approach 2009, all sectors are ready for a revolution...a creative destruction.

Obama is on the right path. He sees that by transforming existing financial, manufacturing, and other sectors he can begin a growth spurt of unprecedented levels. The SFI and NECSI can be sure he has the tools to get there.

In NECSI reflections on 2008, the application of complex systems thinking to large scale problems was noted. NECSI has worked on identifying factors key to the understanding of the current global economic crisis. It has uncovered elements of the healthcare system which, properly aligned, provide dramatic improvements in meeting health and financial goals of the system as a whole.

Likewise, the SFI has made dramatic advances in the understanding of and the development of practical applications of systems thinking.

Using understanding of mathematical patterns derived from the study of the smallest components of reality, the atom and its constituents, they have developed methodologies critical to the resolution of deep problems in more complex systems like the human body and society at large.

Self-Organizaton is one of the conceptual frameworks which have proven valuable in this new approach to understanding. When events cascade, as has recently happened with the global economy, standard economic and financial modes are rendered worthless. Self-Organization helps explain why such results occur, using notions like heavy tailed distributions and power laws.

Agent Based Modeling is another complexity science tool which allows for the transcendence of traditional assumptions of classical statistics. Rather than attempting to find traditional mathematical structures to mimic reality, such tools allow reality to inform and define the mathematics itself.

Combined with data mining and visualizaton advances and tools of actuarial science which allow for demographic and credibility adjustments, these complexity science structures provide a bridge to an analytics for the upcoming century.

As the Obama team begins to address the deep problems plaguing all elements of American culture, it will discover the enormous power and utility of the advanced modeling now largely confined to labs, universities, and organizatons on the cutting edge of society.

It will see the need for such tools and begin to import them into daily decision making. Society will be transformed and the economy will grow while meeting environmental, social, and resource needs.

Yes we can.

Lee