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AVVISO DI SEMINARIO
Il giorno 12 DICEMBRE 2000 il
Prof. JOHN L. CASTI
Technical University of Vienna
Vienna, Austria
e
Santa Fe Institute
Santa Fe, NM, USA
terrą i seguenti seminari presso il
Dipartimento di Economia Politica
Universitą di Modena e Reggio Emilia
Viale J. Berengario, 51
41100 MODENA
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Ore 14.00, AULA SEMINARI
Titolo: THE BORDERLINE
In Search of the Limits to Scientific Knowledge
ABSTRACT:
The story of mathematics in the latter half of this century has to a
great extent been the story of "nonexistence" theorems. Godel's
results on the existence of undecidable propositions in number theory
and Turing's proof of the undecidability of the Halting Problem in
computer science are probably the best-known results of this sort.
They demonstrate the existence of mathematical questions that are
forever beyond the powers of the human mind to answer by carrying out a
computation.
Do the same kind of nonexistence results apply to the seemingly more
complex world of natural phenomena? In particular, are there important
and interesting scientific questions that defy rational analysis?
Given the vastly more complicated types of interactions in areas like
physics, biology, and economics than what are found in the vastly
simpler domain of arithmetic, it is not unreasonable to suspect that
such unanswerable questions do indeed exist. If so, what are they
like?
This talk will explore the thesis that the method by which questions
are answered in science is to carry out a computation--either explicity
by means of a computer program or implicitly by constructing a
mathematical model embodying an algorithmic relationship between the
components of a given system. So when it come to unanswerable
scientific questions, we can sharpen the issue considerably by asking
whether there are questions that cannot be answered by performing a
calculation.
Examples of candidate questions from biology, physics and economics
will be presented, along with a consideration of how the three worlds of
observations, mathematics and computation interrelate in addressing the
question of ``limits.''
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Ore 15.45 AULA MAGNA
Titolo: WOULD-BE WORLDS
The Science and the Surprise of Artificial Worlds
ABSTRACT:
By their very nature, complex systems resist analysis by decomposition.
It is just not possible to study, say, the human immune system or a
stock market, by breaking it up into individual parts---molecules or
traders---and looking at what these parts do in isolation. The very
essence of the system lies in the interaction among all its parts, with
the overall behavior of the system emerging from these interactions. So
by throwing away the interactions, one also throws away any hope of
actually understanding the workings of the system. The problem is that
until very recently, there was no way of studying these sorts of
systems as complete entities, since to do experiments with stock
markets, immune systems, rainforest ecosystems and the like was either
too expensive, too dangerous or just plain too difficult. But the
arrival of cheap, powerful, widespread computing capability over the
past decade or so has changed the situation entirely.
This talk will examine the way in which the ability to create surrogate
versions of real complex systems inside our computing machines changes
the way we do science. In particular, emphasis will be laid upon the
idea that these so-called ``artificial worlds'' play the role of
laboratories for complex systems, laboratories that are completely
analogous to the more familiar laboratories that have been used by
physicists, biologists and chemists for centuries to understand the
workings of matter. But these are laboratories in which we explore
the informational rather than the material structure of systems. And
since the ability to do controlled, repeatable experiments is a
necessary precondition to the creation of a scientific theory of
anything, the argument will be made that for perhaps the first time in
history, we are now in a position to realistically think about the
creation of a theory of complex systems.
Artificial worlds are not just about science; they are increasingly being
commissioned, developed and used by businesses as strategic tools to help
understand and act in complex economic environments. I will describe two such
projects with which I have been involved: a model of catastrophe insurance
carried out with a consortium of leading international reinsurance companies, and
a supermarket simulator for the giant British grocery chain J. Sainsburys.
PER INFORMAZIONI RIVOLGERSI A:
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Cinzia Tedeschi
email cinzia@unimo.it
tel. 059 2056942/3
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| ALBERTO ROVERATO | |
| Dipartimento di Economia Politica | Tel. : +39 059 2056844 |
| Universita' di Modena e Reggio Emilia | Fax : +39 059 2056947 |
| V.le J. Berengario, 51 | email: roverato@unimo.it |
| 41100 Modena (Italy) | |
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