In an essay in Nautilus magazine, "The Coin Toss and the Love Triangle," SFI Research Fellow Simon DeDeo describes the roles both natural and social uncertainty play in our lives and how mathematics can help make sense of both kinds.
DeDeo touches on chance in art and literature, information theory, and the differences between uncertainty arising from the objective material world and that arising from thinking, competing agents.
"One might imagine a science fiction device—a probability meter—that would measure the differential contribution of nature and humankind to the uncertainty of an outcome," DeDeo writes. "How much uncertainty in the average corporate boardroom is due to nature (e.g., the chances of bad weather delaying a shipment of parts) and how much to the strategic creation of uncertainties by human participants (e.g., the refusal to disclose final production targets to one’s suppliers)? Of course, such a meter could wreak havoc in any real boardroom—and itself be a source of its own readings."
Read DeDeo's essay in Nautilus magazine (June 2013)
Read issue 2 of Nautilus magazine, "Uncertainty" (June 2013)
Nautilus: Science Connected is a new magazine devoted to science and its connections to our lives, combining the sciences, culture, and philosophy into a single story told by the world’s leading thinkers and writers.
Several SFI researchers are on the magazine's editorial board, including SFI President Jerry Sabloff, SFI Chair of the Faculty Jennifer Dunne, SFI Distinguished Professor Geoffrey West, and SFI Professor Paula Sabloff.
Read the inaugural issue of Nautilus, "Human Uniqueness" (May 2013)
Read an article in The New York Times about Nautilus magazine (May 6, 2013)