Results for “J. Doyne Farmer”

Well credit, as you say, makes the world go around, but we want the right amount of credit. Too little credit and the economy can't grow, too much credit and the economy becomes unstable and we have the great financial crisis. So we need to find that proper Goldilocks point in the middle.

Complexity scientist & founding director of Santa Fe Institute's Complexity Economics program

Part of the reason I'm arguing the time is right is because unlike back in the 60s when these ideas about complexity economics were first floated by people like Herbert Simon, we now have all the tools to do it. Computers are a billion times more powerful, the data is vastly better, our understanding of psychology is vastly better, we know a lot more about how to program models like this.

Complexity scientist & founding director of Santa Fe Institute's Complexity Economics program

The standard models were formulated through a process that started well before computers were in place, and I would say it's undergone a certain lock-in. Once you start going down that path, it's hard to break out of it to another path. As a result, economics is stuck. It's not even that the existing models are wrong, they're just very limited in what they can do, and mainstream economists have gotten very locked in to using those models – and only those models.

Complexity scientist & founding director of Santa Fe Institute's Complexity Economics program

My observation is if we make a parallel between biology and economics, the role of the economy is like the role of metabolism in an organism. Because what does the metabolism do? It takes in food, resources from the environment, and breaks them down and rearranges them to make other things that we need. Similarly, the economy takes in natural resources from the environment, combines them with labour to make goods and services that we use.

Complexity scientist & founding director of Santa Fe Institute's Complexity Economics program

A complex system is one where the properties of the building blocks, when they interact, can create phenomena that are very different from the building blocks themselves. The human brain is a great example. You take a neuron, which is a cell – you put an electrochemical signal in, electrochemical signal comes out – but somehow you hook 80 billion of them together and you get a brain. You have to hook them together just right, of course, but the result is completely fundamentally different than what you started with.

Complexity scientist & founding director of Santa Fe Institute's Complexity Economics program

Too little credit and the economy can't grow, too much credit and the economy becomes unstable and we have the great financial crisis. So we need to find that proper Goldilocks point in the middle.

Complexity scientist & founding director of Santa Fe Institute's Complexity Economics program

We now have all the tools to do it. Computers are a billion times more powerful, the data is vastly better, our understanding of psychology is vastly better – we have all the elements we need now to do these things and to do them well.

Complexity scientist & founding director of Santa Fe Institute's Complexity Economics program

There's a vested interest – if the ideas you're teaching and have worked on are completely abandoned in favour of something else, then your legacy goes to zero. I think that's a big force.

Complexity scientist & founding director of Santa Fe Institute's Complexity Economics program

A complex system is one where the properties of the building blocks, when they interact, can create phenomena that are very different from the building blocks themselves. You take a neuron, which is a cell – you put an electrochemical signal in, electrochemical signal comes out – but somehow you hook 80 billion of them together and you get a brain.

Complexity scientist & founding director of Santa Fe Institute's Complexity Economics program

The standard models were formulated through a process that started well before computers were in place, and I would say it's undergone a certain lock-in. Once you start going down that path, it's hard to break out of it to another path. As a result, economics is stuck.

Complexity scientist & founding director of Santa Fe Institute's Complexity Economics program