SFI Visionaries Needed: “The Complex Future”
The world is in the midst of fundamental shifts in research, scholarship, and education. Transformations stemming from artificial intelligence, an ever-more connected global community, and the reorganization of institutions represent the most significant change in the human community, and science specifically, since the Enlightenment and industrial revolution.
At such a time, it is important to envision what the future of academic endeavors looks like, both to prepare for what might be inevitable and to choose between different possible worlds. SFI has examined the foundations of complexity science; what happens when we turn to the outer reaches?
The SFI community sits at the frontier of topics essential to understanding and engaging with these shifts. As such we are embarking on creating an exploratory book that synthesizes the expertise and unique insight of our extended community to speculate about the state of learning, teaching, and education in the near and not-so-near future.
Complex Systems Summer School 2025 at the Santa Fe Institute’s Miller campus in Tesuque, New Mexico (photo: Kate Joyce).
We are inviting a select group of visionary scholars to write short-format periscopic reflections on designated topics that are essential to this endeavor.
What is education for?
How might we build knowledge?
How does a complex-systems perspective shape learning and growth?
What is getting destabilized in educational ecosystems and what does that make room for?
What has constrained or distracted us from better educational experiences?
What types of experiments in education could help us chart new paths?
How can we use developments in education to build a better society?