Biology & Complex Systems
Intelligence as an emergent property of living and adaptive systems.
Our work in biology and complex systems spans computational biology, cybernetics, informatics and the formal study of complex systems. The interest is in how intelligence, behaviour and adaptation arise from the interactions of many components, and, accordingly, in moving beyond the analysis of parts toward the analysis of systems considered as wholes. We are concerned with feedback and regulation; with the patterns of robustness, resilience and failure that recur across biological systems; and with the limits of reductive explanation in accounting for the behaviour of populations.
- How does intelligence emerge from biological and psychological processes?
- What roles do feedback, regulation and control play in complex systems?
- What mechanisms underlie learning, behaviour and adaptation in living organisms?
- What patterns of robustness, resilience and failure recur across biological systems?
- Where does reductive explanation cease to be useful?
- How do individual cognition and collective dynamics shape one another?
Conferences
Biology and complex systems run through our events as an alternative settlement of the underlying questions: that intelligence may be the property of a population of interacting parts, rather than a property of any one of them.
Spotlight- Dynamical systems principles underlie the ubiquity of biological data manifolds
Spotlight talk by Dr Arthur Pellegrino presents "Dynamical systems principles underlie the ubiquity of biological data manifolds" Abstract -…
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Spotlight- Enriched experiences increase symmetrical connectivity and sparsity in association cortex
Spotlight talk by Dr Rajat Saxena presents "Enriched experiences increase symmetrical connectivity and sparsity in association cortex" Abstr…
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Spotlight - Neural Networks Reveal a Cognitive Continuum Toward Human Abstraction
Spotlight talk by Li Wenjie presents "Neural Networks Reveal a Cognitive Continuum Toward Human Abstraction" Abstract - Neural networks stru…
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Spotlight - Collective Moral Reasoning in Multi-Agent LLMs
Spotlight talk by Dr Anita Keshmirian presents "Collective Moral Reasoning in Multi-Agent LLMs" Abstract - As artificial intelligence system…
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Spotlight- Uncertainty in latent representations of variational autoencoders for visual tasks
Spotlight talk by Domonkos Martos presents "Uncertainty in latent representations of variational autoencoders optimized for visual tasks" Ab…
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Spotlight - Incentives to Build/Trade Houses, or Building Skills under Various Simulated Systems
Spotlight talk by Aslan Satary Dizaji presents "Incentives to Build Houses, Trade Houses, or Trade House Building Skills in Simulated Worlds…
Watch →ThAT Ambassador Programme
The Thinking About Thinking Ambassador Programme is an open, application-based pathway for students and early-career researchers who wish to take part in serious, interdisciplinary conversations about intelligence. Ambassadors support our conferences, workshops, and community initiatives; in turn, they help to extend thoughtful dialogue across universities, disciplines and countries. The programme is designed for those who care, in earnest, about ideas, collaboration, and the construction of intellectual community.
Outstanding ambassadors who, over time, demonstrate sustained contribution, leadership and intellectual engagement may, in due course, be invited into the Thinking About Thinking Fellowship, a private, invitation-only programme reserved for long-term contributors to the work.