Any persisting collection of agents that interact with each other and feedback on their environment face the same problem: how to cope with fluctuations while maintaining long-term integrity. This is true whether the collection of agents refers to stem cells undergoing differentiation during development, species coexisting in an ecosystem, or traders maximizing profit in future markets. I call these ecologies. I try to escape the curse of reification, and value substance over form. Asymptotically, I will define clearly everything that now appears in italics in this text, but now I must go through a transient period.
This lab focuses on:
Transiency: How systems avoid vanishing away while flowing in a permanently transient state.
Feedback loops: How interactions between agents and their environment shape persistence.
Robustness: The ability of systems to mantain integrity amisdt fluctuations.
If you want a motto for the lab, keep this in mind: