The end of the first Complex Systems Summer School Chile, organized by the Santa Fe Institute and the School of Government of Universidad del Desarrollo with support from Science and Evolution Foundation, was marked by the presence of students, faculty members and researchers from different superior educational establishments.

General Partner at Google Ventures and founder and director of Excide Technologies, Graham Spencer, gave a lecture on The future of computer chips and new computational models, during which he explained the reasons behind why natural systems are better than artificial systems. In his lecture, Spencer emphasized the concept of noise, which by definition in physics and analogous electronics, is a random addition to a signal –in most cases, an undesired addition. In computing and signal processing, noise can be considered as unwanted and random data. Spencer stated that wherever there is noise, theory may become compromised. However, from a complex systems studies point of view, systems that have a high amount of noise are the richest in terms of analysis and for mathematical modeling.

David Krakauer, director of the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery –University of Wisconsin Madison; spoke about The past, present and future of intelligence on planet Earth. In his lecture, Krakauer exposed man’s historical attempts to explain, define and improve our intelligence by exploring the diversity and extraordinary intelligence of different life forms on earth.

The CSSS Chile began on November 11th in Zapallar – V Region of Valparaiso. The objective of this course was to tackle some of society’s problems with the complex systems paradigm approach.