Complexity beyond pure reason—A quest to understand universal laws of change

Professor Markus Luczak-Roesch's inaugural lecture explores the complexity of change.

Change happens everywhere and all the time—in biological systems, social systems, the Earth system, even in everyday situations. Sometimes we have the ability to anticipate change, and sometimes change surprises us, because the events causing it were not statistically likely to occur.

In this lecture, Professor Markus Luczak-Roesch will explain the complexity that gets revealed when we assume that everything is information, and how that may help us to understand change. By combining the lens of complexity science with the autobiographical account of a first-generation university student he will discuss the following questions: What is information? How much information is too much information? And what does it mean for others that it was statistically unlikely for him to become a professor?

Three men standing on the stairs in the Hunter building
Left to right—Vice-Chancellor Nic Smith, Professor Markus Luczak-Roesch, Professor Michael Winikoff.

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