"Occasionally, we find that an invited guest is insane . . . "

September 20, 2015 4:48 PM

Cormac McCarthy just did a short video on behalf of the Santa Fe Institute explaining why you should join their enterprise.
posted by jason's_planet (6 comments total)

I worked at SFI in the 90s as a wee bairn. Interesting place, particularly in that time, an interdisciplinary research center for complex systems. I did multi-agent simulation programming for physicists and anthropologists and biologists and economists. Lots of fun, particularly for a 21 year old just out of college. I got to play Go with at least two Nobel laureates.

Even back then Cormac McCarthy was hanging out a bit at SFI, having made his home in Santa Fe. Frankly as a fiction author he's not exactly a fit for the place, but he's very bright and involved and SFI is all about odd smart people coming together so why not?

George RR Martin lives in Santa Fe too, I wonder if he and McCarthy have anything to talk about? For that matter Armistead Maupin lived there briefly, but I think he moved back to SF.
posted by Nelson at 5:22 PM on September 20, 2015 [8 favorites]

I wonder if he and McCarthy have anything to talk about?

I imagine they whip out their lists of deceased characters to compare.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 6:30 PM on September 20, 2015 [2 favorites]

I was out there a couple months ago as well! And saw Cormac McCarthy roaming the halls and sitting down for lunch with physicists. Only went there a couple of days but SFI seems like a sweet, sweet place to do science. Very open, beautiful views, comfy chairs outside, and equations scribbled over every glass surface!

Also, SFI was the birthplace of Chaos theory - here's a fun layman's account of those years: "Chaos - Inventing a New Science"
posted by Riton at 7:42 PM on September 20, 2015

i ended up in santa fe a couple years after SFI was founded, and in that small community of artists and scientists (two of the most significant national labs are an hour away to the west and south - los alamos and sandia labs) the existence of the SFI was yet another bright spot in what was then santa fe's heyday (late 80's southwestern culture, arts, architecture, food, etc).

one of the best things SFI gave back to the community was to offer the stanislaw ulam lectures starting in 1994: a public lecture series spread out over three evenings. i saw murray gell-mann and others, but brian arthur, the economist was the best, who in one lecture gave a prescient introduction to 'the new economy' ... namely, the coming rise of software and services over hardware. it blew me away. i can't speak to the SFI's current cred in the world of science, but it was strange and wonderful institution during my time in new mexico.

i only wish stuart kauffman, who was there at the time and always a bit controversial (though fascinating), had done one of the ulam lectures.
posted by buffalo at 8:07 PM on September 20, 2015 [1 favorite]

The epicenter of the human-verse (AFAIK). I wish I was Melanie Mitchell's house cat. I'd lie about all day basking in pools of radiant energy.

BTW: I enjoyed the Gleik book quite a bit but I liked M. Mitchell Waldrop's Complexity even more. I felt it took us into the formation of SFI a little deeper.
posted by cleroy at 8:34 PM on September 20, 2015 [1 favorite]

I was there for a month, in 1995, for the complex systems summer school. What a time. Visiting a dig with Murray Gell-Mann. Impromptu bongo parties. And, of course, the Green Onion.
posted by gene_machine at 2:36 AM on September 22, 2015