CCS'15: Satellite Meeting
INFORMATION PROCESSING IN COMPLEX SYSTEMS (IPCS'15)

Dates

* = Originally the organizers of CCS'15 demanded our final list of speakers already on June 25, however now it appears they demand it in August. Therefore we set our final deadline on July 25.

Submissions

Submit your abstract to IPCS'15 through EasyChair

Note

To attend the Satellite Meeting, it is mandatory to be registered to the Conference on Complex Systems 2015

Location

Summary

All systems in nature have one thing in common: they process information. Information is registered in the state of a system and its elements, implicitly and invisibly. As elements interact, information is transferred. Indeed, bits of information about the state of one element will travel – imperfectly – to the state of the other element, forming its new state. This storage and transfer of information, possibly between levels of a multi level system, is imperfect due to randomness or noise. From this viewpoint, a system can be formalized as a collection of bits that is organized according to its rules of dynamics and its topology of interactions. Mapping out exactly how these bits of information percolate through the system could reveal new fundamental insights in how the parts orchestrate to produce the properties of the system. A theory of information processing would be capable of defining a set of universal properties of dynamical multi level complex systems, which describe and compare the dynamics of diverse complex systems ranging from social interaction to brain networks, from financial markets to biomedicine. Each possible combination of rules of dynamics and topology of interactions, with disparate semantics, would reduce to a single language of information processing.

Focus

The focus of IPCS'15 will be on information processing as a novel paradigm in understanding and modelling complex systems.

The topic is the inherent storage, transfer, and processing of information in any dynamical system 'simply doing its thing' in a quantitative, information-theoretical sense (such as, but not limited to, Shannon's). That is, in a system of interacting units (e.g., neurons, genes, spins), the idea is that multiple flows of information reach a unit, where they are processed to new information which then flows onward, etc. However, it is still an open question how to define and quantify such 'information processing', or even whether different frameworks are needed for different questions. Our overarching hypothesis is that studying this underlying process may lead to a better understanding of the emergent behavior of complex systems.

The idea of the meeting is twofold. Firstly, that each presentation is a piece of the puzzle and that from combining them hopefully a complete picture will emerge someday. Secondly, to form and strengthen a community of like-minded researchers on this new and challenging topic.

Invited speakers

1. Prof. dr. David Wolpert
2. Prof. dr. David Krakauer
3. Prof. dr. Ilya Nemenman

Organising Committee

• Rick Quax (University of Amsterdam)
• Eckehard Olbrich (MPI Leipzig)
• Omri Har-Shemesh (University of Amsterdam)
• Alfons Hoekstra (University of Amsterdam)
• Prof. Peter M.A. Sloot (University of Amsterdam)

Associated special issue

Scoops

Tentative program