Conference Grant Reports: William Morgan on Autocatallaxy
We are pleased to support our students sharing their work at the premiere conferences in their field. William Morgan traveled to Los Angeles, Mexico City, and Beijing to conduct and present elements of his research as part of the Antikythera Program.
From William:
"Autocatallaxy: How Economics Makes Sense”
Thanks in part to a generous grant from the Berkeley Center for New Media, this spring I was fortunate to be able to travel to Los Angeles, Mexico City and Beijing to conduct and present elements of my research as part of the Antikythera Program. While my presentation shifted slightly from city to city, the work I conducted and presented with Antikythera centered on two key themes: cybernetics and computational economics.
In Los Angeles, I concentrated on the computational side, how the conjoined crises of the present are currently presenting as an Informatic Complexity Threshold, likely leading to further speciation within economic forms. In Mexico City (and with special thanks to Raphael Arar), my presentation focused on the biocybernetic dimensions of economic evolution, specifically the evolution of the pricing form. Also in Mexico City, I revisited the Allende government's now-famous Project Cybersyn in a conversation with one of the designers of the project, Fernando Shultz. Finally, in Beijing, I discussed how computational economics and market design intersect with the increasingly important question of data sovereignty and how international capital markets demonstrate a totally different relationship to the sovereign data question than do nation states.
I also wish to extend special thanks to Darren Zhu, Will Freudenheim and the Antikythera Program and Berggruen Institute.