Jul 28Precision and SoulA BEYOND BORDERS column by David Krakauer, President of the Santa Fe Institute. We do not have too much intellect and too little soul, but too little precision in matters of the soul. — Robert Musil The near-infinite question of how best to describe the world has yielded a relatively…3 min read
Apr 19Emergent Political Economies and a Science of PossibilityA BEYOND BORDERS column by David Krakauer, President of the Santa Fe Institute. “All actions, and all things indeed, are good or bad by relation only. Nothing is so complex as relations when considered with regard to a society, and nothing is so difficult as to discover truth, when involved…4 min read
Jan 27UNIQUENESS & UNIVERSALITYA BEYOND BORDERS column by David Krakauer, President of the Santa Fe Institute. One might say that natural history captures the uniqueness of every organism and natural science, their generality. Natural science values parsimony and natural history, profusion. But when is it appropriate to pick one approach over the other…4 min read
Nov 1, 2021The End of NarrativeA BEYOND BORDERS column by David Krakauer, President of the Santa Fe Institute. Originally published in October 2021. In 1992 Francis Fukuyama wrote a long book with a mystifying title: “The End of History and the Last Man.” Even before reading the book, the title presented itself as a contradiction…4 min read
Jul 21, 2021Discovering Knowledge Junctions TogetherA BEYOND BORDERS column by David Krakauer, President of the Santa Fe Institute. Originally published July 20, 2021. In 1860, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in The Conduct of Life, part one, on Fate, “How shall I live? We are incompetent to solve the times. Our geometry cannot span the huge…Evolution4 min read
May 18, 2021Fractal Organizations and Fractal FacultyA BEYOND BORDERS column by David Krakauer, President of the Santa Fe Institute. Originally published May 4, 2021. By all accounts Plato was a zealot for geometry. In The Republic he wrote: “We must order in the strongest possible terms that the men of your Ideal City shall in no…Organization3 min read
Jan 25, 2021Existential Games in QuarantineA BEYOND BORDERS column by David Krakauer, President of the Santa Fe Institute. Originally published January 19, 2021. This year more than a few of us sought solace in the labyrinth of the game board. This is hardly a novel retreat or original compensation for reality. Vladimir Nabokov (who analyzed…Complexity3 min read
Nov 17, 2020Mountains, Monasteries, and the MetropolisA BEYOND BORDERS column by David Krakauer, President of the Santa Fe Institute. Originally published January 19, 2018. “Because it’s there.” — George Mallory “Monasteries, those scattered danger points, become the chief objectives of nocturnal flight.” — Patrick Leigh Fermor, A Time to Keep Silence “Even in Kyoto, longing for…Complexity3 min read
Oct 22, 2020The Inequalities That Death CompletesA BEYOND BORDERS column by David Krakauer, President of the Santa Fe Institute. In what is widely considered the preeminent biography, The Life of Samuel Johnson, James Boswell declares, “It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives.” Johnson, of course, had more to say on the topic…Covid 194 min read
Aug 6, 2020Socio-Cultural LongitudeA BEYOND BORDERS column by David Krakauer, President of the Santa Fe Institute. Our community is familiar with the considerable challenge posed throughout nautical history of determining longitude at sea. The need for both accurate celestial observation and precise time keeping — accurate data and a precise mechanical model —…Science3 min read
