Complexity Cat 🐱

The @cssociety.bsky.social has issued an open letter on academic freedom and human rights following the non-stop genocide in Gaza:

drive.google.com/file/d/1-q5E...

Emergence and Self-organisation across biological scales! I hope you are ready for next year conference! It will be an incredible event April 20-22 2026. The first of many #LakeConference organised by
@ehannezo.bsky.social @alleninstitute.org and James Sharpe @embl.org

The Polyglot Neuroscientist Resolving How the Brain Parses Language | Quanta Magazine Is language core to thought, or a separate process? For 15 years, the neuroscientist Ev Fedorenko has gathered evidence of a language network in the human brain — and has found some similarities to LL...

In brain scans of around 1,400 people, the cognitive scientist Ev Fedorenko has identified a sort of digestive system for language. Fedorenko spoke with Quanta about the system’s workings and how they might be compared to an LLM or the digestive system. www.quantamagazine.org/the-polyglot...

Last week #complexitycat started a discussion about goal-directedness by analyzing Heylighen's naturalization of it.

Yordan Yordanov and I are having a very nice exchange of ideas in the comment section of the post, so I invite you to read it/join us!😼

www.complexitycat.org/posts/goal-d...

Variational, Nonequilibrium, and Optimization Principles of the Coevolution of Structure and Dynamics in Complex Systems This Collection aims to gather theoretical, computational, and empirical contributions that advance the use of variational principles to explain and predict ...

npj Complexity special collection:
Variational, Nonequilibrium, and Optimization Principles of the Coevolution of Structure and Dynamics in Complex Systems
www.nature.com/collections/...

Coming December 16!

ICTP-SAIFR | Workshop on Non-equilibrium Statistical Physics: From glasses and active matter to stochastic thermodynamics and complex networks

Application deadline: December 10

#NonEquilibrium #StatisticalPhysics #ActiveMatter #ComplexNetworks ./10

www.complexitycat.org/posts/SAIFR-...

Lake Conferences on Neural Coding and Dynamics 2026

Application deadline: December 12

#Neuroscience #Brain #SelfOrganization #Multicellularity #AI ./9

www.complexitycat.org/posts/lake-c...

Call for Satellites | NetSci 2026

Submission deadline: December 8

#NetSci2026 #CallForSatellites #NetworkScience #ComplexNetworks #ComplexSystems ./8

www.complexitycat.org/posts/NetSci...

🚨Job alert🚨

Tenure-track Assistant Professor position in Network Science and Communication, College of Arts, Media and Design (CAMD), Northeastern University

For details:
northeastern.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/careers/job/...

Frances Egan: Some Physical Systems (Literally) Compute — The Brains Blog Some Physical Systems (Literally) ComputeFrances Egan  Rutgers University  In his ambitious new book, Michael Kirchhoff argues that computational models cannot be literally true&nbsp…

Day 3 of the Brain's Blog symposium of 'The Idealized Mind'. Attached are links to Frances Egan's commentary and my response:

philosophyofbrains.com/2025/12/03/s...

philosophyofbrains.com/2025/12/03/a...

Should we think that nervous systems compute? That's the topic of Day 3!

Biological Theory is now on Bluesky!

We have a new team of editors and a new editorial board.

We will soon be posting about all our articles.

Find out more about the journal at link.springer.com/journal/13752

New preprint! Do you like ocean waves? We found similar waves on bacterial colonies! We found that this collective behavior, known as rippling, is nothing but surface waves on an active nematic. @princeton.edu @mpipks.bsky.social @ub.edu @icreacommunity.bsky.social

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

If you are interested, here is the full call for papers: sites.google.com/view/xivpbcs... Be sure to mark your calendars: the deadline is January 15, 2026! The organizing and scientific committees are absolutely stellar in this new edition of the PBCS workshop! #HPBio #philsci #HPS #cogsci #neurosky

Poster for the XIV Workshop on Philosophy of Biology and Cognitive Sciences. The background is dark green with large yellow text and decorative abstract flower illustrations in red, yellow, and green at the corners. Dates ‘18–19 June’ appear at the top right, along with the venue: UNED, Edificio de Humanidades, Paseo de la Senda del Rey 7, Madrid. The keynote speakers are Enara García (SDU), Alejandro Fábregas-Tejeda (KU Leuven), and José Antonio Pérez-Escobar (UNED). A bold yellow banner reads ‘Call for Abstracts,’ with a deadline of 15 January. At the bottom is a contact email: xivpbcs@gmail.com

I am incredibly honored to have been invited as one of the keynote speakers for the XIV PBCS! This long-standing initiative is very supportive of graduate students & early-career researchers, so I encourage everyone to submit their abstracts! See you in Madrid next year! #HPS #HPbio #cogsci #philsky

Join us this Thursday, Dec 4, for our final seminar of the fall semester! We’re thrilled to host Haily Merritt (@h-merritt.bsky.social), who will share her research on how social connections shape the brain through a complex-systems lens, as well as insights into multidisciplinary scholarship.

Registration now open !

Free and hybrid - full info below

www.aalto.fi/en/events/sm...

ICTP-SAIFR | School on The Next Era of Network Science: Nonlinear Dynamics, Multiscale Interactions and Beyond

Application deadline: December 2

#NetworkScience #NonLinear #Multiscale #ComplexNetworks #ComplexSystems ./11

www.complexitycat.org/posts/SAIFR-...

Looking for plans this weekend? Join us to discuss Guillermo del Toro's adaptation of Frankenstein, the original novel by Mary Shelley! 📽️🧟📖

The meeting is Dec 6th at 8 PM (UTC) on our Discord channel. Not there yet? Click here. 👇
discord.gg/NV9DS6km

#ALife #Frankenstein

⏰ 𝗗𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲: 𝗗𝗲𝗰𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝟭𝟵!

NetSci 2026 abstract submissions close Dec 19 — just around the corner.
If you’re doing exciting work in network science (theory, computation, or applications), this is your chance to share it with a global community.

📅 Submit by Dec 19
🔗 www.netsci2026.com/call-for-abs...

ICTP-SAIFR | School on The Next Era of Network Science: Nonlinear Dynamics, Multiscale Interactions and Beyond

Application deadline: December 2

#NetworkScience #NonLinear #Multiscale #ComplexNetworks #ComplexSystems ./11

www.complexitycat.org/posts/SAIFR-...

ICTP-SAIFR | Workshop on Non-equilibrium Statistical Physics: From glasses and active matter to stochastic thermodynamics and complex networks

Application deadline: December 10

#NonEquilibrium #StatisticalPhysics #ActiveMatter #ComplexNetworks ./10

www.complexitycat.org/posts/SAIFR-...

Lake Conferences on Neural Coding and Dynamics 2026

Application deadline: December 12

#Neuroscience #Brain #SelfOrganization #Multicellularity #AI ./9

www.complexitycat.org/posts/lake-c...

Call for Satellites | NetSci 2026

Submission deadline: December 8

#NetSci2026 #CallForSatellites #NetworkScience #ComplexNetworks #ComplexSystems ./8

www.complexitycat.org/posts/NetSci...

Extending the evolutionary synthesis isn’t enough

Rasmus Haukedal's new book calls for a truly dialectical biology: from autopoiesis to sympoiesis, from efficient causes to enablement, and an innovative take on plasticity, canalisation & habit.

dialecticalsystems.eu/publications...

🚨CFA for the XIV PBCS that will be held at UNED (Madrid) 18-19 June 2026, where several of our METIS members are part of the organisation committee: Losner Briones (@losnerbriones.com), Jorge Ramos (@jsramos.bsky.social) and Cristian Saborido.
More info: sites.google.com/view/xivpbcs...

What is the future of intelligence? The answer could lie in the story of its evolution Nature - The advent of artificial intelligence might be just the latest stage in a guiding biological process that has produced ever more complex, mutually dependent organisms over the history of...

The advent of AI might be just the latest stage in a guiding biological process that has produced ever more complex, mutually dependent organisms over the history of life

go.nature.com/4onxvKP

A Cell So Minimal That It Challenges Definitions of Life | Quanta Magazine The newly described microbe represents a world of parasitic, intercellular biodiversity only beginning to be revealed by genome sequencing.

A newly discovered archaeal cell has a tiny genome and can’t metabolize biomolecules. It’s upending biologists’ definition of a living thing. “These types of organisms have been found before, but not as extreme as this,” said microbiologist Thijs Ettema.

🚨 AWARD DEADLINE 🚨

If you are, or know someone, doing really cool research as an early-career researcher…EHBEA is calling for SELF-nominations on their New Investigator Award.

Deadline? December 19th, 2025

More information below 👇

December 9th at 12PM: Lucina Uddin will be discussing brain networks during the Philosophy and Neuroscience Salon hosted by @pessoabrain.bsky.social

Sign up here: umd.zoom.us/meeting/regi...