SFI Working Group on Analyzing Complex Macrosystems: Civilizations as Dynamic Networks

Schedule

Wed nite April 28

welcome reception bar at Casita Quintana, after dinner, 117 Quintana Street (call 505 820 6420, also to check dinner plans if you arrive early) right turn off W. San Francisco just west of downtown 5 blocks from El Dorado Hotel driving directions restaurants nearby

This is a working group, not a formal conference. The order and timing of topics covered may vary.

Thursday April 29

breakfasts on your own; There is a free shuttle from the Santa Fe Hotel to SFI
In case you are driving: Directions to the Institute

9:00 discussion laying out some of the perspectives on historical dynamics

• Malthusian natural history model of resources and population, determinacy of infrastructure - e.g., Turchin, Thompson
• Political science perspectives, politics and political strategies - e.g., Wilkinson, Taagepera
• Trade and conflict - e.g., Spufford, Thompson
• Historical networks - e.g., Bearman, Wilkinson
• Complexity perspectives - e.g., White
• discussion of assumptions and perspectives of alternative models
  (can we save the more synthetic aspects of world-systems and networks approaches for later?)

  9:45 overview of the full functionality of trade, politics, conflict in the long 13th C - Spufford

  morning coffee break

  early stages of a representation of the 13th C network data -- no politics, agents of trade, conflicts, as yet

  Spufford and others: commentary on the representation

  12:00 lunch at the Institute

  1:15 overview of the first Eurasian world-system, Jemdet Nasr - Henry Wright

  commentary - Bob Adams

  2:30 correlations among Mesopotamian time-series - Bill Thompson
  3:10 comment on possible dynamics by Doug White

  3:15 afternoon coffee break

  3:30 overview of dynamical modeling - Peter Turchin

  4:30 generalized approaches to dynamical modeling, I - Don Saari

  breakout into working groups, e.g., dynamical modeling of Thompson's data

  Friday April 30

  breakfasts on your own

  9:00 Disputes over the Malthusian model and the English case - Bob Adams

  9:30 Nonlinear time-series analysis: illustrated with data for England, 1100-1900 - Peter Turchin
  (includes a discussion of methods, possibly the application to Thompson's data)

  morning coffee break

  10:30 "dynamical maps" of how metaethnic frontiers evolve through time (using Europe 1-1800 as example) - Peter Turchin

  generalized approaches to dynamical modeling, II - Don Saari

  12:00 lunch at the Institute

  1:15 Regional differences in political polarity signatures and their effects - Dave Wilkinson

  2:15 World-system perspectives - Chris Chase-Dunn

  3:15 afternoon coffee break

  3:30 informal discussion, Maritime trade and network analysis - Peter Bearman

  4:30 discussion of regional, network, world-system and political perspectives

  5:00 we will order lunch from outside to be brought to the Institute tommorow

  Saturday May 1

  breakfasts on your own

  specific modeling issues

• First world-system
• European agrarian societies
• England
• Asia
• Long 13th C

  lunch ordered yesterday from outside brought to the Institute

  issues of generalized modeling - Don Saari

• evolutionary game theory
• generalized dynamical modeling
• generalizing quasi-cyclical modeling
• winding numbers?
• are synchronies tractable?

  open issues

  Sunday May 2

  breakfasts on your own

  open issues

  will adjourn to no host lunch at restaurant downtown