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Complexity Science Research Intern

Cognition Futures / Center for Future Studies

Complexity science is at an inflection point. David Krakauer, as president of the Santa Fe Institute, has been articulating a disciplinary identity for the field organized around "teleonomic matter" and "problem-solving matter," drawing on information theory, effective theories from physics, and the historical arc from cybernetics through machine learning. Meanwhile, Michael Levin's laboratory work on bioelectricity, basal cognition, and what he calls "agential materials" is generating an experimental vocabulary that overlaps with, but pushes beyond, Krakauer's framing in ways that are not yet well understood or mapped.

This internship asks whether these two research programs can be held in productive tension, and what that tension reveals about the current state of complexity science as a field. The intern will work within JOPRO's Cognition Futures working group and the Center for Future Studies to produce a structured comparative analysis of Krakauer's and Levin's frameworks: where they converge (substrate independence, the inadequacy of reductionism, the centrality of purpose), where they diverge (materialism vs. Platonist exploration, institutional vs. experimental registers), and what the divergence means for the field's trajectory.

This project connects to JOPRO's broader research on epistemic orientation in emerging fields. It sits alongside the Kuhn Update project (which examines whether Kuhn's model of scientific revolutions holds under contemporary conditions) and the Landscape of Futurists project (which maps the institutional ecosystem of organizations shaping the technological future). The intern's work may contribute to a published essay or working paper and will inform JOPRO's ongoing investigation of complexity science as a case study in field formation.

What you'll do

• TLDR: You'll be reading a lot of Krakauer either/or Levin, participating in cross-domain discussion groups, and presenting/writing about findings.
• Optional but encouraged: joining the Brain Inspired: Complexity Discussion Group, as available.
• Conduct a close reading of Krakauer's key texts (Foundational Papers in Complexity Science, "Unifying Complexity Science and Machine Learning," "Problem-Solving Matter" with Kempes, the Sean Carroll Mindscape conversation) and Levin's key texts ("TAME," "Darwin's Agential Materials," "Ingressing Minds," glossary and blog posts)
• Develop a structured comparison across shared conceptual territory: teleonomic/agential matter, substrate independence, the role of purpose and goals, emergence vs. effective theories
• Identify specific points of divergence and assess their significance for the field's direction
• Investigate whether Krakauer's "four legs" of complexity science constitute a paradigmatic foundation or whether the field remains pre-paradigmatic in the Kuhnian sense
• Produce a working paper or structured essay draft (3,000–5,000 words) suitable for development toward publication
• Contribute annotated bibliography entries to the Cognition Futures reference database
• Engage with related JOPRO projects (Kuhn Update, FrontierMap) where connections arise naturally

Who this is for

Graduate students or advanced undergraduates in philosophy of science, cognitive science, complex systems, computational biology, STS, or related fields. Familiarity with at least one of Krakauer's or Levin's bodies of work is expected; familiarity with both is ideal but not required. The intern should be comfortable reading across disciplinary registers (information theory, developmental biology, philosophy of mind) and synthesizing arguments from heterogeneous sources. Interest in questions about field formation, paradigm structure, and the sociology of scientific communities is a strong plus.

Details

• Duration 10–12 weeks
• Compensation Unpaid
• Location Remote
• Time commitment ~10 hours/week (flexible)
• Level Graduate preferred; advanced undergraduates considered

What past participants have done

This is a brand new project within the Futures Center, but JOPRO and Orthogonal Research and Education Lab have presnted on similar work at the Active Inference Institute, Embodied Intelligence Conference series, and published journal and confernce articles.