Since 2012 the Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science awards a prize to honour outstanding contributions to Complexity Thinking.
Louis Kauffmann, researcher in the fields of cybernetics, topology and foundations of mathematics and physics, was the winner of the Ludwig von Bertalanffy Award in Complexity Thinking 2016. He is professor of Mathematics in the Department of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer science at the University of Illinois at Chicago, his work is primarily in the topics of knot theory and connections with statistical mechanics, quantum theory, algebra, combinatorics and foundations. The prize was given to him in the framework of the emcsr avantgarde 2016 via Live Stream, it was an extraordinary and exciting ceremony.
Louis Kauffmann
© Photograph taken at UIC
Louis Kauffman showed us how ‘The observer can see what is not there’ in a participative universe.
In 2014 the Ludwig von Bertalanffy Award in Complexity Thinking went to Mario Bunge, Professor Emeritus in Philosophy, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. During the European Meetings on Cybernetics and Systems Research 2014 Bunge hold two promising keynotes. In cooperation with the Middle European interdisciplinary Joint Master Program in Cognitive Science (Mei:CogSci) and the Cognitive Science Research Platform, University of Vienna (CogSci), he presented his talk on ‘The Persistence of the Mind-Body-Problem’ at the Austrian Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence (OFAI). At the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna (IQI), Bunge discussed the question ‘Does the Aharonov-Bohm effect occur?’.
Mario Bunge
© emcsr
The winner of the first award in 2012 was Edgar Morin, a widely recognized French philosopher and sociologist, one of the first system philosophers and the founder of Complex Thought. The ceremony took place within the framework of the European Meetings on Cybernetics and Systems Research 2012 (EMCSR) Morin held an inspiring keynote on “Complex thinking for a complex world – About reductionism, disjunction and systemism”. Click here for the full video of his keynote.
Edgar Morin
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