In
this talk, I will provide a set of metaphors and potential approaches
to solving hard-to-define and hard-to-conceptualize problems. These are
problem domains for which unknown and unknowable factors predominate. We
will focus on two types of system that characterize the reciprocal
causality and interactions inherent in sociotechnological complexity:
hairballs and futile cycles. Borrowing from network science and
metabolic engineering, respectively, we will explore how these types of
system characterization provide a means to understand interactivity,
redundancy, and robustness as something that can be incorporated into an
open source workflow. To conclude, this talk will also take a 10-year
retrospective on the Hard-to-Define Events workshop, held at Artificial
Life 13
(
http://syntheticdaisies.blogspot.com/p/htde-workshop-2012.html). This
will point us in the direction of future work in this area, which goes
beyond software development to applied scientific discovery.