In this episode of the podcast I spoke with Joe Norman.

Joe describes himself as a recovering academic and an applied complexity scientist. He focuses on complex systems engineering and design, systemic and large-scale risk, systems strategy, and systems-thinking education. This work, Joe tells me, is engaged in for the pursuit of liberty, localism, self-determination, and self-sufficiency.

The conversation we had I thought broke fairly neatly into two halves.

In the first half of the episode, we spoke about applied complexity science, and how it differs from other, more reductionistic approaches to scientific research. We talked about Joe’s work applying the precautionary principle to things like systemic risk in GMO food production and industrial agriculture. I asked Joe about other key ideas from complexity science, such as nonlinearity and decentralization. We also talked about the boundary between the living and nonliving universe, and how our current industrial and manufacturing mindset often causes us to misread the organic world as something simply mechanical or machine-like.

In the second half of the episode, we focused more on the practical and aesthetic dimensions of complexity science and how they might function as tools for helping us navigate our own actions and decisions. Here we talked about the architect Christopher Alexander and the importance of renewing an emphasis on local, human-centered design in our building practices. We also explored the importance of taking a place-based approach to this work.

As I note in the podcast, Joe has a way of flipping on their head some of the unexamined assumptions we have about physics and biology, and I think you’ll enjoy the many twists and turns this conversation took.