Scott Page: Making sense of complex systems requires ensembles of diverse models
Scott Page · #55 Scott Page: Becoming a Model Thinker · Apr 2, 2019 · at 5:16
Scott Page, a professor of complex systems and author of The Model Thinker, discusses the limits of reductionist social science and simple single-equation models.
0:00 / 0:27exact quote · 27.4s
720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“One way you can make sense of complexity is by throwing ensembles of models at both. So one of them may explain 20%, another 15%, and it's not that they add up to a hundred percent that they're explaining everything. In fact, if there's overlap, there's even sometimes contradictions in what they might explain, what they might predict. But by looking at the world through a, an ensemble of logically coherent lenses, you can actually make sense of that complex world.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Scott Page
Page: Data-driven success formulas fail when adopted at scale
“And in this book, The Formula, he talks about how these are the lessons for success by looking at tons and tons of data. And it's in some of it is about some of the things we were talking about before with Gawande's. You want to like make sure you use your net…”
Page: Successful people wrongly assume they won purely due to individual ability
“People who are successful by definition have, are in, have always won and they're in power and they think I'm good because I'm here because I'm good. And they typically are. And they tend to think they're there because they've had a lot of ability. They have a…”
Page: Decentralized market mechanisms fail on extremely complex problems
“But when it gets super hard, the market's not going to work.”
Scott Page: Big winners in positive-feedback markets depend as much on luck as skill
“If you thought, no, this person sold these books because they're just so much better, right? That's a very different story than if you say, no, just the natural process of people buying books leads to big winners. Then you start realizing, you know, the big wi…”
Scott Page: China's economic growth will slow without massive innovation
“The same is true of China, right? So if you do a linear projection of China, You know, five years ago, you'd have said, oh my gosh, you know, by 2040, China's economy is going to be just enormous, but the reality is growth's going to fall off, because what the…”
Page: Organizational efficiency pressures erode cognitive diversity in mental models
“When I go work for a firm, or if I'm working in an organization, you know, stock analyst, psychologist, whatever I'm doing, mental models that we use are like local interaction models. Right? I mean, like, it's like, oh, you're using that metal model. It's eas…”