Synthesis Presents
Niklas Damiris
Insights from quantum physics and finance for alternate economies-ecologies
5:00 - 6:30 PM February 14
Stauffer B204
Arizona State University
How can insights from quantum physics refresh our approach to our profoundly intertwined ecological / economic challenges? I argue that the quantum appears weird only because we interpret it through entrenched cybernetic categories like ‘information’, ‘feedback’, ‘observation’, and ‘data-base’, which become problematic in a world characterized by indeterminacy, negative probabilities, non-locality and measurement effects. Furthermore, this world is not confined to the small as is often claimed.
I propose that we institute a new ecologically attuned economic practice based on finance approached as a quantum phenomenon. Such an endeavor presupposes that those who participate in it ‘have skin in the game’ and their aim is not to discount the future, but to enable it by facing courageously its indeterminacy and the freedom it affords.
BIO
Niklas Wild Damiris is a theoretical physicist turned economic theorist. He lived in Silicon Valley for over 25 years working as research scientist in well-known think tanks there including: Xerox PARC, Apple Advanced Technology Group, IBM Almaden Research Center.
He co-founded start-ups in Silicon Valley including: Pliant sociotechnical systems, Capitalizing Communities, and Streme quantum cognition.
Dr. Damiris has been a visiting scholar and occasional lecturer at Stanford University for many years, as well as : Consulting Professor, Laboratory for Monetary Research, Department of Economics, University of Lugano, Switzerland; Special Assistant to the the Dean of Humanities, University of California Santa Cruz; Visiting Professor, Copenhagen Business School; Corresponding member of Institut de Recherche et d’Innovation, Paris; Affiliate Researcher at the Topological Media Lab Montreal; and Affiliate Researcher at Synthesis ASU.
He co-founded start-ups in Silicon Valley including: Pliant sociotechnical systems, Capitalizing Communities, and Streme quantum cognition.
Dr. Damiris has been a visiting scholar and occasional lecturer at Stanford University for many years, as well as : Consulting Professor, Laboratory for Monetary Research, Department of Economics, University of Lugano, Switzerland; Special Assistant to the the Dean of Humanities, University of California Santa Cruz; Visiting Professor, Copenhagen Business School; Corresponding member of Institut de Recherche et d’Innovation, Paris; Affiliate Researcher at the Topological Media Lab Montreal; and Affiliate Researcher at Synthesis ASU.