These lectures will explore different areas of our scientific and social life where Complexity has a critical impact. The lectures are delivered by researchers from ETH Zurich and abroad, with different disciplinary backgrounds. The goal is therefore to provide a pluralistic conception of Complexity from fields and topics such as sociology, climate research, AI, mathematics, philosophy etc.

In the course we read texts from the field of artificial life. Important topics are how Alife has historically developed and how biology and technology relate to another: Can living systems be simulated adequately and what tools can be used to simulate them? More fundamental questions are: What is life? What is artificiality? etc.