Alicia Juarrero, author of Context Changes Everything: How Constraints Create Coherence (MIT, 2023) and Dynamics in Action: Intentional Behavior as a Complex System (MIT, 2002), will present “Why Context Matters,” a lecture on the enabling effects of constraints in the production of coherent systems. Employing the tools of complexity science, Juarrero’s account offers a new way of understanding how complex systems, such as cells, biological individuals, and ecosystems, cohere into unique, robust forms.

Presented by the Humanities and the Anthropocene Initiative