Seth Frey

What are your main interests? Feel free to include a "pie in the sky" big idea!

Narrowly (dissertation-wise), I'm pushing the experimental side of complex dynamics in game theory. Researchers at SFi suspect that complexity is ubiquitous is complex systems. Economists argue that a newish mechanisms, what-you-think-I-think-you-think, can damp complexity in the real world. My work shows complex dynamics that are driven by this sophisticated reasoning, not prevented by it.

Broadly, I want to be able to look at a problem and tell you the organization that will solve it best, decentralized or centralized, distributed or not, coherent or incoherent.

What sort of expertise can you bring to the group?

• I've spent most of the past decade killing my heroes---thinking critically about exciting ideas in complex systems. I apply complex systems concepts to social systems using experiments in human collective behavior.
• My background is in cognitive science. Undergrad was cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience, with a special affection for cognitive linguistics. Grad has been about group and collective behavior: experiments and modeling.
• I worked two years for Yaneer Bar-Yam at the New England Complex Systems Institute in Cambridge, MA
• I have lots of side projects: I'm publishing in the strange new field applying empirical methods to the study of classic literature, like Shakespeare
• I have lots of side projects: I've dabbled with RBN's, network dynamics, and community structure
• I have lots of side projects: I have a project on reciprocity in the NBA
• I have lots of side projects: I'm interested in Institutional Analysis, a funny branch of political science that includes economics, anthro, sociology, psychology, and other disciplines. I have applied it to the niche world of cooperative businesses.

What do you hope to get out of the CSSS?

I'd like to work with some of the people who have developed the models driving my dissertaiton.

Do you have any possible projects in mind for the CSSS?

Its a bit myopic, but I hope to develop models of non-convergent game play that include iterated reasoning.