No matter how mundane or life-changing, the decisions we make are necessarily based on whatever limited information is available to us. If you’re weighing the risks of going outside during a pandemic, for example, you might base your decision on the news (which is updated only periodically) or whether you personally knew anybody who was sick (which is a small sample size.) SFI Complexity Postdoctoral Fellow Aanjaneya Kumar, who holds a Ph.D. from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune, studies the science of making sound decisions based on limited information.
Through his doctoral work, Kumar explored an intriguing analogy between various processes, from the way certain chemical reactions develop to how extreme events like economic collapses and pandemics are analyzed in situations when there is a dearth of data. “The same mathematical equations for understanding chemical reactions in chemistry,” Kumar says, “can be used to understand extreme events that unfold over time in our world.”
If large-scale extreme events follow patterns discernible at the chemical level, the tried-and-true equations used to predict chemical reactions could be repurposed to predict social, political, and even existential events. With this kind of modeling, we could be better equipped, as a society, to weather or prevent these kinds of dramatic upheavals.
At SFI, Kumar will continue exploring how to make sense of — and make sound decisions based on — incomplete information. “I’m interested in the question of governance,” Kumar says. “When you are trying to draw conclusions about extreme events or social systems — things you can only observe in part — it comes down to developing a system for making good decisions based on what we can understand. I want to find the fundamental limits of what we can learn.” Kumar begins his fellowship in October.