About MACBeh
Is there a connection between magnetisation in physics, flocking behaviuor, and human opinion polarisation? Scientists propose that collective behaviours in nature follow principles of criticality. While applications of the physics of criticality in biology and social sciences have increased, the justification for the use of physical principles in these foreign domains remains unclear.
This ERC-funded project will help fill this gap, by exploring what elements of the physics of criticality are actually applied to other sciences, what contributes to the predictive power of specific non-physical models based on criticality, and how to improve model-building practices in cases where physical tools are transferred to other domains. By connecting philosophy of science debates with a study of criticality models in biology and socioeconomics, the project posits that these models reflect ‘model adaptation’. A framework suggesting that successful models integrate universal properties from physics with unique domain-specific features.
Team
MACBeh is supported by a core research team working with a network of international collaborators coming from different fields.
Principal Investigator
She is a Professor of Philosophy of Physics at the University of Salzburg. She works on emergence, reduction, idealizations in science, phase transitions and the application of the physics of statistical mechanics to other disciplines, including biological sciences.
Photo: © Kay Müller
Postdoc
Her research explores the use of analogical inference and template transfer in scientific practice. Her current research focuses on developing a pluralistic, pragmatic normative account of analogical inference, arguing that while relevant similarity cannot be captured by formal schema, normativity can be preserved through context-sensitive tools that guide inference under uncertainty. She also researches how cognitive biases present in scientific reasoning.
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Pascal Rodríguez Warnier
Postdoc
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Jiang Zhang
Research Assistant
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Research Collaborator
He is a full professor in philosophy of science and leading expert in the philosophy of complex systems with special focus on causation, idealizations and scientific explanation.
Photo: © Jessica Lehrman
Research Collaborator
She is resident faculty at the Complexity Science Hub, Vienna, and external faculty at the Santa Fe Institute and the Vermont Complex Systems Institute. She works on collective adaptation by investigating how cognitive mechanisms and social structures interact with the ever changing external environment.
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Research Collaborator
He is an associate professor in philosophy of science, whose expertise includes model building in biology and cognitive sciences.
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Research Collaborator
She is a full professor and chair of complexity science at the Department of Physics and Astronomy. She has done outstanding work on the use of physics methods in socioeconomic sciences.
Photo: © Dagmar Dobrofsy, Berlin
Research Collaborator
He is a lecturer in social complexity and system transformation for sustainability, whose research focusses at the intersection of social complexity, ecology, evolution and biophysics.
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Research Collaborator
Margarida Hermida is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Salzburg within the project Knowledge in Crisis. She works on the philosophy of biophysics and the universality of biology.
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Macbe(t)h: A Turn of Events
In the quiet of a kingdom, a subtle perturbation, a whisper of prophecy, pushed the system toward criticality. What seemed a minor fluctuation in ambition became a cascade, a self-reinforcing feedback loop that amplified every thought, every choice. Macbeth, the agent of the system, acted as both perturbation and amplifier, until the kingdom itself approached a critical point: the murder of Duncan marked a phase transition. Each act thereafter was a small perturbation on an already unstable landscape, triggering cascades of guilt, paranoia, and violence. Once criticality was reached, the trajectory could no longer be reversed. The final collapse was inevitable, a dramatic outcome born from the amplification of what once seemed negligible.
This reminiscence of Macbeth’s plot with a critical system, motivated the choice of MACBeh as our suitable acronym.