Bees and markets are nearly as effective as expert physicists at finding the highest point on a smooth, simple optimization landscape, but all three approaches fail on highly rugged, multi-peaked landscapes, suggesting that the difficulty of the problem determines whether decentralized (markets, swarms) or centralized (physics expertise, analysis) approaches work best.
factualpending
Speaker
Scott PageEvidence Quote
“it was only on the really hard problem physicists did the best... probably depends on the difficulty of the problem but what's cool about that... here's this idea collective intelligence that spans disciplines [1:00:15]”
Source
Mental Models for complexity | Scott Page and Shane Parrish | The Knowledge Project #55— The Knowledge Project PodcastCreated: 8/10/2026, 11:30:19 PM
My Notes
Loading notes...