iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Eddie Lee @spintheory.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

As a former #NSF #GRFP I got an email asking about participating in the review process. But what I would like to know is the extent to which decisions are based on scientific merits vs political considerations. We’re living in a time where unfortunately this needs to be explicitly clarified.

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Eddie Lee @spintheory.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Why is political science so adamant that the "issue space" is fixed??? It doesn't have to be, and it's not. This is a central assumption of the spatial voting theory frameworks, and people still cling onto it today. See Martin & Quinn and Poole & Rosenthal. 🧪🦋

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Eddie Lee @spintheory.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Delighted to be here today!

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Eddie Lee @spintheory.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Reading Douglas North and the importance of transaction costs in economic activity, which has played no role in neoclassical theory. Yet, they are prominent in an exchange-based economy.

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Reposted by Eddie Lee

Complexity Science Hub @csh.ac.at · 15/09/2026

Because of their superior computing power, #chess computers always beat human players (even if you're Beth Harmon from Queen's Gambit)♟️But also style of play is different, finds a new study: chess engines handle game #complexity fundamentally differently 🧪 The paper: shorturl.at/H8uGo The thread 👇🧵

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Eddie Lee @spintheory.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Statistical mechanics ~= statistical learning The former aims for minimal complexity in representation, the latter maximal. Thus, one can formulate a statistical mechanics of learning, but not vice versa.

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Eddie Lee @spintheory.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

'The aphorism that one may have won the battle but lost the war is encapsulated in the notion of a “Pyrrhic victory.” Costly short-term gains must be balanced against the longer-term uncertainties, opportunities, or challenges that may emerge in competitive environments.' 🧪🦋 doi.org/10.1103/63cv...

doi.org

Artificial intelligence sustains higher strategic tension than humans in chess

In the study the authors use network analysis to reveal that artificial intelligence systems sustain significantly higher and longer-lasting strategic tension in chess compared to human grandmasters. ...

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Eddie Lee @spintheory.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

SNU workflow = admin bloat Get email in Korean -> translate copy -> navigate to website -> 2-factor login -> find form -> apply for doc to be issued -> pop-up fails -> install "security" software -> pop-up opens -> security software fails to find printer -> take a screenshot -> uninstall software

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Eddie Lee @spintheory.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

In other news, #Seoul National takes faculty dental hygiene very seriously 😁 #facultylife

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Eddie Lee @spintheory.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

It’s official. The EPIC Lab’s new headquarters are at #Seoul National University’s Department of Physics & Astronomy as of this week. We’re recruiting graduate students! physics.snu.ac.kr/en/research-...

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Eddie Lee @spintheory.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

NYT writes “Testing Truce.” Wouldn’t it be planner to write that the truce has been broken?

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Eddie Lee @spintheory.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Get ready for something EPIC! Starting this fall at #Seoul National University, a new research group will be coalescing. *** For prospective int'l graduate students, apps for the PhD program are open July 6–9; rec letters due July 10. *** #physics #complex #complexity #phd #graduate

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Eddie Lee @spintheory.bsky.social · 14/06/2026

In Cordwainer Smith’s Rediscovery of Man, the future is taken back to the past, technology revoked, disease embraced, making civilization “great” again. “I myself was the first man to put a postage stamp on a letter…We watched at the eye -dash machine when cholera was released in Tasmania…”

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Eddie Lee @spintheory.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

Had a great time teaching and meeting the folks at @igfae.gal at the summer school and #datascience and #complexsystems

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Eddie Lee @spintheory.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

ConIII v4.0 is out 🎉 The Convenient Interface to Inverse Ising — a Python package for pairwise maxent / inverse-Ising inference. New: NumPy 2 + Python 3.13, modern build, reorganized API, docs, and a faster solver. pip install coniii 📖 coniii.readthedocs.io #Python #maxent #compneuro 🧪🦋

coniii.readthedocs.io

Welcome to ConIII’s documentation! — ConIII 4.0.2 documentation

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Reposted by Eddie Lee

Dan Garisto @dangaristo.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

Scoop: NSF has been quietly blocking new funds and grants to four top universities: Duke, Harvard, Princeton, and Yale. Dozens of proposals from PIs at these universities—and their collaborators—have been stuck at the Office of Award Management awaiting finalization for months.

nature.com

Exclusive: NSF puts new research grants to top universities on hold

US science funder once again restricts awards to Harvard University and other research institutions.

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Eddie Lee @spintheory.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

#Turin! This week we’re discussing Computational Social Science in #Italy #complex #physics 🧪🦋 @cs2italy.bsky.social

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Eddie Lee @spintheory.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

A preview of "a planet where life has been reduced to absolute simplicity." Karol Jałowchowski, filmmaker of the scientific world, was at @csh.ac.at last year. Here's a preview of his work, a tour through the mind of Complexity Science Hub through an outrageous hypothesis. youtu.be/NhwKDoRUs0c?...

youtu.be

In Places Like This One | Teaser

YouTube video by Karol Jałochowski

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Eddie Lee @spintheory.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

Levi-Strauss on the natural environment as a conceptual apparatus that allows “savage” societies to order the world around them. The maps are many but he raises the question of if the logical structures are universal.

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Eddie Lee @spintheory.bsky.social · 22/03/2026

Love this attitude: "In 1963 Wilson joined the Cornell physics department and was soon given tenure even though he had hardly published." news.cornell.edu/stories/2013... 1/2

news.cornell.edu

Physics Nobel laureate Kenneth Wilson dies | Cornell Chronicle

Kenneth G. Wilson, winner of the 1982 Nobel Prize in physics for his research at Cornell, died in Maine June 15.

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Eddie Lee @spintheory.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

I would like to say I’m shocked about this but this is only the latest in a sequence of actions against common sense and scientific evidence that are beyond the pale.

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Eddie Lee @spintheory.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

#Peace is fragile. And #conflict is much more #complex than a few world leaders deciding where to shoot missiles or send troops. A little thread coming from our years of work on the #physics of #conflict... 🧪🦋

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Eddie Lee @spintheory.bsky.social · 06/03/2026

Everyone complains that #GPTs make up references, but that makes me wonder. When do they *not* #cite things? Presumably, this "enhances" the #novelty or #innovativeness of ideas that it has.

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Eddie Lee @spintheory.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

Two papers so far this year that have crossed my desk for review that are more or less AI applications of previous work with slight modifications. In principle, little problem with new tool use...

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Eddie Lee @spintheory.bsky.social · 08/02/2026

When an American thinks about the problem of #government-building, he directs himself not to the creation of #authority and the accumulation of #power but rather the limitation of authority and the division of power. - Huntington

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Eddie Lee @spintheory.bsky.social · 28/01/2026

Are you looking for a #postdoc to start in 2027? Do you have a #physics background and are you interested in #ecology #forests #ecosystems #learning #plasticity? I'm looking for candidates to nominate for the Human Frontier Science Program in the Physics Department at Seoul National University. 🧪🦋

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Eddie Lee @spintheory.bsky.social · 27/01/2026

A fantastic experience (I've heard)

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Eddie Lee @spintheory.bsky.social · 21/01/2026

Are you looking for a postdoctoral position? I'm looking for candidates to nominate for the Human Frontier Science Program in the Physics Department at Seoul National University. Thread continues below 🧪

hfsp.org

Postdoctoral Fellowships | Human Frontier Science Program

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Reposted by Eddie Lee

Complexity Science Hub @csh.ac.at · 21/01/2026

New study examines 20+ years of armed conflict data across Africa. Researchers @kushwaha.bsky.social and @spintheory.bsky.social identify three conflict archetypes, but also show that classification does not necessarily help to predict the severity of conflicts. Learn more: shorturl.at/81pkf

csh.ac.at

Data-Driven Analysis Reveals Three Archetypes Of Armed Conflicts

New CSH study identifies systematic patterns in armed conflicts across Africa – and the limits of forecasting conflict intensity, duration, or fatalities.

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Eddie Lee @spintheory.bsky.social · 09/01/2026

A wintry day for complex systems!

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Eddie Lee @spintheory.bsky.social · 07/01/2026

People are often using AI to increase the seeming complexity of minimal ideas, where I find I spend most of my time taking highly complex ideas and compressing them as much as possible into minimal descriptions. Can AI do that? I would say not.

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Eddie Lee @spintheory.bsky.social · 06/01/2026

It’s times like these that remind me of Asimov’s Mule. And an interesting question about how far we can go beyond probabilities in looking ahead with social behavior.

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Eddie Lee @spintheory.bsky.social · 30/12/2025

„ Die Empfindung sagt mir, dass etwas ist; das Denken, was etwas ist; das fühlen, was etwas für mich bedeutet; die Intuition, was etwas werden kann.“ - Jung The four basic mental functions: sensation, thought, feeling, and intuition.

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Eddie Lee @spintheory.bsky.social · 27/12/2025

“Unreason darkens that gap of time bridged by our lightspeed ships, and in the darkness uncertainty and disproportion grow like weeds.” - Ursula Le Guin

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Eddie Lee @spintheory.bsky.social · 27/12/2025

2026년 가을부터 서울대학교 물리학과에 조교수로 합류하게 되어 매우 기쁘게 알립니다! 저에게는 새로운 장이 될 것이며, 학과에서 이미 진행되고 있는 놀라운 연구에 새롭고 복합적이며 다양한 기여를 더하게 될 것입니다. 마지막으로, 이러한 혼란스러운 시기에 민주주의와 법치주의를 수호하는 젊지만 활기찬 문화를 포용하는 곳으로 가게 된다는 것을 말할 수 있어 안도감을 느낍니다. 새해를 앞두고 미리 건배합니다! 🥂

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Eddie Lee @spintheory.bsky.social · 27/12/2025

I’m very happy to announce that I will joining #Seoul National University’s #SNU #physics department as Assistant Professor in Fall of 2026!

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Eddie Lee @spintheory.bsky.social · 17/12/2025

🦋🧪 New research out in Royal Society Open Science! We used #MachineLearning to discover that armed #conflict in #Africa sorts into three distinct types—and found a surprising warning about predicting #violence. 🧵 @royalsociety.org @csh.ac.at @kushwaha doi.org/10.1098/rsos...

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Eddie Lee @spintheory.bsky.social · 16/12/2025

Great story about the power law that describes how prices on average move with buying and selling on the #stock market by the one and only Jean-Philippe Bouchaud. #physics #complexity 🧪🦋 physics.aps.org/articles/v18...

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Eddie Lee @spintheory.bsky.social · 15/12/2025

@Neon_sci I'm noticing that a lot of the SCBI precip data is blank when I download the data. Does anyone know what's up? NEON website claims all the data should be present. 🧪🌳

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Eddie Lee @spintheory.bsky.social · 26/11/2025

Finally got around to read Darwin. The clarity of thought is wholly impressive and still compelling today. Also very quotable and perhaps one of the reasons this work became such a recurrent tome. Will add examples below 1/n 🧪

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Eddie Lee @spintheory.bsky.social · 17/11/2025

#Schumpeter on #creative #destruction. Note the mention of #globalization and ref to #biology: "The opening up of new markets, foreign or domestic, and the organizational development from the craft shop and factory to such concerns as U.S. Steel illustrate the same process... (1/2) 🧪🦋

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Eddie Lee @spintheory.bsky.social · 13/11/2025

A fun read about group selection on culture, not genes 🧪

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