These individual actions then propagate over a network to condition and influence the actions subsequently selected by other agents and collections of agents. Such systems may be observed on a variety of scales and may exhibit different behaviors or be scale-invariant. Because decentralized processes are perhaps difficult to understand, people often assume there is some form of central direction at work in systems that appear to exhibit coherent behavior. The idea that there is or must be a central controller of a system that is structurally and behaviorally coherent influences science and popular thinking. Decentralized processes are ubiquitous in nature and society, but are poorly understood and often mistrusted.
Similar issues lie at the core in the teaching and understanding of science.
And at another level, an understanding of decentralized processes lies at the core of our social institutions. Big questions, maybe too big, but there are enough results around now from a range of scientific disciplines to perceive that we could learn a lot by talking to one another about some core questions that pervade all of the sciences. Brain researchers, computer scientists, economists, pyschologists, legal scholars, game theorists, physicists, psychologists, mathematicians, biologists, robotic scientists, learning theorists, organization theorists, physiologists, and cognitive scientists are being invited to share the insights of their work. The focus is on the balance between decentalized and centralized processes and structures in the respective fields.