This is my first attempt at being a journalist, which feels appropriate as I arrived at the talk late enough to miss whatever orientation everyone else had apparently received.

It would have been nice to be on time, as when I slipped into the room, it was immediately clear that this would not be a standard academic lecture, but something with a different rhythm. I saw scientists in floral shirts donning interesting bracelets. A guitar and a violin rested on a table. Peculiar slides. The feeling that the event might take unexpected turns at a moment's notice.

Tipping Lakes, Humans, and Societies: The Challenge of Linking Theory to Data united psychologist Denny Borsboom and complex systems researcher Marten Scheffer. The goal was to explore tipping points, resilience, cycles, and the difficulties of applying ecological theories to humans and society.

The format of the session embodied the ideas being discussed: Scheffer would speak about feedback loops, deserts, climate systems, and ancient societies. Then Borsboom would pivot into psychology, discussing addiction, gambling, stress, depression, and how mental states reinforce themselves. Just as lakes can shift between being clear and murky, people can drift from ordinary stress to states that are much harder to escape. Conversations cycled between scales: ecosystems to minds, as if they manifested from the same underlying logic.

Then, there would be music.

Not background music; From Denny's guitar and Marten's violin came beautiful, complex improvisation. Genuinely good musical breaks, as evidenced by the number of phones held up to record their performance.

As the session continued, I wondered whether the music served merely as an analogy or whether it was part of their argument. A recurring theme of the discussion was that complex systems often hide latent structures that are tricky to observe. Musical improvisation seems to exemplify this: Musicians can reach the same harmonic destination through countless paths. While there is freedom and unpredictability, there is hidden order.

That idea echoed throughout the session. Ice ages oscillate. Ecosystems settle into attractors. Human behaviour clusters into patterns. Systems appear stable until they suddenly are not.

A moment that struck me came from Borsboom while discussing tipping points in psychological systems. He offered a poignant example: imagine you are stressed because you have to give a talk. The stress ruins your sleep. Ruined sleep increases stress. The feedback loop begins reinforcing itself.

The audience laughed, as the example clearly came from his lived experience. He was talking about this very talk.

What surprised me was not the example, but the vulnerability of it. In front of us was someone who had spent years developing influential theories about psychological networks and complex systems, openly admitting that he had been stressed about an event that was unfolding beautifully. There was something reassuring about seeing expertise coexist with ordinary human nervousness.

The discussion often revisited resilience: how quickly systems can return to equilibrium after disturbances occur. Systems, ecological and psychological alike, can absorb shocks until, at some critical point, recovery begins to slow. That slowing itself becomes a warning sign.

By the end, I left excited to learn more about the topics discussed in the talk. While theories illuminate reality, they risk tunnel vision: Models never fully capture the world, but can help us understand it. Humans are uniquely positioned to change the environment they inhabit. Financial predictions alter markets, and people meddle with their own biology.

I also left with a copy of The Edge Of Knowing, a nicely designed coffee mug, and a free lunch (really!).

Somewhere between the discussions of catastrophe theory, depression, ancient tree rings, Dali, and music, the talk became an argument not for a simple answer but for intellectual humility.

Or perhaps for paying attention to feedback loops.

Or perhaps for bringing more violins into academia.