Dynamic Symmetry Across Scales
University of Oxford - Hilary Term and Summer Term 2027
Following the Royal Society seminar, Edge of Chaos: Exploring Dynamic Symmetry Theory and the Science of Complexity, held in May 2026 (see below), OXQ and The Schweitzer Institute will convene two linked Oxford meetings in 2027 under the shared title Dynamic Symmetry Across Scales.
Both meetings begin from a simple but demanding question: do complex systems - from physical and biological systems to minds, markets and institutions - often operate most effectively within constrained, shifting regimes between excessive rigidity and unstructured variability? If so, can those regimes be described, measured and, where appropriate, protected or restored?
The two meetings are designed as critical investigations rather than endorsements of a pre-set theory. They will examine whether the language of dynamic symmetry, constrained stochasticity, multilevel causation and “viable bands” between order and variation provides genuine explanatory and practical value across different domains.
Part I: Stochasticity, phase structure and viable regimes
The first meeting, to be held in Hilary Term 2027, will focus on physical, biological and neurodynamic systems.
It will revisit questions raised at the Royal Society with more time for technical discussion: the role of noise and fluctuation in adaptive systems; the relation between stability, criticality and change; phase structure and transitions; and the possibility of identifying simple, interpretable measures of order, variation and resilience.
Particular attention will be given to concrete cases in which systems appear to occupy distinct regimes - for example, highly constrained, dynamically balanced and highly disordered states - and to whether transitions between them can be mapped in a way that is scientifically meaningful. The aim is to clarify where dynamic-symmetry language is genuinely useful, where it overlaps with established concepts such as homeostasis, resilience, feedback control and criticality, and where its claims need to be qualified or rejected.
Part II: Biological relativity, institutional design and public value
The second meeting, to be held in Summer Term 2027, will extend the discussion into economics, management, governance, law and public policy.
Its central question is whether insights from biological systems - especially the way living systems maintain robust forms while harnessing rather than simply suppressing stochastic variation - can illuminate the design of social and institutional systems. The discussion will consider the relationship between higher-level constraints and local agency; the balance between rules and discretion; continuity and reform; innovation and resilience; and market processes and the wider non-market environments in which they operate.
This second meeting will not assume that biological and social systems are straightforwardly analogous. Instead, it will treat the transfer of concepts across domains as a test: asking when notions such as constrained variation, boundary conditions, multilevel causation and adaptive robustness help clarify institutional design, and when the analogy breaks down.
Taken together, the two meetings will create a staged conversation. The Hilary Term event will examine the scientific foundations and limits of the proposed framework; the Summer Term event will test its wider interdisciplinary and practical reach.
Edge of Chaos: Exploring Dynamic Symmetry Theory and the Science of Complexity
The Royal Society, London – 15 May 2026
Edge of Chaos was the first in this three‑part series, bringing together leading physicists, biologists, ecologists, philosophers and policy thinkers to explore whether there are common structural principles linking living systems, physical processes and human institutions. The focus was on dynamic symmetry theory, the Dynamic Symmetry Index (DSI) and related work on self‑organised criticality, with direct implications for climate risk, health and governance.
Speakers included:
Recordings the Edge of Chaos talks can be viewed below.
Using examples from stars, organisms and minds, Schweitzer Institute Director Benedict Rattigan argues that symmetry in complex systems is best understood as an activity that maintains recognisability under changing conditions, rather than as a static property. He contrasts this dynamic view with the classical notion of symmetry as invariance under transformation, and motivates a formal, testable framework in which patterns of coupling between coherence‑preserving and fluctuation‑generating processes determine where systems lie within, or outside, their viable bands between rigidity and disorder.
Professor Predrag Cicovacki is a philosopher whose work ranges across ethics, meta-physics and the philosophy of culture, with a long‑standing interest in Albert Schweitzer and the ethics of reverence for life. In his paper, ‘Dynamic Symmetry and the Challenge of Being Human’, he explores how dynamic symmetry theory can illuminate the structure of human existence itself: our vertical search for meaning and value, and our horizontal entanglement in history, society and everyday life. Drawing on a wide philosophical and spiritual tradition, he asks whether dynamic symmetry can help us to articulate not only the truth about human beings, but the truth of being human.
Professor Denis Noble CBE FRS is Emeritus Professor of Cardiovascular Physiology at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of the Royal Society. He links dynamic symmetry with biological relativity and multi‑scale causation, arguing that organisms harness molecular randomness in ways that no physical computer can, and uses this to highlight the distinctive freedom and creativity of living systems.
Professor Tim Lenton OBE is Chair in Climate Change and Earth System Science and Founding Director of the Global Systems Institute at the University of Exeter. He examines examples of Earth‑system tipping points, and asks whether negative and positive tipping phenomena can be understood in terms of dynamic symmetry.
Gisella Marinuzzi is a lawyer and Associate Director of the Schweitzer Institute. One of her recent works has been a draft a position paper, making the case for a Governmental Animal Protection Commission in the United Kingdom, which she presented in April 2026 at a seminar in Westminster. In her Royal Society paper, she uses this proposed Commission as a case study to test whether dynamic symmetry theory and the Dynamic Symmetry Index can guide the design of institutions that sit between rigid bureaucracy and episodic activism, with feedback mechanisms and DSI‑style metrics built in from the start.
Benedict Rattigan argues that “dynamic symmetry” is a recurrent structural relation in complex systems, not just a metaphor. Using examples from probability (dice throws), political history (revolution and reaction), cardiac physiology (heartbeat variability), climate dynamics (resilience versus tipping points) and institutional design (bureaucracy and reform), he shows how local variability often underpins larger‑scale order, and how excessive stability or disorder each generate their own breakdown. Across these domains, order and disorder appear as scale‑dependent, mutually generative opposites rather than simple contraries. The recurrence of this pattern across such different materials is proposed as evidence that dynamic symmetry may be a genuine cross‑scale structural principle.
Professor Daniela Bortoletto OBE is Head of Particle Physics at the University of Oxford. She reviews the current status of Higgs boson studies at the Large Hadron Collider, focusing on precision measurements and Higgs pair production, and shows how these data probe the Higgs potential and electroweak symmetry breaking.
Professor Tim Palmer CBE FRS is Royal Society Research Professor in Climate Physics at the University of Oxford. In this paper he uses the Lorenz system to show how ideas of order and chaos underpin ensemble weather prediction and have relevance for other fields, and argues that quantum non‑locality may be understood in terms of the “gappy” structure of the attractor.
Professor Gianluca Gregori is Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford. In his talk, the ‘edge of chaos’ takes on a concrete physical form: his laboratory astro-physics experiments explore regimes in which coherent magnetic structures and turbulent fluctuations must be kept in delicate balance, providing a vivid example of the dynamic symmetry between order and disorder that lies at the heart of the Schweitzer Institute/OXQ ‘Edge of Chaos’ seminar.
Professor Alexander Lvovsky is Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford, and works in quantum optics and the foundations of quantum information. He presents coherent Ising machines as physical systems that harness quantum and chaotic dynamics to solve difficult optimisation problems, offering a clear example of structured behaviour arising from apparently disordered processes.
Dr Igor V. Ovchinnikov is a theoretical physicist at UCLA whose work focuses on stochastic dynamics, chaos and topological methods in dynamical systems. He describes how, in the supersymmetric theory of stochastic dynamics, an edge‑of‑chaos phase dominated by noise‑induced instantons constitutes a distinct form of chaos, and he explores how this more rigorous picture of phase structure and order parameters may both support and constrain phenomenological tools such as the Dynamic Symmetry Index.
Rattigan's concluding paper defines dynamic symmetry as the shifting balance between stabilising order and exploratory disorder that enables systems to survive and adapt. The notion of symmetry is broadened from mere invariance to patterned interplay between stability and fluctuation, requiring an intellectual shift from dissolving paradox to interpreting structured tensions. Two speculative applications—relating quantum field theory to general relativity, and rethinking arrows of time in physical, biological and institutional systems—illustrate where a Dynamic Symmetry Index might gain explanatory force, and the paper calls for making the framework precise, measurable and falsifiable.
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