Growing Artificial Societies: Social Science from the Bottom Up
| Joshua M. Epstein and Robert Axtell, 1996 |
What constitutes an explanation of an observed social phenomenon? Perhaps one day people will interpret the question, “Can you explain it?” as asking “Can you grow it?” Artificial society modelling allows us to “grow” social structures in silico demonstrating that certain sets of microspecifications are sufficient to generate the macrophenomena of interest […] We can, of course, use statistics to test the match between the true, observed structures and the ones we grow. But the ability to grow them […] is what is new. Indeed, it holds out the prospect of a new, generative, kind of social science. (p.20)
In effect, we are proposing a generative program for the social sciences and see the artificial society as its principal scientific instrument. (p.177)
A particularly loose usage of 'emergent' simply equates it with 'surprising' or 'unexpected', as when researches are unprepared for the kind of systematic behaviour that emanates from their computers. This usage is obviously begs the question, 'Surprising to whom?'
um ator racional, um indivíduo perfeitamente informado com capacidade cognitiva infinita que maximiza uma utilidade fixa, não evolucionária, tem pouca relação com o ser humano.