Sawyer (2003) relates multi-agent systems to the micro-macro link in
sociological theory and concludes that there are simulations that show
how macro-social phenomena emerge from individual action and such that
demonstrate that a change of macro structure (e.g. network topology,
size of a society, communication mechanism) changes the bottom-up
processes of micro-to-macro emergence. He then argues that no simulation
has combined both micro-to-macro and macro-to-micro processes
simultaneously (to avoid any misunderstandings, of course emergent macro
situations influence micro-to-macro through specifying the context in
which individuals act on the micro-level. In those cases agents are not
influenced by the overall macro situation but only by local
interactions. But this is not what Sawyer refers to, he is interested in
a direct causal role of the macro level).
However, in my view Gilbert's extension of the Schelling model in which
patches are labelled "good" or "bad" places for the respective groups
according to the history of the patches would be a model which involves
both micro-to-macro and macro-to-micro causation (Gilbert 2002)?!
What has happened with regards to that in the last 6 years? Is there
any good up-to-date review article available on that topic?
Thanks & regards
Georg
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Sawyer (2003): Sawyer, Keith, "Artificial societies - Multiagent Systems
and the Micro-Macro Link in Sociological Theory", Sociological Methods &
Research, Vol. 31, No.3, 2003
Gilbert (2002): Gilbert, N., "Varieties of Emergence", Transcript of the
introductory talk given at the Workshop on Agent 2002 Social Agents at
the Ecology, Exchange, and Evolution Conference 2002
(http://www.soc.surrey.ac.uk/staff/ngilbert/ngpub/paper148_NG.pdf)
--
Georg Holtz
Institute of Environmental Systems Research
University of Osnabrueck
Barbarastrasse 12
49069 Osnabrueck, Germany
Phone: ++49(0)541-969-3413
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