That is a great example. Once a building is constructed, most people
would agree that it has an existence independent of any of the people
who built it or who occupy it. And the architecture of the space has
causal influence on those who occupy it, whether or not they are
consciously aware of the exact nature of the structure or its impact on
them.
One big question in sociological theory is, are there non-tangible
social structures that operate like this example? Is social structure
as autonomous from the individuals who occupy it, as a building is? If
it is then our simulations would need to capture that. My point, in the
article originally cited on SIMSOC, is that the social agent modeling
community has taken one side of a debate that is not yet resolved--the
individualist position that social structures cannot be autonomous from
facts internal to individual agents (and can be nothing more than those).
(Some sociological theorists have argued from the other direction, that
the building isn't autonomous either, all that matters sociologically is
how the building is perceived by/interpreted by the occupants, the
so-called "interpretivist/ethnomethodological" perspective. These
arguments ultimately end up reinforcing/devolving to an individualist
perspective, I've argued in SOCIAL EMERGENCE.)
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [SIMSOC] [Fwd: Re: [SIMSOC] Models incorporating both,
micro->macro + macro->micro ?]
Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2009 21:58:36 +0100
From: Alan Penn <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: Alan Penn <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
References: <[log in to unmask]>
Keith,
as an architectural researcher I have worked with simulations
analogous to the kind you describe (at least I think so)
1. agents interact locally and move in an environment using long
distance vision to define their local movement trajectory; they build
'buildings' that survive, or fail and are demolished, depending upon
their success in attracting the 'passing trade' of agents.
2. the morphology of the open space structure through which agents
move using vision depends upon where buildings are built and which
buildings survive. This morphology is an emergent structure that
influences agent movement. Agent movement in turn influences survival
of buildings and so the morphology of space. The spatial morphology is
an explicit and autonomous macro level structure external to the agents.
3. local micro agent movement and interaction depends in part upon the
macro spatial morphology of the environment.
Alan Penn
On 9 Jul 2009, at 19:08, Keith Sawyer wrote:
> I enjoyed these comments about upwards and downwards causation in
> social systems. Sorry to take so long to reply, I have been
> traveling.
>
> I'm not aware of a more recent literature review, since my 2003
> article, of sociological implications of agent based modeling. (By
> the way, my 2005 book SOCIAL EMERGENCE is a bit more recent and
> incorporates an updated version of the 2003 article.) I'm
> interested if anyone can suggest one?
>
> Yes, it's true I claim that no simulation combines both micro->macro
> and macro->micro simultaneously but here's what I'm referring to:
>
> 1. At the micro level, agents interact locally, and this eventually
> gives rise to the emergence of some macro level structures and/or
> entities.
>
> 2. The simulation then automatically develops explicit data
> structures that capture the emergent macro level structures. (These
> are not internal to agents, but are autonomous from them.)
>
> 3. These new data structures then have causal effects on the local
> agents and their interactions.
>
> It is step (2) that results in the most controversy/discussion, with
> many modelers saying, of course we don't do that because that
> doesn't happen in the real world. But in fact, many sociologists do
> believe that something like that is the case in the real world.
> They are sometimes referred to as sociological realists. It's
> primarily those who are methodological individualists by inclination
> who think that (2) is unnecessary (as I have argued in several other
> publications). Most if not all agent modelers are methodological
> individualists.
>
> The mechanism whereby step (3) happens has been the topic of a few
> of these posts; immergence/second-order emergence is one of the
> leading candidates for a mechanism. But that's not the only one;
> macro social structures and properties often have demonstrable
> causal effects on individuals even when those individuals are not
> consciously or explicitly aware of them.
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Re: [SIMSOC] Models incorporating both, micro->macro +
> macro->micro ?
> Date: Wed, 17 Jun 2009 16:13:11 +0200
> From: Rosaria Conte <[log in to unmask]>
> Reply-To: Rosaria Conte <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask]
>
> I would say yes. See for example the results of the EMIL project
> (EMergence
> In the Loop, a FET-funded European project under the 6th FW,
> http://emil.istc.cnr.it/ ) where the simulated process of micro-to-
> macro
> emergence of norms is shown to include macro-to-micro processes in
> which
> norms get gradually "immerged" in agents' minds
>
> Rosaria Conte
>
> National Research Council,
> Institute of Cognitive Science and Technology,
> V. S. Martino della Battaglia, 44, 00185 Roma.
> LABSS (Laboratory of Agent Based Social Simulation):
> http://labss.istc.cnr.it
> http://www.istc.cnr.it/createhtml.php?nbr=70
>
> Il 17-06-2009 10:29, "Georg Holtz" <[log in to unmask]
> OSNABRUECK.DE> ha
> scritto:
>
>> 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
>> ---
>> 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)
>
> --
> R. Keith Sawyer
> Associate Professor
> Washington University
> Department of Education
> Campus Box 1183
> St. Louis, MO 63130
>
> www.keithsawyer.com
>
--
R. Keith Sawyer
Associate Professor
Washington University
Department of Education
Campus Box 1183
St. Louis, MO 63130
www.keithsawyer.com
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