Alan Penn wrote:
> This I think is the really surprising thing
> about social systems - how predictable and 'knowable' they are in spite of
> their apparent complexity and the number of variables involved.

Scott Moss wrote:
> ..., I would argue (a)
> social systems appear to be stable (which I think is what Kathleen means
> by "more predictable") but (b) they change in unpredictable ways in
> response to environmental changes and that (c) these changes are marked
> by changes in the structure of the social systems and therefore the
> means and the forms that agents use to relate to one another.

I think that this sort of view is a little problematic.

After all we only notice, identify, and label parts of our social
environment as 'social systems' if they are sufficiently stable and
'knowable' in some respect.  In general the social environment may not
be very stable or 'knowlable' at all.  In my simulations (where to some
extent I can escape the bias of perception because I can inspect
everything in the complete trace it leaves), it is only in special cases
that such 'social structures' noticably emerge - mostly it is a very
complex mess.

This sort of world view is comparable to that of physicists upto the
middle of this centuary - they only 'saw' the well-behaved parts of the
systems they were modelling, the rest was just 'noise'.

Regards.

--------------------------------------------------
Bruce Edmonds, 
Centre for Policy Modelling, 
Manchester Metropolitan University, Aytoun Bldg., 
Aytoun St., Manchester, M1 3GH. UK.
Tel: +44 161 247 6479  Fax: +44 161 247 6802
http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/~bruce


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