Bruce and Sim Friends:
The M&S community is primarily interested in the validation of models against
behavior, and so the idea of using models to reflect the behavior of groups
and societies is a perfect fit. There is also the concept of using agents as a
kind of metaphor for doing software engineering, but that is not the focus
of the M&S Community unless the software engineering process is viewed
from a modeling perspective (with transacting agents). I only just got into
this thread..
-paul
Bruce Edmonds wrote:
> > > I guess it probably reflects a particular view from MAS people -- and
> > > something that you might need to convince the MAS community is
> > > incorrect?
> > >
> >
> > I don't think we **need** to convince them but I do think that we should
> > try. With that one amendment, I endorse Michael's sentiment because I am
> > convinced that both they (the computer science MAS community) and we
> > (the social simulation MAS community) would benefit from the discussion.
> >
> > I wonder what other members of the list think.
>
> Personally I see some rather deep-seated reasons why there will not ever
> be a great deal a traffic between MAS and Social Simulation people -
> that of very different goals. Broadly the MAS community wants to use
> 'agents' as reliable components to achieve software construction goals
> and social simulators want to capture aspects of social beings in
> models.
>
> My argument is that an essential property of (many) social systems is
> that the agents are 'socially embedded', which has the consequence that
> their collective actions are not readily predictable (and the engineers
> would need for their systems to be reliable).
>
> My argument of mine that this may necessarily differ from a 'social
> simulation' perspective is at:
> http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/cpmrep46.html
>
> This would mean that we will be able to import some techniques and
> tools, but that it is unlikely we will use each other's results.
>
> 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
--
Dr. Paul A. Fishwick E-Mail: [log in to unmask]
Dept. of Computer & Info Phone & FAX: (352) 392-1414
Science and Engineering WWW: http://www.cise.ufl.edu/~fishwick
University of Florida (PGP Key available at above WWW address)
P. O. Box 116120
332 Bldg. CSE, Gainesville, FL 32611-6120
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