> > 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
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