Bruce Edmonds wrote:
"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)."
This is interesting because an agent (or is actor meant, or does it matter
which in this context if both are constrained by the dynamics of a
particular system) of a social system is not only socially embedded (in
fact culturally emdedded would be a more accurate term?) but is also
biologically embedded. The late evolution of human societies has been by
way of the coevolution of mind and culture (by way, at least in major part,
of a linguistic medium). Hence humankind exists within a complex system
which can be ordered or turbulent - this is why prediction is problematic.
Anyone working with complex systems (they can become chaotic) will face the
same problem, even in software construction (eg AI), hence in some
circumstances validity may be as important if not more important than
reliability when assessing certain outcomes from models and simulations.
There may be shared interests here?
Best.
Alan
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alan Dean Ph.D.
Sociology and Anthropology
School of Comparative and Applied Social Sciences
University of Hull
Hull
HU6 7RX
UK
Phone: + 44 (0)1482 465743
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
http://150.237.76.29/www/ad/alandean.html
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|