Mathematics VS? Agent Based Modeling

Posted by Stephen Guerin on Mar 11, 2005; 4:05pm
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Mathematics-VS-Agent-Based-Modeling-tp520087.html

Let me restate my previous comment and repost the quote. I suspect the ABM
vs. EBM debate is ill-posed. I favor Bonabeau's characterization of ABM more
than Parunak's...

"ABM is a mindset more than a technology. The ABM mindset consists of
describing a system from the perspective of its constituent units. A number
of researchers think that the alternative to ABM is traditional differential
equation modeling; this is wrong, as a set of differential equations, each
describing the dynamics of one of the system's constituent units, is an
agent-based model. A synonym of ABM would be microscopic modeling, and an
alternative would be macroscopic modeling."

Robert writes:
> So my contention is that while ABMs may be great for advisory, open-loop
> systems they just aren't robust enough to form the core of a closed-loop
> system. How would you feel if the automatic control systems in your car
> (plane, nuclear reactor etc.) where all written in NetLogo? ;)

More comfortable than if it was written as a VBA add-in to Excel ;-)

I know you're kidding, but I'm not sure what software platforms have to do
with determining the appropriate modeling perspective for understanding the
problem at hand.

Also, there is a distinction to be made between Agent-Based Modeling and
Agent-based systems. The routers on the internet coordinating to deliver
this email is an example of a distributed closed-loop agent control system.
(granted, they're doing it very poorly today, Roger. We need a new hosting
company...). The Internet is an agent-based system, not an ABM. If I was
proposing a new protocol I would want to simulate it first with an
abstraction of reality. That would be an ABM.

-S