Posted by
Phil Henshaw-2 on
Jul 06, 2007; 11:59pm
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/JASSS-and-despair-tp524155p524175.html
I somehow didn't send this to the forum before - and it needed an edit
anyway
---------
The ambiguity about whether computer models are thought to be exploring
actual social systems or not is definitely all over the place in the
journal, and not discussed. That's what I usually take as a sign of
confusion, so I'd have to tentatively conclude that the journal isn't
concerned with the difference and assumes that their theories are the
structures of human societies. To check exactly what they say, in the
banner of the journal for example, top of the front page, it says
"JASSS....an inter-disciplinary journal for the exploration and
understanding of social processes by means of computer simulation."
That specifically says the exploring of the social system is done by
computer, but maybe the mean that they'd study models of how they think
real systems work to help them study what makes actual systems
different. That's my method, and could be what they mean to say.
That view is also hinted at in the article on model realism, "How
Realistic Should Knowledge Diffusion Models Be?" with the following
abstract:
Knowledge diffusion models typically involve two main features: an
underlying social network topology on one side, and a particular design
of interaction rules driving knowledge transmission on the other side.
Acknowledging the need for realistic topologies and adoption behaviors
backed by empirical measurements, it becomes unclear how accurately
existing models render real-world phenomena: if indeed both topology and
transmission mechanisms have a key impact on these phenomena, to which
extent does the use of more or less stylized assumptions affect modeling
results? In order to evaluate various classical topologies and
mechanisms, we push the comparison to more empirical benchmarks:
real-world network structures and empirically measured mechanisms.
Special attention is paid to appraising the discrepancy between
diffusion phenomena (i) on some real network topologies vs. various
kinds of scale-free networks, and (ii) using an empirically-measured
transmission mechanism, compared with canonical appropriate models such
as threshold models. We find very sensible differences between the more
realistic settings and their traditional stylized counterparts. On the
whole, our point is thus also epistemological by insisting that models
should be tested against simulation-based empirical benchmarks.
Here again I find confusion, though, in terms of clear ambiguities not
discussed. It appears that the 'real world phenomena' are equated
with general statistical measures in terms of 'benchmarks' rather than
behaviors, and these may be "simulation-based empirical benchmarks".
It's like the analysis of that plankton evolution data I studied, where
the complex eruptions of developmental processes in the evolutionary
succession I uncovered were for many years firmly defended as definite
random walks because the statistical benchmark for their range of
fluctuation was within the range reasonably likely for random walks.
Benchmarks, are sometimes very useful for actual diffusion processes,
of course, and much has been learned with them. What they are most
definitely misleading for is as indicators of complex system design
(lacking the 'requisite variety' I guess you'd say), and for any
behavior that is pathway dependent. The whole field of systems and
complexity is really supposed to be about building knowledge of the
pathway dependent properties of nature. These authors clearly are not
asking about that, so I guess I'd have to agree with you that the
journal is unaware of the difference.
Is knowledge 'diffusion' pathway dependent? You bet. So I guess the
subject it not a 'diffusion' process at all, but a development process,
and nearly any kind of 'benchmarks' will be reliably misleading.
Phil Henshaw ????.?? ? `?.????
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-----Original Message-----
From:
[hidden email] [mailto:
[hidden email]] On Behalf Of
Robert Holmes
Sent: Tuesday, July 03, 2007 8:06 AM
To: sy at synapse9.com; The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] JASSS (and despair)
Read the articles and tell me what you think. But I believe the answer
to your last question is "No".
Robert
On 7/3/07, Phil Henshaw < sy at synapse9.com> wrote:
The task of associating abstract and real things is rather complicated,
and often made more so by using the same names for them, so it appears
that when you're referring to a physical system you're discussing
entirely some network of abstract rules, for example. Even though you
say the article refers to physical systems, is it possible they just
switch back and forth between ways of referring to things, while being
consistent with an 'information world' model they assume everyone
understands to be the baseline of abstract discussion?
Phil Henshaw ????.?? ? `?.????
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