Robert Cordingley wrote: > Unfortnately, neither business management nor governing is a total > disclosure game. [..] I wonder, what hope is there of computationally > solving problems involving millions of agents in dozens of countries > acting in myriads of ways (for example)? May be that wasn't the question. > Well, one motivation for a computational model is to get ideas about what needs to be measured in order to make useful predictions, but not necessarily to be the mechanism of prediction. Computationally, making useful predictions could be as simple as a regression once a set of appropriate signals have been acquired, e.g. by measuring dynamics in a simplified simulated world and finding the same dynamics in the real world. Running a simulation of millions of simple agents with thousands of variant scenarios ought to be doable for a government or big company, but even that following that approach doesn't mean anyone is actually thinking in terms of `solving' the game, or even claiming to know the rules. Rather, the goal is just to shift the odds.
Marcus ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
