Phylogenetic trees and cladistics are useful to
understand any evolutionary or complex adaptive
system. I am not sure if a phylogenetic tree for
ABMs itself makes sense. Of course we can try
to categorize them by a taxonomy. On the
NetLogo models pages we find the following
categories:
* Art
* Biology & Evolution
* Chemistry & Physics
* Computer Science
* Earth Science
* Networks
* Social Science
David Eppstein has proposed 3 basic categories
for Cellular Automata (contraction impossible
expansion impossible, both expansion and
contraction possible). We could propose
a similar classification scheme for ABM,
according to different types of motion
(movement, expansion or fluctuation):
* Migrating population (Segregation, Swarms, Traffic)
* Expanding population (Epidemics)
* Expanding & Shrinking population (Culture, Evolution, War)
One could also divide according to different
environments:
* abstract environment (grid, lattice, network)
* 2D modeling
* 3D modeling
or by different interaction types:
* Direct Interaction (Swarms, Evolution)
* Indirect Interaction (Ants)
* Interaction wih Language
Or one could distinguish different techniques,
as Owen said, or different objectives (what
kind of abstract entity or problem do we
want to model), which leads us back to the
NetLogo model categories.
-J.
============================================================
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
