Has anybody just tried to design this application the old-fashioned way;
i.e., develop a set of requirements that

   - define the interactions between the components of the system,
   - identify (clearly, no vagueness allowed) the desired results from
   running the simulation,
   - identify (clearly, no vagueness allowed) the inputs for the simulation,
   and

*then* determine what design best fits the application?

Just asking, 'cause this thread so far sniffs out suspiciously like another
"I want to talk about how *I* want to think about how (in the purest
theoretical sense) simulations should be designed/implemented/thought of."

Just asking...

--Doug


As compared to endlessly seeing that special, elegant simulation
implementation system that is the ideal match to this particular problem
domain?

On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 6:26 PM, russell standish <[email protected]>wrote:

> On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 12:46:26PM -0500, Roger Critchlow wrote:
> > I don't think you'll find this because it implies programming a higher
> > purpose and allowing the agents to jump the rails, as it were, and start
> > negotiating their way through the combinatorics of alternative networks.
> > Similarly, you won't find models in which agents invent new inputs to
> > monitor, new outputs to generate, and new rules which involve new inputs
> and
> > new outputs.
> >
> > Optimization within a fixed solution space, which is what we do when we
> let
> > agents play with the flow through a fixed network or let them search out
> the
> > most profitable rules in a set of prespecified alternatives, gets hairy
> > enough without opening things up to the infinity of potential solutions
> that
> > we didn't have time to program into the model ourselves.
> >
>
> EcoLab is an example of a model where the state space evolves over
> time rather than staying fixed. It is not quite the ABM that Russ
> Abbott is looking for, but does illustrate that it is possible. One
> crucial feature is that there must be a separation of scales - the
> dynamics of the system (optimisation, or whatever) must occur more
> rapidly than the change to the state space. Otherwise, you get what is
> known in the ALife world as a mutational meltdown - evolution ceases
> to operate.
>
> --
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Prof Russell Standish                  Phone 0425 253119 (mobile)
> Mathematics
> UNSW SYDNEY 2052                         [email protected]
> Australia                                http://www.hpcoders.com.au
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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