I asked a (non-rhetorical) question: >But you might think it is, so I ask you, do you? If not, how might >it be remediated (practically or impractically)?
It occurred to me that maybe this is something that could be investigated using ... AGENT BASED MODELING! (Indeed, maybe it has been.) That is, what qualities of an asynchronous distributed network of agents, passing messages about a changing collection of diverse-but-usually-though-not-always-somewhat-aligned topics (or maybe more specifically goals) are conducive to "rigorous conversation" (however that may be modeled), which qualities are neutral to it, and which qualities are anti-conducive to it? Anyone up to the challenge of investigating a toy example? (Alternatively, anyone know where in the literature the whole thing has been done, or shown to be undoable?) ============================================================ 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
