Steve, Obviously happiness is a tensor--an ABM simulating this would sure help us figure out how to get there.
Merle On Apr 12, 2013, at 11:33 AM, Steve Smith wrote: > Ron- >> Here's the link to the Christakis/Fowler paper on happiness contagion I >> mentioned earlier...and a TEDx talk. > Thanks... I was being a little flip when I suggested all this, but I'm glad > to see that there *is* work tied in already underway. >> Are they building off of Epstein's work? He's not mentioned in the >> citations. > I doubt it. I think we are talking somewhat separated paradigms. I suspect > there *could* be a tie in with some work, but I can tell already that Doug is > not going to be our Emissary over beer and ribs... <grin>. > > I have worked on two projects that tie in to Fowler's talk and his > referencing of the Digital Village. > > One was an early days(public) internet project ( entitled "Digital Village", > no kidding) to try to understand how the growing participation in the > internet of the first and third world population might change the nature of > these populations. I don't remember any amazing results, I seem to remember > that the project was overcome by events such that we were running on > pre-internet time trying to keep up with the actual progress of the internet. > A related project I think was to try to help the USPS anticipate what the > internet was going to mean to them... and what they could do to remain > relevant as the digital age overwhelmed the atom-age. > > The other was a paper on "Collective Intelligence" Circa 2001 which involved > some simple simulations to demonstrate that a connected group could have more > problem-solving ability than any individual (or small subset?). > > A lot of my research and contribution overlaps a lot of what Fowler is saying > in his TED talk... in particular our evolutionary roots as nomadic tribal > groups of order 100... and the potential implications for our (future) social > networks when they are no longer geographically, familial, or job > constrained. > > I'm mildly disturbed by his verbage in the talk which seems to conflate > correlation with causation (are obese friends on facebook actually > influencing the others to become (more) obese or are they choosing eachother > because they are obese, or do obese people share common interests (love food > and sedentary pursuits while eschewing physical activities?). I realize it > is a popular talk jammed into a short period of time... I'll get more out of > the paper I'm sure. > > I'm also interested in whether "Happiness" is considered a scalar, a vector > or even a tensor? And if there are iterated network models (roughly ABMs or > Network Automata) trying to simulate this? > > So much for trying to be flip. Now I'm hooked (a little). > > Happily hooked? > - Steve > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
