Pete wrote:
> If you think I'm advocating models you have read me wrong. The point
> is I'm advocating _against_ models. I'm advocating for simulations.
> Simulations are a very simple concept, and I talked about it here
> before (probably too often). You don't make up a model, you develop
> a simulation based on individual agents or elements, and the
> simulation drives the behaviour of the agents.
I'm unaware of the technical usage of "model" and "simulation" to
represent well defined and unequivocally distinct things.
But AFAIK, the use of "model" here and in economics refers to an
equation or a set of (possibly differential) equations, the variable
of which are factors of economic interest. Solve the equation(s) with
known variable values plugged in and the unknowns fall out. I think
that's what's called an "analytic" solution to a problem.
As I understand the kind of simulation to which you're referring, a
salient factor is that, using discrete time, each of the agents
independently updates itself at time t using own present state,
locally available data and its own local algorithm to determine its
state at time t+1. Data locally available to an agent at time t is
typically the state of one or more other agents at time t. The
connectedness, i.e. the determination, for each agent, of which other
agents' states it "knows" about, together with the local update
algorithms are set by the simulation designer and constitute the
simulation.
If I have that right, it's notable that this embraces local decision
making for each element whereas analytic models tend to ignore local
decisions or define them away. Also notable is that no equilibria are
implicit. In fact (and again, as I understand it), equilibrium,
multiple equilibria, oscillation between two or many regions and
wildly chaotic behavior are all possible.
> It's worth using when you're able to provide the basic set of inputs
> and see it reproduce historical behaviour, say the entire 20th
> century, with some level of fidelity.
You speak as if you've done that or at least observed it first hand.
Where are you doing that or who's doing that?
Bucky Fuller's World Game comes to mind but I think that was somewhat
different originally. I don't find much detail about the 21st
c. for-profit incarnation. Certainly, Bucky's motives were hardly
congruent with currently dominant national, corporate, financial or
political thinking.
So there is this about such an approach. Suppose it takes 100,000 (or
a million) elements, each with its own algorithmic Weltanschauung and
connection graph gradually tuned and tested by the designers/hackers
to reproduce the 20th century in recognizable resolution. Who can
afford the hardware and the salaries of a considerable number of
bright and insightful experts/hackers? Isn't it likely that, whoever
that is, they will be motivated by "maximizing shareholder value",
"global projection of national power", "permanent Republican
majority", "externalizing internal diseconomies", "let them eat cake"
and other familiar, arguably totalitarian motives?
- Mike
--
Michael Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada .~.
/V\
mspen...@tallships.ca /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/ ^^-^^
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