[FRIAM] Article on Epstein

[Phil Henshaw]

I hope this contributes.   I like Carl's comment.

A given ABM is less for explanation or prediction than for exploration
and understanding; it helps (or not) clarify the issues and concepts
under consideration relative to some space of such ABMs.

These are learning tools.  They're not nature, and we try to understand
the way models operate as a whole, in relation to how nature behaves,
often differently.   My focus is more on predictive direct observation
of physical systems, rather than learning from rule based models.   I
certainly learn from rule base models, by noticing the difference
between physical systems that are continually making up new roles (since
all complex systems are continually evolving), for example, and that
helps alert me to where I'm missing what's really happening.     It's
the learning process about the real that information models are useful
for helping us with.    The way people sometimes treat the information
as what's really happening (the Copenhagen convention) hides the real
very efficiently.    Information is very useful, but only because it
refers to and connects our thinking to something else, exploration and
understanding.

 
 
 

Phil Henshaw                       ¸¸¸¸.·´ ¯ `·.¸¸¸¸
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
680 Ft. Washington Ave 
NY NY 10040                       
tel: 212-795-4844                 
e-mail: pfh at synapse9.com          
explorations: www.synapse9.com <http://www.synapse9.com/>     

-----Original Message-----
From: friam-bounces at redfish.com [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On
Behalf Of PPARYSKI at aol.com
Sent: Tuesday, June 26, 2007 6:23 PM
To: friam at redfish.com
Subject: [FRIAM] Article on Epstein



  
Carl's comments seem to clarify much in my rather ignorant mind.  As a
relative newcomer to complexity theory, it seems to me that the great
advantage of complexity modeling and ABMs is that they provide new tools
to examine processes. tools that are quicker and more elegant than
statistics and other research methodology  Systematics, e.g. Odum's
work, has been around for a while, but being able to establish
multi-layered links and analysis between inter and intra-disciplinary
research and data easily is a great advantage.  It would be interesting
to develop ABMs based on the principles of bio-mimicry.
 
Paul Paryski.




  _____  

See what's free at AOL.com
<http://www.aol.com?ncid=AOLAOF00020000000503> . 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20070629/bcd8eddf/attachment.html