[FRIAM] The quintessence of complexity thinking

[Marcus G. Daniels]

Phil Henshaw wrote:
> So I guess you're saying that if you were to make your models to be
> consistent with nature, i.e. have agents that all develop their own
> parameters as they go, then it couldn't be 'described' or 'reproduced'.
> That sounds like a neat way to state the difficulty of using single
> self-consistent ideas to represent a multiplicity of independently behaving
> things.
>   
The meaning of the word `parameters' here is a bit muddy.   It could be 
some array of numbers that characterize the behavior of  certain 
agents.  Let's say, that certain set of agents use a lot more energy 
than others but without saying why (and that the other agents have a 
different array of numbers).   Or it could be a set of arbitrary rules 
added to some agents that result in them using more energy.  Or it could 
be a simple rule that in all agents, when evaluated over and over in a 
different shared circumstance results in lots of energy use.     By an 
adaptive model, I mean the latter, and by parameters I'm thinking of the 
former two cases.  If a modeler introduces more and more degrees of 
freedom, they can get any answer you want.