| Popis: |
Computer simulation in support of the social sciences is far from new. But, with one or two exceptions, notably certain types of economic modeling, it has never become a major weapon in the social scientists armoury. However, in the last few years developments in intelligent agents and multiple agent systems have sparked a new interest in computer simulation in disciplines such as economics, anthropology and sociology. The key new opportunity is that something corresponding to the cognitive processes of members of a society may now be made explicit (in agents) in models. This enables studies to be made of the relationship between agent-level and society-level phenomena in a way not previously possible. However, important and interesting methodological difficulties arise, and it is these difficulties that are the main focus of the paper. |
