So even if an agent-based model is not realistic enough to be verified directly by experimental data and if the simple agents we 'send forth to do battle in our models' do not produce the same collective behavior as the apparently real agents, the agent-based model could serve as a metaphor to understand something. Right ? Finding new metaphors is indeed something what both great science and great art do, and since Lakoff's book "Metaphors We Live By" we know that metaphors are more than rhetorical elements.
-J. -----Original Message----- From: Michael Agar Sent: Monday, August 14, 2006 5:58 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The art of agent-based modeling I'd change this to How do we make clear the core of a problem through constructing an illustration of our own beliefs and assumptions and say that's exactly what both great science and great art do. Science then has the obligation to challenge it against new instances of the problem in the classic Popperian way. Mike ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
