15/11/2017 Generative science - Wikipedia
Generative science
Generative science is an area of research that explores the natural world and its complex
behaviours. It explores ways "to generate apparently unanticipated and infinite behaviour
based on deterministic and finite rules and parameters reproducing or resembling the behavior
of natural and social phenomena".[1] By modelling such interactions, it can suggest that
properties exist in the system that had not been noticed in the real world situation.[2] An
example field of study is how unintended consequences arise in social processes.
Interaction
between a few
Generative sciences often explore natural phenomena at several levels of organization.[3][4] Self-
simple rules
organizing natural systems are a central subject, studied both theoretically and by simulation
and parameters
experiments. The study of complex systems in general has been grouped under the heading of can produce
"general systems theory", particularly by Ludwig von Bertalanffy, Anatol Rapoport, Ralph endless,
Gerard, and Kenneth Boulding. seemingly
unpredictable
complexity.
Scientific and philosophical origins
The development of computers and automata theory laid a technical
foundation for the growth of the generative sciences. For example:
Cellular automata are mathematical representations of simple entities
interacting under deterministic rules to manifest complex behaviours.
They can be used to model emergent processes of the physical
universe, neural cognitive processes and social behavior.[6][7][8][9]
Conway's Game of Life is a zero-player game based on cellular
automata, meaning that the only input is in setting the initial
conditions, and the game is to see how the system evolves.[10]
In 1996 Joshua M. Epstein and Robert Axtell wrote the book
Growing Artificial Societies which proposes a set of automaton Turbulence in the tip vortex from an
rules and a system called Sugarscape which models a population airplane wing. Studies of the critical
dependant on resources (called sugar).
point beyond which a system
Artificial neural networks attempt to solve problems in the same way creates turbulence were important
that the human brain would, although they are still several orders of
for chaos theory, analyzed for
magnitude less complex than the human brain and closer to the
computing power of a worm. Advances in the understanding of the example by the Soviet physicist Lev
human brain often stimulate new patterns in neural networks. Landau who developed the Landau-
Hopf theory of turbulence. David
One of the most influential advances in the generative sciences as related
Ruelle and Floris Takens later
to cognitive science came from Noam Chomsky's (1957) development of predicted, against Landau, that fluid
generative grammar, which separated language generation from semantic turbulence could develop through a
content, and thereby revealed important questions about human language. strange attractor, a main concept of
It was also in the early 1950s that psychologists at the MIT including Kurt chaos theory.
Lewin, Jacob Levy Moreno and Fritz Heider laid the foundations for group
dynamics research which later developed into social network analysis.
References
1. Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic and Raffaela Giovagnoli (2013), "Computing
Nature A Network of Networks of Concurrent Information Processes", in
Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic and Raffaela Giovagnoli, Computing nature:
Turing centenary perspective, Springer, p. 7, ISBN 978-3-642-37225-4
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15/11/2017 Generative science - Wikipedia
2. Ning Nan, Erik W. Johnston, Judith S. Olson (2008), "Unintended
consequences of collocation: using agent-based modeling to untangle
effects of communication delay and in-group favor", Computational &
Mathematical Organization Theory, 14 (2): 5783, doi:10.1007/s10588-
008-9024-4 ([Link]
3. Farre, G. L. (1997). "The Energetic Structure of Observation: A
Philosophical Disquisition". American Behavioral Scientist. 40 (6): 717
728. doi:10.1177/0002764297040006004 ([Link]
2764297040006004).
4. J. Schmidhuber. (1997) A computer scientist's view of life, the universe,
and everything. Foundations of Computer Science: Potential Theory
Cognition, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pages 201208, Springer
Computer simulation of the
5. Hermann Cuntz (2010). "PLoS Computational Biology Issue Image | Vol. branching architecture of the
6(8) August 2010". PLoS Computational Biology. 6 (8): ev06.ei08. dendrites of pyramidal
doi:10.1371/[Link].v06.i08 ([Link] neurons.[5]
6.i08).
6. Kenrick, DT; Li, NP; Butner, J (2003). "Dynamical evolutionary
psychology: individual decision rules and emergent social norms".
Psychological Review. 110 (1): 328. PMID 12529056 ([Link]
[Link]/pubmed/12529056). doi:10.1037/0033-295X.110.1.3 ([Link]
[Link]/10.1037%2F0033-295X.110.1.3).
7. Epstein, Joshua M.; Axtell, Robert L. (1996). Growing Artificial Societies:
Social Science From the Bottom Up. Cambridge MA: MIT/Brookings
Institution. p. 224. ISBN 978-0-262-55025-3.
8. Nowak A., Vallacher R.R., Tesser A., Borkowski W. (2000), "Society of
Self: The emergence of collective properties in self-structure", The natural phenomenon of herd
Psychological Review, 107 (1): 3961, PMID 10687402 ([Link] behaviour as in a flock of birds
[Link]/pubmed/10687402), doi:10.1037/0033-295x.107.1.39 (https:// can be modelled artificially using
[Link]/10.1037%2F0033-295x.107.1.39) simple rules in individual units,
with swarm intelligence rather
9. Epstein J.M. (1999), "Agent Based Computational Models and Generative
than any centralized control.
Social Science", Complexity, 4 (5): 4160, doi:10.1002/(SICI)1099-
0526(199905/06)4:5<41::AID-CPLX9>[Link];2-F ([Link]
2%2F%28SICI%291099-0526%28199905%2F06%294%3A5%3C41%3
A%3AAID-CPLX9%[Link]%3B2-F)
10. John Conway's Game of Life ([Link]
External links
[Link] (Artificial Societies, Virtual Worlds and the Shared
Problems and Possibilities of Emergence)
[Link] (The Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation)
Retrieved from "[Link]
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