Abstract
The first intelligent agent social model, created by the author in 1991, used tags with emergent meaning to simulate the emergence of institutions based on the principles of interpretive social science. This symbolic interactionist simulation program existed before Holland’s Echo, however, Echo and subsequent programs with tags failed to preserve the autonomy of perception of the agents that displayed and read tags, as first program did. These subsequent tag programs include Epstein and Axtell; Axelrod; Hales; Hales and Edmonds; Riolo, Cohen and Axelrod, as well as the works on contagion originating in Carley, etc. The only exceptions are the author’s 1995 SISTER program, and Axtell, Epstein, and Young’s 2001 program on the emergence of social classes, which was influenced by the symbolic interactionist simulation program at George Mason University, and Steels’ 1996 work. Axtell Epstein and Young’s program has since been credited for strong emergence (Desalles et al.). This paper explains that autonomy of perception is the essential difference in the symbolic interactionist implementation of tags that enables a strong emergence to occur, and that is why strong emergence has occurred in the works of Duong and of Axtell, Epstein and Young. This paper explains the important differences in existing tag models, pointing out the qualities that enable symbolic interactionist models to become social engines with strong emergence, and also introduces new work that puts the SISTER program in a spatial grid, and explores what happens to prices across the grid. In half of the runs, a standard of trade, or money, emerges.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Axtell R, Epstein J, Young H (2001) The emergence of class norms in a multi-agent model of bargaining. In: Durlouf, Young (eds) Social dynamics. MIT Press, Cambridge
Bedau M (2002) Downward causation and the autonomy of weak emergence. Principia 6(1):5–50
Berger P, Luckmann T (1966) The social construction of reality. Anchor Books, New York
Coleman J (1994) Foundations of social theory. Belknap, New York
Dessalles JL, Müller JP, Phan D (2007) Emergence in multi-agent systems: conceptual and methodological issues. In: Phan D, Amblard F (eds) Agent based modelling and simulations in the human and social sciences. The Bardwell Press, Oxford, pp 327–356
Duong DV (1991) A system of IAC neural networks as the basis for self organization in a sociological dynamical system simulation. Masters thesis, The University of Alabama at Birmingham. http://www.scs.gmu.edu/∼dduong/behavior.html
Duong DV, KD Reilly (1995) A system of IAC neural networks as the basis for self organization in a sociological dynamical system simulation. Behav Sci 40(4):275–303. http://www.scs.gmu.edu/∼dduong/behavior.html
Duong DV (1995) Computational model of social learning. Virtual School ed. Brad Cox. http://www.virtualschool.edu/mon/Bionomics/TraderNetworkPaper.html
Duong DV (1996) Symbolic interactionist modeling: the coevolution of symbols and institutions. Intelligent systems: a semiotic perspective. In: Proceedings of the 1996 international multidisciplinary conference, vol 2, pp 349–354. http://www.scs.gmu.edu/∼dduong/semiotic.html
Duong DV (2004) SISTER: a symbolic interactionist simulation of trade and emergent roles. Doctoral dissertation, George Mason University, Spring
Duong DV, Grefenstette J (2005) SISTER: a symbolic interactionist simulation of trade and emergent roles. J Artif Soc Soc Simulat. http://jasss.soc.surrey.ac.uk/8/1/1.html
Duong DV, Grefenstette J (2005) The emulation of social institutions as a method of coevolution. In: GECCO conference proceedings. http://www.scs.gmu.edu/∼dduong/gecco.pdf
Duong DV (2009) The generative power of signs: tags for cultural reproduction. In: Trajkovsky G, Collins SG (eds) Handbook of research on agent-based societies: social and cultural interactions. IGI Global, New York
The Economist (1997) What boys and girls are made of, p 96. http://www.scs.gmu.edu/∼dduong/economist.pdf
Garfinkel H (1967) Studies in ethnomethodology. University of California, Los Angeles
Hales D (2004) Tags for all! – understanding and engineering tag systems. In: 4th International conference on complex systems (ICCS 2004). Springer, New York
Hodgson G (2006) What are institutions. J Econ Issues 15:1
Holland JH (1975) Adaptation in natural and artificial systems. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor
Holland J (1993) The effects of labels (tags) on social interactions. In: Sante Fe Institute Working Papers. The Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe
Lacobie KJ (1994) Documentation for the Agora. Unpublished document
Luhmann N (1984) Social systems. Suhrkamp, Frankfort
Maturana H, Lettvin J, McCulloch W, Pitts W (1960) Anatomy and physiology of vision in the frog. J Gen Physiol 43:129–175
Muller J (2004) The emergence of collective behavior and problem solving. In: Agents world IV international workshop. Springer, New York, pp 1–20
Parsons T (1951) The social system. Free Press, New York
Shannon CE (1993) Collected papers. Wiley. New York
Steels L (1996) Emergent adaptive lexicons. In: Fourth international conference on simulation of adaptive behavior, Cape Cod. Springer, New York
Winograd T, Flores F (1987) Understanding computers and cognition. Addison-Wesley, New York
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2010 Springer
About this paper
Cite this paper
Duong, D.V. (2010). Autonomous Tags: Language as Generative of Culture. In: Takadama, K., Cioffi-Revilla, C., Deffuant, G. (eds) Simulating Interacting Agents and Social Phenomena. Agent-Based Social Systems, vol 7. Springer, Tokyo. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-99781-8_17
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-99781-8_17
Publisher Name: Springer, Tokyo
Print ISBN: 978-4-431-99780-1
Online ISBN: 978-4-431-99781-8
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)