[Swarm-Modelling] Re: [Swarm Modelling] Re: The "Art" of Modeling

[gepr]

What a killer thread!  It warms my heart to see things like this
discussed on the Swarm Modeling list. [grin]

I can't pretend to navigate the high falutin' territory you guys are
running around in.  But, I can suggest the following:

Modeling is an "art" precisely because it is a *behavior*, not a
thing.  In fact, a model isn't really a thing, either.  It's a
dynamical system (possibly with emergent properties).  A model can
only be a "good" model after its been around a long time (relative to
the memory/capacity of human cognition, which is lengthening in leaps
and bounds in this age of IT).  And, typically, the appellation of
"good" refers both to predictive and explanatory power.

The distinctions between the map and the territory are illusory
because, not only is the map not the territory, but the territory isn't
the territory and the map isn't the map... at least from one point in
time to the next or one perspective to the next.

And the distinction between an *effective* model (a.k.a. simulation)
and an abstract model (one that requires interpretation to be useful)
doesn't lie in the ability of any particular entity or set of entities
to *understand* what is going on inside that model.  It lies in the
compatibility between the result/effect of exercising/evaluating the
model and the context in which that result will persist.

-- 
glen e. p. ropella              =><=                           Hail Eris!
H: 503.630.4505                              http://www.ropella.net/~gepr
M: 831.247.7901                               http://www.tempusdictum.com