Agent-based models and individualism: is the world agent-based?

Agent-based models (ABMs) are an increasingly popular tool in the social sciences. This trend seems likely to continue, so that they will become widely used in geography and in urban and regional planning. We present an overview of examples of these models in the life sciences, economics, planning, sociology, and archaeology. We conclude that ABMs strongly tend towards an individualist view of the social world. This point is reinforced by closer consideration of particular examples. This discussion pays attention to the inadequacy of an individualist model of society with reference to debates in social theory. We argue that because models are closed representations of an open world it is important that institutions and other social structures be explicitly included, or that their omission be explained. A tentative explanation for the bias of ABMs is offered, based on an examination of early research in artificial intelligence and distributed artificial intelligence from which disciplines the approach is derived. Some implications of these findings are discussed. We indicate some useful research directions which are beginning to tackle the individualism issue directly. We further note that the underlying assumptions of ABMs are often hidden in the implementation details. We conclude that such models must be subject to critical examination of their assumptions, and that model builders should engage with social theory if the approach is to realise its full potential

On the Production and Maintenance of Discursive Power: Cultural Policy Beyond the Nation-State

Contrary to current academic thinking, I argue that cultural policy is not in decline but has simply changed form. The ubiquity and vitality of such policies have been obscured from our vision because we do not actually know what we are looking for. This is the case because we have never established a theoretically informed definition of cultural policy. I offer such a definition here, and suggest that once such an optic is mobilized cultural policy reappears as an essential, vital, ever-present, contentious, and powerful postmodern social phenomenon. It is mobilized locally, nationally, and internationally through and around markets by agents who wish to produce, contest, or maintain fields of discursive power

Landscaping the subject: Virtuality, embodiment, and the discourse of the interface

This thesis examines the linear perspective interface as a key technology in the staging of Western subjectivity, and the body and 'nature' as critical terms in the description of the subject and its environment. It examines three historical moments in the discourse of the interface - Brunelleschi's perspective demonstration, eighteenth century landscape gardening, and the present-day virtual reality interface - and shows how, in each case, the discourse of the interface insists on a distance between the subject and its perceived environment. In this visualist paradigm, the body and nature are framed as excessive - uninvolved in the constitution of subjectivity. This is also the framework assumed by Lacan in his description of the subject. Though this distinction may work in theory, in practice it is impossible to sustain - a fact that is made explicit in the eighteenth-century landscape garden. Focusing not only on the landscape view, but on the enclosed sections of the garden between the views, this thesis investigates the complex involvement of representation and the carnal body in the construction of the subject and (its) nature. Here, the relation of the subject to the anamorphic image becomes important. Against the distance and disembodiment implied in the perspectival view, the anamorphic relation is one of embodiment and proximity - suggesting that phenomenology, rather than psychoanalysis, is the most effective approach to the discourse of the interface and its subject. This hypothesis is developed through an examination of the virtual reality interface. The latter both assumes and exceeds a/the actively viewing subject, foregrounding the ontological complexity of subjectivity and the failure of theory to fully describe or prescribe it. Psychoanalytic models in particular fail to address interfaced being as embodied being. The notion of 'anamorphic subjectivity' - interfaced being as a multistable condition of technological embodiment - is put forward as a possible alternative to perspectival models

Making Disciples: Applying Steps to Christ in the Glenorchy Seventh-day Adventist Church

Problem The spirituality of a large percentage of church members at the Glenorchy church in Tasmania, is primarily based on knowledge about God with little concept of how biblical spirituality interacts with daily life. A recent Natural Church Development survey revealed passionate spirituality and loving relationships scored extremely low and revealed a profound need to engage spiritually with God on a daily basis. The members of Glenorchy Church have a high regard for Scripture and the writings of Ellen White, and therefore have read Steps to Christ, but few have experienced the transformational presence of God in their daily lives by practicing principles in Steps to Christ. Method This project endeavored to construct, contextualize, implement, and evaluate a discipleship process in the Glenorchy Church, that utilized principles from Steps to Christ that lead to a transformational experience of God’s presence in daily living. The project commenced with a two-day camp for the church members followed by a contextualized praxis in spiritual transformation based on Steps to Christ, that sought to build loving relationships and model devotional habits including reflective reading in a small group setting over 12 weeks with three follow-up sessions. Results Through small groups, community was built by unvarnished shared stories that utilized an andragogy based teaching style. Intensity built up during Stepping into scripture and Steps to Christ that powerfully connected teaching with emotions that allows for sapience to emerge. The modeling and teaching of devotional habits and particularly reflective reading was helpful to mostly younger members. All of the participants seemed to intensify their devotional lives, however only those with a regular time, place, and ritual and therefore able to practice biblical spirituality, were able to rise above the clutter of everyday life to enjoy the fruits of the Spirit regardless of where they were on the knowledge or experiential continuum

The psychasthenia of deep space: evaluating the ‘reassertion of space in critical social theory’

The aim of this work is to question the notion of space that underlies the claimed ‘spatial turn’ in geographical and social theory. Section 1 examines this theoretical literature, drawing heavily on Soja as the self declared taxonomist of the genre, and also seeks parallels with more populist texts on cities and space, to suggest, following Williams, that there is a new ‘structure of feeling’ towards space. Section 1 introduces two foundational concepts. The first, derived from Soja’s misunderstanding of Borges’ story The Aleph, argues for an ‘alephic vision’, an imposition of a de-materialized and revelatory understanding of space. This is related to the second, an ‘ecstatic vision’, which describes the tendency, illustrated through the work of Koolhaas and recent exhibitions on the experience of cities, to treat spatial and material experience in hyperbolic and hallucinatory terms. Section 2 offers a series of theoretical reconstructions which seek to draw out parallels between the work of key theorists of what I term the ‘respatialization’ literature (Harvey, Giddens, Foucault and Lefebvre) and the work of Hillier et al in the Space Syntax school. A series of empirical studies demonstrate that the approach to the material realm offered by Space Syntax is not only theoretically compatible but can also help to explain ‘real world’ phenomena. However, the elision with wider theoretical positions points to the need for a reworking of elements of Space Syntax, and steps towards this goal are offered in section 3. In the final ‘speculative epilogue’ I reopen the philosophical debates about the nature of space, deliberately suppressed from the beginning, and suggest that perhaps the apparent theoretical and empirical versatility of Space Syntax, based upon a configurational approach to space as a complex relational system, may offer an alternative approach to these enduring metaphysical debates

Quintessence of Dust: Cognitive Neuroscience and an Actor\u27s Process

This thesis examines theories provided by cognitive neuroscience and applies them to an actor’s process. In particular, this research addresses the subjectivity and intentionality of our consciousness and special as-if states of consciousness, supported by the work of John Searle and Antonio Damasio. The phenomenal feeling of character-model control is discussed and supported by the work of Thomas Metzinger. The paper also considers our relative understanding of mirror neurons and specifically their function in relation to intersubjectivity and their use for an actor’s creation and conveyance of character in rehearsal and performance. It examines Stanislavsky’s notion of emotional memory and imagination. Finally, a personal case study is included which reflects my involvement in theater. The case study serves as a functional correlation between the concepts derived from cognitive neuroscience and recognized theatrical practices. It endeavors to discern areas where an understanding of the afore mentioned theories would have been advantageous to my overall performance, and to other actors as well