Can Intellectual Processes in the Sciences Also Be Simulated? The Anticipation and Visualization of Possible Future States

Socio-cognitive action reproduces and changes both social and cognitive structures. The analytical distinction between these dimensions of structure provides us with richer models of scientific development. In this study, I assume that (i) social structures organize expectations into belief structures that can be attributed to individuals and communities; (ii) expectations are specified in scholarly literature; and (iii) intellectually the sciences (disciplines, specialties) tend to self-organize as systems of rationalized expectations. Whereas social organizations remain localized, academic writings can circulate, and expectations can be stabilized and globalized using symbolically generalized codes of communication. The intellectual restructuring, however, remains latent as a second-order dynamics that can be accessed by participants only reflexively. Yet, the emerging "horizons of meaning" provide feedback to the historically developing organizations by constraining the possible future states as boundary conditions. I propose to model these possible future states using incursive and hyper-incursive equations from the computation of anticipatory systems. Simulations of these equations enable us to visualize the couplings among the historical--i.e., recursive--progression of social structures along trajectories, the evolutionary--i.e., hyper-incursive--development of systems of expectations at the regime level, and the incursive instantiations of expectations in actions, organizations, and texts.Comment: accepted for publication in Scientometrics (June 2015

Half a billion simulations: evolutionary algorithms and distributed computing for calibrating the SimpopLocal geographical model

Multi-agent geographical models integrate very large numbers of spatial interactions. In order to validate those models large amount of computing is necessary for their simulation and calibration. Here a new data processing chain including an automated calibration procedure is experimented on a computational grid using evolutionary algorithms. This is applied for the first time to a geographical model designed to simulate the evolution of an early urban settlement system. The method enables us to reduce the computing time and provides robust results. Using this method, we identify several parameter settings that minimise three objective functions that quantify how closely the model results match a reference pattern. As the values of each parameter in different settings are very close, this estimation considerably reduces the initial possible domain of variation of the parameters. The model is thus a useful tool for further multiple applications on empirical historical situations

Automated state of play: rethinking anthropocentric rules of the game

Automation of play has become an ever more noticeable phenomenon in the domain of video games, expressed by self-playing game worlds, self-acting characters, and non-human agents traversing multiplayer spaces. This article proposes to look at AI-driven non-human play and, what follows, rethink digital games, taking into consideration their cybernetic nature, thus departing from the anthropocentric perspectives dominating the field of Game Studies. A decentralised post-humanist reading, as the author argues, not only allows to rethink digital games and play, but is a necessary condition to critically reflect AI, which due to the fictional character of video games, often plays by very different rules than the so-called “true” AI

Automation of play:theorizing self-playing games and post-human ludic agents

This article offers a critical reflection on automation of play and its significance for the theoretical inquiries into digital games and play. Automation has become an ever more noticeable phenomenon in the domain of video games, expressed by self-playing game worlds, self-acting characters, and non-human agents traversing multiplayer spaces. On the following pages, the author explores various instances of automated non-human play and proposes a post-human theoretical lens, which may help to create a new framework for the understanding of videogames, renegotiate the current theories of interaction prevalent in game studies, and rethink the relationship between human players and digital games

a variational approach to niche construction

In evolutionary biology, niche construction is sometimes described as a genuine evolutionary process whereby organisms, through their activities and regulatory mechanisms, modify their environment such as to steer their own evolutionary trajectory, and that of other species. There is ongoing debate, however, on the extent to which niche construction ought to be considered a bona fide evolutionary force, on a par with natural selection. Recent formulations of the variational free-energy principle as applied to the life sciences describe the properties of living systems, and their selection in evolution, in terms of variational inference. We argue that niche construction can be described using a variational approach. We propose new arguments to support the niche construction perspective, and to extend the variational approach to niche construction to current perspectives in various scientific fields