6,871 research outputs found

    Life is an Adventure! An agent-based reconciliation of narrative and scientific worldviews\ud

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    The scientific worldview is based on laws, which are supposed to be certain, objective, and independent of time and context. The narrative worldview found in literature, myth and religion, is based on stories, which relate the events experienced by a subject in a particular context with an uncertain outcome. This paper argues that the concept of “agent”, supported by the theories of evolution, cybernetics and complex adaptive systems, allows us to reconcile scientific and narrative perspectives. An agent follows a course of action through its environment with the aim of maximizing its fitness. Navigation along that course combines the strategies of regulation, exploitation and exploration, but needs to cope with often-unforeseen diversions. These can be positive (affordances, opportunities), negative (disturbances, dangers) or neutral (surprises). The resulting sequence of encounters and actions can be conceptualized as an adventure. Thus, the agent appears to play the role of the hero in a tale of challenge and mystery that is very similar to the "monomyth", the basic storyline that underlies all myths and fairy tales according to Campbell [1949]. This narrative dynamics is driven forward in particular by the alternation between prospect (the ability to foresee diversions) and mystery (the possibility of achieving an as yet absent prospect), two aspects of the environment that are particularly attractive to agents. This dynamics generalizes the scientific notion of a deterministic trajectory by introducing a variable “horizon of knowability”: the agent is never fully certain of its further course, but can anticipate depending on its degree of prospect

    Anticipation and the Non-linear Dynamics of Meaning-Processing in Social Systems

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    Social order does not exist as a stable phenomenon, but can be considered as "an order of reproduced expectations." When anticipations operate upon one another, they can generate a non-linear dynamics which processes meaning. Although specific meanings can be stabilized, for example in social institutions, all meaning arises from a global horizon of possible meanings. Using Luhmann's (1984) social systems theory and Rosen's (1985) theory of anticipatory systems, I submit algorithms for modeling the non-linear dynamics of meaning in social systems. First, a self-referential system can use a model of itself for the anticipation. Under the condition of functional differentiation, the social system can be expected to entertain a set of models; each model can also contain a model of the other models. Two anticipatory mechanisms are then possible: a transversal one between the models, and a longitudinal one providing the system with a variety of meanings. A system containing two anticipatory mechanisms can become hyper-incursive. Without making decisions, however, a hyper-incursive system would be overloaded with uncertainty. Under this pressure, informed decisions tend to replace the "natural preferences" of agents and a knowledge-based order can increasingly be shaped

    Annotated Bibliography: Anticipation

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    Immersive Participation:Futuring, Training Simulation and Dance and Virtual Reality

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    Dance knowledge can inform the development of scenario design in immersive digital simulation environments by strengthening a participant’s capacity to learn through the body. This study engages with processes of participatory practice that question how the transmission and transfer of dance knowledge/embodied knowledge in immersive digital environments is activated and applied in new contexts. These questions are relevant in both arts and industry and have the potential to add value and knowledge through crossdisciplinary collaboration and exchange. This thesis consists of three different research projects all focused on observation, participation, and interviews with experts on embodiment in digital simulation. The projects were chosen to provide a range of perspectives across dance, industry and futures studies. Theories of embodied cognition, in particular the notions of the extended body, distributed cognition, enactment and mindfulness, offer critical lenses through which to explore the relationship of embodied integration and participation within immersive digital environments. These areas of inquiry lead to the consideration of how language from the field of computer science can assist in describing somatic experience in digital worlds through a discussion of the emerging concepts of mindfulness, wayfinding, guided movement and digital kinship. These terms serve as an example of how the mutability of language became part of the process as terms applied in disparate disciplines were understood within varying contexts. The analytic tools focus on applying a posthuman view, speculation through a futures ethnography, and a cognitive ethnographical approach to my research project. These approaches allowed me to examine an ecology of practices in order to identify methods and processes that can facilitate the transmission and transfer of embodied knowledge within a community of practice. The ecological components include dance, healthcare, transport, education and human/computer interaction. These fields drove the data collection from a range of sources including academic papers, texts, specialists’ reports, scientific papers, interviews and conversations with experts and artists.The aim of my research is to contribute both a theoretical and a speculative understanding of processes, as well as tools applicable in the transmission of embodied knowledge in virtual dance and arts environments as well as digital simulation across industry. Processes were understood theoretically through established studies in embodied cognition applied to workbased training, reinterpreted through my own movement study. Futures methodologies paved the way for speculative processes and analysis. Tools to choreograph scenario design in immersive digital environments were identified through the recognition of cross purpose language such as mindfulness, wayfinding, guided movement and digital kinship. Put together, the major contribution of this research is a greater understanding of the value of dance knowledge applied to simulation developed through theoretical and transformational processes and creative tools

    Personality and Emotion for Virtual Characters in Strong-Story Narrative Planning

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    Interactive virtual worlds provide an immersive and effective environment for training, education, and entertainment purposes. Virtual characters are an essential part of every interactive narrative. The interaction of rich virtual characters can produce interesting narratives and enhance user experience in virtual environments. I propose models of personality and emotion that are highly domain independent and integrate those models into multi-agent strong-story narrative planning systems. I demonstrate the value of the strong-story properties of the model by generating story conflicts intelligently. My models of emotion and personality enable the narrative generation system to create more opportunities for players to resolve conflicts using certain behavior types. In doing so, the author can encourage the player to adopt and exhibit those behaviors. I conduct multiple human subject and case studies to evaluate these models and show that they enable generating a larger number of stories and character behavior that is preferred and more believable to a human audience
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