Effects of Anticipation in Individually Motivated Behaviour on Control and Survival in a Multi-Agent Scenario with Resource Constraints

This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License CC BY 3.0 which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Self-organization and survival are inextricably bound to an agent’s ability to control and anticipate its environment. Here we assess both skills when multiple agents compete for a scarce resource. Drawing on insights from psychology, microsociology and control theory, we examine how different assumptions about the behaviour of an agent’s peers in the anticipation process affect subjective control and survival strategies. To quantify control and drive behaviour, we use the recently developed information-theoretic quantity of empowerment with the principle of empowerment maximization. In two experiments involving extensive simulations, we show that agents develop risk-seeking, risk-averse and mixed strategies, which correspond to greedy, parsimonious and mixed behaviour. Although the principle of empowerment maximization is highly generic, the emerging strategies are consistent with what one would expect from rational individuals with dedicated utility models. Our results support empowerment maximization as a universal drive for guided self-organization in collective agent systemsPeer reviewedFinal Published versio

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

Can anticipatory feelings explain anomalous choices of information sources?

The well-being of agents is often directly affected by their beliefs, in the form of anticipatory feelings such as anxiety and hopefulness. Economists have tried to model this effect by introducing beliefs as arguments in decision makers' vNM utility function. One might expect that such a model would be capable of explaining anomalous attitudes to information that we observe in reality. We show that the model has several shortcomings in this regard, as long as Bayesian updating is retained. (c) 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

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

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

The Non-linear Dynamics of Meaning-Processing in Social Systems

Social order cannot be considered as a stable phenomenon because it contains an order of reproduced expectations. When the expectations operate upon one another, they generate a non-linear dynamics that processes meaning. Specific meaning can be stabilized, for example, in social institutions, but all meaning arises from a horizon of possible meanings. Using Luhmann's (1984) social systems theory and Rosen's (1985) theory of anticipatory systems, I submit equations for modeling the processing of meaning in inter-human communication. 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: one transversal between the models, and a longitudinal one providing the modeled systems with meaning from the perspective of hindsight. 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 an order of cultural expectations can increasingly be shaped