Mental ability and common sense in an artificial society

We read newspapers and watch TV every day. There are many issues and many controversies. Since media are free, we can hear arguments from every possible side. How do we decide what is wrong or right? The first condition to accept a message is to understand it; messages that are too sophisticated are ignored. So it seems reasonable to assume that our understanding depends on our ability and our current knowledge. Here we show that the consequences of this statement are surprising and funny.Comment: 3 pages, 3 figures, for Europhysics New

Competing contact processes in the Watts-Strogatz network

We investigate two competing contact processes on a set of Watts--Strogatz networks with the clustering coefficient tuned by rewiring. The base for network construction is one-dimensional chain of $N$ sites, where each site $i$ is directly linked to nodes labelled as $i\pm 1$ and $i\pm 2$. So initially, each node has the same degree $k_i=4$. The periodic boundary conditions are assumed as well. For each node $i$ the links to sites $i+1$ and $i+2$ are rewired to two randomly selected nodes so far not-connected to node $i$. An increase of the rewiring probability $q$ influences the nodes degree distribution and the network clusterization coefficient $\mathcal{C}$. For given values of rewiring probability $q$ the set $\mathcal{N}(q)=\{\mathcal{N}_1, \mathcal{N}_2, \cdots, \mathcal{N}_M \}$ of $M$ networks is generated. The network's nodes are decorated with spin-like variables $s_i\in\{S,D\}$. During simulation each $S$ node having a $D$-site in its neighbourhood converts this neighbour from $D$ to $S$ state. Conversely, a node in $D$ state having at least one neighbour also in state $D$-state converts all nearest-neighbours of this pair into $D$-state. The latter is realized with probability $p$. We plot the dependence of the nodes $S$ final density $n_S^T$ on initial nodes $S$ fraction $n_S^0$. Then, we construct the surface of the unstable fixed points in $(\mathcal{C}, p, n_S^0)$ space. The system evolves more often toward $n_S^T=1$ for $(\mathcal{C}, p, n_S^0)$ points situated above this surface while starting simulation with $(\mathcal{C}, p, n_S^0)$ parameters situated below this surface leads system to $n_S^T=0$. The points on this surface correspond to such value of initial fraction $n_S^*$ of $S$ nodes (for fixed values $\mathcal{C}$ and $p$) for which their final density is $n_S^T=\frac{1}{2}$.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure

To cooperate or to defect? Altruism and reputation

The basic problem in the cooperation theory is to justify the cooperation. Here we propose a new approach, where players are driven by their altruism to cooperate or not. The probability of cooperation depends also on the co-player's reputation. We find that players with positive altruism cooperate and met cooperation. In this approach, payoffs are not relevant. The mechanism is most efficient in the fully connected network.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure