[Reader-list] modeling reason & simulating sociology

[human being]

// these are what i consider to interesting articles
// on computing and culture. the second url is more
// literally this way. the first, may signal a type
// of inbetween state also noticed between what might
// be called 'closed-loop' chips/embedded processors.
// this because there seems to be a funny area in-
// between full artificial intelligence (consciousness,
// if defined that way) and a type of modeled reasoning
// that is intelligent. as the first article mentions,
// and has always been a mystery to me, is how a fault
// in a space craft or probe or satellite, however large
// and complex, can often be 'worked around' through some
// magical process (done by programmers and engineers, i'm
// assuming) to fix the problem, or at least find some
// way to work through the error. how such systems might
// effect culture is interesting to consider, and as is
// mentioned in the article, this may become an issue at
// work, with autonomous systems doing the thinking/reasoning
// and people providing the checks and balances. (though,
// even this does not seem to occur between people and their
// computers (and computer companies) today, so i am not sure
// if it is something to expect, or hope for. in any case...

immobotic = immobile robots

model-based software and model-based reasoning

"Once programmed with immobotic software, Williams explains, these 
systems "have a commonsense model of the physics of their internal 
components and can reason from that model to determine what is wrong 
and to know how to act." Such systems are more self-reliant than 
typical computers, which are very good at executing mindless, 
step-by-step instructions laid out for them by software engineers. 
However, computers are still amateurs when it comes to thinking their 
way through unforeseen crises such as component failures."

Immobots Take Control by Wade Roush

 From photocopiers to space probes, machines injected with robotic 
self-awareness are reliable problem solvers.

http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/roush1202.asp?p=0


also:

i read this article from a few weeks back and wonder
if SIMs (simulation game) software could be used as
a sociological device, for testing 'fuzzy' theories
about human behavior, even political-economic models
and alternative visions, and basic models in contexts
of communities of people in certain situations, such
as Hardt and Negri's Empire and Multitudes dynamics...

Oversimulated Suburbia
By DAVID BROOKS
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/24/magazine/24SIMS.html


bc <http://www.electronetwork.org/>