From: Paul Cockshott (wpc@DCS.GLA.AC.UK)
Date: Wed Sep 14 2005 - 07:40:02 EDT
Ian Wright wrote: > Perhaps a better question is: > Is computation dialectical and vice versa? In his paper www.calculemus.org/Alg/compl-social.pdf Marciszewski whose political views are clearly those of a free-market advocate, makes criticisms of the feasiblity of doing any kind of modeling of the economy using computers. These criticisms hit at the kind of work that Ian has been doing, but I think they miss the point because he fails to understand the power of abstraction and the significance of discovering bulk functional properties of the economy. He says: Any theoretical explanations and predictions of social processes require taking into account intelligent behaviour of the actors involved. (iii) Hence, computer simulation of social processes requires an algorithm to simulate intelligent behaviour of the actors involved. I think that Ians work indicates that one can generate testable comparisons between simulated economies and real economies using what are basically very simple models that abstract from intelligent behaviour. -- Paul Cockshott Dept Computing Science University of Glasgow 0141 330 3125
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