The Wonders of Artificial Societies
For a long time, I have been intrigued by systems and simulations--reductions of human behavior and societies into a set of simple, subconscious rules. Unlike many people, I have little faith in reason. I believe that the sources of our behavior are beyond our conscious control and that the ethereal notions of "judgement" or "motivation" are optical illusions of the mind.

Or, as the British scientist J. B. S. Haldrane put it: 'I have come to the conclusion that my subjective account of my own motivation is largely mythical on almost all occasions. I don't know why I do things.'

So, I've collected a list of articles and books that examine this point more closely. As I come across more interesting expansions of this idea, I'll continue to post them here.

• Civilization and It's Discontents by Garret Epps - A look into the philosophical and sociological implications of the computer game Civilization III
  
• Seeing Around Corners by Johnathon Rauch - An overview of work done in artificial society research. One interesting thing to note here is the genocide simulations.
  
• The Logic of Failure by Dietrich Dorner - A great book that uses computer simulations to illustrate the inadequacies of human being's "common sense" approaches to problems.
  

That's a good start. I'll post more when I get a chance.

Kilroy
- posted by Anonymous @ 10:22 AM