relationship between culture and behaviour also with artificial societies (Read, 1998). There
can be found many other examples, and we can see that AS, although very recent, is a rapidly
growing area of study.
AS are headed towards the understanding of social processes, where theories were very
hard to prove because the long duration of real social processes, but thanks to computer
simulations, theories can be not only proven, but also proposed by studying artificial societies.
2.4. About Artificial Societies
“It is not that you cannot understand it,
it is that you cannot compute it.”
Synthetic representations of societies are useful for understanding the complex
processes that take place in societies. The shaping of the society by the individuals and their
environment, and the shaping of the individuals by their society, is crucial in the understanding
of intelligence and cognition.
Before presenting our model for social action in Chapter 4, we will present in the next
chapter the Behavioural Columns Architecture, a behaviours production system which is able
to simulate animal intelligence in individuals. Intelligence desired in order to simulate complex
social phenomena.
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