[P2P-F] important advance in network theory approaches

[Samuel Rose]

On Mon, Sep 5, 2011 at 12:54 AM, Michel Bauwens
<michel at p2pfoundation.net> wrote:
> Dear TOmas,
>
> This is quite important in my opinion with network theory finally including
> human volition and abandoning reductionism,
>
> I really hope you can look into this for discussion at our blog,
>
> see http://gfbertini.wordpress.com/2011/09/03/wisdom-about-crowds/ ;
> http://www.economist.com/node/18584096?story_id=18584096&fsrc=rss
>
>
>  Existing models of crowd behaviour do just that. They treat moving masses
> of humanity as though they were fluids. This works, up to a point. But it
> often fails to predict the changes that happen as a crowd’s density
> increases and its movement becomes chaotic. That is why Mehdi Moussaid of
> Paul Sabatier University, in Toulouse, and his colleagues have made a
> radical innovation. Instead of treating the individual human beings in a
> crowd as if they were molecules, they have treated them as if they were
> human beings. They have, in other words, given them volition. Of course, the
> objective of someone in a moving crowd is usually fairly simple—to get
> somewhere and then stay there. But it is an objective, nevertheless.
>

Unless I am really missing something, this is absolutely not anything
new in the world of network sciences and complex systems
science/modeling/theory. In fact, practically every agent based
complex systems model applies simple rules to the agents and then runs
the model to see what will happen. This goes all the way back to John
Holland, Robert Axelrod, and others who pioneered complex systems
models. Read the article on The Economist itself to see why I am
having this reaction:
http://www.economist.com/node/18584096?story_id=18584096&fsrc=rss








> --
> P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
>
> Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com;
> Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation
> Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens;
> http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> P2P Foundation - Mailing list
> http://www.p2pfoundation.net
> https://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation
>
>



-- 
--
Sam Rose
Hollymead Capital Partners, LLC
Cel: +1-(517)-974-6451
email: samuel.rose at gmail.com
http://hollymeadcapital.com
http://p2pfoundation.net
http://futureforwardinstitute.com
http://socialmediaclassroom.com

"The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human
ambition." - Carl Sagan