Re: Agent complexity

[M. Lang / S. Railsback]

Gary Polhill wrote:
> 
> "M. Lang / S. Railsback" wrote:
> >
> > So if instead we can find simple rules that explain a wide range of
> > trout behaviors, we think we've learned something about trout, as well
> > as complex systems.
> 
> Have you found it difficult or easy to convince the scientific community
> of this? Though, as you say, fish are not generally though of as being
> as complex as humans, and hence, perhaps, we find it easier to stomach
> simple fish agents than simple human ones.

Welllll, we're waiting to see. We just worked up our courage and
submitted an analysis to "Ecology", one of the premier journals for this
kind of stuff. I think our analysis was pretty convincing, and luckily
there is some existing theory that we're claiming as a basis for our
approach. Never seen any similar analyses, so there's no history to go
on.

There's always the time scale issue; so far we're working with daily to
seasonal time scale decisions; there is somebody at UC-Davis using (I
think) similar approaches to model short-term behavior. Modeling what
critters with various numbers of legs do minute-by-minute is tough;
longer term behaviors probably are more likely to follow some kind of
fitness maximization pattern.

Steve
-- 
address@hidden
Lang, Railsback & Assoc.
250 California Ave., Arcata CA 95521
707-822-0453; Fax 822-1868


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