Model Mechanisms and Behavioral Attractors

H. Van Dyke Parunak

Abstract: In social modeling, a computational environment runs a model that represents the world. The states the model explores (its behavioral attractor) are typically fewer than its description suggests. The mapping between model and attractor depends not only on its parameters (exploring variants of the world) and its conventions (imposed by the computing environment), but also its mechanisms (components of the model representing selected dimensions of the world). We illustrate the impact of different mechanisms on the attractor. In our case, in general, the more mechanisms one implements, the smaller the attractor (“the more you model, the less you see”), but with unexpected twists.