Simulating Emergence and Downward Causation in Small Groups

  • Authors:
  • R. Keith Sawyer

  • Affiliations:
  • -

  • Venue:
  • MABS '00 Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Multi-Agent-Based Simulation-Revised and Additional Papers
  • Year:
  • 2000

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Abstract

Emergence has been a central issue not only in computational models of social systems, but also throughout 20th century sociological theory. In this paper, I first define the key concepts of emergence, downward causation, and bi-directional causation, and I identify these processes in an example of improvised dialog. I then draw on emergentist trends in sociological theory to propose a computational model of collaborative emergence among small groups of improvising agents.