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Title: Population dynamics of minimally cognitive individuals. Part I: Introducing knowledge into the dynamics

Technical Report ·
DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/100115· OSTI ID:100115

The author presents a new approach for modeling the dynamics of collections of objects with internal structure. Based on the fact that the behavior of an individual in a population is modified by its knowledge of other individuals, a procedure for accounting for knowledge in a population of interacting objects is presented. It is assumed that each object has partial (or complete) knowledge of some (or all) other objects in the population. The dynamical equations for the objects are then modified to include the effects of this pairwise knowledge. This procedure has the effect of projecting out what the population will do from the much larger space of what it could do, i.e., filtering or smoothing the dynamics by replacing the complex detailed physical model with an effective model that produces the behavior of interest. The procedure therefore provides a minimalist approach for obtaining emergent collective behavior. The use of knowledge as a dynamical quantity, and its relationship to statistical mechanics, thermodynamics, information theory, and cognition microstructure are discussed.

Research Organization:
Sandia Labs., Livermore, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
DOE Contract Number:
AC04-94AL85000
OSTI ID:
100115
Report Number(s):
SAND-95-8505; ON: DE95017520; TRN: 95:006661
Resource Relation:
Other Information: PBD: Jul 1995
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English