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Cultural agents: A community of minds

Fischer, Michael D. (2006) Cultural agents: A community of minds. In: Dikenelli, Oguz and Gleizes, Marie-Pierre and Ricci, Alessandro, eds. Engineering Societies in the Agents World Vi. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 1 . Springer-Verlag Berlin, Berlin, pp. 259-274. ISBN 3-540-34451-9. (The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided) (KAR id:8545)

The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided.

Abstract

Intelligent agents embedded in cultural processes demonstrate remarkable powers of creation, transformation, stability and regulation. As G.P. Murdock said in his 1971 Huxley Lecture, culture and social structure are not divine law within which individuals simply satisfy their assigned objectives and then die. Culture gives agents the power to hyper-adapt: not only can they achieve local minima and maxima, they modify or create the conditions for adaptation. Culture transcends material and behavioural contexts. Cultural solutions are instantiated in material and behavioural terms, but are based in large part on 'invented' symbolic constructions of the interaction space and its elements. Although the level of 'intelligence' required to enact culture is relatively high, agents that enact culture create conditions to which other, less intelligent, agents will also adapt. A little culture goes a long way. We will consider culture design criteria and how these can be represented in agent-based models and how culture-based solutions might contribute to our global management of knowledge.

Item Type: Book section
Additional information: ISI Document Delivery No.: BEO83 Times Cited: 0 Cited Reference Count: 31 Fischer, Michael D. Article HEIDELBERGER PLATZ 3, D-14197 BERLIN, GERMANY
Subjects: G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GN Anthropology
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Human and Social Sciences > School of Anthropology and Conservation
Depositing User: C.G.W.G. van-de-Benderskum
Date Deposited: 05 Sep 2008 13:49 UTC
Last Modified: 16 Nov 2021 09:46 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/8545 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

University of Kent Author Information

Fischer, Michael D..

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