{"id":566,"date":"2015-03-09T20:42:52","date_gmt":"2015-03-10T00:42:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig210\/?p=566"},"modified":"2015-03-09T20:42:52","modified_gmt":"2015-03-10T00:42:52","slug":"social-computing-social-behavior-algorithms-and-physics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig210\/2015\/03\/09\/social-computing-social-behavior-algorithms-and-physics\/","title":{"rendered":"Social Computing, Social Behavior, Algorithms, and Physics"},"content":{"rendered":"

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In\u00a0Mejias’ chapter on “Computers as Socializing Tools” he sites the critique of social computing, a field focused on the modeling of social behavior, that in some way it simplifies human behavior by “dumbing it down” to a level which a computer can understand it. The creation of artificial intelligence or games like the Sims demonstrate attempts to recreate human life in the digital realm. These attempts so far have fallen short in recreating a 100 percent realistic picture. Therefore, the question remains can computerized\u00a0algorithms, however complex, ever truly model how we behave? The answer depends who you ask. Critiques such as those mentioned by Mejias might challenge the plausibility. However, some physicists may argue otherwise. Theoretically, if a unified theory of physics such as string theory were ever to be proven, any concept of free will would be nullified. This would mean our brains operate no differently than computers, collecting stimuli and working through algorithms to arrive at an appropriate action. If this is truly the case, then there is no reason computers could not accurately model human behavior. The only obstacle to this goal would be understanding the complex algorithms of the human mind, which is certainly a daunting task.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In\u00a0Mejias’ chapter on “Computers as Socializing Tools” he sites the critique of social computing, a field focused on the modeling of social behavior, that in some way it simplifies human behavior by “dumbing it down” to a level which a computer can understand it. The creation of artificial intelligence or games like the Sims demonstrate … Continue reading Social Computing, Social Behavior, Algorithms, and Physics<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-group-1","category-readers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig210\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig210\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig210\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig210\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig210\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=566"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig210\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":567,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig210\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566\/revisions\/567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig210\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig210\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig210\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}